Gingerbread battery life

ccoager · Sep 13, 2011

Anyone else notice their battery life improved with Gingerbread? Mine is significantly better. I'm off the charger ~20 hours and still at 63% battery life having used the phone the same way I have been for the past year.

If I look at what has been using the battery, the trend is also different. Usually cell standby and phone idle are at the top of the list being much higher than the rest. Now display is using the most battery.

Display 39%, cell standby 27%, phone idle 24%, maps 8%, android OS 2%

Droid.Incredible · Sep 13, 2011

Mine is actually worse. I'm contemplating a phone reset.

Old Member · Sep 13, 2011

Mine's better as well. I am rooted and have the official OTA with no tweaks and while I don't have the success the OP has, it is noticeably better.

superchaos · Sep 14, 2011

Mine is a lot better. By a lot I mean at the end of the day I still have over 40% as I used to have 20-25%. I did a full factory reset so it could have been something I installed on Froyo that has not been re-installed on GB.

jamala00 · Sep 14, 2011

I am rooted with the OTA ROM from XDA and I have no difference. Don't know if that is because the ROM doesn't include the Kernel?? Not sure..

euph_22 · Sep 14, 2011

Droid.Incredible said:
Mine is actually worse. I'm contemplating a phone reset.

You can also install system panel, and see if any apps seem to be using too much cpu. And if they are try uninstalling/reinstalling them.

Droid.Incredible · Sep 15, 2011

Any other services, etc. that I should turn off? Thanks.

dhays90 · Sep 15, 2011

Battery life is a lot better!

answerman · Sep 15, 2011

superchaos said:
I did a full factory reset so it could have been something I installed on Froyo that has not been re-installed on GB.

^ This.

We used to call it the "placebo effect" back in the days of WinMo5 and 6. A new ROM often, if you do a full wipe, has the effect of making the phone perform better not because it's a better ROM, but because you cleaned all the crap off the phone that was slowing it down under the old ROM. Just something to keep in mind.

Seriously, most battery life issues are not caused by the ROM, but by apps installed after the phone is initialized. You can't really judge battery life until you've been running the same configuration for a couple of weeks.

ccoager · Sep 16, 2011

answerman said:
^ This.

We used to call it the "placebo effect" back in the days of WinMo5 and 6. A new ROM often, if you do a full wipe, has the effect of making the phone perform better not because it's a better ROM, but because you cleaned all the crap off the phone that was slowing it down under the old ROM. Just something to keep in mind.

Seriously, most battery life issues are not caused by the ROM, but by apps installed after the phone is initialized. You can't really judge battery life until you've been running the same configuration for a couple of weeks.

I have to respectfully disagree with you answerman. Perhaps if you said, reload the same OS you were using, but upgrading? No. In my case, I had a backup of my apps before the upgrade. I checked after the upgrade, no apps were lost.

It makes perfect sense the new OS has many battery life improvements. Also, my radio was upgraded as well so it's possible there is less battery drain there as well.

answerman · Sep 16, 2011

ccoager said:
I have to respectfully disagree with you answerman. Perhaps if you said, reload the same OS you were using, but upgrading? No. In my case, I had a backup of my apps before the upgrade. I checked after the upgrade, no apps were lost.

It makes perfect sense the new OS has many battery life improvements. Also, my radio was upgraded as well so it's possible there is less battery drain there as well.

Oh, don't get me wrong. Gingerbread (and the new kernel and radio) do have some improvements that can improve battery life. How significant of an increase is going to vary from one user to another (especially in the case of the radio, which is very region specific... a radio that works well in the Northeast may completely suck wind in the Midwest).

Yes, it is a little better. However, my concern is with people thinking that the Gingerbread OTA is going to take their Incredible which had a battery life of 10 hours under Froyo and turn it into a 48 hour wondermachine.

My personal experience (and admittedly I'm on the lighter side of the user profile): under stock but rooted Froyo, I was getting about 56 hours on a charge. Under Nils Business Gingersense (which is the same version of Android as the OTA) I'm getting about 58 hours. Not enough of a change in my book to believe it's all due to switching to Gingerbread.

Your mileage may vary.

Scrops · Sep 26, 2011

I work in a rare Verizon dead zone and with froyo I'd have to charge my phone after 9 hours. Now, rooted with gb ota, otherwise with same config I made it through a 24 hour shift and I'm just over 50%. For me it was a huge change. My feeling is the new radio for some reason doesn't waste as much energy searching for a signal. Used to be 30% or higher time without signal and now it's single digits.

soonerjess · Nov 16, 2011

My phone just updated yesterday. It was plugged in to the charger all night, unplugged at 8 this morning. I checked the battery thing and it said the Android OS was using 71% of the battery life. It's been less than 7 hours and my battery is already under 10%. This is ridiculous.

euph_22 · Nov 16, 2011

soonerjess said:
My phone just updated yesterday. It was plugged in to the charger all night, unplugged at 8 this morning. I checked the battery thing and it said the Android OS was using 71% of the battery life. It's been less than 7 hours and my battery is already under 10%. This is ridiculous.

The battery statistics take a few charge cycles to become accurate after an update. you can install System Panel (on the market) or something similar to try and find if something is using an aberrantly high amount of CPU or network.

EDIT: case in point, I just flashed a new version of my ROM this morning. My phone has been at 5% battery for 6 hours now. Give it a couple days, and you can speed/improve the process by calibrating the battery (run the battery down COMPLETELY, till it dies. I usually then boot it into recovery and let it sit there till it dies again but that is probably unnecessary. Then let the phone charge COMPLETELy, leaving it on the charger preferably turned off for something like 6-12 hours.)

Skipdawg · Nov 16, 2011

So far my battery life is better. And no issues so far so content till I can get me some ICS. LOL

buffettgirl · Nov 16, 2011

I'm also on the better battery team. And like OP, cell standby and phone idle used to use the most battery but no longer do.

Emmnemms · Nov 17, 2011

I only have had the update for a day, and it is better. About 8 hours so far and at 75% Not as good as some are showing, but better than I usually have

Sharondippity · Nov 17, 2011

Holy sh*tballs my battery life has doubled. I forgot to charge my phone last night, as I usually do, and it still has about 85% left.

It used to be nearly dead in the morning if I forgot to charge it.

I did have it plugged in yesterday evening while I did my factory reset and loading the updates etc, but the uptime is over 11 hours right now.

My phone is like a brand new phone, so I put a new cover on it and this will keep me from getting a new one.

Skipdawg · Nov 17, 2011

I was wondering if it was a fluke after the first update but even with the second one much better battery life. Happy for now.

Hightech · Nov 17, 2011

My wife got both the updates yesterday so she is on ver 4.08.605.2 and has been noticing lousy battery life.

I just checked....and see that DIALER has been using 31 % which sounds kinda strange to me.

I did a battery pull......and reset the uptime clock which is now 00.04.17.....when I go to battery use, however, up top it shows......13h 24m 41s on battery..... WTF???

Dialer still shows at 31 %

Also....seems very slow to charge.

AeolianReflex · Nov 17, 2011

I've only had the update for a couple of days and the battery life seems a bit better but I think I'll wait a week or so before I make any real judgements.

The thing that I don't like is I no longer have the option to shut down the phone completely and leave it off so that I can bump charge in the morning without pulling the battery. The new Power Off option just puts the phone to sleep and that's why it starts up so quickly. But the charging circuit in the software is still active in the shutdown mode and doesn't allow the battery to fully charge as it did before the updates - the LED stays green indicating a full charge. Bump charging gave me an added 6 to 8 hours of up time on average. So now I have to remove the Inc from its case, pull the back off and pull the battery in order to bump charge. Kind of a PITA.

euph_22 · Nov 17, 2011

AeolianReflex said:
I've only had the update for a couple of days and the battery life seems a bit better but I think I'll wait a week or so before I make any real judgements.

The thing that I don't like is I no longer have the option to shut down the phone completely and leave it off so that I can bump charge in the morning without pulling the battery. The new Power Off option just puts the phone to sleep and that's why it starts up so quickly. But the charging circuit in the software is still active in the shutdown mode and doesn't allow the battery to fully charge as it did before the updates - the LED stays green indicating a full charge. Bump charging gave me an added 6 to 8 hours of up time on average. So now I have to remove the Inc from its case, pull the back off and pull the battery in order to bump charge. Kind of a PITA.

turn off fast boot...then it will shut down like normal.

AeolianReflex · Nov 17, 2011

euph_22 said:
turn off fast boot...then it will shut down like normal.

Ah..... Thanks!!!

dut36 · Nov 18, 2011

euph_22 said:
turn off fast boot...then it will shut down like normal.

where do i turn off fast boot?

thanks......

euph_22 · Nov 18, 2011

dut36 said:
where do i turn off fast boot?

thanks......

On my ROM it's under menu> settings> manage applications.

Gingerbread battery life

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