Battery life end first impressions

[Darkhawk_76]

Ok, got the phone yesterday right at 10am, had 40% out of the box, charged it on the packaged charger and noticed the same slow charging a lot of you are reporting.

After fiddling with it yesterday here and letting it charge overnight here are my results today and impressions. I came from using a Droid X for over a year.

Took it off charge at 7am and have used it off and on. Surfed on the Dolphin HD browser, downloaded some apps, (this being one of them), made a few calls (under a minute), and sent and recieved some texts, took 4 pics. I was in a 4G area. Here is my usage;
10 hours 4 min 46 seconds on battery
15% left
Cell Standby 36%
Phone Idle 27%
Wi fi 16%
Display 12%
Android OS 3%
Voice calls 3%
Dolphind Browser 2%
Texting 2%

Now I never connected to a wi fi hotspot but it was "on" so I attribute that to it searching. The display only used 13% which is pretty impressive. Im not sure almost 11 hours is a good benchmark but I think if the wi fi were off it would have made a difference, my 4G speeds are better than most ei fi hot spots I connected to before lol. What do you guys think? Im home now and we dont have 4G so ill see what its like over the weekend with 3G and leave wi fi on the try no wi fi with 3G on sunday and Monday ill try no wi fi in 4G.

Im still not sold on this phone yet. The pentile screen is getting easier on the eyes, its the first time ive used one. The small recess around the bevel can collect dust if you stick it in your pocket so that's a little annoying. The Netflix sound issue is annoying but that can be fixed with an update as I verified it was not the Bionics speakers. Those are my only real gripes. We'll see how it goes with the battery, its my first 4G phone and a pretty powerful one at that. So not sure what to expect.

 

[Darkhawk_76]

Also, no lockups or freezing, no battery pulls or forced restarts either.

 

[Sandroidfan]

I like to hear back how it does with 3G and WiFi off. And did you use default battery mode or did you try changing it like night time saver or maximum battery saver mode?

 

[Darkhawk_76]

I never messed with the battery modes so its still default.

 

[HotDawg]

For some reason I've found charging easier each time. The first time was especially slow for some reason, even from the dock. The wall charger was quickest.

 

[sj993]

My initial charging didn't take too long, I think around 2 hours. I got the extended battery which took forever to charge. On the standard battery I'm going on 12hr 20min at 30% left on 4G only. Phone's been idle most of the day too. I guess that's not too bad though I'm used to the great battery life I had on my droid X.

 

[Darkhawk_76]

Same with me, so use to Droid X, but past few months the battery drained faster and faster, granted it was a year old and used each day a lot and charged each day. But its still my benchmark for Android phones. Once I compare this one over 3G with wi fi on and off ill be able to tell for sure.

 

[jroc]

Same with me, so use to Droid X, but past few months the battery drained faster and faster, granted it was a year old and used each day a lot and charged each day. But its still my benchmark for Android phones. Once I compare this one over 3G with wi fi on and off ill be able to tell for sure.

For reception and battery life...its now mine too.

 

[tehsusenoh]

For some reason I've found charging easier each time. The first time was especially slow for some reason, even from the dock. The wall charger was quickest.

The AC-to-USB adapter is 850 mAh, versus the dock's is 750. That might explain it.

 

[Rodent]

Just got the 15% or less battery warning, so here are my numbers and what I did today on the first charge.

9Hour 11 Mins

Cell Standby 35%
Phone Idle 27%
Compass 12%
Display 10%
Overkill 8%
Android OS 4%
Voice Calls 3%

3G only with LTE/Wifi/Bluetooth Disabled.

Datapush Enabled on one Imap Account entire time.
Compass I am surprised it used that much, I installed it did the figure 8 to configure it and that was it. Same with overkill game, played it maybe one minute...the gyroscope thing inside maybe kills battery?

Downloaded ~8 apps. Talked on the phone about 5minutes, text messages 30(sent+recieve). Web browsing maybe 15-30minutes.

First day full charge yesterday from 30% to 100% took about 4 hours with a 1A charger.

Going to disable datapush next time around and see if things improve.

 

[BigCiX]

I like to hear back how it does with 3G and WiFi off. And did you use default battery mode or did you try changing it like night time saver or maximum battery saver mode?

so wifi uses more battery right?

 

[Darkhawk_76]

Yes, think of it as an active antenna like the 4G/3G one that's searching for a signal. Turning it off will help to conserve battery. I know on my Droid X and my OG Droid using wi fi at home drained my battery faster than 3G. Im assuming 4G is about like running wi fi as far as battery goes. So turning off wi fi while in 4G should boost battery. Who needs wi fi in a good 4G area anyway? Lol. But we'll see.

 

[pgrommesh]

My battery review:

Started the day at 10am and got home at 11pm:
Had about 6 hours of music with occasional pausing, 1 hour of web browsing, used about 35 MB of data according to the widget, and maybe 10 short emails and that killed my battery to 10%. The 4g was on for maybe half the day, most of the time when i was playing music it was off.

Comparing this to my OG droid with some Cyano froyo build it would typically have brought it to 35%, so i am a bit disappointed.

 

[YankeeDudeL]

Mine was at 30% when I got it and was able to kill it in about 4 hours of pretty constant use. Charged it, and got about 10 or 11 hours before it died with very heavy usage.

Today, I've worked pretty much all day and didn't get to play with it as much as I'd have liked to. But it's been off the charger for 16 hours, and I'm only at 40%. Also, WiFi has been on all day (cause I forgot to turn it off ), and it's been in and out of signal.

It's important to note that I'm in a 3G area. I think it's safe to say that with the extra battery and charger that came with my Costco bundle, I'm not going to have an issue. I also think it's fair to say that Yoda was right in his assessment.

 

[xmr405o]

About 12 hrs of use...I was at 30%. I sent a few emails, used it on a 30-45 minute conference call, not a lot of web browsing and everything was at default. I live and work in a 4g area. Battery life is wonderful and signal strength is even better. I only saw my phone drop to 3g once and it was for less than a minute.

If 2nd gen LTE devices are like this....VZW will be taking over really really soon.

 

[pitbullguy]

Yesterday with stock battery: unplugged at 6am, 5hrs/45mins of calls, lots of messaging and email, watched a couple of videos and had wifi/4G on the entire time. Plugged it in again at 6:30 pm with less than 10% charge. Outstanding!

I can only imagine how long it would go with the extended battery. I purchased that, but thinking I will have no need for it.

 

[HotDawg]

The AC-to-USB adapter is 850 mAh, versus the dock's is 750. That might explain it.

But... (maybe I'm just ignorant here) this dock plugs into the wall, not USB like my Droid. Shouldn't it be the same as the wall charger?

Plus, charging from my work laptop with old USB cord was very quick, too.

 

[udchemist]

i got just over 12 hours with 4G on the whole time. did some light email, calls, and a lot of transferring files and downloading apps. Was fairly happy. How exactly do I turn off 4g and just have 3g? I would be interested in doing a comparison.
Thanks

 

[mills23]

Mine sux. Been on since 8:15 am now at 1:40 pm it has 15% left with moderate usage.

 

[jestexman]

Looking like bout 9-11 hours on average is what everyone is getting..

 

[Vehtemas]

Looking like bout 9-11 hours on average is what everyone is getting..

Remember that batteries require some conditioning, if you look through the Charge/Thunderbolt forums you will see how everyone's got better around a week or two after purchase and charging.

Also, once you root and freeze/uninstall the bloatware the phone should get better battery life.

Something to ALSO remember, if you live in an area where you are right on the edge of a 4G network, I would disable the 4G while you are on the edge, because the constant going from 3G to 4G will kill the battery fast.

Anycut can make you a shortcut to Network Settings, two button presses from there gets you 3G or 4G.

With my extended battery (although I have only had it for a full day), without conditioning I should get around 20 hours with it.

 

[jbdan]

i got just over 12 hours with 4G on the whole time. did some light email, calls, and a lot of transferring files and downloading apps. Was fairly happy. How exactly do I turn off 4g and just have 3g? I would be interested in doing a comparison.
Thanks

menu> settings> wireless & networks> mobile networks> network mode> cdma only. you'll then be on 3G. If you want that off as well and only use wifi go to menu> settings> battery & data manager> data delivery > uncheck data enabled.

 

[Vehtemas]

menu> settings> wireless & networks> mobile networks> network mode> cdma only. you'll then be on 3G. If you want that off as well and only use wifi go to menu> settings> battery & data manager> data delivery > uncheck data enabled.

Use Anycut to create shortcuts to these menu's as an icon on your screen.

Although 3G barely takes any battery as far as I can tell, and wireless & 4G seem to take the same amount of battery.

When I am out and about in town and am going to use my phone for youtube etc, I will enable 4G, if it is just sitting idle while I am at work I put it down to 3G to save battery, since it is only 2 button presses to get it to either option.

 

[DanDroide]

Use Anycut to create shortcuts to these menu's as an icon on your screen.

Although 3G barely takes any battery as far as I can tell, and wireless & 4G seem to take the same amount of battery.

When I am out and about in town and am going to use my phone for youtube etc, I will enable 4G, if it is just sitting idle while I am at work I put it down to 3G to save battery, since it is only 2 button presses to get it to either option.

Here's what I did the day I got my Bionic:

I downloaded the FREE app "LTE OnOFF - HTC Thunderbolt"

I put the app on my homescreen.

Once you tap on the app,
scroll down to "Set preferred network type:"
choose the Dropdown Menu right below that,
[you will be on "GSM/CDMA auto (PRL)"] = 4G
for 3G, choose "CDMA auto (PRL)"
and you are done.

It changes quick sometimes and takes a few minutes other times.

Just reverse the choices to change it back.

I hope it works for you like it does for me.

 

[Vehtemas]

Here's what I did the day I got my Bionic:

I downloaded the FREE app "LTE OnOFF - HTC Thunderbolt"

I put the app on my homescreen.

Once you tap on the app,
scroll down to "Set preferred network type:"
choose the Dropdown Menu right below that,
[you will be on "GSM/CDMA auto (PRL)"] = 4G
for 3G, choose "CDMA auto (PRL)"
and you are done.

It changes quick sometimes and takes a few minutes other times.

Just reverse the choices to change it back.

I hope it works for you like it does for me.

Eh, I just downloaded it, it is a bit more of a pain that just using anycut and the normal shortcut...

I will keep to my current shortcut =)

Thanks for the info though =)