I hate to make another battery thread, but

[marko1892]

My phone has been off charge for 17 minutes. Current battery level, 88%.

I've had my Desire for about a month now, so this isn't a case of the battery having to be charged a few times before getting the best out of it.

I genuinely believe I have a fault with my battery, Bit of background information, both wifi and mobile internet are off, I'm not running any apps in the background such as a music player or internet stream. No apps have regular sync updates, they're set to update every 3 hours and even then this is only on one or two apps. The majority do not auto sync, just manual.

Is there anything I can do?

Surely for a phone to have drained 12% battery life in 17 minutes whilst not in use is extremely excessive, even for Android!?

 

[Tinderbox (UK)]

Have you tried running the battery down till the phone shuts down and then recharging it, though you should not do this often as it is not good for the battery, but can help in re-calibrating the battery renaming capacity meter.

Normally i re-charge before my battery goes below 40%

I use an free app called "battery left" it estimates you battery life after it has monitored it for a couple of days, it says my battery life is 31H51M

 

[TheTrueSpin]

My phone has been off charge for 17 minutes. Current battery level, 88%.

I've had my Desire for about a month now, so this isn't a case of the battery having to be charged a few times before getting the best out of it.

I genuinely believe I have a fault with my battery, Bit of background information, both wifi and mobile internet are off, I'm not running any apps in the background such as a music player or internet stream. No apps have regular sync updates, they're set to update every 3 hours and even then this is only on one or two apps. The majority do not auto sync, just manual.

Is there anything I can do?

Surely for a phone to have drained 12% battery life in 17 minutes whilst not in use is extremely excessive, even for Android!?

I heard there was a bug that meant that the battery was showing less charge than it really had after being disconnected. Is the battery actually discharging at that rate until it is empty? If so you have a problem. Even when I first got my phone I could easily get a day out of it with fairly heavy use, and that was on the first charge.

 

[nx1977]

How long had it been on charge?

If you read the other battery threads you'll find out what causes this

 

[master_yoda]

That doesnt sound right at all.

In comparison, I lose about 10% battery life after 20 minutes browsing the internet on 3g, but when the phones sleeping (not in use) I only lose about 1% battery life every 2 hours (providing the signal on the handset is decent).

Just check this...

go to: settings - about phone - battery

and check if the awake time is much lower than your up time, because if its not something is preventing your phone from sleeping.

For comparison my current up time is 15 hrs 46 minutes and awake time is 2 hours 27 minutes and I have 45% battery left.

Im a new android user myself, so maybe one of the android veterans here can help you more...

 

[WozzaTT]

Have you tried running the battery down till the phone shuts down and then recharging it, though you should not do this often as it is not good for the battery, but can help in re-calibrating the battery renaming capacity meter.

Normally i re-charge before my battery goes below 40%

I use an free app called "battery left" it estimates you battery life after it has monitored it for a couple of days, it says my battery life is 31H51M

Does 'battery left' take a while to calibrate? I installed it a couple of days ago, I'm on 96% charge and it says I've got 2hrs 33 mins left. That's poor even by the Desire's woeful standards!!

 

[TheTrueSpin]

That doesnt sound right at all.

In comparison, I lose about 10% battery life after 20 minutes browsing the internet on 3g, but when the phones sleeping (not in use) I only lose about 1% battery life every 2 hours (providing the signal on the handset is decent).

Just check this...

go to: settings - about phone - battery

and check if the awake time is much lower than your up time, because if its not something is preventing your phone from sleeping.

For comparison my current up time is 15 hrs 46 minutes and awake time is 2 hours 27 minutes.

Im a new android user myself, so maybe one of the android veterans here can help you more...

Yeah, this is my experience to. I find the phone VERY efficient in sleep mode, a few % drops after sleeping all night at most.

 

[marko1892]

I heard there was a bug that meant that the battery was showing less charge than it really had after being disconnected. Is the battery actually discharging at that rate until it is empty? If so you have a problem. Even when I first got my phone I could easily get a day out of it with fairly heavy use, and that was on the first charge.

My first day of getting the phone after its first charge I got around 7 hours out of it, which I thought was poor but I was using the phone solidly for them 7 hours setting up the phone, installing apps etc.

After a week the battery started getting much better as I was told, And I could get around 20 hours out of it. (I think my record of battery life time from this phone is about 22 hours, which i presume is ok? or is that still low?)

Yesterday after a full charge the phone lasted 9 hours. I was texting quite a bit in that time but I wasn't on wifi or mobile internet, I didn't make any phone calls and didn't use the internet or any apps which may constitute to heavy battery use. This is when I started to think I had a problem with the phones battery draining excessively.

I thought it might be a background app draining my battery, using 3g watchdog there doesnt seem to be anything which would justify such heavy use but I added a few apps to autokill anyway.

I turned my phone off, then back on again just to see if this would reslove the issue of an app misbehaving and destroying battery life, then I fully charged it over night.

This morning, the battery was fully charged yet as i've explained the battery level is dropping fast.

 

[TheTrueSpin]

My first day of getting the phone after its first charge I got around 7 hours out of it, which I thought was poor but I was using the phone solidly for them 7 hours setting up the phone, installing apps etc.

After a week the battery started getting much better as I was told, And I could get around 20 hours out of it. (I think my record of battery life time from this phone is about 22 hours, which i presume is ok? or is that still low?)

Yesterday after a full charge the phone lasted 9 hours. I was texting quite a bit in that time but I wasn't on wifi or mobile internet, I didn't make any phone calls and didn't use the internet or any apps which may constitute to heavy battery use. This is when I started to think I had a problem with the phones battery draining excessively.

I thought it might be a background app draining my battery, using 3g watchdog there doesnt seem to be anything which would justify such heavy use but I added a few apps to autokill anyway.

I turned my phone off, then back on again just to see if this would reslove the issue of an app misbehaving and destroying battery life, then I fully charged it over night.

This morning, the battery was fully charged yet as i've explained the battery level is dropping fast.

Turn of background data and the option that allows apps to pull data and use the phone for a day. Remember.. texting with haptic feedback on can use quite a lot of battery, as you are essentially powering a small motor that vibrates the phone. If problems continue, swap the handset.

I agree with you tho, 9 hours with only texting and nothing else smells fishy. I routinely get 24 hours with fairly moderate use, texts, e-mail, web, calls etc... but I do turn off auto sync and do not allow widgets / apps to pull data.

 

[Eugene's Mac]

Does 'battery left' take a while to calibrate? I installed it a couple of days ago, I'm on 96% charge and it says I've got 2hrs 33 mins left. That's poor even by the Desire's woeful standards!!

Yes it takes 3 - 4 days to calibrate. You can also disable the calibrate and charge to full. Once full activate the calibrate and use your phone until its run down completely for most accurate reading

 

[marko1892]

That doesnt sound right at all.

In comparison, I lose about 10% battery life after 20 minutes browsing the internet on 3g, but when the phones sleeping (not in use) I only lose about 1% battery life every 2 hours (providing the signal on the handset is decent).

Just check this...

go to: settings - about phone - battery

and check if the awake time is much lower than your up time, because if its not something is preventing your phone from sleeping.

For comparison my current up time is 15 hrs 46 minutes and awake time is 2 hours 27 minutes and I have 45% battery left.

Im a new android user myself, so maybe one of the android veterans here can help you more...

up time 8hr 5m and awake time is 18m and 51sec

So It doesn't seem like the phone is not sleeping.

Could it be something to do with GPS? Yesterday I was messing about with google maps, anyway it asked if i wanted to turn GPS on, which I did, for about a minute or so.

When I exited the programme I went into phone settings and double checked that GPS was off, I've checked again just now and indeed it shows that GPS is still unticked.

Somebody has asked to check battery threads in this forum, I've checked them a few times and i'm always careful to make sure I shut down my apps when not using them and make sure 3G/wifi are off when the phone is idle in an attempt to get the best out of my battery. It just seems that my best efforts aren't helping the battery life at all and I'm lost as to what to do next.

 

[SurfXombie]

Does it not slow down charging at like 95% then at 100% it stops... so it then uses battery until it falls below a level (like 97%). So full charge may not be "full".

 

[Tinderbox (UK)]

Yeah it takes a few days , it goes from inaccurate to medium to accurate, it currantly says i have 13H28M life left at 42% charge.

'battery left" has a re-calibrate button, fully charge your phone then press re-calibrate then run you phone down till it shuts off and then re-charge.

I do use "juice defender" , but how useful it is as the wifi icon seems to stay on the top of the screen when juice defender says it should be off

Does 'battery left' take a while to calibrate? I installed it a couple of days ago, I'm on 96% charge and it says I've got 2hrs 33 mins left. That's poor even by the Desire's woeful standards!!

 

[marko1892]

Does it not slow down charging at like 95% then at 100% it stops... so it then uses battery until it falls below a level (like 97%). So full charge may not be "full".

Don't all batterys charge that way? the first 80% or so charges fast and the rest is trickle charging?

I don't know if that's the official term, but either way my desire was on charge for around 8 hours

 

[master_yoda]

my desire was on charge for around 8 hours

Was the phone switched on or off?

Ive read somewhere that the battery stops charging at 100% then starts to drain slowly even though the chargers still plugged in (this only happens when the handset is switched on), when it drops down to a certain level it starts charging again.

I always turn my phone off at night and leave it charging while im sleeping, ..when I wake up its always at 100% charge after turning it on.

 

[marko1892]

Was the phone switched on or off?

Ive read somewhere that the battery stops charging at 100% then starts to drain slowly even though the chargers still plugged in (this only happens when the handset is switched on), when it drops down to a certain level it starts charging again.

I always turn my phone off at night and leave it charging while im sleeping, ..when I wake up its always at 100% charge after turning it on.

I've never heard that before, But I'll try charging it when the handset is turned off tonight to see if that helps the problem.

 

[Tinderbox (UK)]

"battery left" says my battery is at 41% and the htc desire meter says it`s at 50% that`s 9% difference, it might be the reason why the battery capacity drops so fast from 100% , the desire meter is just wrong.

 

[Ashtiany]

Calibration makes a huge difference. My first day, with barely any usage at all, I got around 32 hours out of it. But now, I can happily bash it all day long and i'd still get the same amount of time, checking emails, internet, music etc.
So I now know for sure this calibrating this is not a myth, and this happened after about 10 good charges or so, so it works!
Also, the phone is very very efficient in sleep mode, after waking up 10 hours later, it dropped by 4%.
Compared to my statistics, your battery seem really faulty
I would take it for sure, but then again it could be the handset..