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Help LG Shine Plus Battery Usage

funpig

Android Enthusiast
Nov 29, 2010
641
76
Happy New Year!

Over the last few weeks, I have tracked my battery usage on my new phone. I just use the About Phone-Status-Battery Level. I would note the battery level, run the phone for the set period of time and then note the drop in the battery level. I do not have a monthly data plan, data is blocked by Telus and I also turn off the mobile network. I always leave my phone on (ie never use airplane mode or turn off the phone, just leave it in standby). I also put screen brightness to low. I turn on background data, but I turn off Auto-sync. Here are my results so far:

Phone on Standby over night, wifi/gps on or off - 5-6% per 12 hours or 10-12% per 24 hours.

MP3 on, medium volume, headphones on, display off - 6-9% per 1 hr.

Display on, wifi on/off - 13-15% per 1 hr.

GPS - 20-25% per 1 hr.

I note that it does not seem to matter if the wifi is on or off. The phone does not seem to burn more battery as long as the wifi is not actually doing anything. If the wifi is being used (eg syncing or browsing), the battery usage is increased, but I have not tried to measure that battery usage. It also seems that you can leave the GPS enabled; it does not seem to burn any battery as long as you are not in the GPS app.

Other things that could still be tested: bluetooth, actual voice call, browsing, etc.
 
Have had Shine Plus for about a month now, Telus voice/text plan with data locked out (WiFi on).

Sometimes I can get a week out of the battery, and sometimes only one day!
Battery was fully charged last night, half with car charger half with wall plug. Phone is almost fully drained right now with cell standby using 50% and phone idle using 48%.
Standby time is equal to "time since unplugged from charger", so it's not like I've been talking/texting up a storm.

Any ideas why I got almost a week out of the charge last week but only a day today???
 
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Anybody measure their battery usage after the LG 2.3.3 update?

I believe it is worse. It seems that the battery is being used up faster, but then I am messing around alot more with the new update. However, I put it into standby and got the following:

Phone on Standby over night, wifi on - 15% per 6 hours.

That is about 5 times worse than before (see above). I don't know if it is a battery calibration issue, updated ROM or a battery that is 10 months older.
 
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When you upgrade a ROM, first thing to do is a battery calibration to get the best out of your battery. Also, Gingerbread uses a different method of task management which kills unnecessary processes on the fly. It's also a little more demanding on a phone so battery life may suffer somewhat.

Also, keep in mind that auto backlight is broken! This affects battery drain ALOT!

If you have a program running that affects the phone's sleep, that'll drain the battery quicker while it's on. Make sure no programs are running that shouldn't be (You can verify in Settings, Application, Running services)

All "smartphones" have different measures for battery life. Hard to say if your battery drains quicker than someone else's because there are tons of factors to consider. (Installed apps, running apps, brightness, features, signal strength, battery quality, temperature, defects to the phone that cause excessive errors in logcat, etc.)
 
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Update: Phone on Standby over night, wifi on - 30% per 16 hours.

The battery guage or use may not be linear. After a full charge to 100%, I notice that first hour of battery usage/loss seems to be very rapid. Never the less, the battery performance appears to be substantially worse than before the LG 2.3.3 update.
 
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Update: Phone on Standby over night, wifi on - 30% per 16 hours.

The battery guage or use may not be linear. After a full charge to 100%, I notice that first hour of battery usage/loss seems to be very rapid. Never the less, the battery performance appears to be substantially worse than before the LG 2.3.3 update.

There's something called Wifi sleep policy in Android. You can access it through the settings menu or through the spare parts application. When the phone goes to sleep, wifi should be turned off to save the battery, just like the screen times out when idle.

Gingerbread 2.3.3 does actually drain battery quicker. This might be due to the AOS(Android OS) bug, where Android OS runs in background even when the phone is idle, draining battery. If you check the about phone, battery usage section, if Android OS is at the top of the list, then we might have this particular bug.
 
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I checked. Under Wifi settings, pulldown menu of Advanced, the setting is already set to go to sleep when the screen is off. This should be working properly because when I power up after standby, the wifi is always off and always takes a few seconds to connect (wifi indicator in status bars is off, then turns on as white, and then turns green).

Update: Phone on Standby, wifi on - 35% per 18 hours.
 
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Okay, curiosity got the better of me. FYI, I am using a refurb phone running 2.1 v10c. I am also using the same original battery that I tested originally in January (2.1) and in October (LG 2.3.3 updated). I am running the exact same apps in the current refurb phone as I did in the LG 2.3.3 updated phone 2 weeks ago (I can't recall what apps I have added from 11 months ago).

As before, I used the same test conditions. I fully charged the phone to 100% and left it in the same spot with the same cell signal and the same wifi signal and then put my phone on standby (ie phone is still on, but screen is off). I did not run any other apps and I would check the battery level at various intervals. Here are my results:

Phone on Standby, wifi on (2.1 v10c):
-4% after 4 hours
-6% after 6 hours
-9% after 9 hours
-10% after 10 hours
-12% after 13 hours
-13% after 14 hours
-16% after 16 hours
-18% after 18 hours
-20% after 20 hours
Estimated: 24% after 24 hours

MP3, low medium volume, headphones on, display off: -13% after 1 hour

GPS, Runkeeper (I went for a run with the GPS on tracking my progress), with MP3 on, display off: -10% after 15 minutes; Estimated -40% after 1 hour.

GPS Status on (after fix within 5-9 meters, stay in on spot), Display on: -9% after 15 min, -15% after 30, min, -22% after 50 min, -26% after 60 min


It appears to me that the battery performance under LG stock 2.1 is substantially better than after the LG 2.3.3, by almost double. One other observation is that the battery drain under 2.1 seems much more straight line (I recall the same thing when I did the original test 11 months ago). Under the LG 2.3.3 update, the initial battery drain after you take it off the charger is very rapid and then the rate of discharge slows a bit as the hours go by (but still at a higher rate than 2.1). At the end of the day, IMO, you are way worse off with 2.3.3.

And it seems that my original battery is only half as good as it was 11 months ago (unless there are some new apps which are causing more background drain than 11 months ago).

PS. I do not have a data plan, so my mobile network is disabled, but the cell phone service is enabled. Also, note that back in January, I ran multiple tests to reduce the uncertainty before I posted. This time, I only tested the 2.3.3 once and have only tested the refurbed 2.1 phone once. So the degree of uncertainty may be greater.
 
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Gingerbread 2.3.3 does actually drain battery quicker. This might be due to the AOS(Android OS) bug, where Android OS runs in background even when the phone is idle, draining battery. If you check the about phone, battery usage section, if Android OS is at the top of the list, then we might have this particular bug.

That might be what's happening to me -- since upgrading to 2.3.3 the battery life on my phone has become abysmal. I charge the phone all night, take it with me in the morning, send a few texts / e-mails and make a short call, listen to about 1 hr worth of MP3s, and by the end of the day I'm at 15% battery. Under 2.1 I could easily go several days at this level of usage.

When I look at the battery usage section of About Phone I do see Android OS at or very near the top of the list.

Is there any fix for this bug?
 
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