Battery Tweaks For HTC EVO 4G

[EVU]

unlocked per OP request...let's not clutter up the thread or OT posts could be subject to deletion...

Sorry - why isn't this great post not a sticky?

 

[JohnJSal]

Menu - Settings - Location - "Uncheck USE GPS satellites box"

So far I haven't noticed any extra drain with GPS always on, so if you use it a lot you may want to try leaving it on and seeing how the battery does. It doesn't seem to be actively used until you open an app that uses it.

(Having Wi-Fi on when I'm out of range of my Wi-Fi also doesn't seem to do too much to the battery, at least not for short periods of time.)

 

[marcb753]

HUGE THANKS this thread is great. i followed all the steps, charged the battery to 100% and went to sleep. when woke up 7 hours later it was still at 100% its been over 13 hours since my last charge and ive had some medium usage (e-mail, youtube, angry birds) and the batt is still at 58%. really need this to be sticky for new users like me!

 

[alsaims123]

Thanks for the tips very helpful and my Evo is so much faster thanks again!!!!

 

[fortisi876]

Thanks for the tips, I just implemented them and will report if it helps.

Anyone know how long these batteries last?

I usually bounce back n forth between the OEM and Seido 1750 but man, I just noticed an enormous battery drop (19%) this morning, from 100% to 81% with ZERO use after approximately 3hrs. I don't know if the battery is on it's way out or if I got a lot of garbage running in the b/g!?!?!

Also, maybe it should be noted that the mail settings need to be changed in EACH account?
And that it's normal that you wont even have access to mail after turning off the 3G w/out turning it or wifi back on? Or was that just something that affected me in my area?

 

[JohnJSal]

Thanks for the tips, I just implemented them and will report if it helps.

Anyone know how long these batteries last?

I usually bounce back n forth between the OEM and Seido 1750 but man, I just noticed an enormous battery drop (19%) this morning, from 100% to 81% with ZERO use after approximately 3hrs. I don't know if the battery is on it's way out or if I got a lot of garbage running in the b/g!?!?!

With about 2 hours of usage, I've gotten 24+ hours out of mine several times. However, on any given day it may also do what you described, dropping quickly in the morning.

Since I can normally get good battery life, I'm inclined to believe that these "bad" days are the result of some app or process draining the battery. I just don't know what causes it to happen, because it seems to happen without me doing anything special (like installing something new, leaving something open, etc.)

You might try as someone else suggested and get an app like Spare Parts and use it to see what's draining the battery on those bad days.

 

[fortisi876]

TY for the app recommendation!

I was wondering if one existed cuz the OEM vers don't really tell you much.

 

[Viper43]

SLICK1020,
Great stuff! I was a little disappointed with the battery life of the EVO. I just defected from the "should I say it" iPhone 4 which had killer battery life but was locked down and as I learn more about the EVO I found that I have soooooo much more choices within the phones systems and apps that are active. While these "choices" are great, it is up to me to decide what I want running and what the battery trade off would be. Kudos for the info!!

 

[lordofthereef]

So I read through these tips, and I must say that they disappointed me. For the most part it is common sense. The biggest issue I had with these "tips" is the recommendation to turn things off. If I follow everything on this list I will probably have my battery last a week, but I will also have an OS work and feel like the iphone (no widgets, no data updated on the fly, etc.) I will have to seek all the info. I need rather than have it at a glace. Honestly, if all I need to do is make phone calls and check the time, I can get that with a much cheaper "dumb" phone which has a battery that will last an incredibly long time without a charge.

If I may make a slightly better suggesiong (well I consider it better):
Look into the app "Green Power". It basically allows you to kill/set data transfers at various times. The free version lets you set it for the daytime only, while the paid (costs 97 cents) version lets you set a night mode as well. You can do things like set the 3G data radio on once every 10 minutes (this is a changeable setting) and stay on for 1 minute (also changeable). You tell it how much or how little to control. If you look in your battery management, you will see that the data radio is what drains most of your power throughout the day. For me, the free app is sufficient since I always have the phone plugged in overnight, but I decided to pay for it since I liked it so much and thought it was a truly great app.

Some things to note is that apps like gmail will only update in the intervals that you allow the radio to be on. It is also worth noting that when you wake up the phone, all of these radios are automatically allowed back on, so you don;t need to worry that your info will be out of date or that you won't be able to quickly browse the web.

EDIT: I also thought I would add that the live wallpapers are only going to drain more power while the phone is awake. Once the screen is locked again the animation becomes suspended.

 

[Frisco]

Good stuff in that OP.

But, I'm of the "why turn off all the good features of a device for a few more hours of battery life" mind.

About all I do is use static wallpaper instead of the default live ones, and do all my syncing and updating (gmail, weather, etc) manually on demand, rather than having that stuff configured to autosync, etc.

 

[Droidn00b]

I wanted to post my thanks for these tips. Clicking the Thanks button didn't seem like enough. I couldn't understand why my battery would drain 10% right off the bat when I was simply playing Droid Words with my screen set to timeout at 2 minutes. I'm not interested in the stocks, auto-syncing, and news, etc. so I've used your settings recommendations. I've removed the weather widget and a couple of other things from my home screen. I'm hoping to see a major change in battery drainage now. Thanks a million!

 

[racefan88]

if you turn all these items listed why do you need the phone?

 

[chicano]

Invest in a 3500 mAh battery and you can leave everything on and not worry about power consumption.

 

[EarlyMon]

if you turn all these items listed why do you need the phone?

Welcome to the forums!

It all sounds draconian - in practice it isn't.

If you hang in a fringe area, turn off always on mobile data, your phone will go back and forth and forth and back trying to figure out what to do, eating battery. Otherwise, you won't notice it.

If you have constant wifi access whenever, wherever you want data services, favor your wifi radio, and turn off 3G if you notice a power difference.

4G radio control had some bugs - the newest update should really alleviate all of those.

And your phone + sms stuff will all work regardless of those settings.

For data services - turn off what you're not likely to use - services constantly babbling on the web behind your back - for an app that you might check once a day - can be updated by their refresh buttons when you use them, rather than waste a lot of juice doing constant input/output that you're not concerned about.

It's not the phone that's the problem - per se.

It's that Sense is more than a UI, it's a unifying concept to bring all of your net-based social interactions into a unified framework.

Boooookay.

Problem is that each social networking or messaging app thinks it's the center of the universe and should engulf and devour all you do.

Add that behavior in with a phone with a lot of easy-to-configure-wrong radios, and there's the issue.

So yeah - Sense and those apps are all on the Evo, so from a certain point of view - it's the phone - but just as you wouldn't try to run everything at once on your laptop while on battery, from that point of view, it's not the phone.

Anyway, hope that makes sense (no pun).

 

[BHalbrooks]

I know this is an old Topic, but it's so worth it. I did this, and get a half battery after 15 hours. Literally doubled my battery life.

 

[nextohel]

Congratulations. You have now turned off every reason why you bought the phone in the first place.

 

[Tempusfugit]

Congratulations. You have now turned off every reason why you bought the phone in the first place.

Not really. I've been doing most of the things mentioned in this thread, not everything. I'm rooted, and have wifi, 3g, bluetooth, and gps toggles in the pull down notification bar. I just leave everything off, and it literally takes 2 seconds when I need it. I update my weather once a day, or if I really need to know exactly what temp it is in my area, it takes 3 clicks. I get email from all my accounts with 3 clicks anytime I need it.

No, my phone does every thing I bought it for, and much more. But now I use my phone as much as I want, and have 40% battery after a 17 hour day.

 

[JohnJSal]

Congratulations. You have now turned off every reason why you bought the phone in the first place.

I'm not sure what you're referring to, but if you mean the general tips on what to turn off to conserve battery life, then you can't make such a general statement as that. Not everyone buys their phone for weather, or stocks, or instant messaging. Knowing that these things may be on by default and that turning them off helps save the battery are great tips.

The only significant thing that you might turn off is mobile data, which of course disables everything except phone calls and texts. But even then, sometimes this may be all you need to do during the day, so it helps to know that turning 3G off is an option. I honestly didn't realize that 3G only affected data and that I could continue to make calls and send/receive texts without, until I read this thread. And if I happen to go into an area with little or no 3G, there's definitely no reason to leave it on.

 

[drexappeal]

Wow, I didn't realize how much of a difference taking the phone off "auto brightness" would make. Just with regular use alone, I gained 20% battery for an entire day.

 

[Slick1020]

Didn't know my thread has helped so many people. How about making it a sticky in the HTC EVO 4G main room EarlyMon, so people don't have to search for this thing.

 

[EarlyMon]

Hi Slick1020 - first - hope you're well!! Are you back?

This thread has helped many more than you may know - I've sent Evo Shift and Desire HD users here - probably others. And people are buying new Evos everyday.

Site Admin (read: my boss) has asked that instead of stickies in the bigger forums, everything ought conform to each forum having a reference sticky with all of the important threads listed there.

This thread holds that place of honor in - http://androidforums.com/evo-4g-tip...icks-guide-updated-8-53pst-sept-9-2010-a.html

 

[flyfish1]

I've been lurking/reading for a while, but have something I can finally share that I have seen re: battery optimization.

I have seen a marked improvement in battery life by going into the Qik app, and going to Menu>Settings and change the "Sync Video Chat" to only sync when the app is opened, instead of every 15min. like it's set to from the factory...anyone else try this?

I've been reading through this thread and came across this tip quoted above. I tried it, and it has made a world of difference to me. Some of you may want to give this a try.

 

[MDtoka]

I've been reading through this thread and came across this tip quoted above. I tried it, and it has made a world of difference to me. Some of you may want to give this a try.

does it to that even if you have never signed in to qik?

edit: nvm remembered I just rooted and froze qik so it shouldn't run/update anyway

 

[RAFdude]

The Tweaks work well

 

[chill145]

just wanted to say thanks a lot for the post. have had the evo for a while and finally starting to get into the different roms out there after rooting in nov, have stuck with the same rom for fear of setting everything back up again (much easier than i thought it was going be) and tweaking the phone so naturally battery is always an issue

have the extended battery and love it, actually thinking of buying another one instead of going back to the stock battery after the extended goes down. but i digress just wanted to say thank you, knew most of this (through other member contributions) but still helpful nonetheless

more posters should think like this especially if they are more knowledgeable about the topic. love guides like this and is a great service to those who might not know as much.