Battery Life

[l3rian]

I know that there are a bunch of threads her that talk about battery life. But it's hard to get a real estimate of what average is just by looking through the threads. I love my Droid and I am having zero problems with it. However, I think my battery is lacking. I'd rather not replace it (because I already put a phantomskin on it) but if I think I can get significantly better life, I have to try.

After reading the thread about factory resetting, I'm even closer to pulling the trigger. To be able to get back all of my apps and contacts almost instantly after replacing a phone, makes the decision a lot easier if it comes down to it..

Anyways, since I got my phone the battery hasn't been that great, not too bad. The first couple days having it were pretty terrible. But I hadn't calibrated my battery really because I was too eager to use it. Then I decided to let my batter drain and then charge back up completely. I did this a few times and battery life definately improved. Still it's not amazing.

I have never had a smartphone before so I don't really know what battery life is supposed to be like. And honestly I probably would just get used to and accept the battery life I have been getting if it hadn't been for people on the board saying they are getting a day and a half out of their phones.

I have been getting about 5-7 hours of moderate/heavy usage. It's only been a week so obviously I'm constantly playing on it. I use a lot of gTalk, browser, and market. Some phone calls, some youtube, some pandora. Not really a lot of power intensive apps. I have facebook updating every hour or so, weather widget updating every 3 hours or so. GPS off, Wifi off unless I'm at home, and screen on the lowest brightness and quickest auto off.

The longest I've ever seen it make it was about 12 hours and that was when I was barely using it.

I was gonna just take it as is because I felt at least I didn't get one that restarts and force closes all the time and my camera has always been pretty good.. But today I took my phone in to work at 90% at 9am. And I was using it really hard. I was browsing, messing around with picsay and then I was playing sonic. AND IT DIED BEFORE 12!!! I know I was using it heavily but that is just unacceptable. I've done everything I can to keep track of and improve my battery. I have Advanced Task Killer Pro and spare parts. I don't think I have a leak anywhere. Just a crappy battery.


So should I just go try a brand new one?? I just did a factory reset on my phone to test out the recovery, and see if maybe that helps my battery. I'd like to finally get some numbers on what their average battery life is before I demand a new phone.

 

[colnago]

Sounds about par compared to what others are seeing. Gonna take a good week before batt reaches potential.

If you're realistically gonna be "on-it", for at least solid 2+ hours a day, start with installing an app called Quick Settings. The brightness control seems to go lower that the native "0" setting in the Power Control widget, and is about the brightness of the Lock screen. Given that the screen seems to dominate the battery usage, every little bit helps.

Other than that, think about investing in a second battery, and hope that Seidio builds one of them double-wide, 2800mA batteries w/cover.

 

[l3rian]

Thanks for the tip, I will definately check it out! I don't think a lower setting screen brightness is going to save me hours of battery life though...

 

[tallelf78]

took me a while to get my settings how i like 'em but i'll get about a day and a half with 3G and GPS on.

also it has been getting progressively better over time and recharges

 

[joneee]

This poll won't be the most accurate because the life of the battery depends on usage. I'm probably in the medium usage level and my battery lasts 12-15 hours. Maybe more. But someone that's doing medium usage on another Droid could be getting 5-8 hours, maybe less. So it all depends...

I think on average, with heavy usage, one should expect about 3-6 hours out of the phone. With medium usage, 10-15. Light usage...long enough.

Even so, "heavy usage" varies depending on what app you're using. It may be "heavy" because one is constantly using it but it may not require too much memory, cpu, and battery to power that app.

 

[gbaird]

I use mine like an office away from the office and sometimes while I'm in the office. I turned off auto-brightness and have my phone set to the second lowest setting. My battery life went from barely lasting eight hours to nearly fourteen hours. I have the Advanced Task Killer installed but I'm not sure that even makes a difference because I rarely use it anymore.

My .02

Hope it helps.

 

[CookieMomster]

I use mine like an office away from the office and sometimes while I'm in the office. I turned off auto-brightness and have my phone set to the second lowest setting. My battery life went from barely lasting eight hours to nearly fourteen hours. I have the Advanced Task Killer installed but I'm not sure that even makes a difference because I rarely use it anymore.

My .02

Hope it helps.

Hi. Read the thread in this forum about advanced task killer then uninstall it. My first day without it and 8 hours later my battery is at 60%. 7 hours was avereage before.

 

[gbaird]

Hi. Read the thread in this forum about advanced task killer then uninstall it. My first day without it and 8 hours later my battery is at 60%. 7 hours was avereage before.

Will do. Thanks!

 

[l3rian]

Hi. Read the thread in this forum about advanced task killer then uninstall it. My first day without it and 8 hours later my battery is at 60%. 7 hours was avereage before.

I read the thread. And while I think that atk can hurt battery life, I don't think you have to uninstall it to avoid that problem..My battery wasn't that great before atk. Since I downloaded it, I only run it when I don't think I'll be using uncommon apps for a while. I have autokill disabled and I don't use the widget either. I also have it kill itself when done. So I really don't think that's my battery problem...

 

[koticphreak]

With moderate usage, I get about 10 hours. With light usage, I got ALMOST 2 days, died at around 1 day 21 hours.

 

[vincentp]

With regular use (some calling, some browsing, some music, etc) I usually get a low battery warning between midnight and 1 AM. I have a late day, so I take it off the charger around 10:30. I haven't actually had the battery die yet, so I'm getting roughly 14 hours with my usage pattern (with charge to spare), which is mostly browsing/music/texting. I don't have too much talk time.

My device is a 39/09, have several additional apps installed and running which don't seem to have impacted my battery life.

 

[droid_genesis]

For users getting below 12 hours of battery life - are you using instant messaging applications, like Meeb or eBuddy? Or any apps that constantly use the data connection?

I found that to be my culprit once I downloaded "Spare Parts." My battery life went from <12 hours to 24-36 hours (moderate use, i.e., GPS, web, SMS, some music, phone calls).