Battery Life - The Good The Bad and The Ugly

[Mr. Ed]

http://androidforums.com/htc-evo-4g/97329-battery-life-good-bad-ugly.html

one of many many great battery threads here on the forum. you can find even more in the troubleshooting, and tips and tricks section.

that percentage is based on android system use and time in use. so more information would be required to know if it is normal or not

 

[ej132]

36% with 4 hours 30 minute of up time, 1.5 hours awake and.under the Android system in battery use it says 9m 43s.

 

[TheZane]

I've been away from the wall for 2 days 19 hours and am at 50% battery at the moment. I was expecting like 10 hours at best from what I read all the posts saying that this battery had something to be desired. Then again, I don't really use the droid as a so called power user. Basically just for BBC, NPR, NHL scores and facebook on occasion. While this phone does basically everything, I feel like I have a computer for a reason still...

I got rid of app killers after watching a movie about Foryo from Google and I think that really helped. In the beginning It would whine for the wall every 24 hours or so with heavy use modifying and adding apps and such.

Although, I have only had the phone a month. The battery could still get sour.

 

[SamuraiBigEd]

I've been away from the wall for 2 days 19 hours and am at 50% battery at the moment. I was expecting like 10 hours at best from what I read all the posts saying that this battery had something to be desired. Then again, I don't really use the droid as a so called power user. Basically just for BBC, NPR, NHL scores and facebook on occasion. While this phone does basically everything, I feel like I have a computer for a reason still...

I got rid of app killers after watching a movie about Foryo from Google and I think that really helped. In the beginning It would whine for the wall every 24 hours or so with heavy use modifying and adding apps and such.

Although, I have only had the phone a month. The battery could still get sour.

This thread refers specifically to the Evo, not the Incredible. Wish we could get battery life like that!

 

[TheZane]

This thread refers specifically to the Evo, not the Incredible. Wish we could get battery life like that!

Oops wasn't aware of that.

 

[Androidalltheway]

I get about 12 hours with moderate to heavy use, heavy use, I get 6-8

 

[EarlyMon]

Oops wasn't aware of that.

Welcome to the forums!

Even though posted for another phone, your post still contributed. So - no worries, mate.

Here's the Incredible forum, seems like a great bunch to me - HTC Incredible - Android Forums

 

[N4CER]

Hey there guys, Im pretty much new to the forum only having my Evo since thanksgiving. Like most of you I cringe due to the phones constant need to be charged. I have given thought to rooting but I get so worried that I'll screw up that I dont even bother. I see all of you have mentioned the Seidio battery, but I came across another battery from a company called Mugen. Do any of you know about them and if its worth taking a chance and buying a battery from them. I've provided the link below.

[HLI-A9292SL] Buy Mugen Power Extended Battery for HTC EVO 4G 1800mAh

 

[SamuraiBigEd]

Try this thread, there are others as well.

http://androidforums.com/htc-evo-4g...looks-better-than-seidio.html?highlight=mugen

 

[LytSlpr]

Mind you people, basing on the first post of this thread, this issue was raised on June 24, 2010. It is now January 25, 2011. In IT standards, 6 months is already an eternity to fix a glitch and up to now, there has been no real fix yet.

Do you really, seriously pray that there is still light at the end of this tunnel? I think HTC/Sprint are just sitting on their butts regarding this issue.

I am surprised that there has been no class action suit raised yet against HTC regarding this issue.

 

[LytSlpr]

Ok, like most of you I have probably read every review out there on the Evo. And since recently there are a few floating around I am starting to see more and more reviews stating that the battery life is horrible. So I need the "real" people out there that have their hands on the Evo to let us know....is it really that bad, is it doable, or what? I have used ppc 6700, Mogul, HTC touch Pro, Instinct, Palm Pre, and recently Hero. With the Hero, out of the box battery life sucked, and we all had the initial 100% wake time, but with some tweaks my hero battery lasts from 6am till I go to sleep, and I use it alllllll day long. So I am wondering if these bad battery life reviews are coming from ppl that are not tweaking there phones, i.e.. turning auto backlight off, turning 4g off when not in use, making FB and twitter autosync all the time etc..etc... Ive been waiting for this phone, and I am getting somewhat hesitant now. Not just because of the battery, but also because I know there will be another GREAT phone coming out at the End of the year. So if you have an Evo, just let us know...Do we need a bedroom, livingroom,car,and work phone charger(oh wait I already have that)...but do we need it. Thanks Guys

IT SUCKS BIGTIME! Don't even attempt to tweak it coz it is pointless. A phone should work with enough battery to at last you at least 24 hours, the Evo 4G won't last you that long, even if you turn off everything (except for the power of course) and that is the unsugarcoated reality.

4 of us in the office got it and we experience the same thing and we are talking about 3 tech geeks and an IT professional.

 

[EarlyMon]

Mind you people, basing on the first post of this thread, this issue was raised on June 24, 2010. It is now January 25, 2011. In IT standards, 6 months is already an eternity to fix a glitch and up to now, there has been no real fix yet.

Do you really, seriously pray that there is still light at the end of this tunnel? I think HTC/Sprint are just sitting on their butts regarding this issue.

I am surprised that there has been no class action suit raised yet against HTC regarding this issue.

Welcome to the forums!

Uh - not sure what your point of view on this is.

The thread is long because some people have problems, others hadn't found Slick1020's thread on how to configure for proper battery life - and we have new Evo owners coming along every day.

Some - like SamuraiBigEd - are just now reporting that their issue wasn't fixed and has found other means to gain satisfaction.

The newer superphones aren't that great on battery life compared to less-busy machines, but with a bit of configuring, or a larger battery, or a custom rom, or combinations of those, Evo owners tend to end up pretty happy.

IT SUCKS BIGTIME! Don't even attempt to tweak it coz it is pointless. A phone should work with enough battery to at last you at least 24 hours, the Evo 4G won't last you that long, even if you turn off everything (except for the power of course) and that is the unsugarcoated reality.

4 of us in the office got it and we experience the same thing and we are talking about 3 tech geeks and an IT professional.

I think you might want to learn a little about what we do around here before advising others not to do things.

1. We have more than a few tech geeks and IT pros floating around here.

2. You are free to your opinion on what things _should_ do, but without explaining what your issues are, you're not going to gain much traction.

 

[dan330]

IT SUCKS BIGTIME! Don't even attempt to tweak it coz it is pointless. A phone should work with enough battery to at last you at least 24 hours, the Evo 4G won't last you that long, even if you turn off everything (except for the power of course) and that is the unsugarcoated reality.

4 of us in the office got it and we experience the same thing and we are talking about 3 tech geeks and an IT professional.

if you turn everything off (all radios off).. and it cant sit there for more than 3 days... there is something else wrong!!!

your phones may not be sleeping.. correctly (wake time = sleep time)

if I dont use my phone... have 3G, GPS, data sync, mobile network; all on...
It will last over 2 days.
if I use it.. play games... phone.. text... as normal... I can get over 12 hrs of use.

you can damn your phone.. and return it.
or
spend some time.. understanding your issues..

 

[Roddy]

ok, i need some help..

I bought one of those Chinese 3500 batteries from ebay.. its the first day and i unplugged my phone at 8am its 2pm and im already on 40%.with moderate use. this isn't the hype that i was expecting. Am i doing something wrong?

BTW, i used an external charger to charge the batter.

 

[SamuraiBigEd]

IT SUCKS BIGTIME! Don't even attempt to tweak it coz it is pointless. A phone should work with enough battery to at last you at least 24 hours, the Evo 4G won't last you that long, even if you turn off everything (except for the power of course) and that is the unsugarcoated reality.

4 of us in the office got it and we experience the same thing and we are talking about 3 tech geeks and an IT professional.

If you use your phone, expect the battery to drain. This isn't a dumb phone that has an address book and internet access only, this thing is basically a scaled down netbook! It has a 1 ghz processor, and I would expect three tech geeks and an IT professional to know that the faster a processor is the more power it consumes. There is also the fact that the Evo has four separate radios! Add a 4.3 inch screen on top of that, the bigger a screen gets the more power it consumes as well.

I fall into the category of power-user, sometimes racking up four or more hours talk time a day, multiple e-mails from three different accounts(with attachments and two are imap), texts, I use the camera regularly, bluetooth, wifi, Pandora, plus I just fiddle with it at times and I can get 6-10 hours before needing to charge, longer on slow days.

If you don't like it, do something about it. Mine was like this in the beginning, then went downhill after each successive update to the point that I only got 2-3 hours before having to charge. I got back to the battery life I have now by rooting and loading Fresh 3.5.0.1. There are solutions for those that have the patience and desire to look for them, it is not hard.

 

[SamuraiBigEd]

ok, i need some help..

I bought one of those Chinese 3500 batteries from ebay.. its the first day and i unplugged my phone at 8am its 2pm and im already on 40%.with moderate use. this isn't the hype that i was expecting. Am i doing something wrong?

BTW, i used an external charger to charge the batter.

If it is an off brand battery it may not be a true 3500mah, and even if it says a brand name being from China there is a good possibility that it is a knock off.

That said, this thread explains the "10% rule", you will loose 10% right away if you leave it plugged in all night due to the way the charger circuit functions. Unplug it for a while, plug it back in and top it off then unplug immediately when the led turns green again. You should notice better performance.

Also, cycle the battery 3 or 4 times by letting it discharge completely before charging again.

If none of these are working for you check this thread:

http://androidforums.com/evo-4g-support-troubleshooting/141369-how-fix-froyo.html

EarlyMon has some excellent advice in this one.

 

[kingp]

I wanted to share my battery life story with you.

I received my EVO back in late December, about 5 days before Christmas. My battery life sucked, out of the box. I would be on a full charge at 6am, and by 3pm I'm having to charge my phone again, just to last until I got home again.

I had TasKiller installed, as well as Startup Auditor to cut off the junk that self starts, and it didn't make enough of a difference (got maybe an extra hour). I finally decided that I had enough, and I rooted with unrEVOked 3. I removed all of the Sprint apps, Nova, and the stock apps like Amazon, Amazon mp3, etc.

Once I had acheived root, I installed SetCPU, Juice Defender, and TasKiller.

I have SetCPU on profiles to reduce my clock speed at certain power thresholds, and screen off. I have Juice Defender (Ultimate Juice) set to manage my Wifi/Mobile connections on demand as well as being set to the Aggressive setting. I have TasKiller set to kill all apps at Screen off.

On top of that, I purchased the 1800mAh extended slim battery from HTCExpress.com (came with a spare and a charger for 35 bucks). After conditioning these batteries, I'm happy to say that I get just about double the life of my original stock battery.

For the record, my phone has been off the charge since 6am (@100%) and it is now 5pm and I'm just now at 83% with average use (a few txts, a few calls, some surfing and twitter).

Your Mileage May Vary

 

[SamuraiBigEd]

I wanted to share my battery life story with you.

I received my EVO back in late December, about 5 days before Christmas. My battery life sucked, out of the box. I would be on a full charge at 6am, and by 3pm I'm having to charge my phone again, just to last until I got home again.

I had TasKiller installed, as well as Startup Auditor to cut off the junk that self starts, and it didn't make enough of a difference (got maybe an extra hour). I finally decided that I had enough, and I rooted with unrEVOked 3. I removed all of the Sprint apps, Nova, and the stock apps like Amazon, Amazon mp3, etc.

Once I had acheived root, I installed SetCPU, Juice Defender, and TasKiller.

I have SetCPU on profiles to reduce my clock speed at certain power thresholds, and screen off. I have Juice Defender (Ultimate Juice) set to manage my Wifi/Mobile connections on demand as well as being set to the Aggressive setting. I have TasKiller set to kill all apps at Screen off.

On top of that, I purchased the 1800mAh extended slim battery from HTCExpress.com (came with a spare and a charger for 35 bucks). After conditioning these batteries, I'm happy to say that I get just about double the life of my original stock battery.

For the record, my phone has been off the charge since 6am (@100%) and it is now 5pm and I'm just now at 83% with average use (a few txts, a few calls, some surfing and twitter).

Your Mileage May Vary

 

[susandennis]

Next week, I will be without any electricity for several hours and I'm trying to plan ahead. I'll have my EVO and spare batteries, but I also want to be smart. I'm going to use it to connect my laptop to the internet.

Am I better off tethering or using the EVO hotspot. Does one drain EVO's battery faster than the other or is it pretty much a wash?

TIA

 

[3volut1on]

I just performed EarlyMon's Factory Reset Tutorial on both of our Evo's with amazing results. I think I commented earlier in this thread on how I thought I was in the group that wasn't affected by the update. Boy was I wrong. Battery life on my wifes has easily doubled and mine a good 30-40% increase.

Just remember, if you decide to go the route of using Astro for your backup, you will lose all of your messages and unsynch'd google contacts. Found that out the hard way by doing my wifes Evo first. I only had to endure ~48 hours of hell but I believe it was worth it

 

[Smiles]

Thank you to whoever stated that Google Voice was killing his/her battery. I bought a new battery about a month ago because I thought my original battery was finally abused to the point of 50% recharging ability. However, the new battery appeared to have the similar problem. I was not happy. Then I read a post somewhere on this forum, that uninstalling the Google Voice app helped with battery life. I realized that I had installed it around the same time that I noticed poor battery performance. I uninstalled it, and now I get 100-200% better battery life than when it was installed. Thank you! whoever posted that note. I couldn't find it again for some reason.

 

[JunBringer]

I use Google Voice too much to uninstall it though

 

[stevcha]

I know this has been covered before but I can't believe how much longer the battery lasts on wifi as opposed to 3g. I always have wifi shut off but last night I decided to use it instead of 3g. Its like a night and day difference. All apps that require the internet are instant. Browsing the web is a new totally new experience now lol. Its like the first time I went from dial up to a cable modem connection lol.

 

[Rigmaster]

I know this has been covered before but I can't believe how much longer the battery lasts on wifi as opposed to 3g. I always have wifi shut off but last night I decided to use it instead of 3g. Its like a night and day difference. All apps that require the internet are instant. Browsing the web is a new totally new experience now lol. Its like the first time I went from dial up to a cable modem connection lol.

Signal strength and distance from tower drain battery when using 3G. Wifi's better when you have strong signal. Go to the edges of your wifi signal and operate from there for a while, and you'll see that it too can drain.

To me though, nothing was as big a battery depleter than bluetooth. I never use it now. I also turn off GPS because so many apps seem to use it when not necessary. Really, GPS when I'm at home on my wifi - that's what some apps think.

 

[jackgibbs]

I have a weird situation...I think.

I saw somewhere on here that charging your battery with the phone powered off was best, but whenever I do that I get the immediate 5-10% drop. I pull the cord as soon as the led changes, turn the phone on, and within five minutes it's at ~95%.

BUT. this only happens when I charge the phone turned off. If I charge it while the phone is sleeping, I don't get such a dramatic drop. Is this because a bunch of apps have to load after boot (including all the bloat, I'm not rooted)?