Help Battery Life

[allbutlost]

I've been on a lot of forums in the past -- not this one, granted. I've done a little browsing but not much, so I'm not quite sure if I'm about to get yelled at for not using search function because I know this isn't news... I'll admit it though: I'm not (searching, that is). I've done enough google searches to make my head hurt, I just want to ask the question and get some willing details from people with two spare seconds.

I'm wordy and I type fast, a deadly combination on forums (wall of text), but never fear: TL;DR (Too Long; Didn't read) is at the end. Promise.

So...

I just ordered the Xperia X10a. Customer Retentions gave me a great deal on it (Great deal = entirely 100% free, I figure I really couldn't beat "free" ) and so I said "Yes, that sounds lovely" (not an exact transcript of my reaction). I now await its arrival in the mail.

So I've been pretty damn excited about it. But then I did the ONE thing I told myself not to do: go trolling on the internet for all the negatives. I knew there were going to be negatives, that's the nature of smartphones, there's always going to be something if not multiple somethings...

But I have to admit I was unprepared for the sheer amount of complaints over the battery life.

Now I'm depressed (not really, but you know what I mean). Did I just order myself a lemon? I mean don't get me wrong, you still can't beat a free phone I suppose, but is it a free mobile phone, or a free "I need to get to a wall outlet so I can charge this thing because it discharged after only an hour and a half" phone, which isn't exactly all that mobile (ok, well it's mobile, just not mobile + useful at the same time -- I admit I was sort of hoping for the latter. Pipe dreams, what can I say).


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TL;DR: Battery life. Looking for details. Give me your impressions. Tell me it isn't that bad... (or tell me that it is and make me cry, whatever works)


Thanks guys, sorry for the wall.
Cheers~

 

[rosered]

Hello and Welcome to our forum!

Yes the battery is bad out of the box, BUT it gets better fast! A week of charge discharge and you will be fine.

Make sure you are running the latest firmware, and although its tempting when you first get the phone... don't go completely app happy. Load them slowly and give them a day to bed in then you can see if there are any that are particularly battery killers (I had a battery widget that ate my battery, I also downloaded a theme which killed it too!)

I use my phone a lot and get a days use out of it no problem, I think most people do after the first few days.

I hope you enjoy your phone, I also had an amazing deal at retention and I think it kind of took some of the pressure off me when it came to the phones 'quirks' as I hadn't paid cold hard cash for it. I love mine and ask you to remember that the only people that come on to forums are the ones with problems... you don't get to see the 100's that are sitting at home having a great experience with their new 'baby'!

Look forward to seeing you around.

 

[huntleth]

Hey, have a look at the link below for my own personal thoughts on the X10's battery life For the record, since posting this, i drained the battery completely on low usage and it lasted for over 4 days, average usage I charge every other day, the battery is usually around 40% by that point.

http://androidforums.com/sony-erics...those-still-concerned-about-battery-life.html

 

[BarneyF]

Mine lasts about a week just on standby with no use.
I had it with me on a day out recently and used the sat nav several times, took about 10 photos and a short movie, wifi'd the net for about an hour, played games on it for about 2 hours on the train home as well as some photo editing and a far bit of messing with it through the day as well.
The end of the day was on 45%, i left home with it on 90%....damn good in my books.
Battery life is good, don't sweat.

Tips...
Some apps will drain your battery fast especially battery monitoring apps, dont use them.
Leaving on unwanted features like satnav & wifi will drain it very fast too.
Turn them off when not in use.

Get a little app called Task Killer and use that to kill all open tasks before putting it to sleep.

I was a bit doubtful about getting an android phone and also my choice, the Sony X10i... It exceeded my expectations by a long long way.

You are getting a very well made piece of equipment, enjoy it.

 

[charlyee]

I have the x10a, the battery life is not any worse than any other smartphone. For me it easily lasts one full day. As mentioned be careful of the apps you load.

If you are coming from a BB, it will be a shock as it was to me but nothing beats the battery life of a BB. The BB ofcourse does much less.

Enjoy the x10, I really like mine.

 

[CuBz]

Whoever said it dies after an hour, must have been doing something constant that drains the battery.

I got my X10 only 2 weeks ago, and the battery life lasts me all day, and I use my phone ALOT! I have AGPS, WIFI, and Bluetooth all turned on at all times, and I browse and download alot, and the battery lasts a long time

The battery was draining very quickly at the beginning, but my trick was to let it drain until it goes off and will not turn on, then charge it to 100% and then repeat, 3 or 4 times That's what got my battery going good, and the more you do it, the better it gets

I also searched for the negatives just after purchasing it, and was very disappointed in what I seen. But I must say I DO NOT regret getting the Xperia X10, it is by far the greatest phone I have ever used!

 

[allbutlost]

Thanks guys, I really appreciate the feedback.

I especially agree rosered about hearing more bad than good on the internet (this is one reason I wanted to actually ask the question rather than search for the question -- asking tends to get you a better range of answers; searching gets you the complaints). People almost always go out of their way to complain but will not do the same if they are in love with something. In fact, just to make myself feel better, I decided to look into battery life for the iPhone and the Galaxy and came back with probably just as many unhappy ratings. It made me pause and consider this may just be a moderate reality of a smart phone.

I'm lucky in that when I'm at work I have plenty of opportunity to charge the phone, though I was hoping it would at least last me a 12-hour day I get up at 6am and I'm home by 5 or 6 pm) without doing that. If I had to charge it mid-day it wouldn't be the end of the world. I also have a netbook that I can sacrifice battery power to charge something else, I often do this with my mp3 player.

I've read every "tips" list out there for dealing with battery life so I'm pretty prepared. My plan is to run the battery down and switch out the sim card to my old non-smartphone so I can let it charge back up again for a good LONG time without touching it, then switch it back and run it down to empty again; rinse and repeat for maybe a week or something. Normally I'm not patient but what I want to do is eliminate the obvious right up front.

I've gone through all of the "Change these settings, disable these apps, this this and this" sort of lists and I've got all those bookmarked. I feel somewhat prepared for trying to get the best out of it

My ultimate goal is just to see it last the workday while still being able to DO something with it. While I was exaggerating about the 1-hour thing just to make a point, I do see people saying they can't get any more than 4 hours out of it even with low to moderate use. That gave me pause.

I used to have an iPod touch. I used to watch videos with it on the train on the way home from work and one motivation for me to get a smartphone AND a damn good data plan was to have this functionality back (it's just a 30 minute train ride or so), so when people were saying how much basic functions drained the phone, I started to worry not so much about having got the phone (which was free) but "Why on earth did I even bother locking into a data plan?"

I also have a Sony Ericsson walkman-phone as my backup/non-smart-phone and I'm so used to using that for music at work just so I don't miss any calls. One reason for locking into the X10 was that on the Rogers website (urgh) it gave me a potential rating for music playback of 12 hours I believe.. this seemed respectable to me (I always cut battery life down by 1/4th, I work with computers so this has always been accurate for laptops and such anyway, so I was thinking 9 hours -- but when people said they weren't getting more than 2 or 3 hours of music playback out of it, that was disappointing).

But I guess we'll see. It's hard to judge something you haven't yet seen. I'm psyching myself out (my husband's words) and that's totally accurate.

One step at a time I suppose

 

[allbutlost]

I just checked my tracking number which I only received yesterday. This morning it reads "ORIGIN SCAN: 8:44pm [last night]" and then "DESTINATION SCAN: 8:45pm [Richmond, BC]"

hahaha really? It shipped out of the same place it was headed for? Lovely. It only has to make it up to Vancouver, so I may get it today at this rate (though with my luck? It'll be Monday )

 

[allbutlost]

Hey, have a look at the link below for my own personal thoughts on the X10's battery life For the record, since posting this, i drained the battery completely on low usage and it lasted for over 4 days, average usage I charge every other day, the battery is usually around 40% by that point.

http://androidforums.com/sony-erics...those-still-concerned-about-battery-life.html

I appreciate the link, thanks.

I took a look and I have a question.

I've successfully rooted my husband's LG Eve (GW620R), the process had its ups and downs but I won out in the end I've ripped out the carrier apps via the root and such, the entire process was not -that- hard -- however I haven't updated it with Etna, which is admittedly the harder riskier process.

Anyway, I'm curious if there are there as many challenges to debranding the X10 as there are to upgrading the bloody LG GW620R. This is a tough question considering obviously if people have an X10 why would they know anything about the LG GW620R but I figure it couldn't hurt to ask.. I find people who know their stuff tend to often have a wide range of knowledge.

I have no issues trying to debrand or root the X10 after maybe a month or so (I really want to make sure it WORKS first because honestly I'd have no idea how to revert the phone to factory if I had to send it back) but I worry about things like bricking the damn thing and how common that occurrence really is.

I'm also hoping I could complete the process on a netbook, as my netbook is 32-bit. Both of my desktops (Vista and 7 respectively) are 64-bit and I'd like to avoid that if it will help avoid issues.

I'm lucky in that I'm not entirely technology-dumb and I'm quite quick to pick things up, but all the side-stuff (voiding the warranty) with smartphones is still new to me, so it makes me nervous.

 

[darthlinux]

My battery last a few days but I normally charge my phone at work as it sits on my desk, Task Killer are good and free, I have noticed if you want aren't using your internet then turn the 3G off, it will save you loads of battery.

 

[allbutlost]

My battery last a few days but I normally charge my phone at work as it sits on my desk, Task Killer are good and free, I have noticed if you want aren't using your internet then turn the 3G off, it will save you loads of battery.

I've read about turning 3g off and that makes sense. I was sort of hoping to have email and facebook access via the phone (I don't need it to push every 15 or anything, actually I don't need it to push at all, just being able to manually use it now and again is perfect) on an ongoing basis so this option sort of makes me scrunch up my nose, but we'll see what happens.

Is it very difficult to switch it from 2g to 3g and back again?

I definitely intend to make sure the Wifi at least is off unless I'm at home (though I do have a data package so even then I don't REALLY need it). I noticed that my husband's phone (a different phone, the LG Eve as mentioned above) automatically turned Wifi ON which surprised me, as I know that is a terrible battery killer to have it on. Wifi tends to constantly poll for networks in the background of almost any device if left to do its own thing. Battery killer.

 

[allbutlost]

My phone's here ^^

I'm at work though so I can't really do much with it. I could take it out and plug it in I suppose... can I charge it without putting in a sim card? I don't want to have a phone I can't use due to no battery life while I'm at work, but I'd like to charge it at the same time.

 

[charlyee]

Congratulations, hope you like it.

Sure you can charge it without the SIM

 

[allbutlost]

So far I can't even get into the phone.. it wants a sim network unlock pin, and none of the numbers any representative has given me have worked. Now I'm on a very long hold with Smartphone Tech

 

[CuBz]

So far I can't even get into the phone.. it wants a sim network unlock pin, and none of the numbers any representative has given me have worked. Now I'm on a very long hold with Smartphone Tech

Doesn't this only pop up when You have inserted a different sim card than the network that it is unlocked to

 

[allbutlost]

I finally got in touch with tech support. Apparently my old sim card was too old to be recognized by the X10 -- apparently this error ONLY happens with the X10. Luckily Rogers was smart and they sent a second sim card with the device, and he activated my new sim card and I got in.

First thing I experienced was the laggy slider, hahaha.. but I was prepared for it after reading so much about it so no big deal

It is now charging. I've made a couple calls and it is working. I'll deal with settings and apps later as I should be doing some actual work I suppose now that it is nearly noon, hahaha.

 

[rosered]

Ahhh its arrived then?! Well after you get your work done I hope you enjoy playing with it. And btw a tel-co being sensible and having a bit of forethought... who'd a thunk!

 

[allbutlost]

*squee*

[/13-year-old-girl]

Sorry, I was just texting with my husband and I haven't been able to ACTIVELY text with him because I had a T9 and I loathe T9. It's nice to just be able to fly on the on-screen keyboard.

First impressions from a non-whiner's point of view (I whine, but honestly I give a lot of leeway to technology and I'm not going to sit here saying "OMG THIS THING IS SHIT!" even if it turns out to be bad):

1) The laggy slider. Is it laggy? Yeah, ok. Is it really "all that bad"? No. Not at all. I wish people hadn't made such a big deal of it all over the internet and psyched me out over it. It's not that bad.

2) Default keyboard: So after a short (for me.. lengthy for regular people as you already know, I'm wordy) text conversation, I've really had no issues with the default keyboard. I like it. It's responsive, it hasn't not registered my inputs, and really I'm not sure what's supposed to be wrong with it?

3) Calling: I'm somewhat concerned because when I heard it ringing when I made an outbound, I could barely hear the ring.. so I turned it way up. When I got my husband on the phone, I was hearing him OK, but I was in a pretty quiet room. I hope it'll be loud enough out on the street -- no better place to test than then Downtown Vancouver though.

4) Initial potential annoyance: Why do the silver keys activate the screen? Seems like a potentially poor design / battery-life-killer.

Right now it is happily charging away off of a wall plug so I'm going to let it sit.

 

[rosered]

*squee*

1) The laggy slider.
2) Default keyboard:
3) Calling:
4) Initial potential annoyance: Why do the silver keys activate the screen?

I don't have a massive problem with the slider, it's not the best but it aint bad either!

Default keyboard, in UK we have the Standard SE one and the Android. I don't think the standard one is bad, I was also expecting terrible things from it too. I happen to prefer the HTC_IME one from XDA developers cos it has T9 and I can use that one thumbed, but hey we are all different!

Calling, don't know if you have read about the sweet spot!? And yes we are still talking about the phone The speaker is very directional and you need to find the right spot on your ear so move it around a bit and experiment.

The only key that activates my screen is the centre home one on mine and I carry it in a leather case whilst its in my black hole of a handbag so nothing can press my buttons or scratch my babies face!

Let us know how you get on with it!

 

[charlyee]

1) The laggy slider.
2) Default keyboard:
3) Calling:
4) Initial potential annoyance: Why do the silver keys activate the screen? Seems like a potentially poor design / battery-life-killer.

1. I don't find the slider laggy unless it is really humid.
2. I didn't have too much of a problem but now with the HTC keyboard I can type almost as fast as I could on my devices with physical keys.
3. It really does have a sweet spot.
4. Only the Home key activates the screen on mine as well.

 

[allbutlost]

I've done a lot of moving-the-phone-around and while I get "OK" volume on calls, it really is max-volume which just seems disturbing that I have to crank it to get moderate volume levels.

It's not a huge deal I guess but it's just strange.

I do notice only the home key opens the screen, but it keeps getting bumped in my pocket, every now and again I notice a ridiculous glow coming from my clothes and that's with or without it's leather case.

 

[powerkiter]

Is that all?

I had mine swipe the lock and add apps to the home page, move them around and even send texts!

Clever dick if you ask me

 

[allbutlost]

Whoa! haha

 

[allbutlost]

Well, got the phone at 10am, it had partial charge.. took it off around 2.. done some calling, texting.. couple hours of internet, some idle time. I am even on it right now.

Battery is at about one third left at 9pm or so? (Edit: I lied. I just figured out how to check the real battery life [I was going on how much LOOKED gone], and it is reading 45%] Running only juice defender (edit: and with a fresh battery).

I can live with that. Hope it wasnt just a lucky break! I know some people would think this battery life was horrible. But you know, I can totally live with this, especially if it gets a little better with a few charges.

Edit: Phone was standing by from 10pm to 6am. 45% when I went to bed... 38% when I woke up. Not bad, but that sure does make it hard to run the thing into the ground

 

[allbutlost]

Double post, sorry