Help ***Official HTC Evo 4g Battery Thread***

[chcougar1]

Wifi does amazing things for this phone. I have had it on wifi at home for at least the past 3 hours and it has only lost 4% of its battery. Granted I haven't used it much, but that is a lot slower battery draining than when on the mobile network. I wonder why there is such a HUGE difference.

I could see this phone lasting 10+ hours of constant use on wifi

 

[igzekyativ]

Just chiming in here: Today was my first whole day with the Evo. Took it off the charger when I first woke up this morning, but then while I took my morning shower I plugged it back in just in case... So I pulled it back off the charger before heading out for work at 0830, with 97% battery showing (via batterytime lite; I just put in that I have a 1500mah battery since the Evo isn't listed yet).

I have 4G off because I'm not in a 4G market; I have WiFi off because at the office they're bitchy about personal devices on their wifi, plus I use the phone more for 3G services like SMS than anything else. I had GPS off at first but then read that it doesn't use lots of power, so I turned it back on. Oh, and my brightness is set to automatic. EDIT: I also leave Bluetooth on because it's paired to my car and I never remember to turn it on and off when I get in or out of the car.

Over the day I flipped thru the market looking for apps, downloaded a half dozen apps, took a couple pictures, played with layar for 5 minutes, texted a normal day's conversations with my GF, made and took 3 or 4 calls, played a round of one of the trivia games I DLed, googled a few things for people, shot a bunch of fake shells off with SchottGunn, and additionally had to do all the obligatory showing it to the people at work and letting them play with it.

It's now about 10:30pm and I have... 22% battery left. So, it's no superphone on battery for me, but I don't think it's all that bad.

That's my initial input on the topic. =0)

Can we trade batteries?

 

[twospirits]

My stats for Monday and Tuesday (1st two normal work days for me with my phone).

Phone died at the 12 hour mark both days. I would say that both days were light to moderate usage (50-100 texts each day, no phone calls, probably 10 minutes browsing each day, flipping through some apps, I also used about 20 minutes of navigation).

So for me I think it could be SLIGHTLY better. It would be nice if the phone died more about 10-1030pm than 8 or 830pm but at least it will likely get me all the way through my work day and then I can plug it in while im driving home.

Tomorrow will likely be a heavier use day as I am site coverage in the office so I will be at my desk most of the day. We will see if it lasts under those type of conditions.

For the most part I run it with a standard wallpaper, 3G on, 4G off, GPS off (except navigation time), Wifi off, Bluetooth off.

Brightness about 20%, haptic feedback off, screen turns off after 30 seconds, account syncing is off unless i refresh it.

This almost like my findings.

For the last 3 days its been on or about the same...
1 day
7AM off the charger, drive to work
8AM - 9AM Check tweets, emails, gtalk, tapatalk some web pages
9AM to 12 PM at work but check on occasion tweets messages
12PM down to 15 %

2nd day added Advance task manager
same times and usage except it lasted till 1:30PM

3rd day took off ATK but added System Panel (no closing of apps)
same thing as 1st day results

I read that doing a system wipe/restore will help so I am doing that tonight.

TS

 

[chcougar1]

This almost like my findings.

For the last 3 days its been on or about the same...
1 day
7AM off the charger, drive to work
8AM - 9AM Check tweets, emails, gtalk, tapatalk some web pages
9AM to 12 PM at work but check on occasion tweets messages
12PM down to 15 %

2nd day added Advance task manager
same times and usage except it lasted till 1:30PM

3rd day took off ATK but added System Panel (no closing of apps)
same thing as 1st day results

I read that doing a system wipe/restore will help so I am doing that tonight.

TS

Wow yours was close to dead after 5 hours of moderate use. I really tested mine out today. I had moderate use and changed th syncing to hourly and the battery was at 12% after being unplugged from 830am to 5pm.

 

[Kurt85]

I gotta say, at first I was really concerned about battery life, it was seeming to die within a few hours (maybe 5 or 6 hours of playing with it).

But I only have gmail and weather syncing now, I got rid of friendstream, facebook, twitter, and calendar widgets. Also, at someones suggestion, I turned ATK on to crazy autokill anytime the screen turns off. this ensures things are shutting down. However, what I'm thinking really made the difference is the Root + OverclockWidget method. I hardly go thru any battery during standby now. Yesterday with regular usage (some txting, browsing, some bluetooth phone calls) I was able to go from unplugging at 8am to plugging in before bed at 1030pm at about 8%. A full day of no-charging is all I'm ever looking for in a phone.

 

[twospirits]

Wow yours was close to dead after 5 hours of moderate use. I really tested mine out today. I had moderate use and changed th syncing to hourly and the battery was at 12% after being unplugged from 830am to 5pm.

Not any more.
I rooted it this morning and put in the Overclock widget and set everything back to normal (at least normal to me). and I still have a bit more than half battery where as yesterday it would have been dead by now.

woo hoo.

TS

 

[chcougar1]

Not any more.
I rooted it this morning and put in the Overclock widget and set everything back to normal (at least normal to me). and I still have a bit more than half battery where as yesterday it would have been dead by now.

woo hoo.

TS

I'm too scared to root my phone so I guess I will just deal with mediocre battery life

 

[twospirits]

Actually, its funny you say that. When i had the Touch Diamond (which is Windows Mobile based) I was scared to death about rooting it. I finally took the plunge and it was not easy since the instructions were like reading the Nasa Shuttle instruction manual (no offense to Nasa personal). When I got the Hero, I decided to root also and that was a bit easier but still took the wind out of me.

This time around, the guys that created the rooting program really outdid them selves, nothing really to do, no instruction manual to read lol, just go to the website, download it and run it on your phone. It does not wipe out your stuff, all your contacts images are still there and it takes less than a minute (if that).
I was totally blown away by the simplicity of it all.
Another good thing about it is that unlike previous root methods, this one allows you to receive Over The Air updates without having to revert back to stock mode. So take the plunge my friends, enter into a whole new world.

TS out

 

[plopez12]

TS has the root dramatically improved your battery life? And if you root and want to go back to stock settings, like having sense as the UI, is taht possible?

 

[twospirits]

TS has the root dramatically improved your battery life? And if you root and want to go back to stock settings, like having sense as the UI, is taht possible?

I think its the overclockwidget that is making my battery more efficient. And the device has to be rooted for the widget to work.

As for going back to stock settings, its already there. The unrevoked did not wipe out anything and sense UI is till there. So far everything works.
I am also doing this step. Seems that HTC has acknwoledge a battery problem and given a few steps to do.

TS

 

[plopez12]

I think its the overclockwidget that is making my battery more efficient. And the device has to be rooted for the widget to work.

As for going back to stock settings, its already there. The unrevoked did not wipe out anything and sense UI is till there. So far everything works.
I am also doing this step. Seems that HTC has acknwoledge a battery problem and given a few steps to do.

TS

so you were able to root it and sense still works fine...is this froyo? Sorry I am a bit confused as to what you are currently running right now...also do you have a link to where you got the root information from...i saw that post regarding HTC's suggesstion about the battery...I will definitely be doing this when i get home after work...right now sitting at 11% after being off the charger for a little over 8 1/2 hours...but hardly any use at all and 4g/wifi/bluetooth/GPS all turned all the whole time

 

[twospirits]

I rooted by doing the unrevoked method.
Then I downloaded the OverclockWidget app from the Market.

Then I did some of the steps outlined in this thread.

Now it may be a placebo effect or not, but to me it helped with the battery. I am now testing a few things as outlined in that last link.

TS

 

[amsparky]

I am sorry if this is a silly question, but I am new to Android. Here's what my battery usage says"

Cell Standby 34%
Phone Idle 31%
Voice calls 19%
Android system 8%
Dialer 6%
Display 2%

I have NO idea what this means. I take it back, I think I can figure what voice calls, dialer and display means, but what about the others?

TIA!

 

[snowscum]

I found to get through 15 hours is to turn mobile off every time I am not using it.
I streamed lastfm at work for 3 hours and turned everything off so it would not
be hitting the internet. Checked email and messaged through out the day. But everytime I put it down for any reason its turned it off. It lasted from 6:30am till 7pm and still had 2o% left. It has got better but its pretty weak.

 

[theintoxicatedmofo]

quote snipped due to size, (just click on the arrow to see it).

FINALLY an official thread. Now people who have 4 hrs of battery life can stop complaining if they actually read and use the power saving settings effectively. (by the way 15 hrs average with moderate use here )

Also i didnt see this in the post so ill add it on.. If you have email push, you dont actually have to disable it but dont set it to check frequently, i tested this out myself, for a week i had mine on check every 4 hrs and i averaged 15 hrs batt life. today i set it to check every 5 min and my batt died much much more quicker than it previously did..i only got 6 hrs out of it today doing the same things i did the entire week since i got it. checking every 4 hrs for email is good. even so if you need email that bad each time you open the app you can either refresh and check it manually or set it to check each time you open the app

 

[theintoxicatedmofo]

I am sorry if this is a silly question, but I am new to Android. Here's what my battery usage says"

Cell Standby 34%
Phone Idle 31%
Voice calls 19%
Android system 8%
Dialer 6%
Display 2%

I have NO idea what this means. I take it back, I think I can figure what voice calls, dialer and display means, but what about the others?

TIA!

Cell standy- percentage is showing you how much battery power the cellular radio has used up ( transmitting, recieving and maintaining signal) - when you go into an area with poor reception, the phone will use more power in an attempt to maintain a decent connection

phone idle - how much power the phone used just to be on while idled

android system - how much power the OS used ( this reffers to the apps that are/were running on your phone)

NOTE - this percentage is an estimate based since the last time you unplugged or plugged in the phone. if you just unplugged your phone lets say 5 minutes ago and you havnt used anything. the android system will take up a greater percentage..as the day goes on and the longer you dont plug in your phone, the more the percentage will drop if you used your phone throughout the day( IE web surfing, phone calls, youtube ETC)

 

[Markdek]

Cell standy- percentage is showing you how much battery power the cellular radio has used up ( transmitting, recieving and maintaining signal) - when you go into an area with poor reception, the phone will use more power in an attempt to maintain a decent connection

I would word this a little differently......Cell Standby percent is the Percentage of power used by the phone to keep it in standby (connected), RELATIVE, to all other phone use categories. So, this means that the Cell Standby Percentage cannot be interpreted by itself, without other statistics, like total time on, and wake time.

A high percentage of Cell Standby time, by itself, tells us nothing good or bad about battery use....just that the cpu/wake portion of the use has been small. In otherwords, you just left the phone alone, and it was maintaining a connection to the tower. Is this correct?

Now, If one saw a lot of "Android" percentage with very little "wake" time, I would be concerned that something is running in the background while you are leaving your phone just lying there, locked.

 

[jpark28]

Hello all,

I bought the Evo 4 days ago (6/9) and I love it. One thing I have noticed is that after I fully charge it, the battery drops down from 100 to 90 pretty rapidly (in a matter of minutes), and then after that the battery life is pretty good. I am using Battery Indicator. Is something wrong with the app or is something wrong with my battery? I don't know why it drops from 100 to 90 so quickly. Any responses would be appreciated, thanks!

 

[seigex]

Awesome tips.. i killed google talk and turned off GPS .. and with normal use i'm at about 6 hours use with 70% left.. normally i'd have 10% left by now

 

[plopez12]

Innocell 3500mAh Extended Life Battery For use with HTC EVO 4G

for those of us who are not getting great battery life and even for those who are...looks great to me....im definitely going to order

 

[imukdude]

I did the On again off again charging thing and got rid of my task manager and let it manage itself and now its almost 3pm and prob have 90 percent left and I took it off the charge at 8.30am

 

[plopez12]

I did the On again off again charging thing and got rid of my task manager and let it manage itself and now its almost 3pm and prob have 90 percent left and I took it off the charge at 8.30am

Wow thats pretty good...how much have you used your phone? what's your awake time?

 

[coolguy949]

As a side note, this phone charges incredibly fast with the wall charger. I was at 12% about 45 mins ago. I'm now at 58% while it's charging. That quality of the charge? Now that's another story.

 

[MisterEd]

Want good battery life? ROOT and remove ALL the Sprint and HTC crap. http://androidforums.com/948602-post26.html

 

[adboll]

So here is the deal with mine...I had the usual 4-6 standby time only since day 1 of owning my EVO and was frustrated like the rest of you, but I have since, found a solution that I am in the middle of testing so far that has increased my battery EXTREMELY so far. Problem is, I did a couple things at once, so not sure which one was the fix, but am narrowing it down by doing one by one on wife's EVO with same issue mine had. I will edit this post when I have the setting that I know does it. Until then, here are the things I did at once to mine and over the last several days:

Before battery fix (did not impact hardly at all, but did it anyhow):
1. ATK set autostart UNCHECKED, set Autokill to DISABLED ("crazy" will kill email notifications btw), set security to MEDIUM.
2. Use the ATK manual widget to kill the settings above
3. Turn screen brightness off auto and manually set to lower level as desired
4. Leave all radios off but Mobile

NOTE: in mobile radio settings, if you uncheck the middle one that say, "always on......." this is glitched and will cause your EVO to reboot on its own - see my other post under EVO rebooting on its own, and thanks to that forum for that input!

For the REAL battery fix (these were all done at once and I will try to narrow down what REALLY did it on wife's phone over the next few days, as I do not want to screw mine up)
1. Charged long with phone power off to "calibrate" the battery meter. This seemed to be a small issue as the LED showed green, and when I looked in batt status it said 96%. Weird, but may have some merit...
2. Turn Google Talk off from auto login at start up (don't think this was it, but I don't use it anyhow and at this point have to include it as a possibility due to WHEN I did it)
3. Uncheck and turn off all roaming/guard options in mobile radio section EXCEPT "always on...." see above for that problem. AT THIS TIME I AM POINTING AT THIS TO BE THE FIX SO FAR, more to come.
4. At some point I went into all my applications and set refresh times to max, but when I noticed great battery time starting, I was actually able to go back in and set most of them back to quick refreshes with almost the same outstanding battery life still =)
5. Download "Network" app from market to check GSM and CDMA setting for mobile radio (this was a suggestion from XDA site and the thread on GSM being the default and it lead to the radio constantly searching for signals - Mine was set to CDMA, so I did not change anything in there). This step made explore the settings from item 3 in this section which I believe is the ultimate fix, but time will tell...

As of right now here is what I am seeing on my EVO:

Initial boot ATK initiated manually using above settings: once to kill startup apps (usually kills between 12-14 apps after boot)
Time now: 12:08 PM Wednesday
Overnight Standby while sleeping: YES
Last Charged: ~5:30 PM Tuesday
Battery percent now: 50%
Usage: Light - email checking every hour and 1 small phone call this AM about 5 min long
App refresh settings: most of them back to quick 5min, 30min, 10min, etc.

Extra apps installed off top of my head:
Shopping
Coupons
Star Wars light sabre
scanner
google sky
fring (running btw)
Torque OBD
aCar
bubble
LED light
bar code scanner
police light
gstrings
calorie counter
movies
sports tap
air horn
bump
cardio trainer
finger paint
first aid
battery guage
Google goggles
handycalc
logmein
magic 8-ball
network
pandora
mspot movies
speed test
stitcher
TIKL


RESULTS: Much to my surprise it appears GOOGLE TALK may be the culprit, as the data roaming test on wife's EVO did not stop the massive battery drain, however, preliminary tests this AM are showing that GOOGLE TALK being turned off for autostart and signed out may be the BIG fix. I will report back again as to how today goes for wife's EVO (turned off GOOGLE TALK last night).