Help My battery issue seems worse than most

[massiveian]

I bought my phone 4 days ago. I love everything about this phone except for the battery life. I have tried the drain the battery until it wont come on and fully charge it 3 times now and that has not seemed to help at all. I have wi-fi, bluetooth, and gps all off and i have set the weather widget to a specific location. I also have unchecked the background data and auto-sync. I have also tried resetting the phone and also charge with the AC charger then plug in the usb once its charged. Today I took my phone off the charger at 10:14am I had 1 message so I checked it. At 10:17, I was down to 80% battery life.....Thats only 3 minutes. I know the battery meter isnt accurate but this is the same way the phone has been since i got it. Yesterday with no use I got about 8 hours before it died on me. This was with about 20 messages in these 8 hours i was at work. The day before i got just over 4 hours with moderate use.
What else can I do?

Im going to monitor the battery throughout the day and go into the sprint store and see what they say but does anyone have any ideas why my battery life is so lousy?
Thanks

 

[pastafarian]

It's possible that you just have a weak battery. I had this with my Touch Pro, the initial battery lasted ~40% less than the replacement. Go to a Sprint repair center, complain about the battery politely and odds are they'll give you another battery for free. Don't go to a retail store, they won't have a battery to give you.

 

[massiveian]

Thanks. I will try that. I just dont want to have to carry around 2 batteries everyday. As long as the phone can get me through the day ill be happy

 

[SlyFerret]

Out of curiosity, what apps have you installed so far?

If a replacement battery behaves the same way, it could be worth looking at what apps might be running.

-SF

 

[massiveian]

I havent installed many apps yet...here is my list

Handcent
Pandora- which is very choppy btw
Last FM
Battery Left
Facebook
Movies- Flixster
Ringdroid

As you see I dont have very many apps installed

 

[chixdigit]

I've been having probs with my batt life lately too.. Even after doing the full drain/ charge 3 times thing about a month ago.
I too have very minimal apps on my phone (and I use Taskiller to kill any apps that I DO use- like killing my browser, or weather, or stuff like that).
I just thought of something yesterday, and while I DID use my phone a lot yesterday, and it DID get down to 5% on me (unacceptable), I DO think that I migh be on to something, and I wanted to share it with you.
I have my Weather Channel set to my zip also (so it is not always using GPS to follow "my location") but I also have my zip set as "home" (you can do this by a press n hold on that location). Doing this will put a little temp icon in your notification bar. Pretty cool.
BUT, I'm wondering if THAT is helping to drain my battery- always checking for the current temp to display on that icon?
I have since then un-selected my zip as "home".. Now I don't have the cool temp icon, but I am hoping that it will help preserve my battery a little more by not checking for a current temp throughout the day.
Ugh..

Anyone else have any input about my thoughts about that using more battery?

 

[masbirdies]

I've been having probs with my batt life lately too.. Even after doing the full drain/ charge 3 times thing about a month ago.
I too have very minimal apps on my phone (and I use Taskiller to kill any apps that I DO use- like killing my browser, or weather, or stuff like that).
I just thought of something yesterday, and while I DID use my phone a lot yesterday, and it DID get down to 5% on me (unacceptable), I DO think that I migh be on to something, and I wanted to share it with you.
I have my Weather Channel set to my zip also (so it is not always using GPS to follow "my location") but I also have my zip set as "home" (you can do this by a press n hold on that location). Doing this will put a little temp icon in your notification bar. Pretty cool.
BUT, I'm wondering if THAT is helping to drain my battery- always checking for the current temp to display on that icon?
I have since then un-selected my zip as "home".. Now I don't have the cool temp icon, but I am hoping that it will help preserve my battery a little more by not checking for a current temp throughout the day.
Ugh..

Anyone else have any input about my thoughts about that using more battery?

I don't know about this whole battery thing.....one day, I can get over 36 hours out of a charge and the next day 10-12. The usage is not varying all that much either.

I may try a new battery and see if that helps.

 

[agent0014]

I'm on my second Moment and the second one is vastly better on battery life than the first one was. The only difference is that right now I'm trying out GDE instead of Open Home for my homescreen, everything else is the same. I doubt that GDE would be much better with battery life than Open Home, so I really believe that these batteries come out of the factory with wide variance regarding life. It doesn't quite make sense to me, but I can't imagine what else it would be. I'd definitely say try a different battery and see how it does. Make sure to report back here and let us know, add it to the body of knowledge!

 

[pastafarian]

Thanks. I will try that. I just dont want to have to carry around 2 batteries everyday. As long as the phone can get me through the day ill be happy

It's not about carrying around 2 batteries, it's about getting a battery with longer life. There's always the posters that complain of short life even after doing every tweak, and those who post how they get great battery life without doing a thing and that the op must be doing something wrong. There seems to be a relatively wide range in what is considered acceptable usable life with OEM batteries. Get a good one and you're happy (relatively), get a bad one and the phone sucks! Go forth and get a good one!

 

[agent0014]

What my fellow noodler said!!

 

[akasan]

Doing a factory reset had an amazing effect on my battery life.

 

[krishnac]

Hm.. Are you going in and out of service all day? How many bars do you have? I think battery life is going to be hugely correlated to coverage level. The phone kills itself if it has only a couple of bars.

 

[stukuz]

If there is a difference in battery quality coming out of the factories, would that show up as a variation in resistance, voltage right after charge, capacitance, ...

Is anyone putting a volt meter to their batteries - good or bad?

 

[massiveian]

I usually get anywhere from 3 to6 bars of service. I went into the sprint repair store and they said my battery life is normal and I should buy a car charger. I wasn't happy with his response lol

 

[baddubbin]

have you installed spare parts to see if your phone is sleeping properly?

 

[massiveian]

Yes I installed spare parts but I have no clue on how to read it. Could someone help me?

 

[johnbarry3434]

Hm.. Are you going in and out of service all day? How many bars do you have? I think battery life is going to be hugely correlated to coverage level. The phone kills itself if it has only a couple of bars.

You are completely right about the amount of bars. The way cell phones work is that the cell towers send out a signal to your phone and if the response signal doesn't have enough power from your phone the cell tower sends out another signal telling your phone to increase its output power thus using more power.

 

[njbianco]

also just so you no it can take 2 weeks for your battery to fully break in but like other people said i would try going into a sprint store and getting another battery cuz that isnt right at all

 

[massiveian]

Well today my phone lasted from 10:15am to 8:58pm. To me this is unacceptable. Since the sprint store will do nothing to help me I am going to go back to best buy where i bought the phone and tell them I would like a replacement. On my current moment GPS works wonderful and i have had no problems with anything. I am worried that if i trade my moment for a new one, I will have decent battery life but all these other problems. I want to try and isolate this battery problem and see if it is the battery itself or if it something more like the charging port or the phone.

 

[massiveian]

I was also suggested that i try to charge the battery using a universal charger and not charge the battery in the phone. I am going to try this and see what results i get. If this is the case, would this be a software or hardware issue affecting the phone and would it be able to be fixed with an update?

 

[chixdigit]

I would try again to at least try a new battery before you swap out your phone.. Just my input...
Maybe if you kept a log (for about a week) of your un-plug time, then what time it got to 15%, then 5%, and took that to the Sprint store, you will have some documentation showing that the battery is not even lasting a day? If they tell you the same thing, then ask to speak to a manager..
Stress that this forum has a lot of users that say that their batteries last longer.. Really push them to give you the chance to try a different battery before you have to swap out the whole phone..
Just my 2 cents..
Keep us (me) posted please..

My battery is not driving me crazy at the moment, so I have not even tried to swap mine out yet.

 

[massiveian]

I will probably be going in tomorrow to the sprint store. Right now I currently have 80% battery left and it has been off the charger for 2.5 hours. so far im doing better than before. However I have not used the phone much yet Maybe about 12 text messages and just a little browsing.

 

[AndroidSPCS]

OP - your issue is something I've encountered on my phone as well.

To me I chalk it up to an inaccurate battery meter. My actual useful life lasts 1-3 days depending on how heavy I'm using it.

Rather than try to trade in phones in the hopes of a getting a battery that is maybe 1-5% better, I just carry an extra battery, or have AC / car / USB chargers & cables to juice up, or have my portable USB charger (Zaggsparq, etc) around.

This horse has been beat pretty dead.

Until Samsung fixes the firmware there's not a whole lot to be done. It's not a big issue because this is something that is common to virtually all smartphones I've used.

The Samsung Moment is more like a computer than a phone, compared to all the previous smart phones I've had as well.

 

[numus]

Going to 2nd the signal correlation (and it is real).. My phone is great on the weekends.. but at work during the week is when it dies fast./.. i barely have a signal in my office which explains a lot..

 

[massiveian]

Ha I wish my phone would last 1-3 days even with minimal usage. Although I believe I am starting to get better battery life now, more than before. I took the phone off the charger at 10:30 and with very little usage my battery was at 60% by 3:30. I did make about 30 texts from 3:30 to 9:30, and also played music for about 10 minutes and was online for about 5. and when i left work it was down to 5%. However, I turned the phone off and turned it back on Using talk, end, and the middle button to enter test mode.....I scrolled down to battery and it still said 50%. Now that i dont understand at all.

Is it possible that this phone is not using the entire battery and shuting off premature?