Help Optimus battery life

[joster]

Let me preface this thread by saying that this is my first android phone and so far I love it. I do have one gripe with it so far and that is the battery. I had an iphone before this one and am used to the batter being able to charge in about an hour at most. This phone took about 5 hours yesterday to get a full charge, and it seems to drain in about 1/2 of the time it takes to charge it. I dont know if this is a result of the apps that are running, either up front or in the background or if this is how the phone is supposed to be. Please let me know if you have any information. Is this how android phones are in general. Thanks for your time

 

[vicshalls]

This is how they are in general

 

[jen8112]

Android phone typically have low battery life, especially next to an iPhone or Blackberry. I have an Optimus S and I can tell you it's still better than my old Moment and Hero. With this phone I can actually get through the day and it's still green when I put it on the charger at night.

 

[joster]

Good to know. Thanks

 

[apinkel]

I read the OP and the responses that followed and I'm wondering if you guys are serious because none of what has been posted lines up with my experience.

So you are saying you are getting 2.5 hours of battery life out of your phone? No, that is not typical android. This phone should get you thru a 16 hours day pretty easily with moderate use.

I'm not sure about the charge time since I charge mine overnight while I sleep so I have no idea how long it takes to charge it. My best guess is 1 to 2 hours on an AC charger. If you charge via usb it will be longer.

Most androids would be at least as good as an iphone 3G. Most aren't going to be as good as the GS and none will be as good as the iphone 4.

Most blackberrys will be better.

Most androids are better then most windows mobile phones or a palm pre.

 

[vapore0n]

The day after I got mine I used it heavily. This included wifi tethering a netflix movie (awesome), heavy 3g usage. Phone was used for 5 hrs and still had 30% left.

Currently I'm disabling 3g/wifi/gps while at work, and at night when I go to bed. This way only get msg and calls while at work, and I same while im sleeping. Phone has an uptime of 2 days and still 50%.

Not complaints so far.

 

[mdpirello]

i have used this phone since it came out and have had great battery life out of it. i switched from a palm pre that battery life was terrible i love that i can go all day without a problem. i have been able to go from about 6am to around 8 pm depending on how heavy my email load is that day. i use alot of data and text alot and stii can go a min of 10 hours with a max of 14 hours a day. i use old school charging to cycle my batteries the first time so that ican get the most out of them.

 

[DaveG]

I've been getting amazing battery life on my Optimus S compared to what I experienced when using the Evo and Epic. The Optimus has a smaller screen and slower processor so that probably helps, too.

It all depends on how you use the phone.

 

[youngcrv]

One nice thing about this phone, that you can't do in a sealed phone like the iPhone, is purchase a spare battery and quickly change it.

That said, definitely use the Quick Settings app to turn off stuff like GPS if you're not using it.

 

[ws1088]

The day after I got mine I used it heavily. This included wifi tethering a netflix movie (awesome), heavy 3g usage. Phone was used for 5 hrs and still had 30% left.

Currently I'm disabling 3g/wifi/gps while at work, and at night when I go to bed. This way only get msg and calls while at work, and I same while im sleeping. Phone has an uptime of 2 days and still 50%.

Not complaints so far.

What App are you using to control these? Timerrific?

 

[roadster]

As I just got the OP S. batt seams excellent 7 am it is at 73% and its 5 pm. that I have usedcontacts a lil surphing and trying to figure a lot out.

the phone is not 100% capatable, and had some issues. but otherwise it beats the hell out of the Moment I own.

 

[telemike]

Hmmm.... I'm getting around 40% left after about 8 hours with light use during the day. 6am - 2pm.

 

[jinwons]

Hmmm.... I'm getting around 40% left after about 8 hours with light use during the day. 6am - 2pm.

Please define your light usage in more detail. It also depends on what kind of apps/widgets you have running in background even when the phone is in standby. Settings on screen, sync will affect it too.

 

[telemike]

using Juicedefender. Light use is a few texts, facebook updates, a call or two, loading up USA Today and Fox news for headlines and today playing around setting up launcherpro.

My phone does hop onto Vzw at my cube due to low Sprint signal.

 

[feigndeaf]

Maybe I'm crazy, but I feel like my battery life is terrible...although I did abuse my phone the first full day I had with it (today).

When I took it to sprint yesterday to have my numbers transferred from my dumb phone the sales associate installed ATK and told me it was a must have.
At 6:30am I had 100% battery. At 6pm it was 20%.

My usage:
Intermittent texting from 8am-2pm
Constant texting from 2pm-5pm
I used wifi-hotspot for a total of 30 minutes
I played Angry Birds for at least 45 minutes (darn you level 1-12..darn you!)
I've read intermittent email throughout the day
Intermittent facebooking
I played sudoko for about 45 minutes
Intermittent messing poking through menus to see what they do
4 phone calls totaling 67 minutes
My 3g was on, backlight was low, on silent (no vibrate)




So, I suppose that isn't too bad...but that was fairly minimal use for me being a person that has the phone surgically implanted into my hand. I also plan on using the phone as my primary MP3 player to replace my broken Zune. If that is the case, I usually play my Zune at least 2-3 hours straight a day in the car and at the gym. I wouldn't be so peeved about battery life but it takes forever to charge the battery. Yesterday when I got it, I tracked the time it took for charging and to go from 13-37% it took 1 hour and 45 minutes.

What would be some additional ways to recoup battery on this puppy? I know I'm using more features than with my dumb phone...but I was constantly texting/web surfing/checking emails/taking & sending pictures and talking on my dumb phone and I didn't have to charge that thing for DAYS at a time.


Thanks

 

[jinwons]

Wow, I feel completely opposite to you. That's pretty impressive result on battery life especially on the first day heavy usage. That pretty much reassures me that Optimus phones have good battery performance. You got to realize that recharging every night is considered normal in the world of smart-phones. I saw many user reports that their phone died within 6 hours with that kind of heavy use on the first day.

For your Optimus, try to set brightness low and minimize auto-sync as much as you can. But I think you'd better carry the recharger (both wall and car) with you and charge it whenever you have chance. Then you don't have worry about battery even with such heavy usage.

 

[Kmfiremedic111]

My battery life is fantastic! Moderate email, and Internet usage, gps off, blue tooth on, apps sync on, screen brightness at 25%. Lasts all day with room to spare. Sometimes there are bad egg batteries. Also frequently update your PRL. And check your time without signal. Should never go over 10%.

 

[telemike]

I'm gonna get a spare cable to charge via my work PC and then use internet radio without worry. I do have a car charger too. I did look up spare batteries and they are about $15 shipped.

I've read bad things bout task killers for froyo but I am trying the juicedefender app and it says it's making my batter about 1.5X longer than stock.

 

[Zardos]

This phones battery is amazing. I'm never going back to Evo or Epic.

 

[apinkel]

Maybe I'm crazy, but I feel like my battery life is terrible...although I did abuse my phone the first full day I had with it (today).

When I took it to sprint yesterday to have my numbers transferred from my dumb phone the sales associate installed ATK and told me it was a must have.
At 6:30am I had 100% battery. At 6pm it was 20%.

My usage:
Intermittent texting from 8am-2pm
Constant texting from 2pm-5pm
I used wifi-hotspot for a total of 30 minutes
I played Angry Birds for at least 45 minutes (darn you level 1-12..darn you!)
I've read intermittent email throughout the day
Intermittent facebooking
I played sudoko for about 45 minutes
Intermittent messing poking through menus to see what they do
4 phone calls totaling 67 minutes
My 3g was on, backlight was low, on silent (no vibrate)




So, I suppose that isn't too bad...but that was fairly minimal use for me being a person that has the phone surgically implanted into my hand. I also plan on using the phone as my primary MP3 player to replace my broken Zune. If that is the case, I usually play my Zune at least 2-3 hours straight a day in the car and at the gym. I wouldn't be so peeved about battery life but it takes forever to charge the battery. Yesterday when I got it, I tracked the time it took for charging and to go from 13-37% it took 1 hour and 45 minutes.

That is very heavy usage. If you do the same things on this phone that you did on your dumb phone you'd probably have better battery life then you did on that phone. But there are things you are doing on this phone that you couldn't do on that dumb phone... The 3D gaming is going to be battery intensive... it's running the cpu, gpu and screen all at the same time with high battery usage. Same deal with 3G hotspot... you are running both the 3G radio and the wifi radio and a bit of cpu all at the same time.

So, if you see yourself regularly using your phone this way there are a few things you can do:
-Check your battery usage stats to see what is taking the most battery life. Focus on reducing the highest usage apps first. I'm not a big believer in task killers... I think you should find out what is using the most battery and work to reduce the battery used by that app.
-If you haven't already, work to turn off any radios you aren't using... if you aren't using GPS/bluetooth/wifi, turn them off. I use tasker to turn radios on/off automatically but it's not an easy tool to master so I only recommend it if you are technically inclined, or at least willing to dig in and learn techie stuff.
-If you sync with a number of accounts see if you can change some of them to higher update intervals... hourly, every 4 hours, daily, etc..

Also, on the recharge time... if that was via a PC usb port, try charging using the wall charger. It will typically recharge quite a bit faster that way.

 

[feigndeaf]

That is very heavy usage. If you do the same things on this phone that you did on your dumb phone you'd probably have better battery life then you did on that phone. But there are things you are doing on this phone that you couldn't do on that dumb phone... The 3D gaming is going to be battery intensive... it's running the cpu, gpu and screen all at the same time with high battery usage. Same deal with 3G hotspot... you are running both the 3G radio and the wifi radio and a bit of cpu all at the same time.

So, if you see yourself regularly using your phone this way there are a few things you can do:
-Check your battery usage stats to see what is taking the most battery life. Focus on reducing the highest usage apps first. I'm not a big believer in task killers... I think you should find out what is using the most battery and work to reduce the battery used by that app.
-If you haven't already, work to turn off any radios you aren't using... if you aren't using GPS/bluetooth/wifi, turn them off. I use tasker to turn radios on/off automatically but it's not an easy tool to master so I only recommend it if you are technically inclined, or at least willing to dig in and learn techie stuff.
-If you sync with a number of accounts see if you can change some of them to higher update intervals... hourly, every 4 hours, daily, etc..

Also, on the recharge time... if that was via a PC usb port, try charging using the wall charger. It will typically recharge quite a bit faster that way.

Thanks, I am doing all of those things. I am using Quick Settings to toggle wifi/bluetooth/etc only when I need it and I don't have anything set to autosync. Screen on lowest settings as well.

I understand that it is capable of running instances that were not possible on older devices, however, I think that if they are going to pack in the capabilities, they should have the power to support it. It kind of defeats the purpose of being able to do these things if I have to be tethered to a wall

It's a wonderful phone and if being tethered to a charger is the way it has to be...then it is what it is. I was just expecting more from the battery.

 

[feigndeaf]

Update:

After reading up more on ATK, I decided to uninstall it this morning. The day I got my optimus I went to the Sprint store to have them transfer my contacts from dumb to smart and the store employee installed ATK and said it was a MUST HAVE and to use it when I'm done using any apps.

As you read, yesterday I felt like I had horrible battery usage. Today I used my phone just as much...even more. I used wifi almost ALL day mixed with some 3g when I left hotspots. I also did a little tethering, talking, angrybirds...pretty much inline with what I did yesterday.

Big difference today - I also used my music player for at least 3 hours straight.

At 12 hours I still had 50% battery. I am now on the bandwagon that ATK should be renamed to Advanced Battery Killer. Bad news for Froyo. Uninstalling that app made a HUGE difference in battery life.

 

[Mountainbiker]

I think this phone's battery life is much better that my old HTC Hero, after using the phone from 7:00 AM doing e-mails, checking websites, etc, I still have over 50% when I get home, that would never happened with my old phone. I have a friend with an Evo and his battery is 50% by noon, and he is not a heavy user.

 

[jinwons]

Battery life in any android phone mainly depends on two things. How heavily you are using it, and how many apps are syncing frequently. Most email, SNS, news apps are set to sync at highest frequency like push or every 5 mins by default. So increasing the sync internal will greatly reduce battery drain rate. Or you can choose to globally turn off the auto-sync as well if you don't mind refreshing each app manually.
But there are some perrformance difference between phones under the same condition too. It seems like Optimus phones are doing well in battery life.

 

[apinkel]

Thanks, I am doing all of those things. I am using Quick Settings to toggle wifi/bluetooth/etc only when I need it and I don't have anything set to autosync. Screen on lowest settings as well.

I understand that it is capable of running instances that were not possible on older devices, however, I think that if they are going to pack in the capabilities, they should have the power to support it. It kind of defeats the purpose of being able to do these things if I have to be tethered to a wall

It's a wonderful phone and if being tethered to a charger is the way it has to be...then it is what it is. I was just expecting more from the battery.

Yeah, I had to make the same adjustment when I went from a flip phone to my old WM phone (a touch pro). On that phone if I made a call that lasted an hour, the battery was dead. So for me the optimus is a huge step up.

As far as smartphones go the optimus S is one of the best in terms of battery life... the iphone4, iphone 3GS, the Droid X/2... and most blackberrys are better but most other smartphones are worse (incredible, evo, epic, orginal droid, iphone, iphone 3, any WM phone, etc.).

I do agree though that Mfrs have a lot of work left to do on improving battery life on smartphones.