Battery and Screen

[Woofie]

This is my 1st HTC phone and my first smart phone,
anyway this has been answered before but i cant find it. How long does the battery last? Because one night i took it off charge at 11.30pm woke up at 8.30am and it was already on orange battery without me doing a thing. Is there anything i can do, or is 9hrs the best anroid can do and HTC wildfire S

Also i think i might have a problem with the screen,
If it locks and then i unlock it straight away, the screen does not light up, the touch button on the bottom do, and if i swipe down to to unlock it will because i can hear the weather app make a sound. So i was just wondering if something is wrong. If i wait like 5sec it will work tho.

Also does disabling mobile network, disable me from getting messages? because i want to get message but not be connected to internet 24/7

 

[Ruscris2]

Well, if you keep Wi-Fi,Bluetooth and GPS always on it will obviously drain your battery quickly.If you keep them of, and use them only necesary, you can get up to 4 days.
Whoever, the battery duration is better than most of the other android phones/iphone.

About the screen...I don't know what to say.

Disabling the mobile network only disables 3G/HDPA/GPRS/EDGE.

 

[Woofie]

ok well thankyou,
I had everything turned off E.g Mobile network GPS and Wifi, and it still drained in 9hrs. Becuase i havent taken my phone to work yet, i've left my phone in Airplane mode because there is not recpition at my house, and its been 2days and only lost a bar.


Actually i dont know if i have GSP off. How do i know? or how do i turn it off?

 

[ZeldaLover]

Also download advanced app killer from the market, it allowed you to 'kill' any apps that are running in the background quickly. Also check how bright your screen is, turn it down as you don't need it sky high. How long are you charging it for?

 

[El Presidente]

Also download advanced app killer from the market, it allowed you to 'kill' any apps that are running in the background quickly.

A Task Killer will just make things worse. There are a ton of links and a video here explaining why.

 

[Harish Harris]

Do not use any task killers.. If your battery drains out quickly with wi-fi, 3G and Bluetooth off, without you doing anything else then you have a faulty battery. Replace it. I easily get 2 days out of normal use and 1 full day out of heavy use i.e 3 to 4 hours of surfing, few transfers through bluetooth, few calls and texts, also about an hour of gaming.

 

[pmfrench]

Hello, Like the original poster, I am new to the whole smart phone thing and have bought myself a Wildfire S on Tesco Mobile (UK). The thing that brought me to the forums was the battery thing as well, so I have a few questions I'm hoping some can answer. I am charging to green light and the perception to me is that it is draining quickly. But having read a few posts perhaps this is normal for smart (i.e. just getting a couple of days) - after all they are more powerful that normal phones. Maybe yet I haven't learned to gauge how long so perhaps things aren't as bad as they seem.

Does having does being wifi spot drain power or is it only a drain when actually transferring data?

Is there any information available on how much actual call/text time you get for a full charge?

Thanks

 

[El Presidente]

Hello, Like the original poster, I am new to the whole smart phone thing and have bought myself a Wildfire S on Tesco Mobile (UK). The thing that brought me to the forums was the battery thing as well, so I have a few questions I'm hoping some can answer. I am charging to green light and the perception to me is that it is draining quickly. But having read a few posts perhaps this is normal for smart (i.e. just getting a couple of days) - after all they are more powerful that normal phones. Maybe yet I haven't learned to gauge how long so perhaps things aren't as bad as they seem.

Does having does being wifi spot drain power or is it only a drain when actually transferring data?

Is there any information available on how much actual call/text time you get for a full charge?

Thanks

Welcome to AF!

For the first few charges, the battery is always worse so it's hard to gauge what you're actually going to get from it. But yes, smart phones are a lot harsher battery wise than dumb phones. the battery in phone (and most modern phones) is Lithium Ion so you can just stick it on charge whenever and it won't do it any harm. Save for the first few cycles, full charge/discharges are actually bad for Lithium based batteries.

WiFi drains power anyway so just having it on drains battery regardless of whether or not it's using data. You can turn on the WiFi sleep policy and that will turn WiFi off after 15 minutes (I think) of it not being used. Unlike my other phones, from my experience of the Wildfire S, it doesn't make much difference. If you also uncheck the "Always on Mobile Data", that does the same thing for the phones 3G connection.

I use Battery Minder for battery stats. It tells me how long I've been off charge and how long I have left along with displaying the percentage charge in the status bar. It takes a little while to calibrate correctly and can be inaccurate at times, but it's the best I've found.

 

[pmfrench]

Cheers the posting El President.

Having been reading around and asking others it seems it's the normal to be charging these a lot. Should have stick with my bottom end phone I had - used to get a week out of a charge on that bad boy

I'll just take on your tips for minimising. My main issue I think is going to be it's use when I'm camping. If you're away for a few days with no access to power it's basically useless

 

[El Presidente]

I know what you mean; I went from a C905 to my Desire HD, I was gutted when I went from having a week to 8 hours for the first few charges. 2 days easy now though.

You could go for one of those external battery chargers? Something like this?

Even another battery? I'm not an advocate of any of the 3rd party batteries, but if you buy a couple spare (they are quite cheap), you should have enough for the weekend.

 

[pmfrench]

Thanks very much for all the assistance so far. I have one final question for the moment. Does charging Lithium Ion batteries without allowing them to discharge fully damage the battery at all? Say for instance, I just get in to the habit of charging every night etc.

 

[KazWfS1]

ok well thankyou,
I had everything turned off E.g Mobile network GPS and Wifi, and it still drained in 9hrs. Becuase i havent taken my phone to work yet, i've left my phone in Airplane mode because there is not recpition at my house, and its been 2days and only lost a bar.


Actually i dont know if i have GSP off. How do i know? or how do i turn it off?

If you have no reception for your phone it will still scan for a signal so therefore using power draining your battery My friend had this problem only had the phone 2 days and was loosing battery power all the time it was because it was searching for a signal 24/7

 

[El Presidente]

Thanks very much for all the assistance so far. I have one final question for the moment. Does charging Lithium Ion batteries without allowing them to discharge fully damage the battery at all? Say for instance, I just get in to the habit of charging every night etc.

Nope, that's actually better for them. The only time you're supposed to discharge and charge them fully is during the first few cycles as that's setting a precedent for the phone, letting it know what a full charge is. Does that make sense?

For a lot of phones, given they have a general life of 18-24 months before they get replaced, it won't make too much of a difference, but you will start to notice it holds less charge over time if you charge/discharge fully all the time. I normally let mine get to about 40% before I start charging again.

Most modern batteries will have a charging chip in them that will tell the battery to stop accepting charge once full, so leaving your handset on charge over night isn't an issue at all.

More reading if you want: http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/charging_lithium_ion_batteries

 

[KazWfS1]

Thanks very much for all the assistance so far. I have one final question for the moment. Does charging Lithium Ion batteries without allowing them to discharge fully damage the battery at all? Say for instance, I just get in to the habit of charging every night etc.

I was told by a phone dealer that it was better to let all phones disscharge completely if possible rather that charge over a charge over a charge weather or not this is correct I'm not sure but I try at least once a week to let my phone discharge completely I also use juicedefender it seems to work really well and I can get 3 days of battery life hope this helps

 

[El Presidente]

I was told by a phone dealer that it was better to let all phones disscharge completely if possible rather that charge over a charge over a charge weather or not this is correct I'm not sure but I try at least once a week to let my phone discharge completely I also use juicedefender it seems to work really well and I can get 3 days of battery life hope this helps

Yeah, letting it do a full discharge every once in a while is fine, I normally do it every month or so or after flashing something in clockwork.

I hear differing opinions of JD, I used it and it made my battery worse, but plent others find it works a charm. Did you pay for the full version?

 

[pmfrench]

All,

Just thought I'd share this, it's a response from HTC about this. I mailed them the other day (before I came on here). All good stuff to share. I'm going to run a little experiment and disable the wifi and only use it as a "phone" and see how it goes. Yes, I know, this defeats the point in having a smart phone ;-) - but it'll be useful to know for if I'm away travelling etc with limited access to power to charge.

Thank you for contacting HTC regarding your HTC Wildfire S.

I understand you are having difficulty with the battery life of your device.

When you are connected to a WiFi or have your WiFi switched on your devices battery will drain quickly.
In order to gain the maximum performance from your battery, there are a few guidelines I can suggest you follow:

-Let the battery fully deplete
-Charge the battery for at least 8 hours.

This will ensure your device has maximum charge, and encourages a healthy battery.
Charging your phone in small doses (I.e not from 0% to 100%), is known as 'Trickle Charging' and can greatly decrease your batteries performance when practised.

If your device's battery is still unable to hold its charge please do not hesitate to contact me again for further troubleshooting.

 

[El Presidente]

Lol, trickle charging isn't known as that at all....

Trickle charging - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

What's he's saying is true for older batteries, not the Lithium Ion type that are in newer phones.