Battery Life - The Good The Bad and The Ugly

thezlog · Jun 8, 2010

shadrap said:
People that are new to android/ smart phones do not realize that they need to leave things off, for example 4g, wifi. Most also do not understand that there is a need for task killers, though some do not like to admit it.

I feel this is an inaccurate statement. I've had every platform of smartphone there is, sans WebOS.

Even my Verizon 6700 PocketPC when overclocked got better battery life then this EVO is getting and I left bluetooth, 3G, and WiFi on at all times.

This is the first smartphone I've ever owned that can't have all of its features left on and make it through the day.

It saddens me greatly, but I am likely going to have to go with a different phone. I'm not a troll either.

For the record, my wife is having the same issue, and she CAN NOT use her phone throughout the day, she's a pharmacy tech and there is a strict no cellphone policy at work. She is leaving her phone in a locker and getting it at the end of the day to find that its got 20% or less life left - and thats with ATK.

hd.android · Jun 8, 2010

I have a HTC Touch Pro right now, and even that one drains in a few hours from my office (second to top floor of tall office building). I get one bar at best, and the phone goes on and off between finding signal and losing it. I'm pretty sure that's the reason the battery life is abysmal. If I go to airplane mode, it has no issue at all. And, no issue on the weekends running it at home.

I don't have the HTC Evo 4g yet, but I figure if I continue to turn it off while at work, and use Google Voice to map my calls to work/phone based on where I am, it'll be ok.

Really wish there was a solution around the battery drain when a phone is searching for signal. Everyone else was excited by the iPhone's "retina" screen, but I'm much more interested in seeing if/how the new antenna configuration solves signal reception problems.

Jrobertiko · Jun 8, 2010

It also has a lot to do with how many times your applications are synching in the background. For instance: weather and facebook sync every hour by default. I would think Gmail syncs even more frequently. I disabled the Stocks and News syncs and changed Facebook from 1 hour to 2 and Weather to every 3 hours and I think it has helped a bit!!!

TuNeCedeMalis · Jun 8, 2010

Oh! Oh! Let ME Answer! Day one with the Evo at work, it lasted 4 hours before needing a charge. Today was day two at work with the Evo and it lasted me 9 hours. What made the five hour difference?

1) 4g was only on when I browsed the internet

2) 3g was only on when I needed it for an app that needed internet

3) I stopped using a task killer and i think that helped

4) No live wallpapers (though I'm going to try that tomorrow and see what the difference is)

Essentially it's all about using features only when you need them. While I would love to have it on full speed ahead all day long, it just won't work.

Keep in mind I played on my phone more often than not. If I would have been working like I was supposed to, I feel it would be around half battery right now.

Actually, looking at my phone's battery settings it says up time is 33:31:42, while its Awake time is 16:48:42. If you subtract my approximate sleep time of 12 hours, that means I've been using it roughly 75 percent of the time it's even been on

or 45 minutes out of every hour....that's really bad on my part.

For the phone to have lasted me 9 hours today means 6.75 hours of usage and the rest of the time it idled in my pocket. That is very good in my opinion.

Once again, had I been working, this baby would have lasted me all day.

stinkyz · Jun 8, 2010

I'm in NYC. The only thing i turn off is 4g. My phone easily lasts 18 hours with battery to spare. I've never tried to go longer because, the 6 hours I plug it in are the 6 hours i sleep. I have that cool SystemPanel battery life monitor running, but until i bother to learn how to take screenshots, I will not have that uploaded yet.

I've actually been very lucky and have had a very positive experience with my EVO. I have to say that battery life on this is much better than my iPhone 3g. If i browsed the internet for 2 hours on my iPhone, the thing would be dead. I was actually hanging on to my iPhone without porting my number over for a few days because i thought i might have to return the EVO on account of all the poor battery life reports.

Here's how a typical day of activity looks like to me:

use internet browser intermittently throughout the day. the other day i browsed for 2 hours straight and still got at least 18 hours out of my day.
send and receive SMS several times an hour
used google talk for about 35 minutes today
have email checking every quarter hour for the entire 18 hours of use
i use all manners of live wallpapers -- zombie pixel being one of my favorite
leave GPS on
switch back and forth between wifi and 3g and nothing as i go from office to home to being in the subway
have been downloading and installing between 5-15 new apps every day
do not use a task killer
do not have Friend Stream on my homescreens
make only 1 or 2 short phone calls a day
have not played music from memory
have used pandora for 30 minutes a day
have not played any videos from memory
have streamed youtube vids about 15 minutes each day, from both wifi and 3g.

Has anyone tried swapping a different battery in? It could be as simple as a major batch of bad batteries.

fiskadoro · Jun 8, 2010

I'm very new to Android and I'm a little bummed at the EVO battery life, but right now I can't leave the damn thing alone, so that's probably why it's draining so quickly. However, there is always the possibility that some of us did get defective batteries, so if mine still seems to be weak once my 'honeymoon' period has worn off, I'd probably consider calling Sprint just in case.

bingo · Jun 8, 2010

shadrap said:
Trolls have been on this forum constantly. Most are iPhone fan boys that are easily revealed if you look at all their prior post. The Evo and the Incredible are the first phones to make the iPhone fans feel inadequate and rightfully so.

As a former iPhone owner, I have to say that the bigger trolls here seem to be the folks who feel the need to trump the superiority of their mobile device vs. whatever. I came here for the useful info which can be gleaned from sifting the helpful posts from fodder like this, but I have to say that the attitudes of the outspoken folks here in this community make a newcomer feel pretty unwelcome. If it weren't for how impressive this latest generation Android hardware and software actually is, I certainly wouldn't have any impetus to stick around. It seems like a lot of folks are here just for the sake of patting themselves on the back, and that's not the foundation for a helpful, thriving community. I'm hoping the better of you will continue to rise above the pettiness of what I'm sure is just the louder minority.

Deleted User · Jun 8, 2010

I'm no stranger to Android (I'm on my 3rd Android device), so I definitely know how to tweak the phone to get the most out of the battery. I've disabled GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, 4G, leave the brightness at half (I find it unusable all the way down, especially outside). I only have 1 Gmail account synced, and I don't leave any data hungry apps running. Yet my battery indicator usually drops one notch within an hour with very light use. With that said, I'm currently in an area where the phone is switching non-stop between 3G and roaming. I'm hoping this constant network switching is what's to blame for my speedy battery drain. I know this type of network flip flopping does nothing but drain the battery, so, I'm fairly certain I should see better results when I return to a non-fringe signal area.

nx25 · Jun 8, 2010

cesjr02 said:
I've noticed two contrasting groups on the forum lately. Some state getting only a few hours of battery life, others find the battery life to be much more reasonable.

I easily found my phone to last all day with moderate to sometimes heavy use with battery to spare. I'm not doing anything special either, no task killer, stock battery. I generally use wifi when around a hotspot, GPS while navigating and using location based services, and bluetooth to my car stereo while driving.

I'm not saying I wouldn't love a battery that lasts longer. Of course I'd take two million dollars over one million also.

Do we really use our phones so differently which battery-life has that much variance?

It probably has something to do with searching for a signal. People in stronger areas will obviously have longer lasting batteries.

However, I'd like the point out the obvious fact that people lie. The people who are trying to justify hating on the phone (haters gonna hate), are going to say their battery life sucks. They might even say it lasts an hour or two less than it really did, because they're fooling themselves. On the contrary, those who are biased towards loving their EVO will claim their battery lasts extra long. Somewhere between both sides of the truth is the actual truth.

The one thing we can all agree on is that this phone rocks. And if you have to keep a charger at home and at work to keep your battery life up, that's fine. For a tech geek like myself, and most of you I'm sure, it's worth the hassle (if there is one).

raqball · Jun 8, 2010

What's all this fuss about bettery life... Check out my screen shot and notice how many hours since last charge.... The battery still has about 25% left on it...

Heavy texting, some web browsing, Facebook use, sports and news on auto update...

Sent from my HTC EVO

monkeyinc · Jun 8, 2010

4g kills your battery in 3 hours. You dont call that a fuss????

neodorian · Jun 8, 2010

There will be variation due to how people use it and how their coverage is. Also, some folks who came from other phones may not be used to a phone with multiple wireless radios, large touch screen, fast processor, etc. The leaps in cell phone specs have far surpassed any leaps in battery tech so it is becoming a chore to balance high end specs, thin form factors, and long battery life.

The next big break in battery tech that even bumps average use from one day to two days is gonna be awesome.

hayaboosa1300 · Jun 8, 2010

I Love my evo but the battery life really sucks. My friend also has the evo. So Luckily I have another evo to compare. What I have found is the android system is running really heavy on mine. And not his. You Can see from the screen shots how atrocious this is lol. turning off sync, background data, low back light, turn off 4g, nothing makes my battery last. Or makes android system get to like 15 percent like my buddies phone. I Will post screen shots.
my phone does infact sleep.
sent from Tapatalk via HTC EVO 4g

Hardcorp · Jun 8, 2010

monkeyinc said:
4g kills your battery in 3 hours. You dont call that a fuss????

In 3 hours ? Really?

raqball · Jun 8, 2010

monkeyinc said:
4g kills your battery in 3 hours. You dont call that a fuss????

Ummmmm... There is a switch / settings / widget to turn that off ya know....

3G speeds along just fine for me...

16 hours and still going with about 20% battery life and I am using it fairly steady for the last 7 1/2 hours...

patio87 · Jun 8, 2010

So I'm completely new to smartphones, but I'm wondering if it is possible that this battery issue with the Evo is a firmware or android issue?

SirSlayer · Jun 8, 2010

hayaboosa1300 said:
I Love my evo but the battery life really sucks. My friend also has the evo. So Luckily I have another evo to compare. What I have found is the android system is running really heavy on mine. And not his. You Can see from the screen shots how atrocious this is lol. turning off sync, background data, low back light, turn off 4g, nothing makes my battery last. Or makes android system get to like 15 percent like my buddies phone. I Will post screen shots.
my phone does infact sleep.
sent from Tapatalk via HTC EVO 4g

I have a suggestion for you. Uninstall ATK! Just run without (uninstalled not turned off) for awhile and see if things improve. Read the forum attached to my sig about it. Anytime you are having issues with your OS you should just remove it, it causes more issues then it solves. I have installed tons of apps and can go a full day on the battery.

Is your friend running ATK as well? Even if he is you should still try uninstalling it.

septro · Jun 8, 2010

bingo said:
As a former iPhone owner, I have to say that the bigger trolls here seem to be the folks who feel the need to trump the superiority of their mobile device vs. whatever. I came here for the useful info which can be gleaned from sifting the helpful posts from fodder like this, but I have to say that the attitudes of the outspoken folks here in this community make a newcomer feel pretty unwelcome. If it weren't for how impressive this latest generation Android hardware and software actually is, I certainly wouldn't have any impetus to stick around. It seems like a lot of folks are here just for the sake of patting themselves on the back, and that's not the foundation for a helpful, thriving community. I'm hoping the better of you will continue to rise above the pettiness of what I'm sure is just the louder minority.

Dont' be so emo about it. Its an internet tech forum. The Apple/Mac forums are no better in any way shape or form. Most folks here do help and try to answer questions without too much added drama, especially for those folks who may be new to Android.

I mean there's a whole section on HowTos and even a dedicated thread for ex-iPhone users to help them with specific transition questions as they get to know Android.

Just learn to gloss right by the troll-ish/fanboy-ish type posts and you'll find your experience here will be quite enjoyable tbh.

ScorpDX · Jun 8, 2010

patio87 said:
So I'm completely new to smartphones

Really? I wouldn't have guessed...

patio87 said:
but I'm wondering if it is possible that this battery issue with the Evo is a firmware or android issue?

The battery "issue" is just a matter of how much the person uses the phone!

Deleted User · Jun 8, 2010

I really wish Google had designed Android in a way that underclocked the CPU during idle states. My Evo does not need to be running at 1GHz while it's just sitting there with the screen off. I know some people in the dev/root community have started using an application that does just this. Scales down CPU speed when idle, and as soon as the screen is turned on, boosts it back up to 1GHz. Once there are some very usable custom roms out, I'm definitely considering this route.

SirSlayer · Jun 8, 2010

Just another added note. More then likely a third party app that has been installed besides ATK could be causing the issue. I would, after testing removing ATK, start removing apps that you have installed one at a time to try to find the application that has caused this.

Last case scenario might be to do a hard reset and start over if nothing works.

septro · Jun 8, 2010

This thread Delivers! Everybody - post your battery usage pics! Here's mine to put the battery naysayers to rest:

neodorian · Jun 8, 2010

There is no battery "issue" except that smart phones with multiple wireless radios, large screens, and fast processors use lots of power and you can only get so much juice out of a thin little battery. Until battery tech improves, manufacturers have to choose between battery life and thin form factors. Since it's be proven over and over that people will choose sexy over functional most of the time, it's easy to see which way they went.

How many Evos do you think they would sell if they were twice as thick like an old Palm or WM phone? How many smug Apple ads would you expect to see on TV? Sure, the phone would last 2-3 days but nobody would buy them.

mrvirginia · Jun 8, 2010

LS1 said:
There is no need for a task killer unless you are running a shitty app. If you're running the shitty app, get rid of it.

agreed. don't install crap. no task killer here.

methoderik · Jun 8, 2010

I think the battery issue is from the awesome sauce this phone emits directly interfering with the lithium ion. I am running some tests but initial data is pointing that way.

Battery Life - The Good The Bad and The Ugly

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