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Terrible battery life, please help!

Hello I am new to this forum, I just got the Samsung galaxy s 4g this Wednesday and I was wondering if anyone else was having battery issues. Right now I have my phone set to minimum brightness, auto sync off, black bckground and juice defender on. So I don't understand why am I getting only about 3 hours of battery life when all I'm doing most of the time is surfing the web(this forum) and facebook. I even get better battery life from my dads vibrant which is completely stock, has auto sync on, no juice defender, and screen brightness set to 50%. From reading the stats of both phones, the vibrant 4g is supposed to have a slightly better battery. I also don't understand why if the screen is at the minimum it still takes up 94% of the battery whereas on my dads vibrant 50% screen brightness takes up 30%. Is there anything I can do? Will wiping the battery stats help? If so how do I do that from a stock unrooted vibrant?
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA App

Check your notifications settings. I know that Samsung's contacts integration with social networks takes a big toll on the battery, hence why I've disabled it. Also, disable T-Mobile's Contact Backup Sync, just use Google's contacts integration.

Thanks for helping, but yeah I have those disabled already.
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icy56 said:
Thanks for helping, but yeah I have those disabled already.
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No, I charged mine this morning at 630AM, and I have been playing with it all day. It is currently 610PM, and I am at 60% still. Seems pretty good to me.

troby1986 said:
No, I charged mine this morning at 630AM, and I have been playing with it all day. It is currently 610PM, and I am at 60% still. Seems pretty good to me.
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Wow thats much better than what I have been getting, have you changed any settings that might have increased the battery life for your phone?
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Does the trick to fully discharge and recharge 3 times work with these batteries? According the the Li-on technology this is not supposed to be necessary but I've heard stories in the forums of folks getting great battery life on other phones after doing this. Many people also say their batteries work a lot better after a week of use (supposedly after "training" them as well.)
I believe the G2 is clocked down for this reason. You could try CPU-set app, clocking down to 500-800mhz when not gaming.
Anyone tried these tricks?

gggirlgeek said:
Does the trick to fully discharge and recharge 3 times work with these batteries? According the the Li-on technology this is not supposed to be necessary but I've heard stories in the forums of folks getting great battery life on other phones after doing this. Many people also say their batteries work a lot better after a week of use (supposedly after "training" them as well.)
I believe the G2 is clocked down for this reason. You could try CPU-set app, clocking down to 500-800mhz when not gaming.
Anyone tried these tricks?
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Will ill try to cycle charge the vibrant and use it for a week, and ill try out cpu set. if this doesn't improve I'm definitely returning this phone. I had soo much expectation for this because I have seen people getting up to 24 hours. I can't even get halfway through the day barely using the phone.
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Thats weird... I unplugged at 9:30 used it moderately untill 12:30 at which time i turned brightness to max and watched the intire incpetion movie and watched an episode of kitchen nightmares and ended up at 56%.
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mavictb said:
Thats weird... I unplugged at 9:30 used it moderately untill 12:30 at which time i turned brightness to max and watched the intire incpetion movie and watched an episode of kitchen nightmares and ended up at 56%.
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Yeah there's gotta be something wrong with my phone, after watching halfway through inception from a full charge and at 0% brightness I had 30% battery left.
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I'm also struggling to make it through the day. I check Facebook / xda on occasion and text moderately, Gps off, notifications and auto sync off, display set to 0% with an all black background, even 3g off in areas where its spotty... I don't remember the vibrant being this bad...
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did you guys do a full battery break in? I charged my phone to 100% drained it till it died charged it to 100% again with the power off then drained till it died again... I have great battery life.

What is your usage like? Im breaking in my battery again today.
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rando191 said:
What is your usage like? Im breaking in my battery again today.
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Auto brightness on GPS on sync on 20 texts 30 min playing games 20 min on Facebook now on xda app for 15 min. And standby for 3 hours... currently at 80%. Also have hepatic feedback on the Mtm gingergread keyboard. If that matters.
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I got my replacement 4g today. Hopefully ill have better results. I have a question for those of you that are getting really good battery life, are you running juice defender or something similar in the background? Maybe that's a factor in why I've been getting terrible battery.
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Im having the same issue with battery life.. for me its a deal breaker.. I use my phone pretty heavily for keeping up with email and a little web browsing as well as talking quite a bit.. My iPhone 3Gs lasted me all day of heavy use and with the SGS4G I have to charge the damn thing at least once a day with light usage and if I have to be on the phone a lot then its twice a day.. Not acceptable at all...
Thats with wifi and gps disabled..
On the 3Gs I had wifi, bluetooth and the gps running all the damn time...

Took my phone off charge at 6:30 this morning haven't put it on charge yet at 88% never had this much juice with the nexus one.
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I'm not having any issues with battery life or heating. I use wifi teather most of the day and I'm getting to use it all day without issue. I did cycle my battery 4 times already just in case it matters. FYI

The batteries that our phone uses DOES NOT require u to cycle the battery. In fact, doing so will harm your battery. To avoid damage to your battery always charge ur phone when u r at <15% battery level. Trust me I thought the same until I did the research. I will post more info when I get on my PC later.
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**EDIT**
More information:
http://www.goodandevo.net/2010/06/does-the-htc-evo-4g-battery-need-to-be-primedconditioned.html
http://batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-36.htm

I just bought a Galaxy S 4G on wednesday. First android device coming from iphone 3G. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to preserve the battery life.
I took it off the charger at 6:30am and the battery was at about 2% at 8:30pm.
I haven't rooted the phone yet to remove some of the bloatware that comes pre-installed.
I've got email accounts synching, brightness set at about 10% w/ a static wallpaper. Played about an hour of angrybirds throughout the day and didn't really do any web browsing with a few phones calls. I mean 14 hours is decent but from what I've read there are plenty of people getting a full day of use and still have 50% battery left.
I guess once the battery fully charges I'll put inception on, turn off syncing and try a few other things.
So I guess I said all that to say this, my battery life isn't great but it's not downright horrible either. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
And yes I'll continue browsing all the forums to see what else I can find.
Edit:
Played through half of Inception in airplane mode, brightness at minimum. I dropped from 93% to 80% in an hour and a half. Not too shabby.
Also created a shortcut to toggle between 4G modes and Edge. I know 4G is going to be a pretty big drain so I'll see how much that helps.
I'll keep tweaking it.

this is completely true and if you read the manual on page 13- h t t p:// downloadcenter . samsung . com/content/UM/201102/20110224044646930/T959_Galaxy_S_4G_English_User_Manual.pdf it says that
"• Do not wait until your battery is completely depleted before charging
your device. Repeating this process of a complete discharge and
recharge can over time reduce the storage capacity of any battery."
right now my phone is at 23% battery level with up time of 46:46:40 hrs/mins/secs. with skype calling (around 10 minutes), text messaging, browsing the net (for around 5 minutes about 6 times a day), and talking on the phone (around 15 minutes)
the settings i did:
1. took a picture with my finger blocking the camera to get pitch black picture and set that as my background and deleted all the shortcut icons (i short, i only have a blank screen with the only 4 icons down below)
2. changed the brightness settings to 2 clicks to the right from 0% brightness (or you can lower your brightness all the way down during the night, and 2 clicks away during the day, this will save you more)
3. disabled haptic feedbacks and audible touchtones, selections, and screen lock sounds
4. disabled animations
5. disabled background data and syncing when not in use
6. disabled packet data (3g), wifi, and gps when not in use
the last two are the biggest settings that made my battery last longer.
7. i only charge my phone when it gets to 20% and the manual recommends not to use the phone while charging
i hope this helps.
and yes it is recommended to charge your battery to 100% before you turn on your phone for the first time and this is also stated on the manual.
one more thing, don't forget to set your browser's brightness setting as well
Toshinobu said:
The batteries that our phone uses DOES NOT require u to cycle the battery. In fact, doing so will harm your battery. To avoid damage to your battery always charge ur phone when u r at <15% battery level. Trust me I thought the same until I did the research. I will post more info when I get on my PC later.
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA App
**EDIT**
More information:
http://www.goodandevo.net/2010/06/does-the-htc-evo-4g-battery-need-to-be-primedconditioned.html
http://batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-36.htm
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Click to collapse

Battery is absolutely garbage

Am I the only one?
I upgraded to a native android device from a modded HTC HD2 to hopefully have a longer battery experience.
This battery is absolutely trash. My 2 year old HTC HD2 running Sense Android Non-Native ran at almost exactly the same.
I tested my HTC HD2 side by side with a close friend who has an Evo 4g.. Both Devices still being HORRIBLE in battery life performed almost IDENTICAL.
HTC HD2 is TWO YEARS old, why is it so close in performance to our device..
I love the phone in general, it's snappy (once i removed all bloatware).. Boots fast, runs nice.. i have very few complaints about it.
But how does an 1100 MaH battery run the SAME as an 1600 MaH battery?
I thought technology is supposed to improve, but my non native android phone ran almost the same as this one. Took longer to restart/boot up, but general speed is the same, larger screen size.. similar settings, and same battery life. Pisses me off frankly.

That's how I felt. hopefully we will get rom's or gingerbread on this phone soon that will improve battery life. And by gingerbread I mean the leak from Samsung for the i9000. I've been reading reviews and it seems like it Greatly improved battery while speeding up the phone a lot.
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I have to disagree. I've owned may android phones including the evo. This phone has the best battery life in my opinion. I can easily make it almost all day with use without charging
Sent from my DAMN Galaxy 4G¡!

Well like I said, i admittedly abuse the phone.. but I'm comparing to other phones getting equal abuse. It stands up about the same, better yes, but not by much.
If I'm barely using it however.. let's say, mainly just texting, yes it will last all day. But that never really happens.

I love how people admit that they "abuse" the phone all day and then complain that the battery life sucks. If you're going to use your phone that much, bring your usb cord. Or strap a battery pack to yourself and plug it in for "all day" use and abuse.

It's the screen. If you want the super amoled you have to put up with the battery.

What i don't understand is that why the Droid x which has similar specs to our phone can go up to 10 hours of continuous web browsing when our phone/vibrant can only go up to 4 according to tests. Is it because of the screen? If it is then that's just stupid.
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It was horrible for me at first, but I then realized the system has to calibrate the battery first. I am getting about 16-20 hours with moderate usage now, which is better than the G2 I had before.

My g2 can go up to 28 hours with light texting and 2 hours of web browsing through wifi and 10 minutes of calls (manual syncs and low brightness also). Once I use the gps and browse through hspa, it's a different story. My sister has a SGS4G and her battery seems to drain faster than mine.
Oh, and if I keep my phone charged for a while after reaching the 100% mark, it stays at 100% even after 1 hour of heavy browsing and watching videos. I think we should all just assume that the battery meters are inaccurate.

I use juice defender and put my brightness setting on auto and I can literally go all day with "abusing" my phone.

DirtyPISTOLA said:
I use juice defender and put my brightness setting on auto and I can literally go all day with "abusing" my phone.
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WHAT? I have brightness on minimum with juice defender and all I get is 8 hours Max. All i really do on this phone is text and play words with friends so its not like i am abusing it or anything.
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How did you calibrate thee battery
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let the phone die, to the maximus. meaning once it turns off, turn on again until it doesnt turn on anymore. Now fully charge it, once again when fully charged restart the phone and charge it to 100 again. then let it die again, and full charge. should be fine then

i bought a 3500mah extended battery for my phone. the battery is designed to work with vibrant. it really made my life a lot easier.

I noticed if I set the phone to GSM only, battery lasts almost twice as long. If I'm on auto select (WCDMA/GSM), it lasts from 7AM till about 4PM.
But then again, I don't have a very good 3G/4G reception (or 2G connection for that matter), so my phone is probably working extra hard to find signal all day long.

The new Bali Kernel has shown tremendous battery improvement on my phone. I'm really impressed.

dualkiller said:
The new Bali Kernel has shown tremendous battery improvement on my phone. I'm really impressed.
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Same here.
I used to only have dark wallpapers and take all the other extra steps for my battery to make it through the work day, and as soon as i got home i had to charge it.
I'm now running fireflies live wallpaper, abusing the phone a little more then what i used to, and i still have battery to spare, not by the time i get home, but by the time i go to bed!!

i also have installed bali. seems to do well, as said its all about the brightness.

My problem with this phone is that wifi uses way too much battery. I have it to turn off when phone is asleep but i'll have the phone at 100% with wifi on. Put it on sleep. 4 hours later. battery is at 65%.
If i have wifi turned off. Battery will be at 98%.

Battery issue?

Purchased this morning and the battery was drained... Fully charged at 5:30pm. Now at 7:30pm im as 50% with minimal use. a 4-5 hour battery life is not going to cut it.
Hopefully this is just an initial charge issue, but my vibrant never drained this fast.
Worried!

U may actually have a bad batt. But id give it a chance. Drain it down to 0. Turn it back on. Let it die again.
Then charge it while off. If it happens again youll know.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA Premium App

Don't worry man, it is because of the first charge.

dalepa said:
Purchased this morning and the battery was drained... Fully charged at 5:30pm. Now at 7:30pm im as 50% with minimal use. a 4-5 hour battery life is not going to cut it.
Hopefully this is just an initial charge issue, but my vibrant never drained this fast.
Worried!
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I have done a few charge cycles completely draining it and battery life is still pretty bad...it better get a lot better than this or it is going back.
Also getting random freezes and reboots.

I've got a ton of apps and widgets installed and use Exchange push. Battery life has been just a little worse than my G2. The phone froze after I first configured it and I had to do a hard reset and rebuild it. It runs a lot better after the reset. You might want to start-over and see if it make any difference for your freezes and resets. I'm purely guessing it may be the difference between the phone configuring the SD card and reading off of one that's already configured.

Bad batt. 4 hrs is a wayyyyy bad.
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Sounds like my experience too. My battery yesterday lasted me no more than 7 hours. Wooh, I was pissed. So far today though, It's been on for 14 hours and I'm only down to 25% with some medium-to-heavy emailing and texting, and a few 5 minute phone calls. I'm very impressed after this second charge. I'll drain it again tonight in hopes for a little additional life. Stick it out for another day or two, OP.

I'm really concerned because I've had my phone since Monday and have charged it at least twice a day. It's not getting any better :-( I have even froze alot of the bloatware and apps that run in the background. I can't handle 6hr battery life :-(

pdxmatts said:
I'm really concerned because I've had my phone since Monday and have charged it at least twice a day. It's not getting any better :-( I have even froze alot of the bloatware and apps that run in the background. I can't handle 6hr battery life :-(
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Take it back
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ThunderStick said:
Take it back
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You mean for an exchange? Or ask for a new battery? Will they do that?

I also have serious battery issues. The battery usage is mostly consumed by cell standby and bluetooth. On my mytouch 4g at most these parameters were a few percent each. On the g2x they are like at 25% usage each. This does not appear to be normal. This is with minimal to no usage. I dont get it. Is it a software issue, there is no reason cell standby and bluetooth should be usaging so much juice with little to no use.

pdxmatts said:
I'm really concerned because I've had my phone since Monday and have charged it at least twice a day. It's not getting any better :-( I have even froze alot of the bloatware and apps that run in the background. I can't handle 6hr battery life :-(
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Can someone please show me how to freeze stuff. I am still busy trying to know more about android and all it has to offer.

mikea3000 said:
I also have serious battery issues. The battery usage is mostly consumed by cell standby and bluetooth. On my mytouch 4g at most these parameters were a few percent each. On the g2x they are like at 25% usage each. This does not appear to be normal. This is with minimal to no usage. I dont get it. Is it a software issue, there is no reason cell standby and bluetooth should be usaging so much juice with little to no use.
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I have only had my phone off the charger for 6 mins and it says:
Display 39%
Cell standby 32%
Wifi 30%

My Vibrant is reading:
Display 71%
WiFi 12%
Cell Standby 3%
Thats 3 hours off charger.

pdxmatts said:
I have only had my phone off the charger for 6 mins and it says:
Display 39%
Cell standby 32%
Wifi 30%
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You need a new battery!!!

cenwesi said:
Can someone please show me how to freeze stuff. I am still busy trying to know more about android and all it has to offer.
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Root your phone, after that install Titanium Backup from the market, and once you load titanium backup, you can actually go to Backup/Restore and find the app that you want to freeze, click on it and choose Freeze.
Once you install Titanium Backup - it will ask you for root rights - click on "yes" or "allow" (dont remember exactly which one it was" so you can provide root rights for it.

Anybody know of documentation on best way to calibrate the battery? I did 1 discharge - charge cycle... how many more do I need to do? Do they need to be back to back or can I keep it plugged in while using it today?
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App

My battery lasts a little less than my NS or vibrant. It should at least give you 5-6 hours of HEAVY usage. I left the house yesterday at 10 and by 6 it was done. Since it's a new unit I used it heavy, plus I rely on it for scheduling and contacting clients about every 30-60min. I was also playing games on my breaks.
You probably have a bad battery.
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App

I do seriously think that there are a lot of improvements that will come in a software update. The Cell and Wifi usage are ludicrous and it's probably a matter of getting the phone out the door with an update to follow.
This is only the second Tegra 2 phone to be released in the US.

2nd day with the G2X and the battery life isn't getting any better... If anything it's getting worse...
90% at noon and 20% at 2:40pm. Plugged in at 2:40 and now 20 minues later im back at 88%
Drains way too fast, and seems to charge even faster...
This phone is faster is every way compared to my vibrant, I just wish this wasn't true for the battery loss..

Battery draining AGAIN

So i tried what you guys suggested. I rooted the phone, bought setcpu, using anttek to freeze running services, and used the battery calibration app still NOTHING. I just woke up and my battery was at 0 before i went to sleep it was at 62%!! How can it die in idle with no running servislces wi fi off gps off BT off i mean it has to be the battery right?
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I was just getting on here to rant about this. It seems that whenever I use the phone the battery gets warm and declines quickly. Lost over 40 percent battery over 2 hrs mostly playing mp3s
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App

This may or may not be related...just something to think about. For years I've placed my phone in the top drawer of my nightstand when sleeping. What I noticed when switching to Android is if I leave syncing on it will drain my battery. My theory is...in the drawer my data signal is very week or non existent. The phone dutifully tries to sync on that weak signal...searching for signal...fails and retries...or succeeds and transfers at a snails pace. Result dead battery. I've found that disabling data before bed results in less than a five percent drop. Just my experience.
If not then I'd suggest a phone swap.
Also...Why in the world did you start another thread? If we scatter all these x is wrong with my phone posts across multiple threads it really hampers the effort to solve the problem.

greengoldmello said:
I was just getting on here to rant about this. It seems that whenever I use the phone the battery gets warm and declines quickly. Lost over 40 percent battery over 2 hrs mostly playing mp3s
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Did you look for a solution before deciding to "rant"? Just curious...

greengoldmello said:
I was just getting on here to rant about this. It seems that whenever I use the phone the battery gets warm and declines quickly. Lost over 40 percent battery over 2 hrs mostly playing mp3s
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App
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I've also noticed this. In the morning my battery life is decent but by the after noon I can do light web browsing (10-20) mins in an hour and loose over 15% tmobile told me that isn't good lol I have a new battery on the way. They shipped it out yesterday we'll see if that helps. Also my battery was dead when I got my phone did anyone else get one that couldn't even power the phone on?

bdkinney said:
Did you look for a solution before deciding to "rant"? Just curious...
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Yes. Like the OP, I tried the solution of the person that is so called getting 20hr battery life under medium usage. Just doesn't seem feasible at all. And its really annoying to have to cut the data off completely to keep the phone from getting warm...
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greengoldmello said:
Yes. Like the OP, I tried the solution of the person that is so called getting 20hr battery life under medium usage. Just doesn't seem feasible at all. And its really annoying to have to cut the data off completely to keep the phone from getting warm...
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App
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If you researched the problem and tried the solutions offered, then the logical next step is to contact T-mobile for a replacement. This is an early release of a new phone; there will be defects. And you don't have to settle for a defective device/battery. I can assure you, I get battery life on par with my previous phone (8-20 hours depending on my usage)..so, bad battery life isn't a problem inherent to the phone. And my phone doesn't get warm with data usage. It sounds like you might have a defective battery or phone. If you aren't satisfied, don't settle...make 'em make it right.

I get about 5-10% battery drain overnight most nights and I am not mindfull of what apps are running or what is on. My experience obviously differs from yours. I do get great service in my bedroom where the phone is overnight. The other night I did experience a bout a 60% drop when I left the phone in my daylight basement (underground). I get crappy 2G service in my basement and it looses signal a lot. I think it adds some credibility to the searching for service slowly killing the battery. maybe try putting the phone in airplane mode before going to sleep. That should give you some indicator.

I'm now are 28 percent after 3 1/2 hrs with the display only using 13% if that..
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greengoldmello said:
I'm now are 28 percent after 3 1/2 hrs with the display only using 13% if that..
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App
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Just curious, does your phone feel hot right now?

You might have a bad battery or something. My first g2x rebooted constantly and drained the battery and got hot.
New one goes 8am to midnight with 20% battery left, on moderate usage. And even at the 20% left i can leave it overnight and it'll still have power in the morning.

greengoldmello said:
I was just getting on here to rant about this. It seems that whenever I use the phone the battery gets warm and declines quickly. Lost over 40 percent battery over 2 hrs mostly playing mp3s
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App
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The phone is going to get warm is use because the CPU is under load and that produces heat. As long as its not overheating this is normal.
Have either of you tried the factory reset? That fixes the idle drain for most people.
Also... Your phone is going to drain battery faster while actually in use no matter what you do. The LCD and data connection are the biggest battery drain for smartphones. Until battery technology improves, there is nothing that can be done about this. But like I said try a factory reset and you should see your idle drain improve dramatically.
Sk8trfred said:
I've also noticed this. In the morning my battery life is decent but by the after noon I can do light web browsing (10-20) mins in an hour and loose over 15% tmobile told me that isn't good lol I have a new battery on the way.
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Were you on wifi? Because if you weren't that much drain is within the norm. Web browsing = constant data connection = more power consumption = faster battery drain.

I had 10 hours of heavy use yesterday and had 25 percent left... 2.5 of those were in airplane mode cuz I was flying from Phoenix to Atlanta but I watched a movie during the flight and had music playing the rest of the time... during my layover which was 4 hours I browsed the web, watched a stream of the Celtics vs heat for a bit, more music... I plugged back in with 25% left and had 3h20m of screen on time... this battery is freaking awesome! I had drain issues initially but they went away and now I'm golden

when i did a factory reset, my phone was getting hot until i remember about the *#*# thing and changed that to wcdma/gsm auto. then my battery life got better.

Get juice defender. Its work wonders for me and my buddies thunderbolt actually makes it through the day now
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App

Battery Drain is mostly Cellular radio
I too am have been looking for a way to have this phone last at least 8-12 hours with normal usage, but I don't think its going to happen unless there's some major update to the radio firmware coming in 2.3 Gingerbread..
All the evidence seems to suggest two culprits... for battery drain.
- First is the 4G radio, look around at almost ALL 4G enabled phones (whether on GSM at&T Tmo or Verizon), all eat your battery, from the very beginning EVO 4g, Verizon Thunderbolt, Mytough 4G every single one of those phones has the users complaining about horrid battery life. You can confirm this by looking at the battery usage on the G2X and you'll see that the number one use is Cell Standby (that's the cellular radio) on my phone its anywhere between 35% to 60% of total power used.... on kmy nexus one it used to be the display.
-Second, Tegra 2 is more power hungry , granted its a mobile SoC but its mainly designed for Tablets and such with beefy batteries, this is the reason that the Atrix comes with a 1950MaH battery, you can try and use SetCPU to lower the speed, but I have had minimal success.
Here's a test , when you don't need your phone put it on Airplane mode, for 24hours and watch HOW LITTTLE the battery drains.. reason the cellular radio isn't on..

bdkinney said:
This may or may not be related...just something to think about. For years I've placed my phone in the top drawer of my nightstand when sleeping. What I noticed when switching to Android is if I leave syncing on it will drain my battery. My theory is...in the drawer my data signal is very week or non existent. The phone dutifully tries to sync on that weak signal...searching for signal...fails and retries...or succeeds and transfers at a snails pace. Result dead battery. I've found that disabling data before bed results in less than a five percent drop. Just my experience.
If not then I'd suggest a phone swap.
Also...Why in the world did you start another thread? If we scatter all these x is wrong with my phone posts across multiple threads it really hampers the effort to solve the problem.
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Click to collapse
I agree. These battery threads are driving me nuts.
Go in the other million threads and read

The thing that is strange to me is how quickly these phones charge. It seems to go from 0% to 100% in well under an hour. Was thinking I should try charging it while off (well, screen w/ battery only).

What???? Having the phone on makes my battery drain? WTFO?!?!?!
Seriously though, I have not experienced bad battery life on this phone. Last night I left my phone off the charger, gps, wifi and wifi calling on, and when I went to bed at 1030 I had 64% battery. At 700 this morning I had 54% battery. Only a 10% drain for me overnight, or a little more than 1% per hour.
All I've done to achieve this is the following (and I realize that supposedly you no longer have to condition Li-ion batteries):
-when I got the phone, I didn't charge it but instead let the battery die completely to where I couldn't even turn the phone on.
-charged the phone overnight w/o turning it on.
-let battery die completely again.
-charged phone overnight w/o turning it on.
-let battery die completely again.
-charge and use phone normally.
I've also rooted the phone and used Ti Backup to remove most all of the bloatware except wifi calling, but otherwise it's the stock rom.
I typically get an entire day of my normal use on this phone. If I use it alot, I have to top off the battery w/ my car charger on my way home from work. This isn't unusual. I had to do this w/ the blackberrys I owned and my evo when I was on Sprint. The battery life doesn't seem any better or worse for me than any other smartphone I have owned, and it's certainly better than my evo or my wife's evo, and both of those were rockin' custom roms and uV kernels.

jayohwhy said:
when i did a factory reset, my phone was getting hot until i remember about the *#*# thing and changed that to wcdma/gsm auto. then my battery life got better.
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forgot about doing this lolz
...also you can also change it in the mobile network settings

Battery Life, Oh?

I think it's crazy how many people are downing the battery life on the Sensation. I used my phone a bit today. Off the charger at 10AM, used GPS to go to work with Bluetooth activated as well. Forgot to turn them both off while at work. I used my phone like ever 5 minutes checking Twitter updates(also weather/news/facebook/email/etc updates are automatically updating as fast as the app allows. So quick updates for all my apps, GPS and bluetooth turned on all day. Home around 5, watched a few episodes of South Park on Netflix with my phone. Read some news. Played a few different games for about 5-10min each just trying out new games. It's now almost 1AM the next day, and I'm above 40% battery life. I manage my screen brightness, that may be the only thing I remembered to manage well today. While outside/in car, full brightness, inside, as low as possible.
It's shocking to me when I see threads of how the battery life stinks. I'm using the stock battery, I don't even seen the need of getting a larger battery because this already gets me through a day full of activity. Anyone else find the battery life on this device, quite handy? Mine is rooted, but it's stock ROM. I'm also using a skin posted by a member of our forum, the transparency. I'm running the stock T-MOUS(why is it called tmous..? are people that lazy to spell out t-mobile?) ROM, because I accidentally deleted a few apps I discovered I needed back, and did not do a backup. Oh, and I'm also using the battery mod, for the battery icon in my notification bar.
I guess I'm just praising the battery life, is all

I have only had my sensation for about 5 days and battery life is amazing! Im still stock too.. I came from an evo 4g rooted running cm7 and or miui and battery life doesn't come close to being as good as my sensation. Not only is battery life awesome, this phone is awesome. I moved to Southern California a couple weeks ago and Sprint out here is horrible.. so I switched and couldn't be happier. Plus I like this phone was better than the evo series. Battery life is sweet!
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA Premium App

You would have to post a screendoor shot of your battery usage and screen on time to completely determine how much the phone was used and how long the screen was on.
Bluetooth and GPS don't use any battery or have low usage (depends on the chipset because some completely turn off) during standby since they're not being used at all.
So we can all praise our phones for having good battery life, but it all depends on usage. If you don't use your phone a lot (you could turn on your screen every 5 minutes but at the end of the day have only like 45 minutes of screen on time and like 70% battery left.) Then you get good battery life. Use your phone a lot and quite simply battery life sucks.
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App

I think it can largely depend on how you use your phone, not just how often or for how long. For example my Fiance also has the Sensation and on her first charge she got 3hrs52minutes before hitting 10% battery. Since then she has only gotten ~2hrs each day now that she has Twitter and Facebook for Sense accounts set up.

That's not good. There's gotta be something wrong with either her phone or something. 2 hours of battery life warrants an exchange.
lokhor said:
I think it can largely depend on how you use your phone, not just how often or for how long. For example my Fiance also has the Sensation and on her first charge she got 3hrs52minutes before hitting 10% battery. Since then she has only gotten ~2hrs each day now that she has Twitter and Facebook for Sense accounts set up.
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Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App

enoch861 said:
That's not good. There's gotta be something wrong with either her phone or something. 2 hours of battery life warrants an exchange.
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App
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The phone lasts longer than 2hrs, that's 2hrs of the screen being on. my sensation get's about the same. This is with Gmail on Autosync and Twitter/Facebook for Sense accounts enabled too.

If I do what u did, my batt will be flat in 6 hours. Somethings just not right with my sensation.
xSeany said:
I think it's crazy how many people are downing the battery life on the Sensation. I used my phone a bit today. Off the charger at 10AM, used GPS to go to work with Bluetooth activated as well. Forgot to turn them both off while at work. I used my phone like ever 5 minutes checking Twitter updates(also weather/news/facebook/email/etc updates are automatically updating as fast as the app allows. So quick updates for all my apps, GPS and bluetooth turned on all day. Home around 5, watched a few episodes of South Park on Netflix with my phone. Read some news. Played a few different games for about 5-10min each just trying out new games. It's now almost 1AM the next day, and I'm above 40% battery life. I manage my screen brightness, that may be the only thing I remembered to manage well today. While outside/in car, full brightness, inside, as low as possible.
It's shocking to me when I see threads of how the battery life stinks. I'm using the stock battery, I don't even seen the need of getting a larger battery because this already gets me through a day full of activity. Anyone else find the battery life on this device, quite handy? Mine is rooted, but it's stock ROM. I'm also using a skin posted by a member of our forum, the transparency. I'm running the stock T-MOUS(why is it called tmous..? are people that lazy to spell out t-mobile?) ROM, because I accidentally deleted a few apps I discovered I needed back, and did not do a backup. Oh, and I'm also using the battery mod, for the battery icon in my notification bar.
I guess I'm just praising the battery life, is all
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Sent from my HTC Sensation Z710e using XDA App

Oh! Makes sense..
But 2 hours with screen and dead in 6 hours? I'm glad I have a G2x then. Cause I get 3 hours and like between 13 and 16 hours.
lokhor said:
The phone lasts longer than 2hrs, that's 2hrs of the screen being on. my sensation get's about the same. This is with Gmail on Autosync and Twitter/Facebook for Sense accounts enabled too.
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Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App

You can go by statistics and on screen time and what not. but I just got home from work, and I literally used my phone for about 2 hours straight calling carriers for a customer. I'm above 80%. So from 9AM-4PM, only saw a 20% drain. Once again, keeping BT and GPS on just to see how it goes. ALL of my autosyncs are once again, on, and set to the most frequent can be.
Compared to any other stock phone, this is amazing. Compared to my Cyan N1 and my Cyan NS, it's not a huge difference. Although, at this rate I may give the lead to the Sensation, since I'm leaving all these extra features on throughout the entire day.

good
I get two to three days out of my Sensation, and I'm a relatively heavy Internet user... don't phone much.
At first I wasn't getting great mileage - having to re-charge after only 10 hours or so, but did two things to improve it dramatically...
First, charge the battery once using the following method:
1. charge battery to 100% and leave on charger for an extra hour
2. unplug the cable, turn off* the phone, and plug the charger back in. leave charging for another hour.
3. unplug the phone, turn it on for two minutes, turn the phone back off*, and plug in the phone again. leave charging for another hour.
* when I say "turn off", I mean completely, without fastboot. so either disable fastboot before switching off, or turn off the phone and pull the battery then put it back in.
Second:
Turn off automatic screen brightness, and set the brightness manually to what you need. Ideally, I'd like to have an auto-screen brightness adjustment that automatically sets it, say, 25% lower than what the built-in function does.

That's pretty exceptional. I usually get 13-14 hours with 5+ hours of screen time before I'm at 20%. Using the chichitec battery, btw.

My chichitec battery went 18 hours yesterday before it got to 10% and I charged it. That was with a lot of web browsing, some phone calls, music, games. Id say, medium-heavy usage.
Matt

Same here I have had several Android phones with different carriers and this is hands down the best, on par with the iPhone I had previously with Verizon. No problem getting through the day with Exchange and 2 IMAP accounts and heavy phone use, the only mod is I set screen brightness, battery is stock.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App

no one is complaining i watch sparticus on netflix and game of throne on hbo go for 5 hrs straight while facebooking random hoes . and i am out of battery..
we are complaining that the 4g drains the phone while on idle.

this is the best battery life i've ever had on a phone. i can't complain at all... i even have gps on and i could never do that before. lol!

Guys, having GPS on doesn't use any battery. It only uses battery when it is active. So for most of you 99% of the time your GPS is off aka standby or whatever you wanna call it.
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App

One reason many people complain about bad battery life is that it seems some Sensation models are actually faulty. Best evidence: TechRadar review.
http://www.techradar.com/reviews/phones/mobile-phones/htc-sensation-943466/review?artc_pg=9
UPDATE: We've finally managed to get our hands on a new review model of the HTC Sensation, and the good news is the battery life is definitely improved.
It seems that a combination of data-hungry applications and a slightly dodgy model caused the odd readings from before, although we're not entirely convinced the above scenario isn't one power users will face, which is why we've left it in.
But in normal use, and by that we mean sending 42 texts, spending 49 mins on the phone, watching an hour and bit of video and using the music player constantly, plus a few minutes spent using GPS to track ourselves and browsing the internet for roughly 45 mins, the battery pretty much lasted the day, although it was often in the yellow zone come 11PM.
However, what was more impressive (and a relief) was the sleep state of the HTC Sensation. Where before the phone would get very hot and start spewing out battery life in our pocket for no reason, if you leave the phone locked up for around 10-15 minutes on our new model the power consumption dropped to almost nothing.
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