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Help Battery life is horrible!!! G nexus

uhhhmeeer

Lurker
Jul 20, 2012
9
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This is my second G nexus and it might just be me or it might be the phone but both of them have been horrible on battery, my recent one is better but still not great. A full charge lasts from 6-8 hours. But yet my friends lasts 15+ hours.

Ive tried all the battery saving apps and they have not helped. Ive got a battery wall charger and spare batteries so i make it through the day using 2 batteries but its disappointing. Any idea why my battery sucks??
 
If you could provide a little more information, it might help with diagnosing the potential issue. Are you unlocked and rooted? If so, are you running the stock rom or a custom rom. What kernel are you using? What version do you have, GSM, Verizon or Sprint?

Also posting a picture of your battery stats after a drain would help to see if apps or signal are causing the issue.
 
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If you could provide a little more information, it might help with diagnosing the potential issue. Are you unlocked and rooted? If so, are you running the stock rom or a custom rom. What kernel are you using? What version do you have, GSM, Verizon or Sprint?

Also posting a picture of your battery stats after a drain would help to see if apps or signal are causing the issue.

I am using the international version on At&t, running 4.2 on stock rom, non rooted. Kernal version: 3.0.31

i will take a screenshot of the stats after todays drain!

also, seems like my battery lasts longer when i charge the battery using the phone itself vs when i use the battery wall charger.
 
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That does seem like short battery life, particularly for the GSM Nexus, though there are several other factors. It would help to see your battery usage screens, particularly how much the screen is turned on. The screen uses a lot of power and can run the battery down in just a few hours -- and it is much worse if it is a light background on the screen.
 
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That does seem like short battery life, particularly for the GSM Nexus, though there are several other factors. It would help to see your battery usage screens, particularly how much the screen is turned on. The screen uses a lot of power and can run the battery down in just a few hours -- and it is much worse if it is a light background on the screen.

Ditto on seeing the screen on time. Mine (LTE/ CDMA version) can usually do a little more than 2 hours of screen on time before the battery is dead.

here are the screen shots:

screenshot2012121617190.png


screenshot2012121617190.png


screenshot2012121617185.png


It doesnt seem normal at all when i put in a fresh new battery itll be at 100 percent for a minute or so and immediately drop to 99 and so on.

Also i didnt check how long the screen was on but it wasnt something outrageous... to get an idea, on the new battery i just put in i have 96% now with only 17 minutes of the screen being on.
 
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here are the screen shots:

screenshot2012121617190.png


screenshot2012121617190.png


screenshot2012121617185.png


It doesnt seem normal at all when i put in a fresh new battery itll be at 100 percent for a minute or so and immediately drop to 99 and so on.

Also i didnt check how long the screen was on but it wasnt something outrageous... to get an idea, on the new battery i just put in i have 96% now with only 17 minutes of the screen being on.
58% is a lot of screen on time
 
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Your stats look like mine. I have to keep my mobile data on all the time because I use Google Voice/GrooveIP for my phone calls. I also check email/texts/voicemails/missed calls every 15 minutes. I try to use Wifi when i can but it's impossible to use it 100%. I get about 8 hours. I bring spare batts already charged and just switch out when I run out of juice.
 
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Yeah, that appears to be a boatload of screen on time. You can't get more than 3+ hours of screen time on the standard battery, even with WiFi. What do you have brightness set at? I recommend you try 30% or less. That will extend battery time.

Here's a post I wrote with tips on improving battery life...
Droids 'n Things: Samsung Galaxy Nexus Battery Life
 
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Wifi generally uses more power than the cell network.

False. WiFi uses the least power. By far.
4G>3G>WiFi
(At least on the GN 4G uses more than 3G. In theory with newer chips/antennas 4G should be more efficient than 3G). WiFi will continue to be the most power efficient data connection. Presumably because of the much shorter transmission range.
 
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First of all, that is a lot of screen time....just guessing but maybe about 3 hours worth?

But the thing I am totally confused by, and hopefully someone else can shed light on this, how does your phone have the screen on so much but it isn't awake?

beats me!

Wifi generally uses more power than the cell network. And you have the screen on almost 50% of the time the phone is on. That seems like expected battery life given your usage. Did you have a phone before the GNex that you used similarly, yet got 24 hours from? Why do you think it should last longer? (not meant as sarcasm)

well just the fact that while im using it for a few minutes i can see the battery percentage just drain seems likea a problem. i honestly dont use my phone a lot and 8 hour battery life is ridiculous.
 
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False. WiFi uses the least power. By far.
4G>3G>WiFi
(At least on the GN 4G uses more than 3G. In theory with newer chips/antennas 4G should be more efficient than 3G). WiFi will continue to be the most power efficient data connection. Presumably because of the much shorter transmission range.

agree with this, and everything else everyone has said.

seems like you had good signal, with constant wifi, no unusual awake times, and a lot of screen on time.
i can get about 3 hours of screen on time with all wifi...about 2 on LTE.
without knowing how much screen on time you had, it is difficult for us to tell if you have bad battery life, but it doesn't seem like you do.
 
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beats me!



well just the fact that while im using it for a few minutes i can see the battery percentage just drain seems likea a problem. i honestly dont use my phone a lot and 8 hour battery life is ridiculous.

i am curious about your previous phone and how its battery compared to the Gnex, like i said above, it doesn't seem out of the ordinary for what i am seeing. 3 hours of screen on time in 8 hours is A LOT of use.
 
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False. WiFi uses the least power. By far.
4G>3G>WiFi
(At least on the GN 4G uses more than 3G. In theory with newer chips/antennas 4G should be more efficient than 3G). WiFi will continue to be the most power efficient data connection. Presumably because of the much shorter transmission range.

If you were actively using the data connection, that is probably true. It does not match my experience at all though with the phone standing by, where it has to maintain a wifi connection as well as a cellular one.

I can easily get 2-3 days out of my phone, never using wifi. I can not do that if I keep wifi turned on.
 
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well just the fact that while im using it for a few minutes i can see the battery percentage just drain seems likea a problem. i honestly dont use my phone a lot and 8 hour battery life is ridiculous.

Maybe your notion of "a lot" needs redefinition. Your battery stat suggests you have the screen on quite often. If you compare it to a laptop or something, they won't go 8 hours if they are being used. A phone should have even less expectation of surviving that type of usage.

So I think either your expectation needs tweaking, or you aren't giving us enough information on how you are using it (or what you used prior). The screenshots you posted suggest the phone is doing a pretty valiant job.
 
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If you were actively using the data connection, that is probably true. It does not match my experience at all though with the phone standing by, where it has to maintain a wifi connection as well as a cellular one.

I can easily get 2-3 days out of my phone, never using wifi. I can not do that if I keep wifi turned on.

Mine goes to about 65% after about 14 hours with some use on wifi at my university (some of the inner parts of buildings create cellular deadzones as well).

Without wifi, my battery is absolutely destroyed by the end of the day, in standby, because of the dead spots. For some reason, if I'm on wifi, the battery life improves when I'm in those dead spots. Its weird but hey, it works.
 
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Mine goes to about 65% after about 14 hours with some use on wifi at my university (some of the inner parts of buildings create cellular deadzones as well).

Without wifi, my battery is absolutely destroyed by the end of the day, in standby, because of the dead spots. For some reason, if I'm on wifi, the battery life improves when I'm in those dead spots. Its weird but hey, it works.

The OP is on AT&T, using a GSM Galaxy Nexus. I don't think you can compare the battery drain to your Verizon version. My Triumph on Sprint/VM was like yours. Usually the battery was destroyed by the crap signal, wifi helped a bit. Though the times I was in a decent signal area, wifi seemed to use more battery.

But on my GSM phone it seems much clearer that wifi drains faster than the cell network. In fact, with 4.2, even in a dead zone for a few hours, the battery doesn't drain appreciably (I assume 4.2 is smarter about retrying vs just burning the battery up trying to reconnect).
 
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The OP is on AT&T, using a GSM Galaxy Nexus. I don't think you can compare the battery drain to your Verizon version. My Triumph on Sprint/VM was like yours. Usually the battery was destroyed by the crap signal, wifi helped a bit. Though the times I was in a decent signal area, wifi seemed to use more battery.

But on my GSM phone it seems much clearer that wifi drains faster than the cell network. In fact, with 4.2, even in a dead zone for a few hours, the battery doesn't drain appreciably (I assume 4.2 is smarter about retrying vs just burning the battery up trying to reconnect).

Right, but wifi drain should be more or less the same. It uses the exact same chip. Either way, having TWO radios instead of one shouldn't improve battery life, not by any stretch of the imagination. Even I found that odd.

Although I'm still on a release of 4.1 back in September. I haven't tried any 4.2 ROMs.
 
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Right, but wifi drain should be more or less the same. It uses the exact same chip. Either way, having TWO radios instead of one shouldn't improve battery life, not by any stretch of the imagination. Even I found that odd.

Although I'm still on a release of 4.1 back in September. I haven't tried any 4.2 ROMs.

I'm pretty sure the galaxy nexus has 3 separate WiFi, 3g & LTE chips. The reason (I've read) that LTE is such a killer on the VZW nexus is because it has the 2 seperate cellular chips. Supposedly the newer hybrid 3g/4g chips are much more power efficient.

I suppose that, in theory, if your phone was on cell only and not transmitting anything that it would use less power than a phone on WiFi + cell transmitting no data. 2 connections using more power than 1 even just to ping/maintain. However if your phone is doing background syncs, updates, etc. Then using WiFi for data transmission and just pinging the towers with cellular should be more efficient than doing data transmission and pinging via cellular only.
 
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Some of the Apps are also grouped in with the screen %... I have 3800 hyperion battery with nfc capabilities even though the bulge is bigger than stock I don't think it's that bad plus the huge upside is the battery just doesn't die... Watching netflix YouTube, text, talk, and email plus a live wallpaper running and full brightness I finished the day at 40 % battery life remaining
 
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Some of the Apps are also grouped in with the screen %... I have 3800 hyperion battery with nfc capabilities even though the bulge is bigger than stock I don't think it's that bad plus the huge upside is the battery just doesn't die... Watching netflix YouTube, text, talk, and email plus a live wallpaper running and full brightness I finished the day at 40 % battery life remaining

+1 on this. I have this same battery and it has easily doubled if not more than doubled battery life. This plus the right custom rom and kernel can produce great battery life. I've gotten 6.5 hours of screen time with heavy use, or even over 39 hours of light use with it. The utility of it far exceeds any cosmetic problems.

zu5e3uvu.jpg


4umugamu.jpg
 
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