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Dissapointing battery life test

I was almost 100% sold on the Polaris as my next device but battery life is very important to me. I currently have an HTC P3300 (well, O2 XDA Orbit) and with the increased battery capacity of the Polaris (1350mAh vs 1200mAh in my Orbit) plus the claimed better specs from HTC (GSM 7 hours talk/400 hours standby for the Touch Cruise vs 3.5-5 hours talk/150-200 hours standby for the P3300) I really hoped that HTC had dodged any battery life issues.
I just found this review however (http://www.mobile88.com/mobilegallery/phonereview.asp?phone=HTC_Touch_Cruise&pg=review&prodid=20785&cat=37) and it has me worried. The bit I'm worried about is right at the bottom of the page:
<Start of summary of review results>
The multimedia cycle tests in comparison to the results demonstrated by the original Touch and P3300 are given below:
Multimedia-cycle, video (AVI) Polaris=4:08 Artemis=5:20 Elf=5:38
Multimedia-cycle, audio (MP3) Polaris=13:49 Artemis=21:34 Elf=18:07
<End of summary>
You can see that for MP3 the Polaris is way worse than the Artemis (I'm assuming the numbers are <hours>:<minutes> of play time). With what I commented on in my first paragraph these results really suprise me.
Does anyone know the conditions/details of the video and audio multimedia-cycle tests above? I'm wondering if somehow the conditions for the Polaris test were less favourable than those for the Artemis. Maybe the MP3 decoder software was different between the Artemis and the Polaris and the latter was dramatically less efficient although I'm probably clutching at straws here. Any other thoughts, comments or real life results from owners?
- Julian

funny how the 2 wm6 devices have lower batt time then the wm5 device
would be intresting if a test with an aramis with wm6 was don

Rudegar said:
funny how the 2 wm6 devices have lower batt time then the wm5 device
would be intresting if a test with an aramis with wm6 was don
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That's a really interesting point. I was considering upgrading my device to WM6 using one of the cooked ROMs from this site, or the official O2 Orbit one, but I decided not to after seeing quite a few posts here by people who had done it and reported that the battery life on their devices went down a lot after upgrading to WM6 so I do wonder if that is the issue.
- Julian

I already ordered a second battery. I always do regardless of the device. One less thing to worry about

I am impressed with the battery capacity of the Polaris compared to my MIO A201. Running Tomtom without charging on the MIO A201 about 2 hours, with the Polaris 4 hours.

---Alex--- said:
I am impressed with the battery capacity of the Polaris compared to my MIO A201. Running Tomtom without charging on the MIO A201 about 2 hours, with the Polaris 4 hours.
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What screen brightness is that set at? I'm assuming that the MP3 test results I quoted are with the screen blanked because if not then almost 24 hours on an Artemis with the screen on is pretty amazing.
If the tests do involve the screen being on (and surely they must with the video tests?) then I do wonder if the brightness settings were the same between the Artemis and Polaris tests.
If you look at some pictures further up in the review that I linked to in the first post of this thread then you can pretty clearly see that, I assume with both set to maximum brightness, the Polaris screen is noticeably brighter than the Artemis, so it isn't really fair on the Polaris to run any <screen on maximum> tests with both having the backlight set to full; it would be much fairer to adjust the Polaris backlight to give as close to possible the same brightness as the Artemis screen on full. Just maybe this accounts for some of the difference.
Thanks a lot Alex for the info on the TomTom results but I'd love to hear some real-life results of people playing music in a loop with the screen blanked and also discharge rates with the device just left at idle but with the auto-off and backlight-off disabled so that the screen stays alive. How much does the battery drain after 2 hours of sitting idle like this?
The reason I ask my questions is because the things that burn the most "activity hours" on my device are playing music with the screen blanked (hence my first request) and reading ebooks, for which my second requested test is probably a fairly reasonable approximation.
- Julian

They're comparing it to two devices with OMAP processors. Power savings is one of the reasons the OMAP was used before. It's either power or battery, rarely both unless the device is large. You could probably underclock to increase battery life.

JwY said:
They're comparing it to two devices with OMAP processors. Power savings is one of the reasons the OMAP was used before. It's either power or battery, rarely both unless the device is large. You could probably underclock to increase battery life.
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You hit the nail right on the head. I have not bothereed to check the source so I do not know the purpsoe of the test. In any case if you want 3 days of music you would be better of with an iP.... If you want processing power then you look for a device that will not make you fall asleep just waiting for a page to refresh

JwY said:
They're comparing it to two devices with OMAP processors. Power savings is one of the reasons the OMAP was used before. It's either power or battery, rarely both unless the device is large. You could probably underclock to increase battery life.
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I was expecting someone to say this and I'm afraid that my hunch, which I am willing to admit could be wrong, makes me disagree with this. There is some reasoning to justify my hunch and it goes as follows.
Make the following assumptions (all numbers chosen for ease of arithmetic rather than accuracy since I am just trying to demonstrate a principle rather than derive results):
1) Yes, the CPU in the Polaris is more powerful than the one in the Artemis and lets assume that the Polaris CPU (PCPU for short) is exactly twice as powerful as the Artemis CPU (ACPU for short). By twice as powerful I mean that in any given second the PCPU will process twice as many instructions as the ACPU.
2) I am assuming that both CPUs have some sort of speed stepping technology such that, when they are not under load, the power consumption drops significantly to a fairly trivial value and I will assume that for both CPUs the idle power consumption is equivalent.
3) Assume that at full load the PCPU has twice the power consumption of the ACPU.
4) Assume that it takes a 100,000,000 instructions to decode and play 1 second of music (i.e. 100MIPS = 100 million instructions per second) and that the ACPU can only just manage this so when playing music the ACPU is at 100% load for 100% of the time.
With the above assumptions my point now is that a more powerful CPU won't create a serious decline in battery life when playing music because the 100 million instructions required to be executed for 1 second of music is constant so a 100MIPS processor will need to run flat out constantly to play music whereas a 200MIPS processor will only need to be at 100% load for 0.5 seconds in any given second and for the rest of the time it can be speed stepped right down. With the idealised assumptions above there would actually be no impact whatsoever on power consumption for any arbitrary processor power (for processors that have at least sufficient power to keep up with the music stream).
A further piece of real life evidence is, if it is solely or even predominantly down to the processor, then why is the Elf managing 18:07 on the MP3 test compared to the Artemis 13:49 (and that I believe this is with a smaller battery than the Artemis, 1100mAh vs 1250mAh; info taken from the specs on the HTC web site)?
Maybe assumption (2) is wrong which does hurt my argument somewhat, or maybe there are software differences, in the MP3 player and/or in WM6 itself, that stops the PCPU dropping its power consumption down as much when it's not actively decoding, but that Elf vs Artemis test result difference still makes me wonder what else is going on.
Honestly, I'm really hoping this is just due to a badly run test on the Polaris (not same conditions as Artemis test) and that the result is an Anomaly.
- Julian

I've had the xda Stellar (tytn II), which is very very similar to the polaris, for the last week, and the battery is, I'm sorry to say, the worse I've ever come across.
For the first few days, I was using it heavily and managed 1.5 days. Figured this would increase as I used it less. Took it off charge 5 hours ago, made a 20 minute phone call, sent 3 text messages, and used the word processor for 30 minutes. 75% battery left.
I'm sending it back and waiting for the Orbit 2 to be released. Fingers crossed the keyboard has some strange battery draining feature.

sonesh said:
I've had the xda Stellar (tytn II), which is very very similar to the polaris, for the last week, and the battery is, I'm sorry to say, the worse I've ever come across.
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The Stellar only has an 1100mAh battery while the Polaris has 1350mAh. Sounds little but makkes a differece of 200 (yes, 200!) hours of StandBy time.
This means the Stellar specs say 250h whereas the Polais spec sheet says 450h.

sonesh said:
For the first few days, I was using it heavily and managed 1.5 days. Figured this would increase as I used it less. Took it off charge 5 hours ago, made a 20 minute phone call, sent 3 text messages, and used the word processor for 30 minutes. 75% battery left.
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Yeah. That's very bad. I wonder if there's something wrong with your unit. According to the spec on the HTC web site you should be getting talk time of "Up to 264 minutes for UMTS - Up to 420 minutes for GSM". As far as I'm aware holding a call is by far the most battery-draining thing you can do on a device so if we count your 30 minutes of word processing as another 30 minutes of talk time we're probably grossly over-estimating but, on that assumption (and adding 5 minutes for the texts) that's only an equivalent of 55 minutes of talk time. Were you on 3G or GSM for all this? I suppose if it was 3G then maybe you could have expected the battery to be down to 79% but if it was GSM then the battery really shouldn't have been much below 87%.
Admittedly I think these talk time figures quoted by manufacturers are in very ideal conditions (i.e. very high signal strength from the mast) so what sort of reception area you were in when you made the call is an issue but I think that is probably counteracted by the fact that I probably vastly overestimated the power drain when word processing.
An interesting (free) utility is abcPowerMeter (http://www.acbpocketsoft.com/). It would be very interesting to compare the current consumption on the Artemis, the Polaris and the Tyan II.
If anyone is up for this then I suggest the state to test would be with the system sitting on the today screen, disable the auto-off but do allow the backlight to go off or manually disable it so that differing screen brightness isn't a factor. Also put the phone into flight mode so that all radios are off (to factor out any effects of different signal strengths) and then start abcPowerMeter and let it run for about 30 minutes during which time it should, in theory, settle to a pretty straight line showing the current drawn from the battery in this state.
I would most certainly do an Artemis (or rather O2 XDA Orbit) test but unfortunately the reason for my intense interest in all things Polaris is that my Orbit died on new year's eve (no, I didn't drop it or sit on it at a party!) so my device is totally dead.
- Julian

Could the Today plugins be making a difference? I'm thinking particularly the weather plugin. I've seen other discussions where people report battery life problems on various devices and one often-mentioned that people suggest to check is what Today plugins are running.
With the new devices now 3G, and 3G using a lot more power than 2/2.5G when active, I'm wondering if the weather plugin is causing 3G to be active and hurting power. How often does the weather plugin connect and can it be disabled? Not wanting to take the thread off topic but one thing I'd like to do if/when I get a Polaris is to disable the weather plugin on the Today screen, is this possible?
For my use, since I am concerned about battery life, I intend to keep my device in GSM mode and only switch to 3G when I want to connect to the internet and, when finished, I will immediately disable 3G again. I certainly don't want any plugins regularly polling the internet and turning stuff on without my permission.
- Julian

acbPowerMeter
I installed acbPowerMeter this afternoon, after noticing that my battery was draining extremely fast (~ 4 to 5 hours). The tool showed that the TC was using approx 320mA on average
I've been running the tool for some hours now, and after two hours the power consumption slowly lowered. I've been switching the screen off and on and have had the GSM radio on all the time. The avg value returned to ~20mA.
I'll keep an eye on power consumption, because now I don't trust the device anymore. I don't know what caused the huge change in power consumption in the first place.

Thanks for those test results Muyz. It's great to have some real data, but I'm sorry to hear that you're having battery problems too.
Regarding your results, did you start abcPowerMeter (APM for short) while your device was still plugged into the USB port? I noticed that when I had APM running when my device was charging then I got a very high mA reading (about 250mA on my 1200mAh O2 XDA Orbit) so I think the fact that there is charge current coming in confuses APM somewhat and, for the average, it could be that after you unplug it will take a while for the minutes or hours of false high readings to creep out of the statistics. I always made very sure that my device was fully unplugged before starting an APM session.
Regarding the 20mAh reading, that actually sounds very good to me. Unfortunately I'm recalling all this from memory because, as I said in an earlier post, my device is now totally dead, but I seem to remember about 29mA as as low as I saw. With the screen on the figure of 79mA sticks in my mind. As with you, these figures were all with GSM on. I had Bluetooth and WiFi disabled.
One thing that really suprised me with my tests was that, when I had a good GSM signal, I couldn't detect any difference in current drain between having GSM switched on or off (just registered to the network of course, not actually with a call active). The additional current drawn from having GSM on didn't even seem to be 1mA. The story is different in a no-signal area where the GSM keeps searching for a signal, that drained the battery really quickly.
- Julian

3G CONNECTION need more battery consumation(if you dont need disable), configure for normale use GSM, and the duration is guarantee...

New battery monitor tool
I've discovered a serious bug in the acbPowerMeter tool. The implementation of the tool does not use the proper types
This is why I've done a little programming myself last evening. The attachment to this tool contains a preliminary version of my own battery monitoring tool. It provides the correct battery readings for remaining power and current power consumption. One can adjust the polling frequency. I will complete the tool somewhere this or next week and put it on my website for download (freeware).

Muyz said:
I've discovered a serious bug in the acbPowerMeter tool. The implementation of the tool does not use the proper types
This is why I've done a little programming myself last evening. The attachment to this tool contains a preliminary version of my own battery monitoring tool. It provides the correct battery readings for remaining power and current power consumption. One can adjust the polling frequency. I will complete the tool somewhere this or next week and put it on my website for download (freeware).
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Hi Muyz,
Not wanting to jinx this, but I'm cautiously optimistic that I just un-bricked my O2 XDA Orbit (Artemis) so, as long as it doesn't go bad on me again I might now be in a position to contribute Artemis (or re-branded Artemis) data for comparison.
In preperation for the tests I'm really interested in what are the problems you found with abcPowerMeter. You say above that it "does not use the proper types". What do you mean by this? As a (fairly old) computer scientist this immediately makes me think of types as in a typed computer language (e.g. it's declaring something as int instead of long or short instead of bool). Is this what you mean? Please excuse my ignorance, I know theory but have never been anywhere near any Windows, let alone Windows Mobile, programming environments; if you do mean language types then how did you detect this without the source code (or did you find that somehow or disassemble)?
If you don't mean variable typing then what do you mean?
In any event, many thanks for the work Muyz.
I un-bricked my device by re-flashing (twice) the official O2 WM6 ROM so when (assuming my device stays stable) I start running current consumption tests then I think it's probably quite good that I upgraded my device to WM6 because that removes one variable (is the current drain a WM5 -> WM6 issue?) so we can at least compare Artemis to Polaris on a fairly like-for-like basis regarding the OS version.
I'm really glad I started this thread, I think there's been some really interesting and useful discussion here and I certainly wasn't expecting to have people jumping in and posting fixed versions of the current-monitoring software, that was a really nice surprise (but I'm still really looking forward to hearing exactly what the issue was).
- Julian

Battery life in cooked ROMs - weather plugin
Hi guys,
in some cooked ROMs there seems to be a bug in the radio rom or simply in general. I've read several posts where people had the gsm units in their Artemis on full power most of the time causing the device to lose power very fast. This happened only with cooked ROMs, not with official versions. They noticed that when they had their phone close to speakers which caused the buzzing noise that you usually get when there is an incoming call or short message.
The other thing that consumes power is the weather plugin, but only when you have the auto-update activated! I disabled it and never had problems.
I think I'll buy this device anyways, haven't read any serious reasons not to buy it.

Thanks for your response, and I hope your device works properly now.
About the type issue: acdPowerMeter (obviously) uses the Windows API to retrieve battery information. It receives the information through a structure that contains signed integers. It seems as if acbPowerSoft managed to introduce a typing error by using unsigned integers instead of signed integers. The effect is that for negative values (e.g. when current is drawn from the battery), acbPowerMeter shows extremely large values. I discovered what is the most likely reason for this mistake: Microsoft shows an example on their website on how to retrieve battery status information. Their example shows the error clearly: the C# class use unsigned integers, whereas the native structure contains signed integers as you can see here. So I guess acbPocketSoft copied some code without checking the result
I do not have a clue on what caused the extreme battery drain I encountered a few days ago. I have not seen it since. Soon, my tool will include a warning mechanism. I first added a few other small things, such as battery temperature, as you can see in the new attachment
(Yes, I know, it contains a small glitch on exiting the application, but that will be fixed asap)

Does anyone use Battery Guard & if so, what is a good reading?

Hi Guys,
I've been suffering from very severe battery run-down over the last few days. My battery lasts about 14 hours before it hits about 30%! I've got quite a few reg-tweaks and apps running and, as I have the phone running exactly how I like it, I'm trying to work out what could be causing the drain rather than doing a hard reset and starting again.
I'm using Battery Guard which is excellent but I'm a little unsure what a good initial reading is? When I start the program and the Draining/Charging bar settles (the program usually opens at 170mA or so) I get a stable reading of about 55-60mA. Is this too much or not? I'm pretty new to this program and doing some searches but I just though I'd ask in the forum if anyone else is using this program and, if so, what kind of reading they are getting? Any info would be very helpful.
Thanks in advance

That is quite high. from the benchmark thread it seems that power draw bottoms out at 3ma and peaks at about 280ma for the Roms tested. I can't remember the exact figures so check out the attached benchmark sheet.
They all differ slightly - however 1.43, 1.48 and 1.61 are included

chris_ah1 said:
That is quite high. from the benchmark thread it seems that power draw bottoms out at 3ma and peaks at about 280ma for the Roms tested. I can't remember the exact figures so check out the attached benchmark sheet.
They all differ slightly - however 1.43, 1.48 and 1.61 are included
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Thanks for the quick response,
Do you have a link for the benchmark thread. Also, if the range is from 3-280mA, wouldn't 55-60mA be a pretty average reading? I don't really know much about it which is why I ask.
Thanks

The search for decent battery life.

I know I know that disabling data can get me 24-30+ hours of battery life. However for my on the go lifestyle, that's just not possible. I depend on my phone to keep my email updated. I have four email accounts (two of which are exchange) that sync calendars and contacts as well as email. I was using push on my two exchange accounts, but I've changed that to do every hour for one and every 15 minutes for the other. my other emails are set to check every hour. I have craigslist notifications set to check a single time per day. I have a weather widget that is only supposed to check every 4 hours.
I am running Perception 10.2 with the latest firebird 2 kernel, but have also tried various versions of speedmod's kernel. I have tried the following modems
JL1, JL2, JL3, JK4, KP1.
No matter what I cannot seem to get more then about 10 hours of battery life on standby ONLY. no phone calls, no turning the display on, nothing. I consistently get around 1 hour of time per 10% drain on my battery. I'm not asking for miracles. I just want my phone to be able to last at least 12 hours (a full work day plus drive time.)
I've already set the programs with the most spartan settings I am willing to use. I'd rather have my phone pushing data to my much more often, but I understand that's not going to be possible unless I can find a drastic increase in my battery life. What else can I do?

I have 3 email push accounts, and google voice syncing all the time. Email includes emails with attachments too, and EDGE is pretty much sufficient for most of these things. Even for normal day to day activities like browsing XDA, EDGE is pretty much sufficient.
So I would advise u to switch from 3G to EDGE. U can turn on 3G when u need more bandwidth demanding apps. This would reduce some strain on ur battery.
Only downside would be that u can't browse n talk on phone at the same time. But its ok by me to get a few mails after the call I am on is over. I can live with this small inconvinience in leiu of the additional battery gain.
As of this minute, with the configuration I have in my signature (am using xcal kernel), I have like 63% battery left after ~7.15 hours standby, with 1h31m of display on and 40m of calls, alongside mails being pushed.
Edit: At the end of my 'normal' day with 'moderate' usage (1-1.5 hours calls and 1.5-2 hour display being on (not for games/movies, but with active data transfer on like texting), I reach home with ~50-60% battery left.
On a side note: I would recommend to turn off updates in weather widget, and use a manual refresh when needed.

how do you easily toggle between 2G/3G? it's my understanding you have to use service menus to access the change.

asrrin29 said:
how do you easily toggle between 2G/3G? it's my understanding you have to use service menus to access the change.
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If u r on the ROM I am using, u can get it in network settings.
Some 2.2.1 ROMs do not have it in network settings. If ur ROM doesn't have it, u would need to access through the service mode code "*#*#197328640#*#*.
When in service mode, here is the sequence to select in the options:
option 1
option 8
option 4
option 3
Note: Pressing 'back' key will NOT take u back. It will close the service menu. Press the 'menu' key, and select 'back' to go back.
Be warned, this would not stick on reboot. U would need to repeat these steps whenever u reboot.
Alternately, I would suggest u move to a ROM that supports EDGE/3G switch. If the ROM supports this option in network settings, it would stick on rebooting too.

Yeah, I just found that. Perception supports switching, but you have to go to the settings menu to do it. I found something called Juice defender, and will play around with that as well. Unfortunately we aren't on an ASOP build, so we can't auto toggle 2G/3G, have to do it from the menu. I will report and let you know what I find!

asrrin29 said:
Yeah, I just found that. Perception supports switching, but you have to go to the settings menu to do it. I found something called Juice defender, and will play around with that as well. Unfortunately we aren't on an ASOP build, so we can't auto toggle 2G/3G, have to do it from the menu. I will report and let you know what I find!
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Sure. By the way, I don't use any apps like juice defender. Realized that my battery is well off without them by taking care of little things like turning off wifi and bluetooth when not using them (well, these are the only two things I take care of manually).

I would normally agree with you, but as I was looking through the app I saw that it actually disables data while the phone is off, and only turns it on temporarily at intervals to allow application updates. If it truly works just like it states, I could have essentially a battery experience similar to turning off data while still enjoying my notifications. More experimentation is necessary.

asrrin29 said:
I would normally agree with you, but as I was looking through the app I saw that it actually disables data while the phone is off, and only turns it on temporarily at intervals to allow application updates. If it truly works just like it states, I could have essentially a battery experience similar to turning off data while still enjoying my notifications. More experimentation is necessary.
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Juice Defender gives me 60 to 70 % more battery life. I have it set to sync every 15min and wifi is location based.

Yeah, Juice Defender works absolute wonders! it gives me the same amount of battery savings that switching to 2G gave me, but automatically enables and disables itself when I need it. I'm on 70% battery left with over 7 hours off the charger, and that was taking voice calls and doing some light email checking!

Try a kernel that supports OC/UV. You don't have to overclock, but undervolting is what you want. Check out Suckerpunch kernel. Nice guide by shaolin. Can't argue against a black belt. lol.

xdahgary said:
Try a kernel that supports OC/UV. You don't have to overclock, but undervolting is what you want. Check out Suckerpunch kernel. Nice guide by shaolin. Can't argue against a black belt. lol.
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Unless I can only have it underclock while I'm not using it, I think I'll pass. I bought the Captivate for it's 1GHz proc, if I wanted something slower I would have gotten the aria.

You misunderstand. It's undervolt. That means use less power at different processing states.

xdahgary said:
You misunderstand. It's undervolt. That means use less power at different processing states.
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you can undervolt a proc without underclocking it? How is this possible, unless they changed the FSB or timings on the chip?

I pretty sure you can use voltage control and set highest state at 1000mhz and set lower voltages for states below it. That's as techincal I'm going to get.

asrrin29 said:
you can undervolt a proc without underclocking it? How is this possible, unless they changed the FSB or timings on the chip?
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By running the chip slightly out of spec.
You can usually undervolt each cpu step by 50 to 150 mV. How to find the right point really does just take trial and error. And as with all overclocking/underclocking your mileage may vary. Some phones can really be pushed to the limits and run fine, others don't like even the slightest changes to the stock settings. All depends on how well your phone was put together, and from where in the wafer your CPU was taken from.
Undervolting can save you a fair bit of battery though. Won't help a whole lot when you're actually using the phone (since the screen and 3G/WiFi radios will suck way more power than the CPU), but it will help seriously increase your standby time.
PS While undervolting and overclocking capable kernels tend to be one and the same (since the underlying code is related) you DO NOT need to overclock your phone to undervolt the CPU. You can run your CPU at stock 1 GHz while still undervolting each frequency step. Course, with some tweaking and good luck, you can even get your phone to run at 1.2 or 1.3 GHz while still using no more power than a stock phone at 1 GHz.

How much battery gets used when the phone constantly switches between EDGE and 3G? I'm curious because my building has thick walls and my 3G signal constantly drops down to EDGE when I pick it up, then goes back to 3G when I leave it sitting out on my desk.

Shammyh said:
By running the chip slightly out of spec.
You can usually undervolt each cpu step by 50 to 150 mV. How to find the right point really does just take trial and error. And as with all overclocking/underclocking your mileage may vary. Some phones can really be pushed to the limits and run fine, others don't like even the slightest changes to the stock settings. All depends on how well your phone was put together, and from where in the wafer your CPU was taken from.
Undervolting can save you a fair bit of battery though. Won't help a whole lot when you're actually using the phone (since the screen and 3G/WiFi radios will suck way more power than the CPU), but it will help seriously increase your standby time.
PS While undervolting and overclocking capable kernels tend to be one and the same (since the underlying code is related) you DO NOT need to overclock your phone to undervolt the CPU. You can run your CPU at stock 1 GHz while still undervolting each frequency step. Course, with some tweaking and good luck, you can even get your phone to run at 1.2 or 1.3 GHz while still using no more power than a stock phone at 1 GHz.
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Thank you for being the geek.

clydethecash said:
How much battery gets used when the phone constantly switches between EDGE and 3G? I'm curious because my building has thick walls and my 3G signal constantly drops down to EDGE when I pick it up, then goes back to 3G when I leave it sitting out on my desk.
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Any time your phone is forced to switch from 3G to Edge, or even from one band to another, it's not a good sign for your battery. Exactly how much power difference? Grab a multimeter and hook it up between your phone and battery. Record some data, and test for statistical significance. And let us all know.
Short of that, I'd say if you spend a lot of your day in an area with known bad coverage, I would hop into the engineering mode (*#*#0011#*#*), and lock your phone to a specific band and radio mode. Like 850 MHz EDGE, or 850 MHz W-CDMA. Or if you are in an 1900 area, then 1900 EDGE/W-CDMA. Not just EDGE or 3G mode, but a specific band AND radio mode. You need to be smart, and pick the band that has the best coverage so you don't make life even harder on your radio, but it can save some battery life over the phone jumping around ever time you walk from one side of the room to the other.

i running paragon 5.1 rom with the 1280mhz kernel overclocked to 1280 and undervolted. my phone has been unplugged since 7:30 am eastern time it is now 8:04 pm eastern and i have 73% battery left lol. i have done everything today on the web screwing around with my phone. the best rom so far and im even overclocked.

nate25 said:
i running paragon 5.1 rom with the 1280mhz kernel overclocked to 1280 and undervolted. my phone has been unplugged since 7:30 am eastern time it is now 8:04 pm eastern and i have 73% battery left lol. i have done everything today on the web screwing around with my phone. the best rom so far and im even overclocked.
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Post usage stats please, like how long display been on, time spent on calls, etc.
Btw, does this ROM allow switching between 2G and 3G in the mobile network settings menu.

22hrs Std. Battery on GB and Sense 3.0 = YES!

OK, so I know there has been a lot of b*tching about the Tbolt battery life, especially if you are running Gingerbread and a Sense 2.1 or 3.0 ROM (I am running BAMF 3.0 R4.9). I just may have solved this issue when you can connect to a WiFi access point!
Using a program called Tasker, I have created specific profiles that actually help save my battery as well as do a lot of other things to make life easier. The learning curve is somewhat steep for non-Tech geeks, but it's not too difficult after you get the hang of it. (I think the only version of Tasker in the market is pay for use, but you can get a free trial from the Dev's website directly.)
On to how I can get a 22+ hour standard TBolt battery:
1st new profile:
-Called "WiFi"
-Context = WiFi Connected (Any SSID)
-Task = NET>WiFi Sleep>Never
2nd new profile:
-Called "Dim Screen"
-Context = Power Source Any, click "Invert" button (so when the phone is not charging).
-Task = Display>Display Brightness>Set to "20" and check "Immediate Effect" (you can certainly change it to something higher, but you may not get nearly the same battery life).
On WiFi, I can get almost 23 hours of battery. On 4G, I can get upwards of 8 hours, 3G I have yet to test.
Since LTE was just turned on near where I live, I noticed that my TBolt was making WiFi sleep while it sat in my pocket not in use, therefor switching to 4G/LTE and draining the battery. The brightness obviously helps when I am not plugged in no matter if I am 3G/4G/WiFi.
I have some other useful profiles setup. Like I have the phone screen go to Auto Brightness and into the Sense Dock Mode when the phone is charging. My favorite is the Car Dock Profile... when the phone goes into my Car Dock, the Bluetooth turns on, GPS goes on, and Google Music Starts.
I am a big fan of Tasker now... there are a lot of possibilities with the program!

WorldOfJohnboy said:
OK, so I know there has been a lot of b*tching about the Tbolt battery life, especially if you are running Gingerbread and a Sense 2.1 or 3.0 ROM (I am running BAMF 3.0 R4.9). I just may have solved this issue when you can connect to a WiFi access point!
Using a program called Tasker, I have created specific profiles that actually help save my battery as well as do a lot of other things to make life easier. The learning curve is somewhat steep for non-Tech geeks, but it's not too difficult after you get the hang of it. (I think the only version of Tasker in the market is pay for use, but you can get a free trial from the Dev's website directly.)
On to how I can get a 22+ hour standard TBolt battery:
1st new profile:
-Called "WiFi"
-Context = WiFi Connected (Any SSID)
-Task = NET>WiFi Sleep>Never
2nd new profile:
-Called "Dim Screen"
-Context = Power Source Any, click "Invert" button (so when the phone is not charging).
-Task = Display>Display Brightness>Set to "20" and check "Immediate Effect" (you can certainly change it to something higher, but you may not get nearly the same battery life).
On WiFi, I can get almost 23 hours of battery. On 4G, I can get upwards of 8 hours, 3G I have yet to test.
Since LTE was just turned on near where I live, I noticed that my TBolt was making WiFi sleep while it sat in my pocket not in use, therefor switching to 4G/LTE and draining the battery. The brightness obviously helps when I am not plugged in no matter if I am 3G/4G/WiFi.
I have some other useful profiles setup. Like I have the phone screen go to Auto Brightness and into the Sense Dock Mode when the phone is charging. My favorite is the Car Dock Profile... when the phone goes into my Car Dock, the Bluetooth turns on, GPS goes on, and Google Music Starts.
I am a big fan of Tasker now... there are a lot of possibilities with the program!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm gonna say you might want to try a MUCH more modern ROM. I'm having very little trouble eeking 18 hours out of mine under moderate use, and well over a day if I'm not messing with it much. It will typically consume around 1.7% per hour unused, LTE on.

WorldOfJohnboy said:
OK, so I know there has been a lot of b*tching about the Tbolt battery life, especially if you are running Gingerbread and a Sense 2.1 or 3.0 ROM (I am running BAMF 3.0 R4.9). I just may have solved this issue when you can connect to a WiFi access point!
Using a program called Tasker, I have created specific profiles that actually help save my battery as well as do a lot of other things to make life easier. The learning curve is somewhat steep for non-Tech geeks, but it's not too difficult after you get the hang of it. (I think the only version of Tasker in the market is pay for use, but you can get a free trial from the Dev's website directly.)
On to how I can get a 22+ hour standard TBolt battery:
1st new profile:
-Called "WiFi"
-Context = WiFi Connected (Any SSID)
-Task = NET>WiFi Sleep>Never
2nd new profile:
-Called "Dim Screen"
-Context = Power Source Any, click "Invert" button (so when the phone is not charging).
-Task = Display>Display Brightness>Set to "20" and check "Immediate Effect" (you can certainly change it to something higher, but you may not get nearly the same battery life).
On WiFi, I can get almost 23 hours of battery. On 4G, I can get upwards of 8 hours, 3G I have yet to test.
Since LTE was just turned on near where I live, I noticed that my TBolt was making WiFi sleep while it sat in my pocket not in use, therefor switching to 4G/LTE and draining the battery. The brightness obviously helps when I am not plugged in no matter if I am 3G/4G/WiFi.
I have some other useful profiles setup. Like I have the phone screen go to Auto Brightness and into the Sense Dock Mode when the phone is charging. My favorite is the Car Dock Profile... when the phone goes into my Car Dock, the Bluetooth turns on, GPS goes on, and Google Music Starts.
I am a big fan of Tasker now... there are a lot of possibilities with the program!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
how do you get the GPS to enable? I've tried to set up my GPS to come when I open maps, navigation or anything that needs gps enable but I get "sorry that action is unavailable on this device."

Llama also does what Tasker does. And its free. I find that Llama works better too. I can get near 24 hours with everything stock.

loonatik78 said:
I'm gonna say you might want to try a MUCH more modern ROM. I'm having very little trouble eeking 18 hours out of mine under moderate use, and well over a day if I'm not messing with it much. It will typically consume around 1.7% per hour unused, LTE on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Modern? The ROM I have is running Gingerbread and is full Sense 3.0 (which appears to be a big battery hog). When I was on a GB Sense 2.1 ROM from the same Dev, I was getting better battery. The only thing that may improve the battery any more on GB/Sense 3.0 would be a new and improved Kernel, though I think I am on one of the more stable ones.

warmonster said:
how do you get the GPS to enable? I've tried to set up my GPS to come when I open maps, navigation or anything that needs gps enable but I get "sorry that action is unavailable on this device."
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are right, my bad... it throws up a disclaimer that GPS enabling is not available on any 2.3 ROM because of the Pop-up. They suggest using Cyanogen (sp) if you want to use the feature on a 2.3 ROM.

andydumi said:
Llama also does what Tasker does. And its free. I find that Llama works better too. I can get near 24 hours with everything stock.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Potato, Patahto. I like Tasker and found it really granular once I started playing with it. I don't mind paying for an app that is well Developed and supported. (If you like Llama that much, you should use the donate version to "thank" the Dev team!) The 23hrs is an estimated capacity right now as Battery Left is still calibrating.

WorldOfJohnboy said:
Modern? The ROM I have is running Gingerbread and is full Sense 3.0 (which appears to be a big battery hog). When I was on a GB Sense 2.1 ROM from the same Dev, I was getting better battery. The only thing that may improve the battery any more on GB/Sense 3.0 would be a new and improved Kernel, though I think I am on one of the more stable ones.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think he is refering to roms based off the 2.11 leak. battery life in that Ruu is much better than any other previous ruu. Any roms based off it will give you more life by default. The bamf 4.9 Rom is kinda old when your talking about custom roms and it isn't based on the 2.11 ruu.
Sent from my ADR6400L using xda premium

WorldOfJohnboy said:
Modern? The ROM I have is running Gingerbread and is full Sense 3.0 (which appears to be a big battery hog). When I was on a GB Sense 2.1 ROM from the same Dev, I was getting better battery. The only thing that may improve the battery any more on GB/Sense 3.0 would be a new and improved Kernel, though I think I am on one of the more stable ones.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You say BAMF 3.0 R4.9 is your ROM. This ROM is old, based upon the 2.01 GB leak (which is about 4 leaks ago), which was terribly flawed in many ways, and isn't even being developed by BAMF anymore. The newer kernels won't even work right on that ROM because aspects of the WiFi and camera have been changed in later leaks.
You're application of Tasker is probably one of the ONLY rational uses of such an app. Using it for such things as turning GPS on and off is pointless, and redundant, because Android already does that as long as you have GPS enabled. Having it enabled doesn't use any power unless you're using apps that abuse it, such as some of the traffic update apps that constantly update your position.
Power management apps aren't quite as useless as task killer apps, but for the purposes I see people use them for, they're not doing you many favors. I'm generally not a fan of these apps and I strongly recommend against task killers because the result of their use simply increases the amount of NAND reads the CPU must make, which is the most power intensive operation that CPU performs.
Newer ROMs, such as the RUU 2.10 and 2.11 based ROMs, are significantly better on battery life than the older ones, especially when used with the radios from the 1.70 OTA, 2.07 RUU, 2.10 RUU, and 2.11 RUU. I'd make the jump to a more modern ROM before I tried manipulating an older one to perform. Or, move up to a newer one and do the same thing and see what you get. In any event, there's good room for improvement.

I tried several ways to conserve battery and finally decided that it just isn't worth it to me to have to stop running game apps, to have to set the phone up a specific way, to carefully monitor what each app does etcetera. I went out Tuesday and bought a extended battery from a Verizon store. With discount I paid $25.00 for the battery and cover. I am now getting right around twenty five hours total battery life off one charge and I have watched videos, played games, played music, and did whatever else I could think of to kill that battery. I am ecstatic with it. Now when I am out overnight mountain climbing with the missus granted I will undoubtedly kill some apps. Wouldn't do to run into BigFoot, Smokey the Bear, and Jason Vorhies with a dead battery and no chocolate bars ( since she for some reason feels I should diet) now would it?
ps. I made sure it had antennaes on the cover. It has more than my original cover does. And the clerk had no clue why i was even asking about the antenaes on the cover

TDubKong said:
I tried several ways to conserve battery and finally decided that it just isn't worth it to me to have to stop running game apps, to have to set the phone up a specific way, to carefully monitor what each app does etcetera. I went out Tuesday and bought a extended battery from a Verizon store. With discount I paid $25.00 for the battery and cover. I am now getting right around twenty five hours total battery life off one charge and I have watched videos, played games, played music, and did whatever else I could think of to kill that battery. I am ecstatic with it. Now when I am out overnight mountain climbing with the missus granted I will undoubtedly kill some apps. Wouldn't do to run into BigFoot, Smokey the Bear, and Jason Vorhies with a dead battery and no chocolate bars ( since she for some reason feels I should diet) now would it?
ps. I made sure it had antennaes on the cover. It has more than my original cover does. And the clerk had no clue why i was even asking about the antenaes on the cover
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Reps are pretty clueless, in general. They're sales people and that's about it. That's what cracks me up when I see these goofy "corporate memos" that supposedly when out to stores with stuff like RUU and radio version numbers on them. Like the geek behind the counter actually knows any of that???

loonatik78 said:
Reps are pretty clueless, in general. They're sales people and that's about it. That's what cracks me up when I see these goofy "corporate memos" that supposedly when out to stores with stuff like RUU and radio version numbers on them. Like the geek behind the counter actually knows any of that???
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea tell me about it. At the Verizon kiosk in Costco I actually argued with the guy because he was spouting off about the Specs on AT&T phones being better than what were on the Thunderbolt. Saying how much better AT&T was and all this stuff. I listened for only a few minutes before I realized he was an imbecile. He was just throwing out things that made him sound like he knew what he was talking about. And yea you read that right. This brain fart of a human being was promoting AT&T from a Verizon kiosk

TDubKong said:
Yea tell me about it. At the Verizon kiosk in Costco I actually argued with the guy because he was spouting off about the Specs on AT&T phones being better than what were on the Thunderbolt. Saying how much better AT&T was and all this stuff. I listened for only a few minutes before I realized he was an imbecile. He was just throwing out things that made him sound like he knew what he was talking about. And yea you read that right. This brain fart of a human being was promoting AT&T from a Verizon kiosk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Further proving Einstein's point... The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits.

loonatik78 said:
You say BAMF 3.0 R4.9 is your ROM. This ROM is old, based upon the 2.01 GB leak (which is about 4 leaks ago), which was terribly flawed in many ways, and isn't even being developed by BAMF anymore. The newer kernels won't even work right on that ROM because aspects of the WiFi and camera have been changed in later leaks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you can point me to a ROM that has full Sense 3.0 and the latest GB leak, please point me in that direction.
You're application of Tasker is probably one of the ONLY rational uses of such an app. Using it for such things as turning GPS on and off is pointless, and redundant, because Android already does that as long as you have GPS enabled. Having it enabled doesn't use any power unless you're using apps that abuse it, such as some of the traffic update apps that constantly update your position.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Considering I do use a bunch of Apps that can use GPS (Foursquare, Weather, and my Car Dock=Car Home) and I don't always need GPS on to do what I do in them, I choose to have GPS inactive as to not chew up more battery than is necessary.
Power management apps aren't quite as useless as task killer apps, but for the purposes I see people use them for, they're not doing you many favors. I'm generally not a fan of these apps and I strongly recommend against task killers because the result of their use simply increases the amount of NAND reads the CPU must make, which is the most power intensive operation that CPU performs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have never and will never use a task killer. Tasker is basically a way to create a 'macro' or series of them to help do things without having to click 18 different things on your phone. Apples to oranges.
Newer ROMs, such as the RUU 2.10 and 2.11 based ROMs, are significantly better on battery life than the older ones, especially when used with the radios from the 1.70 OTA, 2.07 RUU, 2.10 RUU, and 2.11 RUU. I'd make the jump to a more modern ROM before I tried manipulating an older one to perform. Or, move up to a newer one and do the same thing and see what you get. In any event, there's good room for improvement.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As I said, if there is a viable full Sense 3.0 ROM with the latest RUU out there, please let me know what it is. Until that happens, I will use Tasker to fix the flaws that exist in my current RUU/ROM.

loonatik78 said:
You say BAMF 3.0 R4.9 is your ROM. This ROM is old, based upon the 2.01 GB leak (which is about 4 leaks ago), which was terribly flawed in many ways, and isn't even being developed by BAMF anymore. The newer kernels won't even work right on that ROM because aspects of the WiFi and camera have been changed in later leaks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Really...newer kernels don't work with BAMF 3.0 RC4.9??? That's funny because I'm running Ziggy's latest on BAMF 3.0 RC4.9 with working WiFi and camera, front and back.
Out of all the 3.0, 2.1/3.0 ROM's this is the only one that I have never missed a call because I could not answer the phone because of the end only call bug.
It might be an older ROM but it's still one of the best for this phone.

UberBAMF, Adrynalyne's side-project BAMF, both of the Gingeritis ROMs, Th3ory's ROMs, Synergy... Where the Ziggy kernel came from. Maybe I'm wrong and 4.9 uses the 2.07 base. I've used nothing but 2.07 and newer Chingy ROMs for the last 2 months as daily drivers and I've never once seen this "end call only" bug.
Ziggy's kernels aren't freely available so I don't consider it an available custom kernel.

loonatik78 said:
UberBAMF, Adrynalyne's side-project BAMF, both of the Gingeritis ROMs, Th3ory's ROMs, Synergy... Where the Ziggy kernel came from. Maybe I'm wrong and 4.9 uses the 2.07 base. I've used nothing but 2.07 and newer Chingy ROMs for the last 2 months as daily drivers and I've never once seen this "end call only" bug.
Ziggy's kernels aren't freely available so I don't consider it an available custom kernel.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Anyone that downloads Gingeritis, or Synergy has full access to Ziggy's kernels. I would call that freely available. Either which way they still work on BAMF 3.0 RC4.9.
As for the ROM's you listed not one of them are a full Sense 3.0 ROM like RC4.9.
If you have never had the end only call bug consider yourself lucky because there are theads on both themikmik and team BAMF about this bug.
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App

End-call only bug is real. In 2 months of running bamf (currently on uber 3), I've encountered it once. Others have been plagued with it. Basically, when someone calls, it only displays the large "end call" button.
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App

bp328i said:
Anyone that downloads Gingeritis, or Synergy has full access to Ziggy's kernels. I would call that freely available. Either which way they still work on BAMF 3.0 RC4.9.
As for the ROM's you listed not one of them are a full Sense 3.0 ROM like RC4.9.
If you have never had the end only call bug consider yourself lucky because there are theads on both themikmik and team BAMF about this bug.
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hardly call Ziggy's kernel freely available by any stretch of the imagination. That's like saying iOS is free to anyone to use. Not really if you ONLY get it with this product or that! Ziggy also flouts the GPL like it's no big deal, so obtaining his source is nigh impossible. He's got one of the least available kernels that exists.

Sense 3.0 is eye candy. Like live wallpaper, its cool for a day, that's about it. And Rosie launcher is weak. I mean, if that's your thing, cool. It's your phone. But AOSP roms are far beyond BAMF, and far more stable. Shift B2 is the best rom I've run on my Bolt, hands down. With G+ loaded I get between 18-22 hours moderate use. Without G+ I can get a little over 28 hours. This is all 3G, as our towers havent been upgraded yet here in BFE. I understand the desire for battery life on stock battery. I pocket mine for 8 hours a day, so extended battery is unappealing. I underclock to 768 and my phone is still more responsive than it was with sense at 1.4.

[Q] Proper Infuse SetCPU settings and voltages.

Ok I'm kinda new to the whole overclocking thing and I was wondering what are the best settings to use if I wanted to(for instance) save more of my battery. I've done quite a bit of searching but I wanted to make sure that the voltage settings aren't different on different ROMS or phones. I'm on Zeus V3 for the record. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks for your time.

Stable settings definitely vary from phone to phone unfortunately, even if they are the same device. So basically its trial and error, no matter what anybody suggests. Generally, the more you can undervolt and stay stable, the better battery life you will have. You're just going to have to experiment a bit, and just make sure you don't save any settings as boot settings until you know they are stable. I know there is a guide to overclocking somewhere on the forums, I just hate searching on my phone.
Quick tips, start with only moderate undervolting, and crank them down gradually until your phone is at the limit of stable to maximize battery life. Use the 'stability test' app in the market to test for stability. Also, running other benchmarks, such as neocore or quadrant, without freezing is a good test.
Hope I helped!
PS, I've come to the realization that it all doesn't make THAT huge of a difference, and if you switch roms anywhere as frequently as me, its a waste of time. Not to discourage you, just my two cents. If you like to pick a rom and stick with it, then definitely play with it.
*edit* Got on my computer and found the guide for you:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1036020
Obviously, since the guide is based on a captivate, the values you will end up with will be different, but he explains the process of fine tuning very well. Enjoy!
Sent from my SGH-I997 using xda premium

what i do with all my ROMs is put it from 100 mhz (min) - 1600 mhz (max)
and put the governor to "ondemand"
i usually get about 18 hours on battery life a day.
give it a shot doesnt hurt to test it out cause you could always charge your battery haha