How can the battery be this bad??

[borderless]

I'm basicaly burning through 10% an hour.

I've studied Spare Parts. I've conditioned my battery.

This is ridiculous.

 

[rjoudrey]

I'm basicaly burning through 10% an hour.

I've studied Spare Parts. I've conditioned my battery.

This is ridiculous.

If you are burning through 10% an hour with heavy use that is probably pretty good, 10 hours. If on the other hand it is with light use get your Droid replaced.

 

[AllDroid]

My battery started out the same way but it has been getting better every day. I try to ensure that the battery has less than 10% left before charging. Now my problem is that if I start the day with a fully charged battery it won't require charging again until the next morning. I guess I will have to get a second battery.

 

[JediJesus]

at first mine was bad but I get around 18 hours with light to medium use.

 

[baddriver]

I'm basicaly burning through 10% an hour.

I've studied Spare Parts. I've conditioned my battery.

This is ridiculous.

That's like saying this car only gets 10mpg, this is rediculous. Well, if you drive like a race car driver than that would be great mileage, if you drive like a grandma that would be horrible. Like the motion of the ocean, it all depends on how you use it.

Battery run times I've experienced:

• 3.5 Hours - GPS Navigation on, simultaneously playing games (heavy cpu usage), screen on the whole time. Basically every sensor and part of the phone running full bore. Close to 100% usage for the time period.

• 6.5 Hours - Heavy browsing and running programs, about 50% usage for the time period.

• 20 Hours - normal use of the phone as a smartphone. Playing with it about 3 hours during this time span, for about 15% usage during the charge cycle.

• 36 Hours - light use - using it like a dumbphone. Only picking it up to make the occasional call or text. No web surfing, no games, etc. Probably less than 5% usage during the charge cycle.

 

[rjoudrey]

If you look at your battery use you might find the culprit. The lower percentage of display should indicate heavier use my display % averages around 50% - 75%.

 

[iPhoneMilk]

the OP probably has a bad droid or bad battery.

With light use at around 10pm or 11pm at night my battery is STILL at freaking 80%

So after the whole day of just texting and checking email ive only used 20%

 

[mtbhk44]

the OP probably has a bad droid or bad battery.

With light use at around 10pm or 11pm at night my battery is STILL at freaking 80%

So after the whole day of just texting and checking email ive only used 20%

THIS sounds like a super battery.

My battery life is closer to the OP's battery life than yours. Last night I unplugged at 6 pm and when I got in my car to go to work at 6 am the battery had run out. I barely used it last night from 6 pm to 12 pm - it was just sitting there from midnight to 6 am. I've already replaced one Droid b/c of the battery so I'm thinking it might be my phone looking for a signal or whatever apps I am running that is causing the fast discharge.

Are you running any IM or Twitter apps in the background? This sounds almost unbelievable with regards to battery use

 

[iPhoneMilk]

THIS sounds like a super battery.

My battery life is closer to the OP's battery life than yours. Last night I unplugged at 6 pm and when I got in my car to go to work at 6 am the battery had run out. I barely used it last night from 6 pm to 12 pm - it was just sitting there from midnight to 6 am. I've already replaced one Droid b/c of the battery so I'm thinking it might be my phone looking for a signal or whatever apps I am running that is causing the fast discharge.

Are you running any IM or Twitter apps in the background? This sounds almost unbelievable with regards to battery use

I'm on google talk IM 24/7 (staying online), i also use google voice for SMS notifications and my gmail is on normal sync settings.

 

[dr_trousers]

I just got my droid, only about 2 days. But I left my charger at work yesterday, so I had no choice to see how it would do. With light use (some web browsing, some calls, some texts), it lasted 24 hours and I have 10% left. I think that's pretty good.

 

[mtbhk44]

I'm on google talk IM 24/7 (staying online), i also use google voice for SMS notifications and my gmail is on normal sync settings.

Amazing.

I was getting about 18 hours until I installed Home++ which might be sucking the life out of my battery. Considering uninstalling it and seeing what happens

 

[centax1]

My battery started out the same way but it has been getting better every day. I try to ensure that the battery has less than 10% left before charging. Now my problem is that if I start the day with a fully charged battery it won't require charging again until the next morning. I guess I will have to get a second battery.

A Quote from How to prolong lithium-based batteries

"A lithium-ion battery provides 300-500 discharge/charge cycles. The battery prefers a partial rather than a full discharge. Frequent full discharges should be avoided when possible. Instead, charge the battery more often or use a larger battery. There is no concern of memory when applying unscheduled charges.

Although lithium-ion is memory-free in terms of performance deterioration, batteries with fuel gauges exhibit what engineers refer to as "digital memory". Here is the reason: Short discharges with subsequent recharges do not provide the periodic calibration needed to synchronize the fuel gauge with the battery's state-of-charge. A deliberate full discharge and recharge every 30 charges corrects this problem. Letting the battery run down to the cut-off point in the equipment will do this. If ignored, the fuel gauge will become increasingly less accurate."

 

[Tinman]

I had big troubles with my battery and I found the SD card was corrupted (I likely did it myself). If you open the Gallery App or the Camera and they are unable to read the card, the processor will run the battery down. I mounted the Sd card through the phone and the USB cable and then saved everything on the card. After reformatting the card, I was able to reload files until I found the issue (in my case, some thumbnails of graphics coming in with my music folder).Since then everything is working well and I had 30% battery after a lot of one day use.

 

[sooper_droid12]

Amazing.

I was getting about 18 hours until I installed Home++ which might be sucking the life out of my battery. Considering uninstalling it and seeing what happens

That's interesting, because I'm noticing that too. It might be coincidence since I've also downloaded "Word Up!" (a game) that I'm addicted to and the screen is hoggin' all my battery life. I wonder if there's an app that allows me to turn the screen brightness down LOWER!

I think Home++ is battery intensive, but it shows only 2% of my battery use, compared to "display" which is the whopper. I've played the game a bunch today, I'm 5 hours out and still have about 60% battery.

 

[Redflea]

THIS sounds like a super battery.

My battery life is closer to the OP's battery life than yours. Last night I unplugged at 6 pm and when I got in my car to go to work at 6 am the battery had run out. I barely used it last night from 6 pm to 12 pm - it was just sitting there from midnight to 6 am. I've already replaced one Droid b/c of the battery so I'm thinking it might be my phone looking for a signal or whatever apps I am running that is causing the fast discharge.

Are you running any IM or Twitter apps in the background? This sounds almost unbelievable with regards to battery use

Why do you unplug your phone at night - you should leave it plugged in. It will not have any negative affect on the battery.

That said, the phone should be able to sit for 12 hours unused w/out using up the battery - you either have a bad battery, bad phone, or incredibly weak 3G signal so the phone is hunting from 1x to 3g constantly - that will kill a battery in any Verizon phone really quickly. Used to eat my Blackberry battery alive when we vacationed in a spot w/weak coverage, I'd never get through the day w/out my phone dying.

 

[gwlaw99]

I found that indoors I can reduce screen brightness to low levels or even zero. Once your eyes adjust to it, it looks perfectly fine and you barely notice it. Extends battery life a lot.

 

[CRPercodani]

I can easily say this is the best battery I've ever had in any smartphone I've owned, I've had a lot of them too, iPhone 3G, Nokia N97, 4 HTC's (Apache, Touch, TyTn 2, Touch Pro), Moto Q and a LG Voyager. The only ones that could compete was the N97, and maybe the iPhone 3G. I can use Google Navigation for 2 1/2 hours, 15 minutes of camera/video usage, heavy Gtalk texting, 2 episodes of 30 Rock (in 720), over a hour of web browsing, and like 8 calls. All of that leaves me with around 10-20% battery life coming from a full charge. I never conditioned the battery or any of that stuff because you DON't NEED to with lithium ion's, and I charge it whenever I am around my Media dock no matter what % it has left. If your getting bad battery life then you should definitely get a replacement or check out if any apps are sucking your battery. Also don't have your screen set to 100% brightness, I have found that 20-40% is plenty depending on what lighting conditions your in. Don't use auto brightness either.

 

[bruceo]

Prob the best thing about the droid id its imcredible power management. For the specs it has it gets incredible battery life. I get 8 hrs heavy use and 14-20+ hrs moderate use.

 

[Deleted User]

I'm basicaly burning through 10% an hour.

I've studied Spare Parts. I've conditioned my battery.

This is ridiculous.

Welcome to the world of smart phones.

Take it or leave it.

 

[colnago]

I'm basicaly burning through 10% an hour.

I've studied Spare Parts. I've conditioned my battery.

This is ridiculous.

I burned through 25% in an hour, with no background nor foreground processes running. I was in a area with little to no signal, and from full charge, dropped to 20% as phone rarely pulled 1 bar. This from a battery that could last 24hr of "my normal use". Battery is only good for 6hr continuous use.

If its not working for you, Seidio will be selling there extended batteries soon.

 

[NB2A]

Complain and Verizon will ship you a free battery. I am disappointed as well with battery life.I have cycled it for about 2 weeks and notice a difference now too after charging it enough.I found also by setting my email preferences to maximum and not checking so often battery life is improved.I also never keep GPS and WIFI on either.The display I have never reset. I find it now makes through an eight hour day at least.

If you have little to no signal put it in airplane mode otherwise your doomed for it to keep searching for a cell site!

Did I say complain?

Good luck

 

[Durkan]

If your battery is going down fast you have to change some settings around to make it last. a few things you should do is:

1. Screen brightness should be as low as you can have it without straining your eyeballs. Screen sucks up the most juice as with any smartphone.

2. Email frequency checking. I recommend changing this to every hour instead of 15 min. I have 4 accounts and they check on the hour. I mean who needs there email every 15 min? If your using multiple email clients, like the built in one, the gmail one, and a 3rd party like k9 mail, make sure you turn off the freq checking on the ones you dont use. There is no reason to even use the built in gmail app since the other ones are so much better.

3. Theres really no reason to have sync, wifi, bluetooth and especially GPS on unless your using it at the time. Since there is the power dock, u can turn this off really quickly.

4. Instant messaging apps are battery drainers. Especially meebo as i have noticed. Use them when u need to msg someone and close them out.

5. When you boot the phone, its just like windows, loves to load up every stupid thing in the background, so make sure after boot, you run a task killer to kill off all the random apps running at boot. yes i know the system ones will come back, but like weather apps weretogo etc will boot up for no stupid reason.

If you follow these steps there is no reason why your battery shouldnt last you all day with use. For those of you with this being your first smartphone might think this is rediculous, however all of us ex iphone users (myself included) understand these things and expect it. Hey look at it like this, least you can swap batteries. Cant do that on iphone which really sucked. I bought a second battery soon as i got the droid just so i can swap it out and not have to be tied down to a charger somewhere in the car or wherever i am. Hope this helps some people.

 

[mtbhk44]

Why do you unplug your phone at night - you should leave it plugged in. It will not have any negative affect on the battery.

That said, the phone should be able to sit for 12 hours unused w/out using up the battery - you either have a bad battery, bad phone, or incredibly weak 3G signal so the phone is hunting from 1x to 3g constantly - that will kill a battery in any Verizon phone really quickly. Used to eat my Blackberry battery alive when we vacationed in a spot w/weak coverage, I'd never get through the day w/out my phone dying.

I typically do not leave my phone unplugged at night. I forgot to hook it up to the charge when I got home last night.

I'm thinking it was Home++, Meebo and it was in a funky spot in the house going between 3g and 1g. Normally I am on WiFi at home so it's never hunting for a signal but I got in late and didnt think much of it.

Even in the best of conditions I don't get battery life like some do - but it's definitely serviceable for a smart phone.

 

[MisterEff]

I am just wondering, if I want to use Locale I have to keep GPS on at all times, right? So my battery will drain fairly quickly?

 

[sooper_droid12]

Prob the best thing about the droid id its imcredible power management. For the specs it has it gets incredible battery life. I get 8 hrs heavy use and 14-20+ hrs moderate use.

But... the rest of the phone sucks a duck right? Amazing you didn't use this opportunity to bash the DROID as an incredibly incapable phone like in the other threads you've posted.