Help Battery life testing....SGS2

[Scainer]

I've had the phone since Tuesday and am wondering what other users are experiencing with the battery life and heavy usage?

I have friends with the SGS and they told me that the battery is good after a week or so. I've read that the battery requires 3 full charge / discharge cycles to get the best out of it.


With light use the battery seems fine, but playing any game seems to make the cpu rather hot and the battery quickly drained.


Other niggles . . .
I had a folder in the Apps that I put the games in. Once the phone is switched off the contents of the folder changes. Fortunately if you copy the folder onto the home screen then the contents remain, just not if in Apps.

Possible signs of sluggishness after a few hours of gaming thus the CPU/GPU is hot.

Some games (infrequently) have seemed to crash to home screen, yet run fine afterwards.

Recharge rate is slow (was used to the iPhone).




To answer the original question with specifics
e.g.
If using Navigation how long would the battery last?
What would the discharge rate be as a percentage per hour?

or

Before gaming Battery = ##%
Gaming duration = ###minutes
After gaming Battery = ##%

I'll run my own tests and update in due time.

 

[Scainer]

Power saving mode on at 70% all options selected with screen at 10% brightness



Battery 63%
played angry birds for 30 minutes (-17%)
Battery 46%
played angry birds for 30 minutes (-15%)
Battery 31%
played angry birds for 30 minutes (-11%)
Battery 20%
played angry birds for 30 minutes (-11%)
Battery 9%

 

[Lol mahmood]

Battery at 99%
Used GPS Navigation for 30 mins
Battery went down to 85%

 

[fluke2k]

I've had the phone since Tuesday and am wondering what other users are experiencing with the battery life and heavy usage?

I have friends with the SGS and they told me that the battery is good after a week or so. I've read that the battery requires 3 full charge / discharge cycles to get the best out of it.


With light use the battery seems fine, but playing any game seems to make the cpu rather hot and the battery quickly drained.


Other niggles . . .
I had a folder in the Apps that I put the games in. Once the phone is switched off the contents of the folder changes. Fortunately if you copy the folder onto the home screen then the contents remain, just not if in Apps.

Possible signs of sluggishness after a few hours of gaming thus the CPU/GPU is hot.

Some games (infrequently) have seemed to crash to home screen, yet run fine afterwards.

Recharge rate is slow (was used to the iPhone).




To answer the original question with specifics
e.g.
If using Navigation how long would the battery last?
What would the discharge rate be as a percentage per hour?

or

Before gaming Battery = ##%
Gaming duration = ###minutes
After gaming Battery = ##%

I'll run my own tests and update in due time.

I interperate your post that your device gets sluggish and hot even when you don't expect it to be, right? This is a clear indication that you have a process running in the background that is creating CPU cycles, and a lot of it at that..
Probably something hanged or is running in a loop without you noticing.
That's why it's sluggish because it's running near 100% on another process, and the OS charges an interrupt when you are trying to do something else (as touching the display) so it delegates the needed cycles for your actions, but it has a job in the backround too (your phantom process) to handle. That's multitasking for you

Have you tried a task manager that let's you see the processes instead of just the apps that are running?
Because apps could have more than one thread (process)

The only thing I find strange is that this is a dual core phone and Gingerbread supposedly don't support true handling of more than one core... Therefore, even with one process going in loop, you should have one core free for other tasks..

But anyways.. it's a classic symptom of a thread/process hanging that makes the CPU work 100% (at least one core) all the time.

I can't remember that app now, but there is an app that will give you controll of the processes running (and not just the apps) and give you controll to shut it down... I'm quite sure that will require root access though, so you have to root it first..

As for charging goes, the more time it takes to charge (less ampere going into the battery) the longer it will last before you have to charge again. And maybe more important, your battery will last longer as well;-) (as in before you have to replace it)
I don't have this device yet (I live in norway, it's not out yet) but I think Sammy's using a charger that is giving out less ampere that other manufactures. That's why it takes longer to charge, but it will hold the juice longer that a fast charge...

Good luck to you, and keep us posted!

 

[Scainer]

You can view the processes from...
Settings-->Applications-->Running applications (running tab)

The "Possible signs" of sluggishness I mentioned is probably because i'm looking for it. The CPU/GPU becomes hot during prolonged gaming and it was while hot and in game that it may have done something that I may have noticed.
It is nothing to worry about at the moment and just a niggle of a worry if overheating is a future issue.



TBH i'm more concerned about the battery life, if say i was away for the weekend.
Reviews state the battery life is quite good "on par with other phones", but this doesn't tell me the actual figures I want to know.

Things like this....

If i was doing a 4 hour drive will the navigation hold up for me?
If the kids played on it for the 4 hour drive would i still be making calls later?
During a flight, how long will my entertainment last?

 

[MagicMarker]

Well I just tried a new app, autoguard (video recording my journey) approx 45mins.. had about 2-3 hours on-off play at work, and used google satnav coming home 45mins. The battery was totally dead by then.

 

[Gearu]

Where can I see what % of battery life remains?, I think I found it once in the menu but no luck since.

edit-Well, here I am, trying to empty the battery and cause auto-turnoff so I can charge it (I prefer to do that versus charge on partial charge). There was a truly tiny bit of green left so I started playing a 15 min video, 3 and a half minutes in I get the critical (comes after low) battery message, since then I've finished the video, watched Beat It by michael jackson mp4, downloaded and installed amaze GPS, played around in the menus and with homescreen widgets & checked share prices, played with compass app, turned the screen on max brightness, tried to set up email widget, browsed the web a bit and added some bookmarks (some to the home screen, the thing will not die! Haven't received another popup since the critical one.
The extra core must be helping a lot.

edit 2-
Went to the dial and kept pressing things, phone has died now after roughly 40 presses lol, I have max touch tone volume too cause I love the dial press tones.

 

[MagicMarker]

I have a widget for the % battery life.

Also the first time I made it totally die the battery lasted ages...

 

[Gearu]

Found the default %, it's in settings>about phone>status.

 

[reg4veg]

had mine for about Six Month i would say only get day and half outta phone,gps use,it drains quite quickly,games etc the same,arnt all the anroid phones the same ? can you download the later mk 2 s software on to my phone? or someone said you can have phone Flashed?? can any one advise Please............

 

[Scainer]

I was at 63% and turned everything on
(power saving may have come on at 50%)

I played a movie 3 times in succession (about 4 hours 30 minutes)
Battery was then at 2%
I'm now thinking I'll have to let it die to try to reset the battery to ensure the full capacity is used.


tbh my paranoid view of battery life is due to the 20% iPhone warning of immediate death. lol

 

[bayhota]

Looking at my battery usage and its 56% for display how can i reduce this????

 

[Gearu]

3rd time charging, took 2 hrs and 40 mins, 1 hour quicker than 2nd charge.

 

[Scainer]

Ok how is this for light use....

Strangely you can even see that it somehow recharged itself.

 

[Spaceboy60]

I get about 9-10 hours out of it. That's with the music player running the whole time which uses about 10% of the battery according to the battery usage thingy

 

[d0gma64]

Had mine for a couple of weeks now and am very pleased with the phone in general.

However.......my only niggle is the battery life, as its fairly easy to flatten the battery in about 3 hours

I've also tried using the gps navigation whilst driving with the phone plugged into the charger. This slowed the drain down but it would not charge the phone (even though the charge icon is on), and the battery level continued to fall.

I have one of those adaptors that you plug into the car cigarette lighter and has a mains plug on, so I used this with the mains charger and it made no difference, the battery level still falls

I've tried turning everything down or off and still I can't get the phone to charge in the car with the GPS running, which is a real pain in the proverbial tbh.

Overall, I love the phone but the way it eats batteries is a bit disappointing, and the inability to charge whilst navigating is a real bummer.

Unless of course you know different and maybe my battery is not too good. I would settle for the in car charger just holding the charge at the level it gets plugged in at.

 

[tauran121]

Had mine for a couple of weeks now and am very pleased with the phone in general.

However.......my only niggle is the battery life, as its fairly easy to flatten the battery in about 3 hours

I've also tried using the gps navigation whilst driving with the phone plugged into the charger. This slowed the drain down but it would not charge the phone (even though the charge icon is on), and the battery level continued to fall.

I have one of those adaptors that you plug into the car cigarette lighter and has a mains plug on, so I used this with the mains charger and it made no difference, the battery level still falls

I've tried turning everything down or off and still I can't get the phone to charge in the car with the GPS running, which is a real pain in the proverbial tbh.

Overall, I love the phone but the way it eats batteries is a bit disappointing, and the inability to charge whilst navigating is a real bummer.

Unless of course you know different and maybe my battery is not too good. I would settle for the in car charger just holding the charge at the level it gets plugged in at.

from reading other threads, you would need a charger with a higher ampage to get any charge when using as gps.
though i wouldnt be in a position to recommend what type of ampage rating you need from such a charger.

 

[taylormah]

Thats right. I would also recommend using a higher amperage charger. This is the most common suggestion I have heard on the issue of keeping phone charging while using gps. While I dont have this phone yet and can't try this myself, if you want to try, there are lot of 1 amp and 2.1 amp chargers available from amazon, some of them are really cheap too.

 

[d0gma64]

Yeh thats what I was thinking, so I had a look under the battery and it says 3.7v 1000ma. Baring in mind that the mains charger is 700ma I think, I thought I would try a 1A charger.

So today I bought one for the car, turned off/down everything I could think of and tried again. Using the 1A charger the battery still drains when using the gps but not as fast. I'm reluctant to try a higher rated charger as I don't want to fry the phone.

Its kind of ironic that the one thing you tend to use when away from a power socket is the one thing that really kicks the batteries ass