Help Samsung Galaxy 2 II ICS Battery Life

[gianmarco]

Now that ICS is officially out, I would like to know what your experience with the battery is.

As some may recall, battery life on 2.3.6 was pretty bad. Mainly because that there was some looping problem with the wifi turning off on standby (I believe I worded that correctly).

There was a work-around that seems to have fixed the problem, but I do not know how the battery would have been if there was no issue at all.

Please share your experiences with the battery life/usage of ICS here.

I would like to mainly know if the wifi loop issue still persists.

Thanks!

Edit: I'll post some findings after I download it when I get home and use it for a few days.

 

[FlyingPigL]

Now that ICS is officially out, I would like to know what your experience with the battery is.

As some may recall, battery life on 2.3.6 was pretty bad. Mainly because that there was some looping problem with the wifi turning off on standby (I believe I worded that correctly).

There was a work-around that seems to have fixed the problem, but I do not know how the battery would have been if there was no issue at all.

Please share your experiences with the battery life/usage of ICS here.

I would like to mainly know if the wifi loop issue still persists.

Thanks!

Edit: I'll post some findings after I download it when I get home and use it for a few days.

Well, my experience is that this version of ICS may not be an improvement, and I'm even wondering if it doesn't make it worse. I've stopped caring about this issue as I now carry at least one spare battery so I don't have to faff around with turning off wi-fi, etc etc. But that said, I'm pretty sure I didn't have wifi on when I worked on getting my homepages organized yesterday. in 2 hours, battery life went from 70% to under 30%. So that's a bit of a distressing rate, wouldn't you say?

I too would be curious on other users' experiences.

Cheers,
Leila

 

[sircolby45]

Well, my experience is that this version of ICS may not be an improvement, and I'm even wondering if it doesn't make it worse. I've stopped caring about this issue as I now carry at least one spare battery so I don't have to faff around with turning off wi-fi, etc etc. But that said, I'm pretty sure I didn't have wifi on when I worked on getting my homepages organized yesterday. in 2 hours, battery life went from 70% to under 30%. So that's a bit of a distressing rate, wouldn't you say?

I too would be curious on other users' experiences.

Cheers,
Leila

The battery draining while the phone is in use is nothing to be alarmed about. The issue with the 2.3.6 version of Android is the battery drains when the phone is in standby.

 

[j510]

Running ics no problems here. No more wake locks. My battery was Never bad like that. On 2.3.6 I still got 22 hours a day

 

[theinvid]

I upgraded to icecream sandwich last night and my battery is at 68% after 2 hours and 34 minutes! What gives?

 

[FlyingPigL]

After 1 week on ICS, I can say that battery life is still, IMO a disaster. I get nowhere near the 22 hours obtained by fellow forum members. Last battery change was after 7 hours. I either change batteries 3x per day, or recharge the thing 3x per day. Sigh.
I went to battery usage to see what ate so much power. To my surprise, the 3rd largest culprit was the Amazon Appstore (which I hadn't even opened). So that sucker got uninstalled today. The other 2 were the Android OS and Cell standby - both of which running at around 30%, which does not seem unreasonable to me.

 

[jmwellm]

What I have noticed with my phone is that this version of ICS seems to have issues in suspending applications when the home button is pressed. Look at your battery usage and what's hogging the juice now. For me it went from display to fox news taking 97%. So I watched the task manager after pressing home and the CPU percentage actually continued to increase afterwards to past 60%. I have found manually killing applications in the task manager has helped with this. It may take some watching to figure out which apps have issues with ICS. Good luck

 

[hellerdude]

Well I have nothing but poor battery life since the first 4.0.3 update via Kies. I have resorted to:
- went back to 2.3.6 (with no result)
- rooting
- under clocking CPU 200 -800 MHz with a SmartAssv2 CPU governer
- battery calibration
- no widgets
- uninstalled all apps
- monitoring with BetterBatteryStats
- swapped batteries with someone who was not having issues (short life on my phone with his battery and long life on his phone with my battery)
- switched off fast dormancy with *#9900#
- killing apps with task manager
- putting phone in flight mode switching phone off then switching on and the putting flight mode off to shorten a RIJL wakelock
May have forgotten something there but best life I get is 12 -13 hours.
Have considered many a time on dumping the thing and getting an iPhone.
Seeing that I am not the only one with such struggles is slightly heartening and may just resort to carrying a spare charged battery around :-\

 

[Xphyle]

Don't use Go Launcher EX. Literally cut my battery life in HALF!

 

[dwisby]

I had to contact AT&T after upgrading Galaxy S2 I777 to ICS 4.0.3 and they provided me with a new phone after troubleshooting. So the ICS upgrade must have caused a hardware issue. Not sure this helps anyone but that was my experience.

 

[TigerpawTim]

I just recently purchased the Skyrocket as an upgrade to the HTC Inspire (that phone was a freaking nightmare). The first thing I did was update to ICS. I for one had no problems with battery life.

On a side note, if you have problems with apps running when you're not using them, there's an option in the developer tools where you can have your phone "destroy" the app when you're no longer using it. Maybe that will boost your battery life, hope that helped.

 

[goingtothedese]

Found this on the sprint message boards. Works for me. Battery life almost same now before ICS update.


Read below:
Like countless other people, for me the ICS update was more like a big downgrade, introducing lots of annoying glitches and

 

[JaneenM]

I just upgraded to the ICS software last week and the battery life is 10x as worse as it was before. As a matter of fact I don't like the ICS software at all and wish I could go back to gingerbread. Maybe I'm just not used to it. Not only is the battery life worse for me but it takes twice as long to charge. Very frustrating, even with GPS, wifi and everything else off it just likes to drain.

Any suggestions?

 

[lale]

Per goingtothedese:

Then I tried wiping the system cache partition and restarting the phone. Once I did this, battery consumption returned to what it was before the update

I tried this using these directions for my AT&T Samsung Galaxy S II :
1. Turn off the device.
2. Press and hold both the Volume up and Volume down keys at the same time.
3. Press the Power key only until the phone vibrates once, then release only the power key. Note: my phone did not vibrate, so I released only the power key when I saw "Samsung Galaxy S II" on the screen.
4. Continue to hold the Volume up and Volume down keys until the Android System Recovery screen appears.
5. Press the Volume down key to highlight Wipe Cache Partition.
6. Press the Power (or Home) key to select.
7. Make sure Reboot System Now is highlighted and press the Power (or Home) key to reboot.

I only had to replace one widget. When checking my battery under settings, I have 80% after 4.5 hours, the Android OS is @ 9% (down from 36%), and the Android System is @ 6% (down from 15 +%). My screen is using 75% of my battery, which is what I'd expect for how I have it set up.

I really didn't have any complaints after the ICS upgrade (like ICS better than GB) , but certainly haven't noticed any glitches since trying this.

 

[gianmarco]

Per goingtothedese:

I tried this using these directions for my AT&T Samsung Galaxy S II :
1. Turn off the device.
2. Press and hold both the Volume up and Volume down keys at the same time.
3. Press the Power key only until the phone vibrates once, then release only the power key. Note: my phone did not vibrate, so I released only the power key when I saw "Samsung Galaxy S II" on the screen.
4. Continue to hold the Volume up and Volume down keys until the Android System Recovery screen appears.
5. Press the Volume down key to highlight Wipe Cache Partition.
6. Press the Power (or Home) key to select.
7. Make sure Reboot System Now is highlighted and press the Power (or Home) key to reboot.

I only had to replace one widget. When checking my battery under settings, I have 80% after 4.5 hours, the Android OS is @ 9% (down from 36%), and the Android System is @ 6% (down from 15 +%). My screen is using 75% of my battery, which is what I'd expect for how I have it set up.

I really didn't have any complaints after the ICS upgrade (like ICS better than GB) , but certainly haven't noticed any glitches since trying this.

I want to give this a shot since my Android OS always seems to be at around 30-35%. BUT, will this void the warranty? Are there any risks (I cant think of any since these instructions seems imple enough)?

Thanks!

 

[Halofromsue]

after speaking with a Samsung tech rep, I was told that the ICS has a LOT of flaws with the galaxy s2 the most. Problem is, many people are just getting disgusted with it but not complaining about it. If they got more complaints, they would send out a patch. But they really could care less about their supporters. Its all about the money.

 

[lale]

I "googled" to get directions specific to the AT&T Samsung Galaxy S II since the Sprint instructions did not work on my phone. My phone is not rooted and I did nothing more follow the directions I posted. I don't know if my warranty is voided; however, since doing this I've not had to "boost" my charge during the day. With returning to work this week, I've used my phone frequently. After 12 hours, I have 45% battery left. The screen is using most of my battery; Android OS is 5% & Android System is 5%.

 

[tori729]

Per goingtothedese:

I tried this using these directions for my AT&T Samsung Galaxy S II :
1. Turn off the device.
2. Press and hold both the Volume up and Volume down keys at the same time.
3. Press the Power key only until the phone vibrates once, then release only the power key. Note: my phone did not vibrate, so I released only the power key when I saw "Samsung Galaxy S II" on the screen.
4. Continue to hold the Volume up and Volume down keys until the Android System Recovery screen appears.
5. Press the Volume down key to highlight Wipe Cache Partition.
6. Press the Power (or Home) key to select.
7. Make sure Reboot System Now is highlighted and press the Power (or Home) key to reboot.

I only had to replace one widget. When checking my battery under settings, I have 80% after 4.5 hours, the Android OS is @ 9% (down from 36%), and the Android System is @ 6% (down from 15 +%). My screen is using 75% of my battery, which is what I'd expect for how I have it set up.

I really didn't have any complaints after the ICS upgrade (like ICS better than GB) , but certainly haven't noticed any glitches since trying this.

I just did this and nothing looks like it's changed. I didn't have a high usage of my Android stuff but I thought I'd try it.

 

[LouWags]

Just for the sake of curiosity, I checked and after 6h 40m, I'm still at 91%.

--Wag--

 

[lunatic59]

I want to give this a shot since my Android OS always seems to be at around 30-35%. BUT, will this void the warranty? Are there any risks (I cant think of any since these instructions seems imple enough)?

Thanks!

No, you are not altering the phone, just clearing the cache partition.

 

[BrettP]

Per goingtothedese:

I tried this using these directions for my AT&T Samsung Galaxy S II :
1. Turn off the device.
2. Press and hold both the Volume up and Volume down keys at the same time.
3. Press the Power key only until the phone vibrates once, then release only the power key. Note: my phone did not vibrate, so I released only the power key when I saw "Samsung Galaxy S II" on the screen.
4. Continue to hold the Volume up and Volume down keys until the Android System Recovery screen appears.
5. Press the Volume down key to highlight Wipe Cache Partition.
6. Press the Power (or Home) key to select.
7. Make sure Reboot System Now is highlighted and press the Power (or Home) key to reboot.

I only had to replace one widget. When checking my battery under settings, I have 80% after 4.5 hours, the Android OS is @ 9% (down from 36%), and the Android System is @ 6% (down from 15 +%). My screen is using 75% of my battery, which is what I'd expect for how I have it set up.

I really didn't have any complaints after the ICS upgrade (like ICS better than GB) , but certainly haven't noticed any glitches since trying this.

I've tried this on a Vodafone NZ Galaxy SII that I stopped liking when it went from once a day charging to regularly having just 30% battery left at 1pm with almost no use, from a 7am full battery. This change immediately followed ICS installation. Really hoping this will fix it as I still do really like the SII, other than the fact that the battery life renders it useless. Not sure if I did the process quite right, as it restarted several times - I might have held volume buttons down too long - but it has definitely reset. I'll post back in a couple of days when I know what this has done to battery life. Thanks lale for this method. I wont ever buy Samsung again if this is not fixable. Distributing an "upgrade" that renders your device not fit for purpose for many customers and then not fixing it because you have an SIII to sell instead is a barbaric business model!

 

[Playin24_7]

I'm sorry for asking this ridiculous question, but what does the acronym "ICS" stand for & how do I know if it's on my Samsung Galaxy S2?

-Miss Newby... lol

 

[Metroid Prime]

ICS Stands for Ice Cream Sandwich. I believe you can tell if it's on your device by going to settings > about phone > software information. I'm not sure if the same applies for this device as I have a different one.
No question on AF is ridiculous, but the one not asked.

 

[Playin24_7]

ICS Stands for Ice Cream Sandwich. I believe you can tell if it's on your device by going to settings > about phone > software information. I'm not sure if the same applies for this device as I have a different one.
No question on AF is ridiculous, but the one not asked.

Ahh! I see, okay thank you Metroid I already know I have Gingerbread so I don't
need to check but thank you thank you thank you for answering my question and thanks for letting me know that it wasn't ridiculous! lol I appreciate it

 

[mindscape69]

I have read these posts on all the ways (complicated )to enhance battery power on the Galaxy s2. When I purchased the phone the battery after a full charge after being disconnected for at 2 hours was about 50% and it would barely last up to 7 hours,
My operating system is android vs. 4.0 ice cream sandwich. My display was on the top showing about 80% of the battery use. I was not sure if Ice cream sandwich had a better App management then 2.3 When I had an android phone with 2.3 ( Evo htc) I used an app killer which greatly helped battery power but created some minor problems. So I decided what he hell , what can I loose. I down loaded The Easy Task Killer app, I was not expecting much. Last night late in morning I fell asleep and forgot to plug the phone in.I woke up 3 PM (been off a few days) And to my surprise the phone was not dead but was still at 75% capacity . I checked the battery widget to my surprise at the top of the list was the android OS at 35%
the screen second in the list was only using 28% . The phone behaves better too.