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How To Get The Most Out Of Your Battery

widehead

Android Enthusiast
Aug 19, 2010
387
39
There are numerous threads about the battery life of the Desire and almost all are filled with anecdotes, arguments and claims of insanely poor or insanely good battery life.

Here are some tips on how, as a new user, one can maximize the life of a single charge on HTC Desire.

1) Make sure the battery is charged to 100%. This may seem obvious (the LED is green so it must be fully charged, right?) but new users may be unaware of the way the battery charges. You can check charge exactly by "dialing" *#*#4636#*#* to open the Testing menu. From here hit Battery information and it'll give you a precise measurement of the charge (the graphic icon in the status bar tends to round up the measurement giving a slightly skewed indication of the charge. It may for example register 100% but the Battery information reveals the charge to be only 93%.

2) Switch off Background data and Always on mobile data if you don't need them. Background data is found in Settings>Accounts & sync. Always on mobile data is found in Settings>Wireless & networks> Mobile networks.

3)Put wifi and bluetooth widgets on your homescreen. Both are found in the Add widget>Settings (drop down menu). You can switch these on and off at the touch of a button giving you precise, manual control over these battery draining features

4)Do not use widgets that require regular synchronization. It's struck me as quite bizarre as to why anyone would need a widget to tell them the weather (I mean, what on earth did they do before - call the met office every 15 minutes?) but hey, if that's what you want it's going to drain the battery.

5)DO NOT INSTALL A TASK KILLER if you are new to Android, trust me on this - they are utterly pointless with 2.1 and 2.2. They drain your battery and slow Android down. This is not subjective opinion. It's fact.

6)Do not let your battery fully drain to zero charge. Li ion batteries do not "like" being fully drained. They "like" to be topped up. This may be news to older phone users but hey, technology changes.


I should say thanks to the many users who have mentioned these things many times in many threads (danfrance, lekky, riki1kenobi to name but three) and I'm not trying to take credit for any of the tips.:D
 
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2) Switch off Background data and Always on mobile data
4)Do not use widgets that require regular synchronization.
Whoa, if I did that I'd be using something like an iPhone again...so nope, can't agree there. I like having a smartphone that updates for me when I'm not using the phone. And I like having widgets that update and show me what I want when I pickup the phone.
:D
 
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Whoa, if I did that I'd be using something like an iPhone again...so nope, can't agree there. I like having a smartphone that updates for me when I'm not using the phone. And I like having widgets that update and show me what I want when I pickup the phone.
:D

Cool. That's why I said if you don't need them. Some people don't. Like me.:D
 
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I think that unchecking it prevents 3G data transfer from occurring without specific instruction from the user. Could be wrong but it certainly seems to have had an effect on my standby time. This and using GSM only.
Turning off Mobile always-on disconntects from the APN, if your carrier has GSM it'll switch to GSM. In my case with Telus, there's no GSM network so I only have HSPA and I can't access data if I turn this off, I use APNdroid to turn APN off when 3G watchdog detects quota cap. Also selecting GSM or WCDMA only saves battery rather than auto, auto makes the radio search for the best radio signal and with Telus I set it to WCDMA only.
 
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Turning off Mobile always-on disconntects from the APN, if your carrier has GSM it'll switch to GSM. In my case with Telus, there's no GSM network so I only have HSPA and I can't access data if I turn this off, I use APNdroid to turn APN off when 3G watchdog detects quota cap. Also selecting GSM or WCDMA only saves battery rather than auto, auto makes the radio search for the best radio signal and with Telus I set it to WCDMA only.

Totally didn't know that. thanks for the tip!

ps. I'm with Telus as well. :D
 
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While the effort you went into is appreciated im sure, this topic has been covered a million times over.

The ultimate advice to solve battery life issues if your REALLY struggling and are willing to try everything is to root and install a custom ROM without sense.

I was averaging 16 hours on stock rom and also Neophytes custom sense rom. I decided to try a vanilla android and went with AdamG's open desire. I now get, with the exact same usage (which is pretty heavy), 36 hours easily.
 
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1) Make sure the battery is charged to 100%. This may seem obvious (the LED is green so it must be fully charged, right?) but new users may be unaware of the way the battery charges. You can check charge exactly by "dialing" *#*#4636#*#* to open the Testing menu. From here hit Battery information and it'll give you a precise measurement of the charge (the graphic icon in the status bar tends to round up the measurement giving a slightly skewed indication of the charge. It may for example register 100% but the Battery information reveals the charge to be only 93%.

Thanks for this. I just checked my phone when i thought it was done(had a green light) and it was only at 90%.
 
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1) Make sure the battery is charged to 100%. This may seem obvious (the LED is green so it must be fully charged, right?) but new users may be unaware of the way the battery charges. You can check charge exactly by "dialing" *#*#4636#*#* to open the Testing menu. From here hit Battery information and it'll give you a precise measurement of the charge (the graphic icon in the status bar tends to round up the measurement giving a slightly skewed indication of the charge. It may for example register 100% but the Battery information reveals the charge to be only 93%.

..........or download the spare parts app and that will bring up the same test menus without having to remember the above code. I also have the batterytime app, and you can put a battery% widget on the task bar. It is very accurate too (easy to check the % its giving you against the test menu reading, for me its always the same), I must be one of the lucky ones, cause my led never goes green when charging until it hits 100%

2) Switch off Background data and Always on mobile data if you don't need them. Background data is found in Settings>Accounts & sync. Always on mobile data is found in Settings>Wireless & networks> Mobile networks.

3)Put wifi and bluetooth widgets on your homescreen. Both are found in the Add widget>Settings (drop down menu). You can switch these on and off at the touch of a button giving you precise, manual control over these battery draining features

Put a mobile network widget on your homescreen too, to switch it on/off when needed, saves you having to go into the Settings>Wireless & networks> Mobile networks menus everytime. I use the curvefish wifi/bluetooth/mobile data widgets
 
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I couldn't tell the difference between 'Always On' enabled or disabled in terms of battery performance.

I suspect that's because I generally have a good 3G signal. With Always-On enabled, the phone will probably try and aquire a 3G signal even when there's no apps requesting network access, so maybe there's a chance that battery drains faster if the phone is trying to aquire a signal where the signal is limited or not available.
 
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Yup, press Menu, Settings, About phone, Battery, Battery use. You can add a shortcut to that setting on your desktop as well through Add, Shortcuts, Settings, Battery use and you get a little battery icon on your screen to take you right there.

Thanks for the reply but they just shows me how much the phone is using when on standy or idle. One of my apps is draining my battery and I was hoping to find out a way of discoreing which one it was...
 
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