Help This is why your battery drops 10-15% in the first 20 minutes.

EdwardChen said:

And another thing, I do believe my phone has this sudden 5-10% drop behavior, as logged below:

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I would think that this supports that it is not a battery problem, but something to do with the monitoring circuitry and software on the phone. It will never bee 100% accurate.

The people that worry too much about that 5-10% drop are probably worrying too much.

yeah, i'm with ya. I don't care too terribly much. I just keep a charger in the car, home, office and top off whenever. The battery life is decent enough for all the stuff I do on it.

Just wanted to take some measurements so everyone could understand what's actually happening a little better.

Is there any chance that a firmware update will take care of this? If I have a long day planned where I won't be near a charger, I would like my phone to start off at 100%, not 93%.

Like what horadin said, i do think it's more so software/monitoring thing, so it's likely they can fix the measurement in software.

But the big thing is, if the battery is legitimately 100% charged, then maybe the quick drop is just a measurement reporting error, as in, we are a all already using 100% of our capacity, it's just that it he software puts 100% at actually 110% of the capacity, and when we hit 93%, that's the real top 100% of the battery's capacity, which would mean that we are already getting max battery life.

EdwardChen said:

yeah, i'm with ya. I don't care too terribly much. I just keep a charger in the car, home, office and top off whenever. The battery life is decent enough for all the stuff I do on it.

Just wanted to take some measurements so everyone could understand what's actually happening a little better.

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And I thank you for taking the time to run some tests and getting some solid data.

Yankees368 said:

Is there any chance that a firmware update will take care of this? If I have a long day planned where I won't be near a charger, I would like my phone to start off at 100%, not 93%.

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There might be, but in reality it will just inflate the displayed percentage that the battery is charged.

They did this with the Palm Pre. The Pre would report that the battery was 100% charged until the actual percentage dropped to 96%. Then when the battery dropped to 95%, the indicated % would be 99. The difference between the actual battery percentage and the displayed was 4% and it was corrected over the time that the battery was discharged to show the actual percentage. This was done because people were complaining about the same thing that people are complaining about here. There was also a patch available through Preware that would make the battery monitoring software report the true battery percentage. People expect the phone to stay at 100% for an unusually long time, but in reality the second you unplug the phone from the wall, the battery charge is below 100% and if you happen to unplug it during that 8 minute time period during which the charger is not running then the battery will be even a little bit more lower.

In short what I am trying to say is they could "fix" the problem with a software update but the actual battery percentage vs. the displayed percentage would be different for some amount of time and you would not have a true reading of the battery life.

Just to add to this threat, I charged my phone all night (this is before I read this forum or even knew about this problem). When I took it off the charger it dropped to 95% within a few minutes. Then within 30 minutes or so it was down to 85% or so. I decided to put it back on the charger and charge it back to 100% and now im just reading this. So far within 10 minutes of taking it off the charger im down to 95%...maybe mine just sucks?

To the OP and others: Great objective testing!

pwkim21 said:

Just to add to this threat, I charged my phone all night (this is before I read this forum or even knew about this problem). When I took it off the charger it dropped to 95% within a few minutes. Then within 30 minutes or so it was down to 85% or so. I decided to put it back on the charger and charge it back to 100% and now im just reading this. So far within 10 minutes of taking it off the charger im down to 95%...maybe mine just sucks?

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That is my belief. There may be some slight issues with battery sensors, float charging, calibration, etc, blah blah... but I think some of us (including me) just got less than perfect stock batteries. I will soon be ordering extra batteries and will test if I see all of the same characteristics in the new ones or not.

I have tried every trick yall have posted and none of them have worked for me so I just give up and will just learn to live with it the easy it is. Thanks fore all the advice everyone has posted it has been fun at least trying them.

very good and interesting test results.

TS

vicshalls said:

I have tried every trick yall have posted and none of them have worked for me so I just give up and will just learn to live with it the easy it is. Thanks fore all the advice everyone has posted it has been fun at least trying them.

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I could not agree more. It has been interesting, but no luck with any of the aforementioned solutions.

I have an extra battery the one from my Touch Pro 2. I had an extra one for it and kept it when I sold my phone. It's been in my purse though forever and I haven't gotten it out or used it since I've had this phone. I wish I had an extra battery charger. I loved having my docking cradle plus extra battery charger for my TP2 which I gave with my phone when I sold it.

But I charged all night with phone off last night. Took off charger turned phone on and after 20 miutes plugged it back in and when I saw on this system panel program that it was 99% I unplugged it. It's been unplugged now. But I'll top it off in the car on the charger on my way to work. I don't get good signal in the basement of my work so I'm gonna start putting it in airplane mode unless I am on break. I can sometimes get on my works guest wifi and it's not that strong of a signal but it works. I'm not that concerned cause i have a car charger and usually bring my home charger to work. But still if I am out for the night I don't want my battery dying really quick.

And I do have the extra battery but it's a pain for me taking off my sedio case and taking off the back to change the battery and then my Calrivue screen protector lifts in the corner when putting my case back on. So I try to always have my charger with me.

So should you always take it off the charger at like 99% and not wait for it to turn green? Then wait 20 minutes or so and plug it back in? And does it really help more by turning it off at night when charging? I did that last night but then I had to go under system and close stuff out that auto opens like Fring and a few other things. Like if I took it off now at 99% and it;s been off ever since but i am going to work and want to top off the charge again do I keep taking it off the charger at 99% always.. Or just that 1st time then wait till it's green the other times?

One of the best threads explaining the early 10% drop off. Normally i leave the charger on overnight and noticed in the morning it would drop about 1% every minute or so till 90%. Now re-charged it to 96% and been checking the phone for the past 40 mins, It's still 96%!

sh4o8kid said:

I think the reason why the battery drops is because of the micro sd card. Here is my post:

http://androidforums.com/htc-evo-4g/102858-people-whos-battery-go-100-90-matter-minutes.html

It worked seriously well for me and i experience no drop at all.

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I agree, I formatted my card and my phone can outlast anything.

sh4o8kid said:

I think the reason why the battery drops is because of the micro sd card. Here is my post:

http://androidforums.com/htc-evo-4g/102858-people-whos-battery-go-100-90-matter-minutes.html

It worked seriously well for me and i experience no drop at all.

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TF1984 said:

I agree, I formatted my card and my phone can outlast anything.

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However, unlike this post, there is no objective theory explaining the basis of your idea working. I, for one, have no idea why a microSD card would have anything to do with power consumption, much less the formatting of it.

This thread is pretty unique in that we have objective testing concluding that the charger does in fact not draw power (and thus is not charging the phone) once it hits 100%. This theory is also consistent with general understanding of lithium ion technology -- that you don't want to overcharge a lithium ion cell, shutting off the power draw is one way of doing it.

apocalypse_later said:

Too much snake oil in these forums. Seriously, most of the battery tips are bunk. Honestly, if you don't understand the technology and can't test multiple phones then you're just exhibiting confirmation bias.

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More like witch doctors shaking their chicken bones!

I am not even using the sd card that came with the phone. I had an 8 gig class 4 on my old phone that I formatted and am using. I can't see what the sd card has to do with the battery neither..

TF1984 said:

I agree, I formatted my card and my phone can outlast anything.

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This does not do anything. What I am sure was happening is people would do the trick charge there phone to 100%, then remove it from the charger and think they are getting better battery life. I too was a believer the first day I did.

Then I charged my phone that night and woke up to the same problems. The SD format trick does not work!

I have a spare battery charger from Seidio that charges the battery out of the phone. When I use this to charge the battery it stays at 100% and doesn't do the crazy drop to below 90% in the first hour of use. However when I charge the battery in the phone overnight it always drops crazy fast. Seems like a calibration issue with the software on the phone to me. They should be able to fix this via a software update.

bluehaze013 said:

I have a spare battery charger from Seidio that charges the battery out of the phone. When I use this to charge the battery it stays at 100% and doesn't do the crazy drop to below 90% in the first hour of use. However when I charge the battery in the phone overnight it always drops crazy fast. Seems like a calibration issue with the software on the phone to me. They should be able to fix this via a software update.

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Thanks - been waiting for someone to charge battery externally then report back results. Sounds like it's definitely a software fix that can be implemented by HTC. Be interesting to see how they do. If HTC's smart, they'd do this fix before all else.

I tried this out this morning. I charge my phone overnight and would just leave it on the charger until I left for work. Not even using it, it would drop to around 93% usually within 20 minutes or so. Today when I woke up I took it off the charger and went to take my shower. When I got out I plugged it back in and let it sit on the charger until I left. Now 45 minutes later, I still have 97% showing. I'm convinced this does in fact work. Now it would be nice if HTC could release a fix for this issue so I don't have to worry about taking my phone off the charger and putting it back on.

Rigmaster said:

Thanks - been waiting for someone to charge battery externally then report back results. Sounds like it's definitely a software fix that can be implemented by HTC. Be interesting to see how they do. If HTC's smart, they'd do this fix before all else.

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Mine isn't dropping either, I formatted my card and am using a different charging cable.

I tried this today, and once I unplugged it, I was just checking a e-mail, doing nothing else, then ALL OF A SUDDEN, in less than ONE MINUTE, and I mean it by less than ONE MINUTE, it went from 100% to 95%...
I am a light to moderate user, I mean the EVO can still last thru my day of 10 hours... but I would love to solve this can actually be solve

I have a few spare batteries and a couple of separate battery chargers, and I can confirm that charging the battery outside of the EVO makes the difference. For me, it seems as though the EVO reports 100% before it is actually at 100%, since it seems to often jump from 95% or 96% to 100%. It is rare that charging the battery inside the EVO results in nearly no immediate drop from 100%, whereas charging the battery in a separate charger always results in it staying at 100% for quite a while. Up to an hour with minimal use, usually. Something is definitely different about how the battery is being charged while installed in the EVO. Unfortunately, in this case, different = bad.