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Help Another Battery Thread

AGWednesday

Android Enthusiast
Apr 2, 2010
263
64
Lauderhill, FL
Yeah, I know. We've got a lot of battery threads on this forum. A bunch of whiners, we are.

Took a whole day yesterday just to get through most of 'em. Looks like we've got a lot of really vocal people on the two extremes. Some of you say that you're getting supa sweet battery lives from the stock HTC batteries (and I'm jealous). Others say that your stock batteries barely get you to lunch even after you've turned off all the phone's nifty features, like Wi-Fi and Friendstream (not jealous). Personally, I'm in the middle camp.

So here's my question:

Is there anyone here who did all that battery prep stuff when they first received the phone (charged it up fully, used the phone till the battery died, blah, blah), but still sees lousy battery life? Is there anyone here who didn't do any of that stuff, but is getting a full day and a half (or whatever) between charges?

I'm just trying to figure out once and for all if that prep stuff made the difference.

Obviously, this question is only for those who use the phone normally with the stock battery. If you got a heavy duty Seidio or if you only use your phone to make phone calls and have it set to never auto-update anything, the answer's pretty obvious.
 
I got my Dinc on July 1st, so Im still testing the battery out. The Other day though, I took the phone off the charger at 7:14. Mild use during the day, I did frequent web browsing only for maybe 5 minutes just to check my sites, some texts (not a whole lot), and I think 2 or 3 phone calls with small call times, under 10 minutes. By about 3pm the battery was at 50%, and by 10 I was down to just under 30.

I dont use a task killer, or any battery program. I had GPS turned off unless I needed it, which was only a couple minutes. Wifi was off since I had no wifi connection, and everything syncs every hour. All of this was on the stock battey.

When I got my phone, I could not wait one more minute to use it, so I turned it on, activated it, and plugged it in. I let it charge several times that day. The only thing I have done, was let the battery die down very low 3 or 4 times, and then do a full charge. At night, I leave the phone on the charger all night, and un plug in the morning. Like everyone else, my phone also goes from 100 to the lower 90s right after un plugging. Just a phone bug.
 
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I fully charged the phone when I first got it.

Activated, played with all the cool features (my first smartphone, so lots to play with!), and let the battery dip down to the point at which it asked me to plug it in. Did so, and then let it drop back to "charge me" again.

At this point, I unplug around 07:30, and go to work. Right now it's 10:30 and I'm at 75% on the battery. Depending on how much I end up utilizing the 3G during the day determines if I have to charge it on the way home or not, to get me to bed time.

Mine as well goes from 100% charge to 90% charge rather quickly with minimal use. Tried "bump charging" once (charge with phone ON to max battery, turn phone off and charge until LED goes green) and I noticed a quite significant boost in battery life -- the first 10% of the battery life that was previously useless is now utilized at the same rate as the rest of the battery.

Regardless, unless I turn off the Wifi, 3G, GPS, etc (i.e. all the stuff that I got a smartphone for instead of keeping my LG enV2!) there is no way I'm unplugging it in the morning and waking up the next day with a useable phone. Mine must be charged every night.
 
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Yeah, when i got my phone went on the charger till full...activated and played and let it die...completely turn off die. Then fully charge again. My battery life seems to vary so much i dont know what to think. But i guarantee i have to charge it every night or it will die soon the next day. I dont have time when i get up to work to unplug turn off and re charge though it DOES seem to make a difference. But why should you have to do that? Its annoying. Right now, off the charger at 7:30 this morning and its now 11...im at 70% 3.5 hours for 30% battery use? And thats not using it constantly...actually no phone calls or texts, just a bit of net use. Its simply not acceptable. I have until the 10th for my 30 days and i am thinking about ditching. I shouldnt have to spend $50 on a battery for a brand new phone just to surf the net randomly through the day...
 
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When I got my phone, I could not wait one more minute to use it, so I turned it on, activated it, and plugged it in. I let it charge several times that day. The only thing I have done, was let the battery die down very low 3 or 4 times, and then do a full charge. At night, I leave the phone on the charger all night, and un plug in the morning. Like everyone else, my phone also goes from 100 to the lower 90s right after un plugging. Just a phone bug.
So you're not getting great phone life, but you didn't do any battery prep and you don't really do battery maintenance either.
 
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I don't recall.... though I don't believe it was a full 8 hours. Though it definitely was until at least the LED turned green.

Not sure exactly what you mean by sync/update schedules - what would you like me to check?

I use GMail quite frequently, and am constantly getting emails pushed to my phone (this is only one of at least 6 forums I'm very active on, so thread response notifications flood my inbox all day and night!)

I don't think Facebook updates all that frequently, since I will get the notification in GMail at least 30 minutes prior to a notification from the Facebook app.
 
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I just got my phone yesterday, Charged it for the 8 hours before even turning it on and activating it (which was difficult), lol. Was on it a lot last night and have the following batter usage:

Battery Left: 10%
Up Time: 12:17
Awake Time: 4:03

I considered my usage somewhat high because I just got it so I was trying out a lot of different things. So I'm going to let it drain fully and then try recharging it to full for about 2 to 3 hours and then see how my batter life goes from there. I don't have anything syncing too often, I think I have my g-mail pushing, my yahoo e-mail syncing every 30 minutes, and my Facebook updates I do manually. Other than that I took a few pictures and didn't use wifi too much, so I'm hoping the battery life will improve once I go through the second charge.
 
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Not sure exactly what you mean by sync/update schedules - what would you like me to check?


  • Go to your home screen.
  • Menu -> Settings -> Accounts & sync

I'm gonna assume "Background data" and "Auto-sync" are turned on. Below those you should see the Manage accounts section. Every item on your phone that syncs to the internet is listed there. You'll probably have stuff like Backup Assistant, Facebook, etc.

When clicked, each item will take you to another screen. On that screen you'll see something like "Account settings" or "Updates" with a pulldown arrow to the right of it. When you click that you'll be taken to another screen that should show your update frequency for the item. I want to know what those are.

Also, if you have Google listed as one of your accounts, it'll have three items, Sync Calendar, Sync Contact, and Sync Gmail. Are they all checked?

The reason I'm asking is because it sounds like you did as much battery prep as I did. If you're updating more often than I am, your phone will be more active, even when you're not using it. That could explain (at least partially) your sucky battery life.

Thanks.
 
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I considered my usage somewhat high because I just got it so I was trying out a lot of different things. So I'm going to let it drain fully and then try recharging it to full for about 2 to 3 hours and then see how my batter life goes from there.
That's why I wanted to wait until people had their phones for a while before asking this. In the beginning, a lot of people were complaining about having to charge often, but I think that might have had more to do with New Toy Syndrome.

I know I used mine like crazy for the first week and had horrible battery. I'm a lot better off now that I'm using it like a normal phone/media player, though.
 
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  • Go to your home screen.
  • Menu -> Settings -> Accounts & sync

I'm gonna assume "Background data" and "Auto-sync" are turned on. Below those you should see the Manage accounts section. Every item on your phone that syncs to the internet is listed there. You'll probably have stuff like Backup Assistant, Facebook, etc.

When clicked, each item will take you to another screen. On that screen you'll see something like "Account settings" or "Updates" with a pulldown arrow to the right of it. When you click that you'll be taken to another screen that should show your update frequency for the item. I want to know what those are.

Also, if you have Google listed as one of your accounts, it'll have three items, Sync Calendar, Sync Contact, and Sync Gmail. Are they all checked?

The reason I'm asking is because it sounds like you did as much battery prep as I did. If you're updating more often than I am, your phone will be more active, even when you're not using it. That could explain (at least partially) your sucky battery life.

Thanks.

Background Data and Auto-Sync are enabled.

Mange Accounts:


  • Backup Assistant (OFF)
  • Facebook for HTC Sense (ON)
  • Google (ON)
  • Weather (ON)
Facebook:

  • Update Frequency - Every 2 Hours
  • Sync Live Feed (ON)
  • Sync Contacts (ON)
Google:

  • Sync Calendar (ON)
  • Sync Contacts (ON)
  • Sync Gmail (ON)
Weather:

  • Update Frequency - Every 3 Hours
  • Sync Weather Data (ON)
Changing Settings to:

Facebook - Update Once a day, Sync Live Feed (OFF - not sure what this means? The FB app??), Sync Contacts ON (am I a Sense UI fanboy? :eek: :p)

Weather - Update Once a day, Sync weather data OFF (every three hours was too infrequent to be of any use anyway; always ended up refreshing manually anyway).

We'll see if this cuts down some usage...
 
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elway and taylor, when you first charged the phone, did you charge for a full 8 hours or did you just go until the light turned green? Also, what are you sync/update schedules now?

I didnt charge for the full 8 the first time...probably about 5 or so...

Backup asst once a day
I dont sync Facebook for HTC Sense
I push Gmail, but not calandar or contacts (see next paragraph)
Weather update every 6 hours

BUT i turn off sync completely during the day at work to save fuel with the widget...so no syncing at all from 7:30-4 just some web browsing. And my battery still sucks. It will be in the red zone by the time i go to bed. With no sync at all for 8 hours. Suck

Other than that i love the phone, but have been having some touch issues lately...
 
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So you're not getting great phone life, but you didn't do any battery prep and you don't really do battery maintenance either.

I think my battery is probably around average. I have stopped toying around with it like I did the first couple days when I had nothing to do anyway. Today I completely shut it off after posting, did somewhat of a bump charge, and went to work. At about 9 30, 2 and a half hours off the charger, I was at 89%. I didnt have any 3g at my boss' house when I saw that, so in about half an hour I was already down to 80%.

Its something Im going to test out on my own. Ill try another bump charge tomorrow and see what happens. I dont think I work tomorrow, so the phone will be used pretty lightly since I have my computer at home.
 
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Did a little more research and decided to download Advanced Task Killer. People had been suggesting it to me since before I bought the phone, but I always figured I was doing a good job of killing my apps on my own.

Boy was I wrong! Found out that at least half my apps were loading into the background on startup. That's why my Android System was taking such a big bite out of my battery. Makes sense now.

Anyway, I can post some screenshots if someone actually cares, but I've got an up time of just over 18 hours and I'm still over 40%.

 
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