My battery experience - 4g vs. no 4g

[prsparty]

Got the phone Thursday afternoon at Costco and didn't have much time to play with it. Charged it all night Thursday and started a full, normal day on Friday around 7am. LTE on, showing it to folks here and there, fairly normal usage. I was nearly dead by 5pm. Only thing that may not have been normal was my first time gmail syncing (both corporate and personal).

Yesterday I decided to turn 4g off all day. Took the phone off the charger at 7am, normal usage, had 40% left at 11pm. I turned it off for the night (no charging), powered back on at 7:30am and I'm still at 30%. Currently at 18 hours, 11 minutes with 30%.

Conclusion...4g is a pig

Just my two cents to balance out the "THIS BATTERY SUCKS" crowd

 

[jbdan]

Thanks for posting. I can verify about the same results here with 4G.

 

[dguy]

Yep, current 4G LTE tech is very power hungry. Every device on the market with support for it loses a considerable chunk of juice to keep it enabled. This is primarily because it's a completely different radio that needs to be powered up on top of all of the normal radios a smartphone would have enabled so power consumption goes up quite a bit. My suggestion is to get the extended battery and never worry about having to turn off 4G.

 

[proxas]

I noticed the same thing, was in NYC friday on 4G the entire time. Was browsing the internet(so fast) but I watched the battery drop 40% in 2 hours. At home on 3g battery lasts all day easily.

 

[rajaji]

Got the phone Thursday afternoon at Costco and didn't have much time to play with it. Charged it all night Thursday and started a full, normal day on Friday around 7am. LTE on, showing it to folks here and there, fairly normal usage. I was nearly dead by 5pm. Only thing that may not have been normal was my first time gmail syncing (both corporate and personal).

Yesterday I decided to turn 4g off all day. Took the phone off the charger at 7am, normal usage, had 40% left at 11pm. I turned it off for the night (no charging), powered back on at 7:30am and I'm still at 30%. Currently at 18 hours, 11 minutes with 30%.

Conclusion...4g is a pig

Just my two cents to balance out the "THIS BATTERY SUCKS" crowd

Same here....battery was near zero after 5 hours on 4G yesterday.
On 3G today since 8 am....battery holding quite steady despite quite a bit of WiFi use. On a daily basis I plan to leave it at 3G, except if I have to download an app or something, and I don't have WiFi.

 

[pgrommesh]

Just to throw my 2 cents in here, i live on the fringe of 4g so it comes and goes a lot. I left the lte on last night with nothing else running and woke up to 30% battery ( was 100% before bed). So in 6 hours in drained 70% of my battery with just "phone idle, and "cell standby". Definitely a hog... i will do a similar test with just 3g tonight.

 

[UncleMike]

Just to throw my 2 cents in here, i live on the fringe of 4g so it comes and goes a lot. I left the lte on last night with nothing else running and woke up to 30% battery ( was 100% before bed). So in 6 hours in drained 70% of my battery with just "phone idle, and "cell standby". Definitely a hog... i will do a similar test with just 3g tonight.

If you're in a fringe area, the weak signal will cause your battery to drain very quickly. At my house, my OG Droid would often drop to 1x and show only 1 bar on the signal meter, and I'd be lucky to make it through the day. In areas with a great signal, I can go 3 days without charging.

Since 4G is nowhere near me, I have it disabled.

 

[ant0n]

I had an Evo befote this phone. I personally think that this Bionic is a lot less power hungry with it on all day. We've known ever since 4g devices started popping up that they consume more power than a 3g device.

 

[landolakes]

Whats the difference in the 4g chips( receiver or whatever they are called) that HTC used on the bolt and motorolas? I averaged about 12 hours with my bolt and extended battery and I'm lucky to get 7 with my bionic and extended doing the same things. Also when I use wireless tether and set my phone down about a foot from my tablet I only get two bars when I would get four with my bolt.

 

[hopemonger]

Which app are you guys using to toggle only lte off?

 

[ChiefIlliniwek5]

So here is my question (because I'm having the same short battery life problem with 4G on):

When looking at the battery usage menu, which of the things that shows up would include the 4G radio? Would it be "Standby Cell" or "Phone idle" or something else? Right now my standby cell, phone idle, and wifi are taking up 3/4 of the battery on light to moderate usage.

 

[jbdan]

Which app are you guys using to toggle only lte off?

Welcome here! There is not one at the moment that will toggle it on and off with one click (that I'm aware of). But there are apps (switchpro, anycut, etc...) that can put a shortcut on your home screen that will bring you to the menu where you can disable CDMA/LTE and go to CDMA only

So here is my question (because I'm having the same short battery life problem with 4G on):

When looking at the battery usage menu, which of the things that shows up would include the 4G radio? Would it be "Standby Cell" or "Phone idle" or something else? Right now my standby cell, phone idle, and wifi are taking up 3/4 of the battery on light to moderate usage.

Also a welcome to you! Cell standby and Idle. This is how much battery has been spent on exactly those 2 items and they include 4G, wifi, 3G, sync'ing apps, etc... anything it's doing while not in your hands being used.

Nothing though to directly correlate to the sole 4G radio

 

[Travisimo]

I have been using the extended battery since Day 1 and I'm only in a 3G area (LTE is coming next week). At any rate, my extended battery is only lasting about 8 hours and most of the time it's in my pocket. Battery usage shows about 20% Cell Standby. The screen is using <10% of the battery, so it's not that. I have WIFI and Bluetooth is the whole time, but they aren't being used much so I wouldn't think that's the problem. I have all of my data syncing set to 1 hour, so that shouldn't be using too much data.

Do you guys have the battery profile set to Performance, Saver, or what? I thought I'd be able to leave it on Performance since I like to have my widgets and apps synced every hour.

I'm really afraid to see what my battery life is like next week when 4G gets turned on here! Right now, I do not have LTE turned off in the settings, but since it's only connected to 3G, it shouldn't be using the extra battery life that an actual 4G connection, right?

 

[rushmore]

No worries folks (kind of). Just leave your device on 3g and activate 4g if you need it.

For a lot of connectivity function, 4g is overkill anyway, considering the battery life trade off with 4g.

That is my positive spin.

 

[Jetster220]

Im getting upwards of over 16hrs being on 4G and using the phone around medium to heavy usage. I have the extended battery and everything is set to autosync.

 

[justanotherjoe]

Is the battery life much better something like a thunderbolt? Im still within the return period of my thunderbolt....I was going to get the extended battery but now I'm thinking about the sonic.

 

[Jbart15]

Man you guys must be unlikely because with my Bionic and extended battery with 4G on I'd wake up at 7 A.M. go through the entire day texting, browsing the web, some game playing and talking on the phone. When I would go to bed around 1 my battery would be at 7 40%.

 

[rushmore]

The problem is everybody's perception of usage is subjective. One person's "heavy" use is anothers "light use". Not to mention settings of the device itself.

Example being no way in heck the Bionic or even the Droid 3 will last me 16 hours with medium and heavy use and I have the extended OEM battery.

Use Flash video for just two hours and tell us how long the battery lasts. This is where the 4G shows the battery drain in force. You have chipset load for both the cpu and the radio when playing Flash video.

No way to correlate usage without standards for settings and use.

BTW, almost all reviews concur the 4G is just as hungry as the other 4G devices and the ones that have not admit not using enough yet to confirm.

 

[HotDawg]

I'm on Maxiumum Battery Saver, and I turn off 4g regularly. I have no problem with my regular battery lasting all day, but I don't stream movies, just moderate surfing and pretty heavy Evernote usage.

My battery seems to be getting "healthier" over time - early charging was slow and battery life was short. As of yesterday I can charge in a couple of hours.

Extended battery is in the mail for me.

 

[jroc]

The problem is everybody's perception of usage is subjective. One person's "heavy" use is anothers "light use". Not to mention settings of the device itself.

Example being no way in heck the Bionic or even the Droid 3 will last me 16 hours with medium and heavy use and I have the extended OEM battery.

Use Flash video for just two hours and tell us how long the battery lasts. This is where the 4G shows the battery drain in force. You have chipset load for both the cpu and the radio when playing Flash video.

No way to correlate usage without standards for settings and use.

BTW, almost all reviews concur the 4G is just as hungry as the other 4G devices and the ones that have not admit not using enough yet to confirm.

And to add to that....those in a real good area for signal, their battery will more than likely last longer than someone in a weak, bad reception area.

Some folks think being in a bad reception area for 4G and it killing the battery is something new. Its like this for 3G too. Its just that 4G drains the battery more so its gonna be more noticeable.

 

[rushmore]

And to add to that....those in a real good area for signal, their battery will more than likely last longer than someone in a weak, bad reception area.

Some folks think being in a bad reception area for 4G and it killing the battery is something new. Its like this for 3G too. Its just that 4G drains the battery more so its gonna be more noticeable.

Good point!

 

[rushmore]

I'm on Maxiumum Battery Saver, and I turn off 4g regularly. I have no problem with my regular battery lasting all day, but I don't stream movies, just moderate surfing and pretty heavy Evernote usage.

My battery seems to be getting "healthier" over time - early charging was slow and battery life was short. As of yesterday I can charge in a couple of hours.

Extended battery is in the mail for me.

Wise purchase since what do folks expect with a dual core, 4.3" high res display and 4G? Of COURSE the battery will be challenged. Maybe in three to five years we will see some big tech improvements, but for certain not with current roadmap devices.

 

[thatguy188]

Right now, I do not have LTE turned off in the settings, but since it's only connected to 3G, it shouldn't be using the extra battery life that an actual 4G connection, right?

Actually, if you have LTE on in the settings, the 4G Radio is on, constantly searching for signal, killing your battery even more than if you actually had 4G Signal (since it wouldn't constantly search for it).

Switch it to CDMA only and watch your battery life almost double

 

[skinien]

I'm a Thunderbolt user and we experience the same battery drain on LTE. I turn off LTE for a majority of the time and switch it on when I need it (streaming movies, large downloads, etc.).

Using the method above, I've gone from 8 - 12 hours of up-time to 20+. I don't really need 20 Mbps to refresh Scoremobile

Edit: On a side note - I can go 30+ hours on wifi the entire time.

 

[Sandroidfan]

So it seems like Bionic is not whole lot better than Tbolt in battery drain under 4G. I wonder if Yoda's claim of 15+ hours in 4G was fake? Maybe he just left Bionic on standby with minimal use?