This is my first smart phone, is the battery really this low?

[Lazer77]

This is my first smart phone, i figured since its my first one and i rarely upgrade phones i might as well go big and get the HTC Evo. I heard smart phones/Android phones have a battery "break in" process, in which the battery life is very low for "x" amount of days/weeks. I dont remember where i heard this, or honestly, i may have made it up lol.

Problem is that my battery does not last very long. Last night i charged it to the max, unplugged it and it sat for an hour, played on it for 5 minutes, then left it and i went to sleep for about 6 hours. Just that made the battery drop roughly 1/5 or 1/6 of the way, to me, thats a bit extreme (at least compared to my old phone). But if i actively use it, just to play with it, the battery life is no longer than a couple of hours.

Is the battery life on this phone really this bad? Or am i still in the "break in" process?

What are the best battery saving techniques on this smart phone besides turning down the brightness, because thats the only thing i know that would fix it a little bit.



And two other minor questions:
1) What does the roaming icon look like? Is it like a lowercase r and a backslash below it, with a drop looking thing under the backslash? That appear on the top bar, i think next to the battery meter.
2) My friend made me super paranoid about getting insurance for this phone, but i am extremely careful with my stuff and i take great care of it (if i paid a lot of money, ill make sure it lasts), and he is pretty stupid and dropped his phone into everything and on everything so he goes through numerous smart phones a year. Besides my VERY first phone (when i was 16 or so, i am 22 now) that broke because of my stupidity, i have never had a phone break on me. Is this phone fragile? I will take care of it regardless, and especially since i paid all this money for it, but i dont know if Android phones (particularly this one) have a history of breaking easily or over nothing.

 

[Androidalltheway]

turn off wifi if it is running, and install a task killer, advanced task killer to be exact, that will kill any program you have running in the background. My evo on standby is outstanding, I once went over 45 hours with light usage, but heavy use depletes that considerably, just monitor your usage and what your doing, maybe set the imeout screen to 30 seconds or 15 seconds, keep gps off too, I never use it. try charging the phone while its off, that may help

 

[takirb]

There's a ton of things you can do to save battery life. By default, news, stocks, facebook, email, etc etc are set to autosync at certain intervals. If you don't need these, adjust the autosync accordingly. That should get you started.

I've had mine for about 2 weeks now and my battery is just starting to level out for me. I figured there was a "break-in" period, and now i'm getting significantly better battery life compared to the 6hrs or so i was getting the first couple of days. I ALMOST came to work without a charging cable this am 'cause mine's been doing so well, but Pandora will kill it i'm sure so i brought it with me.

 

[takirb]

...and install a task killer, advanced task killer to be exact...

Do research on this before you install a task killer. There's pro's and con's. I just uninstalled mine 2 days after i had it 'cause it screwed up my notifications, not to mention having to keep killing the same tasks over and over and over again as they'd start up on their own...

 

[Lazer77]

There's a ton of things you can do to save battery life. By default, news, stocks, facebook, email, etc etc are set to autosync at certain intervals. If you don't need these, adjust the autosync accordingly. That should get you started.

I've had mine for about 2 weeks now and my battery is just starting to level out for me. I figured there was a "break-in" period, and now i'm getting significantly better battery life compared to the 6hrs or so i was getting the first couple of days. I ALMOST came to work without a charging cable this am 'cause mine's been doing so well, but Pandora will kill it i'm sure so i brought it with me.

I turned off Autosync for everything except for weather, will that have a significant improvement on the life?

 

[nRRe]

add the "Mobile" widget to your phone screen.

When i put my phone down for the night, i turn off wifi, gps, and mobile network. it still allows you to make/recieve calls and text's but it turns off data(for browsing the internet etc).

Doing that and light usage (20 mins of gaming, and reading/deleting 30 emails and about 60 texts) i got 35 hours out of a battery charge.

Don't use a task killer, I used one for a day and decided it wasn't worth it since the same apps pop up all the time for it and you reclose them over and over.

My brightness is probably at 15% and it is fine for everything unless I'm out in the sun.

Also install the app "Network" and make sure you are set to CDMA auto(PRL) and not on GSM. I noticed on my battery usage that my time w/out signal was 50%. Now it's down to 4% or less most of the time since changing that.

 

[archercc]

Do research on this before you install a task killer. There's pro's and con's. I just uninstalled mine 2 days after i had it 'cause it screwed up my notifications, not to mention having to keep killing the same tasks over and over and over again as they'd start up on their own...

Dont run it on autokill. Just keep it around to kill an application that isnt idling properly.

 

[sitlet]

Welcome to the world of smartphones. Like everyone else said, turn off anything that syncs to save battery. Turn off gps, bluetooth and 3g when you are not using it. Turn down the screen brightness and turn the screen timeout down. with a big screen like this, the backlight uses a ton of battery.

 

[RoboMonkey]

1st Welcome.
2nd read this: http://androidforums.com/htc-evo-4g/114550-last-battery-post.html
3rd. Make sure your auto synch items are not set too high.

If you don't need Gmail calendar/contacts/mail synching all the time uncheck them and make sure the set the synch schedule to a reasonable level.

Log out of GoogleTalk if you don't use it and set it not to auto load (why they have it on by default is beyond me).

I'm not going into details on how to do that stuff as there are plenty of posts.

 

[musikat]

Do you have 4G on? That will kill it fast if you aren't in a 4G area. Also, put the settings widget on one of your screens. It is a horizontal bar with wifi, gps, sync, bluetooth and screen brightness. Keep it handy and only turn those features on when you need them. For example I keep GPS off all the time unless I am in the car and using it it. Same for Bluetooth. Wifi is on at home because I have a home network and Sprint reception is poor at my house. Sync is off. I only turn it on to sync things once every day or so. Screen brightness is almost always at 50%.

there are a lot of threads (check out the tips and tricks section) that cover in detail all the different things you can do to improve battery life and they really help. You will not get the same battery life as a non-smart phone. But you should be able to get it up to 12-15 hours minimum and almost 2 days max (with little use).

 

[marctronixx]

Hello OP. There are way to many posts on the battery for this device and also tips and tricks to preserve battery life if its not what you are used to. I kindly ask you to search the forum to gather more information. There is also a sticky about task killers atop this forum.

If you need any additional help feel free to PM me and i will guide you to the appropriate threads.