Help batterylife

[kofuukali]

You could use spare parts and note the voltage of the battery ever hour. That would tell you if its reporting it incorectly or reading it incorectly.

Well, I havn't honestly had the chance to note voltage and percentage values, but my phone is now finally seems to work
decently.
Having read a forum about someone using a nokia charger and doubling its samsung's battery autonomy that way,
I decided to try using my Logitec mouse charger which happened to also be micro-usb.
The only difference between the two chargers seemed to be that the mouse charger had higher Amper output.
I left my phone to charge to 100% and then tried it out a little, and to much disappointment, found that it didn't seem to
change much to anything.
For a reason I can't recall though that night I tried leaving it to charge for a whole night.
I had never left it to charge for too long a time since I have had the phone as I had read that overcharging was a risk to the phone.
That being said, I was too shocked by the speed at which it dropped from 100% percent and imagined that maybe it was due to bad calibration, and thus decided to push it to its limits.
As it were, that changed everything.
The next day, and till now, my phone seems not only to have regulated its decrease (it now seems linear), but also to have
more than doubled its autonomy.
I have left it to charge last night all night, and unplugged it at 7:30 am this morning.
By the time I came home it had only gone down to 54%, and that is with 1 hour music listening
edge all along
a few minutes of calling here and there etc
In any case I now feel that I can spend a normal day out without having to worry about switching on APNdroid to get through the day.
The only weird thing left...is that my linearly decreasing percentage indicator sometimes bounces back up... :/
10 minutes from my home I noticed 54%, and when I stepped in, and looked again, it had jumped back up to 62% ...!!!!
and from there...linear decrease again.
Since then APNDroid is one, that was nearly three hours ago, and I am now at 52% again.
So.... I am happy.., I guess
If I can find the time to get the voltages, I will post them here.

 

[Apox]

With WiFi and GPS enabled (but not in use), my phone died after 6 hours on standby. Didn't even touch it. Samsung really need to fix this.

 

[Arrgoss]

How do you monitor your battery life? Maybe I'm missing something, but in Phone Status --> Battery Status I don't get any numbers, just "Battery charging" or "Battery not charging". Do I need to enable something or use an app?

 

[kam187]

Use spare parts (passive, doesnt use battery and just polls stats from the OS), or battery graph (active, it wakes up and reads the battery periodically and graphs the values)

 

[Arrgoss]

Thanks, I'm going to try them both.

 

[Arrgoss]

I've read many posts on the battery life of this little phone, but I still can't figure out what the "background data" are specifically. What does it actually change by turning on or off the background data sync?

 

[kam187]

Background data is a way for widgets and programs to offload data gathering to the OS. Instead of the app waking up every hour and opening a connection and grabbing data it schedules it with the OS.

Its a good idea, but in practice, currently, it seems to eat battery. By turning it off you prevent widgets from grabbing data without telling you. Any widgets/programs that don't use background data usually have a settings asking you how often to update. eg weather apps with options for 1 hour, 2 hours, 4 hours etc.

Market uses background data too, but it tells you when you start it that its off and takes you to the menu to turn it on.

Turn it off, and if its affecting programs, or widgets that you really want then consider turning it on, checking the impact on battery and weighing up if you really need those widgets or not.

EDIT: the main problem with background data is you have NO idea what is grabbing data and easting battery and how often!

 

[Arrgoss]

Thanks, kam187, that was a clear and detailed explanation. I shall do my tests now with this info and the battery meter apps you pointed out before.

 

[Xenon]

I have background data and synching ON and it doesn't seem to
cause trouble. I am however very light on installed applications.
Besides the default ones I have perhaps 10 others, none of which
has a service running in the background.

 

[MichaelW]

I've read a few times that having GPS enabled doesn't necessarily drain the battery unless you are using an application that uses GPS. Is that true then?

Would the same be said for the "wireless networks" option? From what I understand this gets a very rough estimate of your position from the cell phone towers that you are near? You are obviously connected to the cell towers anyway to get a signal so wouldn't have thought this would really use up any more battery usage?

 

[kam187]

Use wireless networks doesnt use any extra battery - except whatever the app that uses it does of course!

GSM radio's use the BCCH channel to page 5 to 10 towers peridodically so they know where to handover if necesarry.

 

[dkaufman1]

I've read a few times that having GPS enabled doesn't necessarily drain the battery unless you are using an application that uses GPS. Is that true then?

Would the same be said for the "wireless networks" option? From what I understand this gets a very rough estimate of your position from the cell phone towers that you are near? You are obviously connected to the cell towers anyway to get a signal so wouldn't have thought this would really use up any more battery usage?

I agree on the GPS not being used unless the app needs it and is active. Assuming devs shut if off programming wise, which most seem to do. The wireless networks option is a big battery drain and I leave that option off. I rely only on GPS, it seems to work just fine, keeps battery life at a decent working relationship to the amount of GPS I need.

 

[kam187]

The wirless network (mobile network) for location is only draining battery if you have some widget that decides to get its location alot. Its actually not the wireless network setting thats doing it, but rather the widget waking up the phone to collect the location.

 

[chris76]

My phone worked in the same conditions for 3 days. It may be related to the display intensity.