Help Possible Battery Fix from HTC

[myriam]

I don't want to be mean, but today I was reading a review of the DroidX in Google News tech news that made me feel better about the EVO battery. Quote:"Motorola claims 480 minutes of usage time and 220 hours of standby time; I have no idea where they got those very optimistic numbers. As with the HTC Evo, it's tough to get the Droid X through an entire day of usage without recharging the battery. You'll be OK for a few phone calls, but you could easily drain the battery in several hours if you check e-mail frequently. Using GPS or Wi-Fi kills the battery even faster. One helpful feature is a "battery saver mode, which turns off wireless data connections after 30 minutes of inactivity." So the great DroidX is not better regarding the battery as people were announcing before. It's the same. If you have so many radios and use the phone a lot you will drain the battery. It's a very big phone. BTW I use my EVO a lot and the battery last me the whole day and some more. I like to charge the phone at night, and some days I have to use it intensively to kill the battery.

 

[Stoney62]

I was having pretty much the same dismal battery life as most. This is what I've tried and it's worked so far:

Got rid of people widget. Got rid of weather widget. Took all Sprint Crapware off the home screens. Keep 4G, Bluetooth, and WiFi off. Screen brightness down to 10%. No auto updating. No texting and no emailing.

Un-plugged charger after the light turned green, wait ten minutes, plug back in. did hokey pokey and turned around.

Finally, I keep the phone turned off so callers wont run the battery down.
Been getting a good 24 hours out of it!

So, you've basically turned your VERY expensive phone into a paperweight!

 

[natdm]

I was having pretty much the same dismal battery life as most. This is what I've tried and it's worked so far:

Got rid of people widget. Got rid of weather widget. Took all Sprint Crapware off the home screens. Keep 4G, Bluetooth, and WiFi off. Screen brightness down to 10%. No auto updating. No texting and no emailing.

Un-plugged charger after the light turned green, wait ten minutes, plug back in. did hokey pokey and turned around.

Finally, I keep the phone turned off so callers wont run the battery down.
Been getting a good 24 hours out of it!

Can't stop laughing.

I rooted mine and got 36hrs battery life with moderate use (yes, even making calls o.0 ). Then I updated it and the update 'fixed' my battery.. as in, no root, but my battery lasts 10hrs or so with use as opposed to 4hrs idle. Just waiting to be able to root it again.

PS, my screen is 80%, wifi is on, I'm emailing, auto updating, etc. You know, like all the things a phone should do if it costs $400 before a rebate.

 

[jroc]

I don't want to be mean, but today I was reading a review of the DroidX in Google News tech news that made me feel better about the EVO battery. Quote:"Motorola claims 480 minutes of usage time and 220 hours of standby time; I have no idea where they got those very optimistic numbers. As with the HTC Evo, it's tough to get the Droid X through an entire day of usage without recharging the battery. You'll be OK for a few phone calls, but you could easily drain the battery in several hours if you check e-mail frequently. Using GPS or Wi-Fi kills the battery even faster. One helpful feature is a "battery saver mode, which turns off wireless data connections after 30 minutes of inactivity." So the great DroidX is not better regarding the battery as people were announcing before. It's the same. If you have so many radios and use the phone a lot you will drain the battery. It's a very big phone. BTW I use my EVO a lot and the battery last me the whole day and some more. I like to charge the phone at night, and some days I have to use it intensively to kill the battery.

http://androidforums.com/motorola-droid-x/116972-droidx-battery.html#post1089149

http://androidforums.com/motorola-droid-x/116972-droidx-battery.html#post1090910

Try again...the technology says otherwise.

 

[StrummingLevi]

Does anyone else have a problem with Google talk constantly re-opening? I've tried signing out and then killing it, but it still keeps restarting and automatically signing it back in. I was thinking that it might have something to do with gmail syncing. I use a yahoo email address so all this gmail stuff is unnecessary for me. Could I save battery because I don't use gmail?

 

[paintmoonsred]

Just wanted to throw my two cents in...
After doing the gsm/cdma trick and the charge "callibration" from this thread, as well as turning off unnecessary radios, disabling live wall papers, etc etc I am at 10 hours, 87% battery! No task killer or anything.
Note: Several of those hours were me sleeping, so I'll come back and edit this post after I've been out all day today.

EDIT: I am now at 18 hours, constant 3g connection, about 30 min total surfing, about 50-75 texts sent, a couple of games played, and 2 phone calls.
If anybody is interested I can post screens of all my settings.

Interestingly I let the battery drain down to warning level, did the orange light/green light trick until it only went like 30 sec before turning green, then just for the hell of it plugged in via USB, and it stayed orange for a few minutes! Not sure what this means.

 

[xvipx]

Google talk is a pain in the butt. I unchecked automatically sign in but when i go to my phones settings in "menu" "settings" "applications" "running services" google talk is always running. I force it to close and it always comes back. Is there any way to get rid of it? If it is running in the "running services" but the app is signed out does it still use battery?

 

[swg]

Google talk is a pain in the butt. I unchecked automatically sign in but when i go to my phones settings in "menu" "settings" "applications" "running services" google talk is always running. I force it to close and it always comes back. Is there any way to get rid of it? If it is running in the "running services" but the app is signed out does it still use battery?

Startup Auditor seems to keep it shutdown for me...

 

[Linx]

the only thing you need to stop is gtalk and sprint zone. the rest are things that make the device function. HTC iq agent is part of HTC Sense i believe, as well as HTC DM (think that stands for device manager). voicemail should be rather obvious...and calendar won't hurt you, let it run.

if you do what i said above, disable 4G, wifi and all that crap, and cut syncing off, you'll notice a huge difference in battery performance. with these settings, i could go 37.5hrs theoretically before needing to charge. i only need it to last for 17hrs personally. if i go out after work, then 19-20hrs tops

and obviously no one is gonna want to keep auto sync off at all times. i just keep it off while i'm at work because i'm on a computer. when i leave, i'll turn syncing back on with the push of one button on the power widget. easy peasy.

question. I have turned off all these things but noticed when I turn off backround sync and active sync, it turns off my 3G. Is it supposed to do that? Also regarding the power widget bar, is the sync button the one second from the very right? And do you know if theres a button app just for that one button instead of having that whole bar of buttons using up the screen?

 

[patch321]

i must be doing this wrong.

with phone on, charge until led is green.
then pull of charger till led turns off
plug back in until green and then turn off.

with phone off, unplug charger until led goes off.
plug back in until green.

now here's where i'm confused, do i basically unplug and plug until green while the phone is off? or do i turn it back on at some point?

 

[vandyfc]

it's kinda ridiculous that things like mobile network, wifi, gps, bluetooth, and all apps or services must be turned off to get decent battery life. basically, if u turn ur phone into a large screen version of a motorola razr, u'll get good battery life. other than that, buy another battery or two, and pick up a backup battery charger also if u really want to use the phone to its full capabilities.

I agree, My phone is just a brick with a light and phone if I have to turn everything off........kinda like Palm PDR's but with a phone. I had the Pre prior to this, same issue with battery. Any Smartphone should last at least a day or what's the point.....keeping chargers between where you are and where your going??

BUT,,,,I love it......it's just annoying at times.

 

[htmlcssguru]

Google talk is a pain in the butt. I unchecked automatically sign in but when i go to my phones settings in "menu" "settings" "applications" "running services" google talk is always running. I force it to close and it always comes back. Is there any way to get rid of it? If it is running in the "running services" but the app is signed out does it still use battery?

Gtalk is required to run for other Google services. However, since you've unchecked the auto sign in you're ok. It's not an app running in the background anymore once you do that.

 

[htmlcssguru]

it's kinda ridiculous that things like mobile network, wifi, gps, bluetooth, and all apps or services must be turned off to get decent battery life. basically, if u turn ur phone into a large screen version of a motorola razr, u'll get good battery life. other than that, buy another battery or two, and pick up a backup battery charger also if u really want to use the phone to its full capabilities.

It's kinda ridiculous that I spend $1.7 million for a Bugatti Veyron and it will only do 253mph for 12 lousy minutes then the tank is empty. Why can't it do 253mph with my foot to the floor forever? What a lame ass car. (* a wink of sarcasm *)

 

[xvipx]

Do you guys think that it is better to use auto brightness or just set it at about 25% maximum to save battery? The only time the screen gets bright is if you are out on a sunny day I believe. I do feel that auto uses more battery in my experience even though i am not outside a lot.

 

[stainlessray]

Complaining about the EVO's battery life is like having a Porsche, driving it at 100 mph, and complaining about it's gas mileage

No it isn't. If you get good battery life, there's no need for you to come into a forum with this title is there?

If I'm to apply your analogy: It's more like driving a porshe at 55, as recommended, and getting very bad gas mileage. THEN driving it every way imaginable and getting less and less MPG every day until you reach a half a trip to work, and you need to stop for gas.

If you read enough posts in the topics like this one, you will find UNROOTED phones lasting 24-36 hours on a charge. And the users are saying things like "i leave wifi 4g, and gps on all day"

then you find people saying they turn everything off, and its dead in 6 hours. THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH THE PHONE OR BATTERY IN THOSE CASES.

With that said, I've used a couple different versions of these tips, and seen my personal battery life improve substantially, and it in fact gets better every day by a small amount, and have yet to see it level off. So I'll continue to use those methods.

And BTW, I leave wifi ON, gps ON, and have even left auto sync ON, and seen very little difference in overall battery performance. I suspect this only occurs if the phone has weak signal, and therefore syncs for a long period of time, or too many times repeatedly. (so if an individual travels, probably should turn it off.

 

[stainlessray]

Google talk is a pain in the butt. I unchecked automatically sign in but when i go to my phones settings in "menu" "settings" "applications" "running services" google talk is always running. I force it to close and it always comes back. Is there any way to get rid of it? If it is running in the "running services" but the app is signed out does it still use battery?

No, it would seem that it doesn't. I use SystemPanel and it says after 44 mins since unplugged it has logged 1 second of CPU time, and average consumption is 0%. Your good on that end.

 

[hendodo]

Better?....Worst?

 

[stainlessray]

same i'd say for now. but recently, with all the "methods" i'd tried to improve it from 6 hrs/charge to 18 hrs/charge , i would occasionally experience flashes of utter brilliance especially at the low end in the teens, where it would nearly flatline for a couple hours while not in use. will take some time to determine if that happens, or improves/degrades as the case may be.

 

[Traceamount]

I had been doing some pretty close monitoring of my battery usage while idle, and under moderate use. In the last week or 2, on average I was getting about 1 hour of use per just under 1.2% battery basically just on IDLE. Not rooted, no ATK or nothing running. Since ive installed Froyo (in before it is/isnt the official release, I know) It seems to be 1.8% battery per hour, granted its been a shorter period of time - these comparisons are ONLY to idle vs idle time ON MY PHONE, sure yours may/will be different. There was nothing changed before/after Froyo to effect the battery.

This was my last charge BEFORE Froyo, under light/moderate use plz dont waste your time telling me I dont use my phone etc. this is just for gp.

As I said before, during this time was light/moderate usage, 8-9 hours of sleep, 8 hours or so of work that the phone was idle mostly during those times.

 

[Yankees368]

I don't see any difference at this point, but it is way too early to tell

 

[Jordus]

TERRIBLE!

I've got the bug where something makes the phone uptime and awake time match second for second and its draining the battery dead in 2 hours.

WTF causes that and how do i fix it?

 

[goblue42]

For those of you who downloaded 2.2 have you noticed if there is any improvement to battery life?

 

[RiverOfIce]

It does really depend. A lot more programs auto start now. After I installed battery was completly dead in 6 hours. With light use. I went to sleep. Installed auto task killer, battery is just above 89 % in 6 hours, with about 1.8 hours use . Atk is stioll needed for me or the phone will auto run programs and kill its battery. To restate, with atk about the same as it was before with out the atk a lot worst

 

[horadin]

For those of you who downloaded 2.2 have you noticed if there is any improvement to battery life?

Undecided, I have only had 2.2 for 15 hours, 7 of those I was asleep. Just pulled it off the charger with a full charge for the first time since getting Froyo 4 hours ago. So far it seems good, maybe better, but I really can't say for sure. I will need more around a week to really notice since my daily usage can vary wildly.

 

[sagedil]

As others have said, a bit early. But....

So far for me, worse. Loaded update last night. Got up 2.5 hours ago, hitting phone non stop since. Battary now down to 19%. Previously, got 4 hours of heavy use. Now down to a bit over 3 hours