Give it a few days before jumping to conclusions about having a defective battery. You have to give it a few charging cycles like with any smartphone. Unless the battery holds absolutely no charge, you can't tell anything about the real life of the battery in just a 24 hour period.

And of course make sure you're not constantly syncing, turn off LTE if you're not in an area with LTE, lower the brightness on your display, back out of apps instead of hitting the home key so they close out, etc. All of the typical things. Smart Actions can definitely be helpful if you feel you need it.

 

I have learned a lot about batteries, chargers, & charging over the last month. Some things I'm still trying to understand (or at least the logic behind it), but I recommend a few things. Please keep in mind, I'm no expert, and am passing along what I have learned from folks much more knowledgeable than I. Read up on batteryuniversity.com and google FoxKat as well. Did you charge your battery to 100% before using?

1) Do not allow your battery to drain to zero.
2) Complete 2 cycles of the following: charge phone to 100% with the power off. You can check progress with a brief touch of the power button. A liquid battery should appear. When the phone is fully charged, use the phone until it discharges to 15%. Use settings to show the discharge level (not battery icon). When at 15%, power your phone off, and charge to 100%. Make sure to charge with your phone OFF.
3) Use the charger your phone came with. Verizon universal would be 2nd choice/back-up for work etc.
4) Utilize smart actions. I have done nothing fancy with mine. Basic stuff like turning off background sync & GPS. Triggers are not charging, display on and the like.

I do not get as good of battery life as some, but I am currently sitting at 60%--15h 9m and 30 secon battery. Today's usage was a little less than average, but even if I chunked off 2 hrs from usage to compensate, that is still fab battery life, IMO, considering my phone has been up & running since 6am. Phone calls, txt msgs, games being played by kids while at lacrosse games, a few emails, and light browsing etc.

I agree with bsweetness, it is too early to make judgements about your battery. Good luck!

 

By the end of the day I am around 70%. I stream slacker radio about an hour each day over 4G, text a bit and use a few other applications. My drain is a little faster than most as I keep screen brightness around 70 to 75% and leave it in 4G all the time with wifi on at home. So I can easily go 2+ days without a recharge. I didn't do the battery drain routine as IMO this shouldn't have to be done, and never had issues with any battery. I just charge it every night and never worry about doing the battery two step dance and do not use the smart actions.

 

You really don't need to worry about it going to 0% once or twice. It will not harm the phone. There isn't much difference in wear between cycling it once to 15% versus cycling it once to 0%. You certainly don't want to let it deep cycle like that frequently, one time will not do any harm. Doing this provides a much better calibration for the battery meter, since it will have a much more accurate value for where "dead" actually is on you're battery.

For normal usage, you want to your regular charging cycling to keep the phone about 30-40%, to maximize the lifespan of the battery. However, it's probably equally important to avoid excessive heat, and other harmful conditions.

 

Got my Maxx a couple days ago. First day, battery life was a but dismal but I expected that. I used the Smart Actions suggestions and that helped a little. I didn't expect the world and I'm just happy to have a faster phone that its slim and eventually better than average battery life after a few tweaks.