Help Purchased New LG Spectrum. Battery life concerns. Need your help.

[stef7]

+1 replacing the launcher. I forgot about that. That is a definite.

I use ADW Launcher EX and said goodbye to the LG Optimus "Skin".

 

[RLTContreras]

Has anyone had problems with car chargers not making a dent in the battery? I tried 3 different chargers and none of them worked. I bought a 4th and it works "OK" but is very slow. Love the phone - HATE the battery

 

[stef7]

Yes, I think the car phone chargers is an issue.

What unit did you get to work (even if slow)? The issue seems to be when the phone screen is on, it's really using a good deal of power.

I suspect we need a dedicated charger that shorts the D+ and D- pins of the microUSB connector, and the cable itself must be low-loss (i.e. low resistance).

I have a number of posts in with LG Forums on the matter. Trying to get to the bottom of it myself.

Base on another posting here in a different thread (Won't Keep Up), I'm going to try building a new cable from my 12V charger (which can supply 950mA theoretically) but with lower loss wires and see if that does the trick.

If it does, I'm wondering too, what commercial product would work properly.

 

[TheBigKahuna]

Are you using chargers that connect with a USB plug, or dedicated straight wire chargers. I've found that USB chargers struggle to keep up with the demands of the Spectrum battery. No scientific reason why, just my observation.

 

[MrB206]

Are you using chargers that connect with a USB plug, or dedicated straight wire chargers. I've found that USB chargers struggle to keep up with the demands of the Spectrum battery. No scientific reason why, just my observation.

It's the wiring. That's been an ongoing issue with USB/hardwire chargers... I had the same problem with all of my Droids, though I found by D2G charged faster on the USB charger. It was odd, to say the least.

The current USB charger I have from VZ is unbelievably slow on my Spectrum and my wife's Razr, compared to when we charged our Droids. Some say it's restrictions on the charge rate, but I think the sheer drain from LTE is one of the main culprits people aren't considering.

 

[stef7]

The 12V charger variety that has a microUSB connector on the end.

 

[TheBigKahuna]

Try using an "old school" charger that is not USB based...and see if that helps.

 

[stef7]

That is a usb charger (microUSB connector on the end).

People on the Motorola Forums with the RAZR MAXX are complaining about the exact same thing.

Hmmm. The other thread has a post about cable resistance. I think that theory is very sound as to why these phones aren't really charging...

 

[TheBigKahuna]

That is a usb charger (microUSB connector on the end).

I'm talking about the OTHER end of the cable!

My limited experience shows that these charger slower, regardless of the amp rating, etc than straight wire chargers.

Of course, I also know enough about batteries to know that fast charging is much harder on a battery than slow charging. Rechargeable AAs, AAAs, etc never last long if you quick charge them. And yet the Canon batteries that I use in my DSLR camera, hold a charge for months and months on end, hardly even need a charge, and still charge in less than an hour when I do need them charged.

 

[stef7]

OK, now I see where you are going.
There is a reason these charge slower. In general, nobody, I mean, nobody makes a USB A to USB microB cable that is a charging only cable and not dual purpose: Charge and Data.

To make a charger only cable, you'd have to short D- and D+ pins.

So what SOME manufacturers do, is in the charger itself, they short those pins.

In general, if your phone shows USB charging, it is charging at the USB current rating, but if it shows AC charging, it *MIGHT* be charging at the higher current rating.

Why I say *MIGHT*: another poster astutely pointed out to me, there is a finite resistance to the cabling involved. You know V=I*R. If you know the current and the resistance of the cable, you know the voltage drop in the cable itself. This can do havoc to allowing the phone to charge at a higher current / speed, and thus with the display on.

 

[TheBigKahuna]

Like I said, my totally non-scientific experiments seem to show that a non-USB type charger chargers faster, regardless of the amp rating on the charger (0.7-1.3, etc). I still have a couple of older non-USB chargers, and the car type and the home type both charge faster than the USB cable charger. I've tried plugging my Spectrum into a USB port on my laptop a few times, but I'm pretty sure it would take 2 days to charge it that way. USB ports do not make good chargers in my opinion.

 

[NewSpectrum]

Anyone of you know why verizon is breaking up almost every txt my friends send me into two texts placing the last word as a seperate text? the message Isn't too long. Seems like I'm being ripped off my 1000 txts per month plan. Maybe the app is messed up but its counting all the extta texts in my verizon account. thanks folks

-sent from my lg spectrum!!

 

[MrB206]

Any txt over 160 characters is sent as several messages. It's standard for all carriers.
You can convert to mms and send far longer messages (up to 5000 characters I've seen) as one message.

 

[equest]

I recently got this phone too and the charging is unbelievably longer than even my verizon Galaxy Tab. It takes about 4-5 hours even if I turn off the phone. On my 1st night with wifi on, the phone almost died in the morning. It seems unlike my samsung tab 7", the lg spectrum doesn't sleep at night. I quess I would have to charge at night when I sleep & manually turn off wifi. This phone needs an update to make it charge faster and maybe make the battery last longer. Anyways, will plan to root so my phone will last longer at least.

 

[stef7]

@equest: I too had dismal battery life when I got the phone, but within a few charge / discharge cycles, things were much better. Remember, the phone must calibrate itself to the battery and that takes a few charge cycles to do.

If you root, freeze the bloatware, set your CPU Governor to Conservative, and run JuiceDefender, and things will be much better.

 

[finndo77]

Is there somewhere to find out what all the governors are and what they do? The new broken out ROM has 7 or so, and my book tablet has three more that I have never heard of.

 

[equest]

@equest: I too had dismal battery life when I got the phone, but within a few charge / discharge cycles, things were much better. Remember, the phone must calibrate itself to the battery and that takes a few charge cycles to do.

If you root, freeze the bloatware, set your CPU Governor to Conservative, and run JuiceDefender, and things will be much better.

Will setting your CPU to conservative not affect the performance of your phone meaning it won't cause lag or speed?

 

[stef7]

I experience no lag. I am not using the stock OPTIMUS U.I. I installed ADW Launcher EX, and am very happy and familiar with that interface.

 

[MrB206]

Will setting your CPU to conservative not affect the performance of your phone meaning it won't cause lag or speed?

It can.... But you just have to set the bottom cpu speed higher than 250 (or whatever that base number is).

I'm using lagfree, which is conservative with no startup lag.

 

[equest]

It can.... But you just have to set the bottom cpu speed higher than 250 (or whatever that base number is).

I'm using lagfree, which is conservative with no startup lag.

Ok, I just rooted, remove alot of the bloated apps, set the governor to conservative using No-frills CPU Control app since it's free. I couldn't find the lagfree from the Play store. I'll stick with the LG UI since I like the bigger icons compare to ADW or Go launchers. Before root, I was averaging 12 hours with 3 hours of internet use, texting, etc and while on standby I turned off internet completely. All I know is whenever I use 4g internet & wifi, I see the battery draining fast so I turned it off when not in use. Let's see what happens now. I might venture into Popcorn kernal to increase battery charging speed.

 

[stef7]

ADW should be able to size the icons better based on the number of rows and columns you specify.

JuiceDefender.

 

[MrB206]

Yep, adw lets you resize icons (within reason). It let's you change row and column numbers too. It's my fave alternate home app.

 

[finndo77]

Yep, adw lets you resize icons (within reason). It let's you change row and column numbers too. It's my fave alternate home app.

Ditto on that! Tried quite a few too. I like 5X6 then I stretch my widgets to fit.

 

[bones420la]

i just went back to stock and flashed popcorn kernel 2.0 and so far battery life is better than stock and my usb car charger charges faster than the wall charger did on stock... i hate to say it but ive grown to like the optimus ui... after tasting ice cream sandwich there is no replacent for apex launcher... i really want to get my hands on some of the stock widgets from the lg lucid.. but im having no luck finding a system dump or anything

 

[equest]

Ditto on that! Tried quite a few too. I like 5X6 then I stretch my widgets to fit.

That's a nice clock weather widget. What's the name of that so I can try it out?