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Updating Post at 8:40p.m.
I called and spoke with sprint tech support. I spoke with someone who was very easy to understand and communicate with. I described the situation and told him what the problem was in terms of short battery life. I read an article that listed the top 10 things that affect the Hero batter life, and the article basically suggested turning off everything that made the phone useful. I told the man at sprint about these things, and he told me that the very heaviest drains on the battery are likely the WIFI, (since I am in range of wifi almost all day) He said that if I switch it to just using sprints network and leave wifi off, that alone will help quite a bit with battery life. He said the next most battery intensive thing is leaving GPS on, and it is worth the effort to turn off GPS when your not using maps or GPSnav.
He said blue tooth is pretty efficient and isn't that much of a drain to leave it on.
In the next couple days, I will test the batter life with the changed settings (wifi and GPS turned off) and will report back as to if that changed my battery life in case anyone is interested.
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I got the Hero about 9 days ago. I have used it for web access, Gmail, pop3 mail, view streaming video, GPS, etc. I've found the Internet access to be quite fast for a mobile device. I've loaded a number of apps, and only seen a handful of errors. Overall I am very pleased with the phone and with the service.
The only thing I am questioning is the battery life. Here is an example of yesterday's use and battery:
I was on Wi-Fi all day, but sprint internet access was still enabled (wasn't even using it, I don't think I even opened the browser or e-mail all day.)
I think my mail is set to check every 15 minutes.
My Awake time was 11% when I checked last night.
GPS was on, but I didn't use it. (I realize the GPS on and the checking mail will still drain some battery even when I am not using them, but didn't expect it to be nearly this much).
I used the phone for about a total of 1 and a half hours (90 minutes). (not on speaker, not using blue tooth)
It had charged overnight the previous night (8+Hours) and took it off around 9a.m. I used it for the 90 minutes mid-morning yesterday.
By 7:00 P.M. yesterday, about 10 hours after taking it off the charger, I checked the batter level by clicking to the phone status in the menu. It was at 4 out of 10 notches. This would mean I used up 60% of the battery.
Is this normal? My understanding is that 11% wake time is a good number and isn't showing a problem with the text msg program that has been discussed.
10 Hours isn't exactly a long time for standby, and 90 minutes of talk time doesn't seem that long, especially considering I wasn't on the web or e-mail. Based on this example, I suspect the battery would be completely drained with 2 and a half hours of use (150 minutes).
The specs I read say 750 Hours of stand by on 3G and 7 Hours of talk time on 3G.
This puts my battery life at well less than half off the specs. I am in a good solid 3G coverage area 3+bar signal.
2 Questions:
1. Has anyone else had this problem even though your Awake time was so low 11%?
2. Is there anything I could have messed up on the phone that could be chewing up the battery, even though the Awake time is only at 11%?
3. Could this be a defective phone or battery?
Thanks so much,
J
Updating Post at 8:40p.m.
I called and spoke with sprint tech support. I spoke with someone who was very easy to understand and communicate with. I described the situation and told him what the problem was in terms of short battery life. I read an article that listed the top 10 things that affect the Hero batter life, and the article basically suggested turning off everything that made the phone useful. I told the man at sprint about these things, and he told me that the very heaviest drains on the battery are likely the WIFI, (since I am in range of wifi almost all day) He said that if I switch it to just using sprints network and leave wifi off, that alone will help quite a bit with battery life. He said the next most battery intensive thing is leaving GPS on, and it is worth the effort to turn off GPS when your not using maps or GPSnav.
He said blue tooth is pretty efficient and isn't that much of a drain to leave it on.
In the next couple days, I will test the batter life with the changed settings (wifi and GPS turned off) and will report back as to if that changed my battery life in case anyone is interested.
*********************************
I got the Hero about 9 days ago. I have used it for web access, Gmail, pop3 mail, view streaming video, GPS, etc. I've found the Internet access to be quite fast for a mobile device. I've loaded a number of apps, and only seen a handful of errors. Overall I am very pleased with the phone and with the service.
The only thing I am questioning is the battery life. Here is an example of yesterday's use and battery:
I was on Wi-Fi all day, but sprint internet access was still enabled (wasn't even using it, I don't think I even opened the browser or e-mail all day.)
I think my mail is set to check every 15 minutes.
My Awake time was 11% when I checked last night.
GPS was on, but I didn't use it. (I realize the GPS on and the checking mail will still drain some battery even when I am not using them, but didn't expect it to be nearly this much).
I used the phone for about a total of 1 and a half hours (90 minutes). (not on speaker, not using blue tooth)
It had charged overnight the previous night (8+Hours) and took it off around 9a.m. I used it for the 90 minutes mid-morning yesterday.
By 7:00 P.M. yesterday, about 10 hours after taking it off the charger, I checked the batter level by clicking to the phone status in the menu. It was at 4 out of 10 notches. This would mean I used up 60% of the battery.
Is this normal? My understanding is that 11% wake time is a good number and isn't showing a problem with the text msg program that has been discussed.
10 Hours isn't exactly a long time for standby, and 90 minutes of talk time doesn't seem that long, especially considering I wasn't on the web or e-mail. Based on this example, I suspect the battery would be completely drained with 2 and a half hours of use (150 minutes).
The specs I read say 750 Hours of stand by on 3G and 7 Hours of talk time on 3G.
This puts my battery life at well less than half off the specs. I am in a good solid 3G coverage area 3+bar signal.
2 Questions:
1. Has anyone else had this problem even though your Awake time was so low 11%?
2. Is there anything I could have messed up on the phone that could be chewing up the battery, even though the Awake time is only at 11%?
3. Could this be a defective phone or battery?
Thanks so much,
J
