Help How much can be done to conserve battery?

[sleipner]

I thought things would improve after dealing with the sleep issue I posted about in the other thread, but it still isn't great. I would appreciate any additional tips on top of what I'm doing now, and maybe someone else can find something in the things I'm already trying.

Solid black background, so the amoled screen has fewer pixels to illuminate
Screen timeout at 15 seconds
Auto brightness off, reduced to lowest setting, same for default browser
4G off (not even close to my state, much less city)
GPS off
Wifi off
Bluetooth off
Auto sync off
Background data off
Vibrate off
Haptic feedback off
Audible touchtones off
Audible selection off
Animation off
Power saver on
Keyboard timeout 3 seconds
Neither wireless networks nor GPS set to determine location
Manual email updates, no polling

Power control widget to make sure the gps/wifi/bluetooth stay off
Program monitor widget to make sure nothing is running and using battery
Battery monitor app from market to shortcut to Battery usage, Sys battery info, Sys battery usage, Phone test info (I think more or less what Spare Parts shows)

my phone is sleeping, checked in battery history
zero time without signal, checked in battery usage

No news widgets or any sort of rss. I don't use social networks, facebook and twitter apps not even on any screen.

I would like to know if 3G can be toggled off, and if there is any battery conditioning I can do.

The phone is currently as bland, dumb, and blind as I know how to make it. I will wait to decide until the end of the grace period for returning the phone, but it isn't looking great so far.

 

[tx_brandon]

Turn all the stuff u need on and have a wall charger near by. Its not worth turning all the crap u want off and doing the minimum of everything just to get an extra hour of whatever of use at the end. The display is always at the top of my batter usage list and there's no way around that. Enjoy the phone and have a charger in-car, two places at home, and of course one at work.

 

[sleipner]

Actually, the only thing I would like to turn back on is automatic updates to my 2 emails. I don't need auto sync though, I don't even use gmail. Even then, it isn't critical for the email to refresh itself. If there's an urgent email, the sender can call or text me to say "check your email".

What's getting me is how quickly the battery goes down when I do nothing. I have no problem with the battery draining while performing tasks, it's the price of having a small device/battery. But, I lost 60% charge in 9 hours with the display being on a whopping 17 minutes. In that time I made no phone calls, composed no emails, played no games, watched no videos, spent only half the screen time with the browser open, sent a text & a received a text, and the only audio that came out of the phone the entire time was four beeps. In addition to the short screen time, the phone was not asleep for only one hour out of nine, and was never without signal.

I just don't understand how such minuscule use obliterates standby time.

 

[gme109]

Actually, the only thing I would like to turn back on is automatic updates to my 2 emails. I don't need auto sync though, I don't even use gmail. Even then, it isn't critical for the email to refresh itself. If there's an urgent email, the sender can call or text me to say "check your email".

What's getting me is how quickly the battery goes down when I do nothing. I have no problem with the battery draining while performing tasks, it's the price of having a small device/battery. But, I lost 60% charge in 9 hours with the display being on a whopping 17 minutes. In that time I made no phone calls, composed no emails, played no games, watched no videos, spent only half the screen time with the browser open, sent a text & a received a text, and the only audio that came out of the phone the entire time was four beeps. In addition to the short screen time, the phone was not asleep for only one hour out of nine, and was never without signal.

I just don't understand how such minuscule use obliterates standby time.

Have you checked out this thread yet? http://androidforums.com/epic-4g-tips-tricks/168577-fix-fast-battery-draining.html

Mine was doing the same thing until I tried this temporary fix. Temporary because you must do it every time you turn your phone back on. Hopefully Samsung will come up with a permanent fix.

 

[sleipner]

I did see that, but like I mentioned, I have 0% time without signal.

 

[Kelmar]

You can turn off 3G with the app "Quick Settings" from the market.

 

[sleipner]

Turning off 3G really did it. I didn't realize it took that much battery power to keep finding a 3G signal, my last phone (touch pro) didn't have a battery issue unless I was in an area with almost no signal. Around town, I just have spotty 3G, but can always at least call/text.

Honestly, this is one of the more aggravating things about the extra $10 for the 4G phones. Not only is there not a 4G signal within a hundred miles plus of my location, even 3G isn't very good here.

 

[jim2point0]

Juice defender helps a lot. This will disable data when you aren't using it (basically turning off 2G, 3G, etc). You can select an interval at which it will turn data back on. Mine is set for 1 minute every 15 minutes (for syncing, etc). On a rooted phone, you can also have it manage your CPU speed's min\max. This app helps me save quite a bit of battery.

 

[Shane112358]

Juice defender helps a lot. This will disable data when you aren't using it (basically turning off 2G, 3G, etc). You can select an interval at which it will turn data back on. Mine is set for 1 minute every 15 minutes (for syncing, etc). On a rooted phone, you can also have it manage your CPU speed's min\max. This app helps me save quite a bit of battery.

+1 I have it set to turn data off except for 30 sec every 5 minutes or when the screen is on. Nearly double the battery and I can barely tell a difference in user experience.

 

[pattonthegen]

Why on earth would you buy a phone then turn off everything about the phone that makes it that phone? Whats the point of owning the phone if you have/want to turn off every feature about it?

Why not just go buy a simple basic flip phone so you can text, and make calls.

The way i see it you have to take the good with the bad sometimes, and with the speed these phones are advancing its a given that they are going to use more and more battery power. So when i go and buy a new smart phone i already have the mind set that its going to drain the battery, and i refuse to turn off 90% of the features that made me want to buy the phone in the 1st place....

To me it would be diffrent if the Epic was the only smart phone that had battery problems, but lets be honest just about every smart phone from just about every company has some sort of battery issue so its just the nature of the beast, and i don't see any of these phone's no matter who they are from solving that problem anytime soon.

Just my thoughts

 

[sleipner]

I turn off everything that I don't need when I don't need it. Juice defender seems to be helping with that. I put screen timeout back to 30, have background data on, vibrate enabled again, and email checking every hour. I don't need an active 3G connection when the phone is in my pocket. I don't need a GPS signal when there's no app open. I don't need wifi on when I'm not near a hotspot, nor even have my phone out. I don't need bluetooth at all because I don't use it.

But today, I used the Epic to find a nice Vietnamese restaurant to pick up dinner and read an excel spreadsheet received in an email, along with making a couple phone calls and several texts. Played a game for a few minutes as well. I have use for a smartphone, but I don't need it draining battery unnecessarily. I have to deal with bad signal and extended periods with no access to a charger often enough, so bad battery life is always an issue for me. I don't know if I can have my cake and eat it too, but I will try.

 

[toyman317]

That is what is nice about Juice Defender...it lets you control how you want to conserve resources when the phone is in your pocket not needing it. I disconnected my charger at 7:00 this AM and I still have 44% left at 8:30 PM. The screen has been on probably 3 hours and I have had an hour or so of voice. Juice defender is telling me it has raised my juice by 1.61. I have seen it as high as 1.82. I am a believer.

 

[Pitbull329]

Right now, Im at 20h 40m since I unplugged the phone. Battery life is around 65%, Display on for 3 hours. Done some browsing on the web (including this site), phone calls, a good amount of texts, played a few games, and just been toying around with the settings of the phone.

 

[kngyn19]

Right now, Im at 20h 40m since I unplugged the phone. Battery life is around 65%, Display on for 3 hours. Done some browsing on the web (including this site), phone calls, a good amount of texts, played a few games, and just been toying around with the settings of the phone.

What ancient magic are you using to get this? I barely make it through 12 hours and honestly that is pretty horrendous when you consider the light usage.

Here is my JuicePlotter. I unplugged at 6:30AM, and it completely died at a bit after 7PM. Juice Defender did a pretty decent job until until I pulled out my phone to do some texting or play WordFued. At 2PM, it tanked 30% from 3G being active playing WordFued. Okay, 3G shouldn't drain THAT much :/

As you can see, every time I used my phone, it would lose almost 10% charge. Besides the hour that I was playing scrabble. I have PhoneUsage app and it shows that had 34 texts, 8 minutes of calling, and 1mb of data usage. Extremely light usage drained it in 12 hours. Honestly, that is not sufficient :/

 

[Pitbull329]

kngyn19,

3G is a real killer on these . I made it to 22h 20m before the low battery life notification came on.

I simply followed the steps that were on that thread on the main section of Epic. I was on wifi most of the time. I used 3G very little during the 22 hours. The times I used data on the phone, I was connected to a wi-fi here at home and where I was at the rest of the time.

I didn't check the total time of display on. I only took a screenshot of the total time unplugged as soon as it had just gotten plugged in. I played a good amount of wordfeud, pocket empires, sent about 60 texts, spent maybe 15-20 minutes on the phone, some browsing of the web, connected to 3G to download some apps off the market, explored the settings available on the phone here and there, played some brain genius deluxe game which my gf and I played for a good amount of time, she then played sudoku for half hour or so.

Also, the phone was charged the night before while plugged to my laptop(battery life was about half way before plugging it to the latop), I'm not sure if that helped the battery life last longer??

Overall, I'd say excellent battery life this time around.

If I weren't on a wifi network most of the time, Im sure battery life would have been alot shorter.

 

[dainel2744]

reading this has made me want to download some of this apps. i think i will lol.