Help Galaxy S battery life - hows yours?

[andy-roid]

i dont no why samsung or any mobile phone company havent investerd a bit of money in to making a 2000 mha battery or more for these phones as the phones are getting more powerfull the more drain on the battery

 

[ccrows]

On Eclair you can get up to almost 3 days of usage.

On Froyo, you can barely get one day of usage. And it's Samsung's fault.

Why is Froyo worse and more importantly why is it Samsung's and not Google's fault?...

 

[ccrows]

If you look at the battery usage stats, the super AMOLED display is the main hogger of battery juice, so there isn't much you can do about it, I guess that's the price you pay.

The biggest problem with Super Amoled (as awesome as they are) is that white screens really drain the battery. Try to use darker screnns as much as possible.


For example:


Use (non-live) black wallpaper.


Also try to use black when browsing if applicable.


For example instead of using Google, use Blackle...


Blackle - Energy Saving Search

 

[micstewart]

The main thing that causes large battery use is the screen the processor and the data (wifi / 3g / GPS).

I have went from eclair 2.1 to Froyo 2.2 (stock) over the weekend and my battery life has more than doubled. previously I was getting the whole day out of the battery (with 2.1) now I can get about 1-1.5 days.

It really doesn't make a difference though as I still charge overnight.

Software upgrade aside, the only major difference is I have power saving mode ticked in the screen settings.

I wouldn't get too hung up about the battery, it is a very powerful phone with a superbright screen...unfortunately this adds up to battery usage.

If battery life is the be all and end all, then buy something with a small screen and turn the brigtness down, unfortunately we can't have it all ways. (not yet anyway

)

 

[LaTuFu]

It has much better battery life than my 2d Gen iPod touch, and slightly less battery life than my Curve 8530.

I used it to stream ESPN radio on Sunday to cut grass. I started with 75-80%, and I ended up killing the battery in 4 hours with streaming.

I've deliberately turned on just about every notification/polling/GPS and pushed up every notification to the shortest time. I want to see how long it lasts with regular use.

Regular use for me is 20-30 messages per day, 1-2 hours of talk, 1-2 hours of web browsing, reading, using apps, etc.

So far, I can make it to mid-afternoon on a full charge before the phone prompts me to re-charge.

My Blackberry would normally be ready for that by bed time, and my iPod would be done by around the same time as the phone. (If I spent a lot of time in the field talking to customers, my BB was dead before 2:00, however)

But my Samsung now does all the stuff that I asked those two devices to do. (Plus its my Navi now, too.)

Yes, it would be nice to get through the day without a charge, but I'm used to smart devices not getting good battery life, so I have a charger on my desk and in my car. I charge nightly on my desk stand.

 

[tempest7]

I went out yesterday, phone calls to meet up with my friend. Took about 4-5 photos of various things around the city. Some Whatsapp/pingchat, google talk, sms. And Facebook browsing while I was waiting around for people. Then took it to dinner but didn't really use it during dinner and afterwards. I was down to 6% when I got home, after 10.5 hours.

THough i was tempted to get online more during dinner, but I felt like my battery was running low so I didn't. I wish I had more juice, but actually 10 hours isn't too bad.

 

[LeeUHF]

Worst battery Ive had for a phone (worse than blackberry)

couple of hours in the net or using video and its completely dead. literally just 2-3 hours

 

[SlowRain]

About 2 days: 5 hrs. of WiFi internet, 2-3 hrs. of reading, screen as dim as it can go, no 3G or GPS, very little phone use.

 

[Beards]

Anyone who has issues with the battery ~ What I suggest you do is install 'SystemPanel' and check to see how much your Apps are hitting the CPU.

I've successfully terminated many a troublesome App from eating battery life.

As an example:-
'Data Counter Widget' is an App which measures both Wifi & 3G data usage.
I noticed one morning my battery had used over 23% overnight despite both the speaker being Off and Airplane mode selected.
A quick check in SystemPanel revealed the App had been using the CPU for 11m 34s, so I terminated it then restarted the App.
I then switched off the phone again and left it in the same speaker & Airplane mode for a further two hours and this time when I came back the battery had used zero %.

As such, I now each night after I have turned off the Speaker and selected Airplane mode I load up SystemPanel and terminate all Active Apps (this also terminates Background and Inactive Apps).

In other words, sometimes an App can get itself into a loop and the only course of action is to first terminate it then restart. This should clear away any continuous hits to the CPU.

 

[NZtechfreak]

Worst battery Ive had for a phone (worse than blackberry)

couple of hours in the net or using video and its completely dead. literally just 2-3 hours

Something wrong with that, you need to troubleshoot or return it for replacement.

 

[Beards]

Something wrong with that, you need to troubleshoot or return it for replacement.

Yes.... I'm holding out it's as I mentioned above ~ a troublesome App.

 

[shagun_kari]

I used to rarely get more than about 12-15 hrs. needed to charge with about 1 hr of Wifi, 20 minutes of talk and some SMS and may be 10-15 minutes of GPRS. Adjusted brightness to minimum and turned off all animation (not sure what this actually did as I see no change in the animation actually ). Now, with the same usage as above and also some gaming and hour or so ... I am able to get more than a day. i.e with full charge on the first morning and about an hour of charging in the second morning, i can get it to last for 2 completed daytimes - About 36 hrs. Had planned to call customer care but have now dropped the idea. My battrey is a G7 with a date of August 2010. Yes, it does get quite hot with some longer conversations. I used to have a nokia N-73 that used to last 3 full days atleast (no Wifi or SuperAMOLED) but this needs some getting used to ! Please all try the disabling the animation and post if you see a difference !

 

[mudricky]

I love my phone but carry two spare batteries as it's normally a long time before I'm home or at a power point to recharge.

By the time I got home the battery was in red, not letting em use my music or DEAD.

I installed an app called Advanced Task Killer... it's free.

It kills apps within 5 mins if I've not used it though you have to switch this option on. From the status bar you can see what's running and kill what you don't want. You can also miss out apps you don't want killed like Alarm clock lol first time I installed it I killed my alarm clock and nearly slept in.

It's really good. I'm going home now with a the battry only a a qtr used, or at worst half empty.

I use my phone for web browsing about 6 or 7 times a day and at least music for 3 hours.

Ricky

 

[mudricky]

... also guys have a wee read of this article: Android battery life: how to improve it | News | TechRadar UK

 

[Sdivleli]

On Eclair you can get up to almost 3 days of usage.

On Froyo, you can barely get one day of usage. And it's Samsung's fault.

Its lil bit odd. I dont get 3 days of usage with 2.1 its max 2 days. Or 1 with heavy usage.
How come froyo is getin worst , isnt it supposed to be better with upgrades etc. lol

 

[randyhk]

My average day is 2 hours of music with bluetooth on, a conversation or 2 during the day which is like 15 minutes on average, 3g with Bell Canada, everything on lowest settings, sync facebook every 1 hour, about 10-15 texts, a couple emails, 30 minutes of internet browsing, with a live wallpaper on. My battery lasts for 10 hours before going ka-poot. Running memory booster to see if it can go past that, and set my facebook sync every 3 hours. I wish my phone can last for a whole day like some people above.

 

[FiMaRu]

my experience is that leaving the wifi on is not too bad, but the bluetooth and GPRS consume the most. Phone behaves stange and sometimes battery drains overnight by just laying there. I use the phone to call (what else), email and looking at news headlines. I thought a battery should last at least 3 days, but Samsung does not seem to share this ....

 

[TheCompBoy]

My stays about 2-3 days if not used all the time..

 

[snapper.fishes]

Anyone who has issues with the battery ~ What I suggest you do is install 'SystemPanel' and check to see how much your Apps are hitting the CPU.

I've successfully terminated many a troublesome App from eating battery life.

As an example:-
'Data Counter Widget' is an App which measures both Wifi & 3G data usage.
I noticed one morning my battery had used over 23% overnight despite both the speaker being Off and Airplane mode selected.
A quick check in SystemPanel revealed the App had been using the CPU for 11m 34s, so I terminated it then restarted the App.
I then switched off the phone again and left it in the same speaker & Airplane mode for a further two hours and this time when I came back the battery had used zero %.

As such, I now each night after I have turned off the Speaker and selected Airplane mode I load up SystemPanel and terminate all Active Apps (this also terminates Background and Inactive Apps).

In other words, sometimes an App can get itself into a loop and the only course of action is to first terminate it then restart. This should clear away any continuous hits to the CPU.

Except in Froyo Google pretty much disabled task killers.

Why is Froyo worse and more importantly why is it Samsung's and not Google's fault?...

I am not entirely sure to be honest. I have noticed the same degrade in battery life in many 2.2 roms, and some developers on XDA has stated that it's something to do with Samsung's version of Froyo.

 

[Mart360]

I managed 16 hrs out of the box, although it was screaming at me to feed at from 10hrs on

Next day i turned of all all auto syncing stuff, facetwitter, bespace mybo,

etc, but left GPRS on, this time i managed 3 days, 12 hrs & 45 minues

before it finally died, and that included some bluetooth & calls

Charge 3 i turned bluetooth on, and it was only at 73% after 24 hrs. I

then used some GPS wifi & surfing (30 mins say) and it dropped to 27%.

Turned them all off, and changed to 2G, (as i found that for 15% of the on

time it was searching for a non exsistant 3G signal) left bluetooth on, and

its at 20% this morning. So not too bad, but could be better.

Re battery design, yes it could be a lot better if different battery types

were used. The iphone does better because it uses a li-po battery,

whereas the Galaxy uses li-ion.

Mind you seeing the dangers of li-po batterys, id rather stick with li-ion

Mart

 

[ccrows]

Except in Froyo Google pretty much disabled task killers.



I am not entirely sure to be honest. I have noticed the same degrade in battery life in many 2.2 roms, and some developers on XDA has stated that it's something to do with Samsung's version of Froyo.

Well I'm looking forward to Froyo on my i9000m this week, because Froyo totally helped my Desire's battery life...

 

[Beards]

Except in Froyo Google pretty much disabled task killers.

Well if you use SystemPanel like I mentioned you can still end programs.
It's working for me... I had to terminate AppBrain because it got itself stuck in a loop.