VERY BAD battery life - HTC Desire 'not fit for purpose'

[otijhuis]

I charge my phone once a day, which I dont think is too bad BUT if I use it heavily then I will have to charge it more than once

Ideally I would like it to be better BUT it is a powerful phone and thats one of the downsides - I use to charge my previous phone (non smartphone) once every 4 days so its a little annoying at the moment BUT I will get used to it

How do you use it then normally? You say when you use it heavily you have to charge it more than once which leads me to believe you don't use it too much under normal circumstances. Charging it twice on a day seems very excessive then.

hippy247 still gets 20+ hours even with pretty heavy usage.

And to both you and sutton, please use the Battery history. It seems like you're still guessing at what's draining the battery. There's no need to guess. All the info is there. If you don't check the history and don't mention the apps that drain the battery the most nobody can tell you if it's normal or not. 5% every 5 hours without using it still seems too much (unless you have very bad signal in your area).

 

[sutton]

And to both you and sutton, please use the Battery history. It seems like you're still guessing at what's draining the battery. There's no need to guess. All the info is there. If you don't check the history and don't mention the apps that drain the battery the most nobody can tell you if it's normal or not. 5% every 5 hours without using it still seems too much (unless you have very bad signal in your area).

OK, just rang the number you suggested. Can't make much sense of the stats. It defaulted to "other usage" and "since last unplugged". What it says is "Running = 16.9%", "Screen On = 16.3%", "Phone On 0.1%". Wifi, Wifi Running and Bluetooth are zero.

What of use does that tell me?

 

[Dudditz]

Ok so I done a little test with mine this afternoon just to see how it was going. FWIW at this moment in time my up time = 8:35 and awake time = 2:48 so I assume this is ok.

So I took note of what my battery was at one point in the day. For Info, I only automatically sync my gmail, calendar/facebook/weather etc are set not to sync.

WiFi was off as my office doesn't have a WiFi connection, bluetooth and GPS were also off. Screen Brightness is down at around 20%.

Mobile net and background data are on.

Also worth noting that I have Juice Defender (is it just me or does this not work quite as well since the recent update??) which turns off APN when the screen is locked.

So, during the first hour I received 2 text and replied to them both. that was all that was done (unless some syncing went on) and the battery dropped 1% in this hour.

During the second hour I received 3 text, which I replied to, checked and read e-mails and manually synced face book. This resulted in a 2% drop in the battery level.

During the third hour, two text received, both replied to resulting in a 2% drop in battery level.

Checked the Partial Wake history but to be fair, I really don't know how to read that.

Top of the list is the Android System, which is a fairly small portion of that bar (assuming the bar stretches from left to right all the way across)

After that there is cubed music player, slightly less, then everything else noted seems like a fairly minimal level.

As for my battery, I charge it every night, overnight. I wake up to find it generally between 94-100%. Juice Plotter tells me it has been fully charged but drained a bit (why the hell does it not trickle charge?? )

I keep WiFi off over night, as with anything else, the only things on are Gmail syncing/mobile net/background date.

As for my daily usage, I spend around 20 mins on the net in the morning, games on the 20 min train ride to work, check facebook at points during the day, app market/games over lunch, again check fb during the afternoon, music on the way home. If there are any e-mails to be read throughout the day I check them too

At night I mess about with the games and check the net/app market over the WiFi.

On top of this Gmail is syncing and I would say I spend around about 60-90 mins on calsl and send 30 texts (give or take) and receive around the same numbers

So this is from 6:30 in the morning, by the time I charge it when I go to bed around 11 I have anywhere between 5-10% of the battery left.

Does this seem like an OK level?

Oh and a wee p.s - At work I hold a H connection all day, at home it is usually a G.

Should I turn mobile net off when at home and just use the WiFi??

Cheers

 

[nx1977]

OK, just rang the number you suggested. Can't make much sense of the stats. It defaulted to "other usage" and "since last unplugged". What it says is "Running = 16.9%", "Screen On = 16.3%", "Phone On 0.1%". Wifi, Wifi Running and Bluetooth are zero.

What of use does that tell me?

Look under other and partial wake. Anything with a solid blue bar across the screen is draining your battery.

For the record I have had my Desire 2 months and had many charges/discharges. Why this modern type of battery would benefit form conditioning is beyond me. Sounds like the type of weird theory that insist plasmas improve as they burn in.

Discharging Li-on batteries regularly will lessen their life and the ability to hold a charge. You're not calibrating or conditioning squat. You're simply adding to any battery issues.

 

[klister]

I wouldnt say the battery is satisfactory if you only consider up time but in relation to what the phone does its acceptable for me atleast. Listen to spotify (offline) 9 hours a day, get up at 6 turn on spotify go to work have it on the entire day, check fb maybe 4-5 times send about 10-20 sms per day and call anywhere from 10 minutes to 1 hour a day and this usually lands me at about 50% battery left when i get home at 16.

I do wish they stop cramming the handsets with all these new stuff for a while and focus on the battery because if it continues this way youll have a phone that replaces your pc but need a constant charging so they should focus abit on the batteries a while imo. I know for me that would be a huge deal breaker to see a manufacturer focusing and producing a good quality 2000+ mah battery wich should be possible.

 

[nx1977]

For me though, incase I get burgled (again) and they nick my phone. I could track it more accurately.

Get wavesecure.

On being activated, it turns on wifi and GPS to tell you where it is

 

[Geordie Ahmed]

How do you use it then normally? You say when you use it heavily you have to charge it more than once which leads me to believe you don't use it too much under normal circumstances. Charging it twice on a day seems very excessive then.

hippy247 still gets 20+ hours even with pretty heavy usage.

And to both you and sutton, please use the Battery history. It seems like you're still guessing at what's draining the battery. There's no need to guess. All the info is there. If you don't check the history and don't mention the apps that drain the battery the most nobody can tell you if it's normal or not. 5% every 5 hours without using it still seems too much (unless you have very bad signal in your area).

Normal usage for me is some games, calls, internet, youtube clips

Heavy usage is basically the above BUT for a lot longer

I am still getting used to it so I probably have something running in the background that is draining the battery

 

[Archphoto]

Had my Desire 9 days and have followed this thread rather closely as I knew battery life was one sticking point with this particular phone.

Installed AppKiller, reduced the screen brightness, turned off all Auto Updates, leave WiFi and Mobile Internet access off unless I need to use and am getting anywhere between 24-40 hours on a charge.

24 hours is with heavy (for me) Internet usage, 40 is a typical timeframe for my usual phone usage. (My N95 would last about that long, so not too different.)

If I know I'm going to be away from a charger the following day, I put the phone on charge, just to be safe. So far, I'm fairly happy with the battery, however I'll review again when I have a heavy day of email access when next shooting on location.

 

[Dazo]

For what the phone does I don't think the battery is bad at all. I think the problem is when you first get the phone you can't put it down and are constantly fiddling with it. I think during normally use the battery is not a problem. I am about 9 days in also at the phone just pretty much set to my liking so not as much fiddling. I fully charged it on Saturday morning then was out all day with the phone. Wifi and Mobile were switched on all day and it was getting used a fair amount with Phonecalls, emails, internet and twitter etc. Sunday was light usage with only a couple of phonecalls and some emails. Monday was pretty normal to light usage again as I am off work at the moment. Woke at this morning and my battery was at 3% and that was from Saturday. So 3 full days without a charge is more than enough for me.

 

[SUroot]

Get wavesecure.

On being activated, it turns on wifi and GPS to tell you where it is

That's what I have. I tested it with how off. It didnt turn it on.

 

[nx1977]

That's what I have. I tested it with how off. It didnt turn it on.

How did you test? If you track from the website it will. It also should with no SIM, as my old hero I'm selling does

 

[SUroot]

How did you test? If you track from the website it will. It also should with no SIM, as my old hero I'm selling does

I clicked the track location button, under location on the website button on the website.

 

[ifb-online]

I do have Task Killer and Juice Defender installed, but might uninstall them to see what happens (I do like Juice Plotter though). Anyway, for the last 24 hours I have only enabled Wifi when needed and switched off immediately, not used mobile data, not used GPS, have received a couple of calls, several texts and made a couple of short calls, but I have done around half an hour's browsing, installed some new apps and set up my HulloMail voicemail, and in 24 hours I used 35% of the battery. So two and half days use is realistic based on this usage. It will be interesting to see if uninstalling Task Killer and Juice Defender makes any difference.

Ian

 

[SUroot]

I do have Task Killer and Juice Defender installed, but might uninstall them to see what happens (I do like Juice Plotter though). Anyway, for the last 24 hours I have only enabled Wifi when needed and switched off immediately, not used mobile data, not used GPS, have received a couple of calls, several texts and made a couple of short calls, but I have done around half an hour's browsing, installed some new apps and set up my HulloMail voicemail, and in 24 hours I used 35% of the battery. So two and half days use is realistic based on this usage. It will be interesting to see if uninstalling Task Killer and Juice Defender makes any difference.

Ian

I'd be interested to see if task killer would make a difference. I assume it woudl as its monitoring.

How you finding hullomail so far?

 

[sutton]

I will uninstall task killer and see if that makes any difference to me. Since I have set "background data" to on that also seems to be killing battery pretty quickly, even with GPS turned off. Looks like this type of phone is about finding a happy medium.

 

[SUroot]

I will uninstall task killer and see if that makes any difference to me. Since I have set "background data" to on that also seems to be killing battery pretty quickly, even with GPS turned off. Looks like this type of phone is about finding a happy medium.

have yopu turned enable always-on mobile data? Someone mentioned it inn this thread earlier

Menu>Settings>Wireless and networks>Mobile networks>Enable always on (untick)

 

[sutton]

have yopu turned enable always-on mobile data? Someone mentioned it inn this thread earlier

Menu>Settings>Wireless and networks>Mobile networks>Enable always on (untick)

Have not read the whole thread but will do later. That option was switched on so I have just switched it off.

 

[SUroot]

Have not read the whole thread but will do later. That option was switched on so I have just switched it off.

Seems to make a bit of difference. Still get gmail coming through too.

 

[ifb-online]

I'd be interested to see if task killer would make a difference. I assume it woudl as its monitoring.

How you finding hullomail so far?

Hullomail so far so good - I don't pay for the redirect when messages are left as it's a land line and I get free land line calls with my plan. If you have monthly minutes but no free landline calls, the redirect will come out of that. The sound quality is on the 'compressed' side but I can live with that.

Ian

 

[SUroot]

Hullomail so far so good - I don't pay for the redirect when messages are left as it's a land line and I get free land line calls with my plan. If you have monthly minutes but no free landline calls, the redirect will come out of that. The sound quality is on the 'compressed' side but I can live with that.

Ian

Yes it's quite good. When I first came over to android, I was disappointed as my blackberry version had received a make over. They have made over the Android version now and I am using it again. Shame it's still not as slick as blackberry though

 

[ifb-online]

Well, I last took my Desire off charge at 7AM on Monday. I have used it fairly normally (Calls, Web, SMS, Mail, Wifi but not much mobile data, I have also been using the camera and installing and uninstalling apps) since then and today at 6PM on Wednesday the battery is down to 10%. The phone has been on all the time, but wifi, gps, mobile data, etc. are only switched on when I need them. I also uninstalled Juiced Defender and App Killer yesterday. So that's 59 hours and 90% battery used, or about 1.5% per hour. It's way well below 1%/hour when just idling. Oh, and screen brightness is set to about 30%.

I'm quite confident that with average use 2 days is no problem and with light use I can get 3 days. I would normally charge overnight, so it's no big deal. I can even charge at work, so again, I'm quite relaxed.

My main concern is rapid discharging when in the car using a 12V car adapter. It seems to be related to heat as it charges normally at first and then goes into reverse when it gets hot in the sunshine...

Ian

 

[vanperski]

I have now run out of ideas

I have owned this phone for about 2 months now, everything was fine at first, i could use the phone heavily, not charge it at night and still have enough juice the next day up until lunch time. However the past 2 weeks have been very different - let me start by saying i have spent hours and hours trawling forums for information about this so with all due respect please do not suggest me any more 'battery saving tips' - I have turned off EVERYTHING on the phone, there are no background tasks running, i have no task killer, no wifi/bt or gps on, no syncing, its at absolute most basic running, without the phone receiving or making a single call or text, just being left on idle mode it runs flat in 14 hours. That is ridiculous. I have performed a factory reset on it, made no difference, I have treated the battery correctly and I simply cannot understand why it is doing this now.

It cannot be an app running as i have checked this, double checked and triple checked, nothing is running, so im left to assume that i either have a faulty handset or a faulty battery which if i understand from these forums is highly unlikely. I honestly dont know what to do now and im considering sending it back, 14 hours on standby with nothing running - it means the phone is essentially a rather expensive android paper weight. Completely unacceptable.

What have other people done in this situation - I have read people getting 30 hours out of it with normal usage?? - its a shame because my little HTC adventure started off so well and i just seem to have hit a brick wall now. Am giving serious consideration to going back to my N97 until my upgrade is due. That phone lasts a week on idle.

Bittery disappointed HTC customer :-(

 

[Jim255]

It is so clearly obvious that you have a faulty phone.
Exercise the rights of warranty you have and send it back for replacement.
You are one of the unlucky few that every product meets.

 

[DannyVandal]

The battery life on mine has got progressively worse, yesterday I left the house at around 9 with 50% battery, spent an hour surfing the web, took a 20 minute phone call and the phone died on me. Luckily I was working somewhere where I could plug the phone in via USB so I did that. 4 hours of charging got the phone back up to 50% (I know that there can be lots of issues surrounding USB charging so wasn't surprised at this bad performance) which I thought might get me home. Went for a drink with some friends so wasn't caning the data, took a couple of calls and sent a few texts, battery died about 3 hours later. Bunged my spare in and went home, another hour surfing on the train home, left it by my bed overnight and got a red battery icon this morning. Useless! The thing is I really like the phone but the battery renders it useless.

 

[StuartTheFish]

That suggestion to turn off gps, I thought that gps is only really on when in use by google maps or a satnav, not permanently? That's why the satellite icon only appears on the notification bar when a gps related app is used?

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