Help battery question?

[frenzycat]

just got a tmobile comet...it seems like the battery does not last long.
I have to charge it everyday, sometimes twice.

any suggestions?

 

[Joe Dirt]

Welcome to the world of android phones...

 

[sitlet]

There are a ton of battery saving threads on here. Read a few of them for tips

 

[landovr]

The biggest drain on the battery is screen brightness.

 

[Stuntman]

The biggest drain on the battery is screen brightness.

Agreed. I set mine to 30% when indoors.

 

[lrv]

Also, as with any new toy, the longer you have it, the longer the battery life. You're on a new phone all the time when you first purchase it.

 

[!on]

Shouldn't need to charge it twice daily. You sure you don't have things running in background? Any gps, sync, wifi, BT or brightness on?

Have a look in settings under battery management & also data management. You can tailor these to suit your needs.

If indeed you do actually need these things on continuosly then really you need your AC charger with you. Also look for higher capacity battery for it (thinking of this myself).

 

[phonecats]

Here are some super hot apps to save your battery.

1 Clear cache
2 Restarting your phone
3 Deleting apps you don't use daily.
4 Some task killer app

We have some insane phones, lets keep them on.

like ur cat name =3

 

[ardchoille]

Whatever you do, do not use a task killer, they're bad for android. Here's why:

I develop Android apps so I though I'd explain why a task killer isn't needed on an Android system.

Activities
Android apps use activites to preform tasks. For example, if you use a file manager to send a picture via email, the file manager calls the send activity within an email app, passes the file name to it and the email app sends the picture.. not the file manager. This will result in seeing the email app as "running" even though the user didn't actually launch that email app.

Smaller apps
Using activites helps developers design smaller apps. A file manager app that contains every bit of code needed to do everything a file manager does would likely be so large that no one would want to install it. Developers know that an android phone more than likely has an email app so there is no need for the developer to include email code in his/her file manager to send a picture when he/she can call an activity in an existing email app to do the job. This results in a smaller file manager app since there is no need to include email code or any other code for an activity that can be done via an app that is already present on the phone. This also alleviates redundant code. When you install an app outside of the android market, also known as sideloading, the file manager app calls the package installer (already present in Android) to install the requested app.

Running apps vs. cached apps
The "Manage Applications" list included in many android devices lists running apps as well as cached apps. Cached apps don't use any CPU or battery, they're cached so they will load faster the next time you need them. Killing cached apps results in those apps requiring more time to load the next time they are launched.

System management
By default, every android application runs in its own Linux process. Android starts the process when any of the application’s code (activities) needs to be executed, and shuts down the process when it’s no longer needed and system resources are required by other applications.

* Android is hard coded to automatically kill a task when more memory is needed.
* Android is hard coded to automatically kill a task when it’s done doing what it needs to do.
* Android is hard coded to automatically kill a task when you haven’t returned to it in a long time.
* Most services (while possibly running in the background) use very little memory when not actively doing something.
* A content provider is only doing something when there is a notification for it to give. Otherwise it uses very little memory.
* Killing a process when it isn’t ready only causes it to have to reload itself and start from scratch when it’s needed again.
* Because a task is likely running in the background for a reason, killing it will only cause it to re-spawn as soon as the activity that was using it looks for it again. And it will just have to start over again.
* Killing certain processes can have undesirable side effects. Not receiving text messages, alarms not going off, and force closes just to name a few.
* The only true way to prevent something from running at all on your phone would be to uninstall the .apk.
* Most applications will exit themselves if you get out of it by hitting “back” until it closes rather than hitting the “home” button. But even with hitting home, Android will eventually kill it once it’s been in the background for a while.

If you see an app running that you didn't launch, it's most likely because an activity within that app was called by another app to perform a task. If you kill the app you didn't launch, the system has to relaunch that app in order to complete its task. This is why some people kill a task and then see it immediately running again. Constantly killing that app creates a situation where the user is battling the system resulting in wasted system resources.

Android is Linux
Android is not a Windows-based OS, it is based on Linux. Many of the apps you think are running aren't actually running, they're cached, this is typical with a Linux operating system and is much more efficient than other systems. Cached apps don't use any CPU or battery, they're cached and will load faster the next time they're needed.

 

[lrv]

I'm tired of VZW representatives recommending the use of task killers.

 

[Stuntman]

Whatever you do, do not use a task killer, they're bad for android.

I had an experience that contradicts this somewhat. About a month ago I was having some battery issues all of the sudden and I cannot figure out why. All of a sudden, my battery was running out faster than it was before. I could not figure out why. I suspect it may be the Google+ app as I had installed it around that time. I even did a reboot of the phone and still no change.

Then one day, I was playing around with my phone and I was looking at a task manager/killer app. It was included in my file manager app that I downloaded. I tried out the widget to see what it did and it just killed all of my tasks. I thought it would give me a warning, but the widget did not. I then promptly removed the widget. The following day, I noticed that my phone battery was not running out as fast.

I suspect I had some rogue process that was chewing up the battery. I don't know which one it might have been. The task killer killed everything and must have gotten that rogue app. I haven't had any battery problems since. I don't use the task killer to automatically kill tasks. I just happened to activated it accidentally that one time and it fixed my battery issue.

I'm not a developer, so I'm not sure if this was just pure coincidence or if the task killer actually did something tangible to fix my battery issue. I didn't see anything unusual in the list of tasks when I checked what was using my battery, but I don't normally check out what all of the tasks running on my phone is.

 

[El Presidente]

Stuff

Sage advice chief and probably the best reasoning of why they aren't needed I've seen!

 

[nu2andy]

If you are after a larger capacity battery look here:

Extended Battery for Huawei U8150, IDEOS (With Cover, Black)

150 Minutes charge time. Cheers Neil.

 

[pogs]

Hey I thought I would mention a higher capacity battery option for the U8150 etc, and no thicker so apparently doesn't require a replacement back cover, and reasonably cheap on TradeMe.

Its made by "aoonen" their HB4J1 is marked as 2600 mAh. Somebody might want to give it a go.

To be honest, charging so often was too much trouble so we just gave up on using the U8150 as a Smartphone, turned off all the features and just use it as a basic mobile phone. Can always turn on the features again sometime if required.

Cheers, Paul

 

[nu2andy]

Hi Paul, where did you find that 2600mAh battery in Trademe?
I looked through Mobile Phone section > Batteries > Other and I can't find any reference to it. Please point me in the right direction. Neil.

 

[pogs]

Hi Paul, where did you find that 2600mAh battery in Trademe?
I looked through Mobile Phone section > Batteries > Other and I can't find any reference to it. Please point me in the right direction. Neil.

Hi Neil,

Sorry haven't been on here for a while. Its a guy in Nelson Bays - here's the last one that sold: New HB4J1 HB4J1H battery for IDEOS U8150 V845 C850 | Trade Me No new ones listed by him right now.

I asked the aoonen seller "aoonen2012" on eBay UK, supposedly going to list them a couple of days ago - hasn't happened yet. Their other batteries work out to $10 NZ or so including shipping.

Cheers, Paul

 

[nu2andy]

Hi Paul, thanks for your reply. Have a look at this link regarding Li-ion & Polymer batteries:What is the Difference Between Lithium Ion and Lithium Polymer? - Battery Education

It may be thinner - but the capacity won't be as good. I've found the 3300mAh battery I purchased makes it easier to hold the phone without accidentally increasing/decreasing the Volume buttons.
Each to his/her own. Cheers Neil.

 

[pogs]

Interesting reading about the 2 types of batteries - thanks for that. So you figure they are lying about their lithium polymer battery being 2600mAh?

Almost worth buying one and seeing how long it lasts between charges just for the experiment. Would be great if one of the TradeMe buyers actually commented on battery life in their feedback, but that's unlikely.

Bummer, thought I had finally found a higher rated battery, but as I mentioned above we got sick and tired of always charging so we switched all the Smartphone features for the time being. Battery lasts quite a long time now.

Interesting that with your fat battery and case you found it easier to hold yours without hitting the volume buttons, but, yeah, personally I wouldn't want to make the U8150 even fatter.

Cheers, Paul

 

[nu2andy]

Hi Paul, We're only talking 10m/m in depth so it's not a great increase. I'm interested in grabbing one of those batteries to try out and will do a comparison if I can.
Like you, I've turned off all unnecessary bibs and bobs and the battery does last longer which is understandable. My reason for the larger capacity is when traveling or taking photos/videos.
I'll keep an eye on Trademe for the Polymer battery offer again. Cheers Neil.

 

[pogs]

Hey that would be great if you are keen on doing a comparison. I checked that seller in Nelson Bays and he only sold a couple of them - nothing new right now.

I also checked the eBay seller again as it could be even cheaper through them. I'll let you know if anything comes up

Cheers, Paul

 

[nu2andy]

Found one in HK for $10.00US freight Free! ($13.14NZ) It's on the way so would expect around 7-8 days delivery. Keep an eye on this Thread for more info. Neil.

 

[pogs]

Here's the link just received to the aoonen battery on eBay UK:

New 2600mAh Battery for HUAWEI *C8500 | U8150 | V845| T2010 | U8120 Free Ship UK | eBay

that works out to about just over $10NZ including shipping.

Cheers, Paul

 

[nu2andy]

Hi Paul, looks like the same Hong Kong supplier. I see the specs stated this was Li-ion battery - no mention of Li-Polymer. I've committed to the HK supplier and will wait and see what turns up. Cheers Neil.

 

[pogs]

Hi Paul, looks like the same Hong Kong supplier. I see the specs stated this was Li-ion battery - no mention of Li-Polymer. I've committed to the HK supplier and will wait and see what turns up. Cheers Neil.

well spotted - it does say Li-ion for the eBay item. I wonder if the TradeMe seller wrote "Li-polymer" by mistake.

Anyway, it will be interesting to hear what you find out and interesting to hear how long to charge/how long the charge lasts (and what settings/features you have turned on).

Sorry, I may be a bit thick I guess, but have to say I'm still not sure what you meant when you say the Li-polymer 2600mAh would not be as high capacity as a Li-ion. Is mAh irrelavant? I thought a 2600mAh battery would be higher capacity than the standard 1200mAh battery regardless of whether its Li-ion or Li-polymer.

Cheers

 

[nu2andy]

Hi Paul, I'm only going from the comment by the guy who prepared the info in the link I posted previously. Quote: (capacity may not be the same as Li-ion).

I assume that from his remarks, the 2600mAh may be overstated. It might only be 2000mAh. We will wait and see. Neil.