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I have a simple question: What is the biggest battery drain on your SamChg?
I'll bet that almost everybody out there though the same thing I did: "That gorgeous Samsung Super AMOLED(TM) display", right?
I mean, whenever I check the Android Battery Use tool, nothing even comes close: Usually, 78%+ of the power is going to the display.
So, if the SamChg batteries are so bad, and the display is sucking the battery the most, how long do you think the SamChg would last before dying if the SamChg had the display on full-time without turning off (Using StayAwake)? 1 hour? 2 hours? 3 hours?
How about: 8 1/2 hours!
I've done it with 2 different stock 1600 mA battery packs now. I've use the phone lightly during those times, so the phone wasn't totally idle (maybe longer life is possible?)
I've read that Samsung had really improved the power drain characteristics of the Super AMOLED displays, and now I believe it.
It also indicates to me that I probably won't gain much extra battery life from turning the display brightness down. I will keep it set on Auto Brightness now.
FYI - Right now, about an hour or so before the battery dies again, I am at: Display = 91%, sensorserver_ya = 5%, Android System = 1%.
I am suspecting the biggest drain I see during my work day is the switching between 1xRTT / 3G (and now, 4G networks) / No Signal - Which is a big battery drain problem I saw in the past.
Your thoughts?
I do know the battery use app in FroYo is pretty inaccurate compared to Gingerbread. It seems it throws any battery usage into the display row if its unable to determine where it really comes from.
For example, if you stream pandora all day with the screen turned off, most of your battery usage will show up as Display. Once I upgraded my DX to ginger, the same activity on my phone would have a much larger percentage of usage going to Pandora and media server, or whatever its called, and hardly any going to the display.... which is correct.
So if you use that app, take all that info for what its worth, until we get Gingerbread.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk
That's great to hear, I'll have to give that a shot sometime. I will say that you are still better off with lower brightnesses, even though we don't have a backlight its still gonna use exponentially more power the brighter you go. But I wouldn't leave auto-brightness on, while the changing brightnesses don't hurt battery that much, the sensor to change them does, as its constantly polled. You'll see the sensor_server taking up a good bit of life.
Keep it on manual brightness, and just adjust it by holding your finger on the notification bar for a sec, the farther to right your finger is, the brighter it is. If you hold it you can also swipe back and forth to turn brightness up or down.
Cruiserdude said:
Keep it on manual brightness, and just adjust it by holding your finger on the notification bar for a sec, the farther to right your finger is, the brighter it is. If you hold it you can also swipe back and forth to turn brightness up or down.
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Didn't know that trick! Maybe I should read the manual one day.
My thanks to you!
Woah, that is an awesome trick! I have never even heard of that before.
Schweet! Thanks! That is a great trick. Another thing that I've been doing that has helped my battery make it through the day longer is turning off my mobile data. It only takes a second to turn it on when I'm browsing or using an app that requires the data.
Yeah, turn off data when you don't expect to use it for a while. Get a 4G/3G widget to switch between LTE and CDMA when you are constantly in a fringe 4G area and/or in an area thats 3G only. And I like the idea of the auto brightness thing. Froyo has had that brightness status bar trick since its been out. I used it a lot on my Fascinate. With 4G on constantly my phone drains 5% per hour doing very little. Its half that with 3G only or data off.
Cruiserdude said:
Keep it on manual brightness, and just adjust it by holding your finger on the notification bar for a sec, the farther to right your finger is, the brighter it is. If you hold it you can also swipe back and forth to turn brightness up or down.
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That is awesome! Didn't know that, thanks!
Sent from my SCH-I510 using XDA Premium App
Syn Ack said:
Yeah, turn off data when you don't expect to use it for a while. Get a 4G/3G widget to switch between LTE and CDMA when you are constantly in a fringe 4G area and/or in an area thats 3G only. And I like the idea of the auto brightness thing. Froyo has had that brightness status bar trick since its been out. I used it a lot on my Fascinate. With 4G on constantly my phone drains 5% per hour doing very little. Its half that with 3G only or data off.
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Info on this 4G/3G widget switch? I'd LOVE that, hate having to go into the setting to switch it!
Homestar1217 said:
Info on this 4G/3G widget switch? I'd LOVE that, hate having to go into the setting to switch it!
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I'd like to know as well. All I can find are complete on and off data switches.
Cruiserdude said:
That's great to hear, I'll have to give that a shot sometime. I will say that you are still better off with lower brightnesses, even though we don't have a backlight its still gonna use exponentially more power the brighter you go. But I wouldn't leave auto-brightness on, while the changing brightnesses don't hurt battery that much, the sensor to change them does, as its constantly polled. You'll see the sensor_server taking up a good bit of life.
Keep it on manual brightness, and just adjust it by holding your finger on the notification bar for a sec, the farther to right your finger is, the brighter it is. If you hold it you can also swipe back and forth to turn brightness up or down.
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this is cool. TY!!!
I had the new leak go 17 hours and still have 40% left before i put on a charge I didn't use it much but it impressed me i got that out of it.
zephymobile said:
I'd like to know as well. All I can find are complete on and off data switches.
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Just grab LTE Switch form the Market. Put and icon on one of your desktop pages and it takes you right to the LTE / 3G Settings menu o you can switch it. IE no go threw all the menus to get at it.
Also remember the screen only uses power when displaying white or color pixels. Black does not use power.
So I finally think I got my phone set up how I want it. I was wondering if you guys think that this is good? As far as screen time and length of constant usage it is the best i have had. I dont know how it will be under normal usage but i am hoping i will be able to go a whole day when i am not TRYING to burn out the battery.
My phone seems to be running awesome and real smooth minus the proximity sensor problem on phone calls... and the occasional wierd little glitchiness from the ICS tiny bugs. like once the white text turn green in lock screen and lock screen didnt sense my touch and kept green flickering. forcing me to pull the battery. With the occasional little glitches that make me turn it off and then on to reset it. Had it since it leaked and have had to restart and pull battery a total of maybe 5 times. With gingerbread I would have glitched maybe once every couple weeks.
MY Phone:
NS4G ICS 4.0.4 IMM26 Stock n Locked.
Some GApps disabled that I don't use. I leave off GMAPS until I use it. Only a couple widgets on my home screens.
Obviously have it setup with a black background. Settings how I like them now. Had the screen on the whole time to test this. Screen brightness around 60%. This is the best battery usage I have had. When checking running apps my Ram usage is right around 140 used with no apps open. Just in case anyone is wondering.
I had 3g on at first 2 bar signal for the first couple hours. I was on the internet cruising forums, groupon, craigslist, watching rock climbing videos. played some bubble blast. a little bit of gt academy racing and some other games.
then turned on wimax with great signal the second half. doing the same stuff. scren on the whole time. playing with my phone the whole time. except for maybe 30+ minutes when i was eating and stuff.
Before this on gingerbread, I averaged about 3 hrs screen on time. Also when I first loaded ICS I BURNED thru battery Under this type of usage.
here are my screen shots. IS THIS GOOD,GREAT OR NORMAL OR WHAT you think?
With my combo i get more than that. Playing all the time, with wi-fi on, 3G always, i get over 7/8hrs.
all depends on rom/kernel selected..
kalitza said:
With my combo i get more than that. Playing all the time, with wi-fi on, 3G always, i get over 7/8hrs.
all depends on rom/kernel selected..
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What do you have? I get nwhere near that
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using xda premium
I would say five and a half hours sounds pretty decent even with brightness at 60 percent. I keep my screen on auto brightness but have never tried leaving my screen on nonstop. I should try it sometime lol
kalitza said:
With my combo i get more than that. Playing all the time, with wi-fi on, 3G always, i get over 7/8hrs.
all depends on rom/kernel selected..
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Thanks for responding everyone.
Jinsoku3g- What setup are you running? About how long do you think you burn thru a battery at those settings i described?
Kalitza-
WOW that is a lot. What combo do you have? What brightness setting? I am trying to compare what i can get before i go the custom rom route to make sure it is worth it.. If i can actually get 2 hours more screen on time with the same screen brightness settings then i would definitley make the switch. Lower brightness settings and auto brightness saves a ton of battery and bumps me around the 7 hour mark.... considering auto bright mode is always around 25-30% when i check it. my screen is never over 70%... it is so bright i cant look at it up close.. lol...
Also, are you OClock'd/UC and/or OVolt'd/UV?
So as long as we are at comparable screen bright levels. It makes me think how much better it could be. Would like to plz know yer stats upon testing? Screen % and Oc/Ov-Uc/Uv. Do you have any screenshots?
Thanks for the input guys. I am always up for hearing more about where i stand in your opinions. I know why/why not to root and all that. Just wanting to see if my stockness tweaked is comparable enough to please my needs.
Hi,
I've searched around on the SGS4G forums, but haven't seemed to find a definitive answer to this question.
If you live in an area where you get good 3G/4G coverage, is it worth having power save options switch your phone to 2G when you turn off the screen for a while (e.g., AOKP's power saver option to switch to 2G after screen off)? As I understand it, turning off that connection will drain additional battery versus just continuing to use the 3G/4G signal that the phone is on. Are the battery use benefits of 2G more than the power cost to switch it off?
If anybody has done an analysis of this, I'd be glad to hear your results. From my own personal experience, it seems like I get slightly better battery life sticking with 3G/4G instead of turning it down to 2G when on standby.
Cheers
FB used the power save recently and got 28hours on a single charge. I think he lives in a decent coverage area.
Was he using a standard battery? That's an impressive amount. Even when I was back on a fresh Octane install and running only essential apps, I got 20 hours at best.
I got 28 hours but only had 34 mins of screen on time. I wasn't using my phone at all, but had 53% battery left when I told eollie that.
Normally with about an hour's screen on time I'm at 50% battery. I tend to get a little over 2 hours of screen on time on a full battery, WITHOUT power saver.
I wasn't able to continue using power saver recently since I'm working on the AOKP update but shh! Keep this between us.
EDIT
I get around 1-2 bars on 3/4G
I get 3-4 bars on Edge
I think so.
Here's what you can do if you leave it on your desk with the sim card out. lol Still at 58%.
Haha, yeah, figured. Well, normally I get 3-4 bars on 3/4G, and leaving it on my nightstand in the morning, I get about 1-2% drain per hour if I don't touch it at all. So I can definitely see getting days of battery on just standby with nothing running.
AOKP update. Yeus. Can't wait!
Another good tip for battery life, if you'd like to know it, is to have a single colored dark background. Even better if your icons are darker. If you use a totally black background, with dark-colored icons, it can really help conserve battery. Well, I don't know if it's anything substantial, but it will help.
There isn't much "factual" information out there on 2G vs. 3G/HDSPA power consumption that I could find.
http://blog.famzah.net/2010/05/24/2g-gprs-vs-3g-umts-connection-battery-usage-on-mobile-phones/ suggests that the idle consumption is comparable between 2G and 3G on their specific phone. It also suggests that 3G, when you are transferring data, consumes less energy than 2G since the data can be transferred in a significantly shorter period of time.
Anyone else noticed this? In areas of med to low LTE signal (-109 dBm), there are times when something locks up inside the radio and Signal Strength under Status will never change again no matter where I move the phone. During this funky mode, the battery is dropping rapidly during idle... Maybe 10% per hour. Something is wrong. During this same time android battery history shows yellow medium signal and voice calls work fine. There is also no runaway process cpu ussage or awake time. The only thing wrong and drawing too much juice is radio. If I toggle airplane mode or toggle wifi off/on the problem is solved for a while. I have VRALF2 firmware.
same problems here
Scrappy1 said:
Anyone else noticed this? In areas of med to low LTE signal (-109 dBm), there are times when something locks up inside the radio and Signal Strength under Status will never change again no matter where I move the phone. During this funky mode, the battery is dropping rapidly during idle... Maybe 10% per hour. Something is wrong. During this same time android battery history shows yellow medium signal and voice calls work fine. There is also no runaway process cpu ussage or awake time. The only thing wrong and drawing too much juice is radio. If I toggle airplane mode or toggle wifi off/on the problem is solved for a while. I have VRALF2 firmware.
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I have the same problem. Have went through many sim cards and factory resets. After 5 phone I finally have one that holds the signal a little better and does not go into this "funky mode". With the previous 4 (white 32gig) verizon phone I would burn through a battery in 6 hours at work. It would start with a drop in signal strengh at around -93 or so. Nothing would fix it. I finally got a blue 32gig and it seems to hold the signal to around -99. I don't know if I got a better batch of phones. But it seems to help me get through a day at work.
Scrappy1 said:
Anyone else noticed this? In areas of med to low LTE signal (-109 dBm), there are times when something locks up inside the radio and Signal Strength under Status will never change again no matter where I move the phone. During this funky mode, the battery is dropping rapidly during idle... Maybe 10% per hour. Something is wrong. During this same time android battery history shows yellow medium signal and voice calls work fine. There is also no runaway process cpu ussage or awake time. The only thing wrong and drawing too much juice is radio. If I toggle airplane mode or toggle wifi off/on the problem is solved for a while. I have VRALF2 firmware.
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Click to collapse
That's not normal. Where I work I get 3g primarily but also 4g in the front of the building.....in the far back I get 1x. I have had my phone totally drop data for a while (like the radio sleeps or something) but never had the radio stick between 4g and 3g. I also live right on the edge of a 4g/3g line and my dbm right now is 111 on 4g LTE......If this was normal I would have had the situation your having since my signal is basically identical to yours. I would return it or at the very least contact Samsung. I'm sure Samsung will tell you to send it in for repair.
I have very weak signal at my house also. S3 switches from LTE to 3G and 1X and sometimes loosing signal completely downstairs but upstairs usually I get solid LTE with around -99dBm and ~10Mbps transfers. During this network jumping my battery drains very fast also but I never had my radio constantly locked at one frequency or signal strength. And I can directly compare signal reception to my wife's Fascinate and S3 loses this competition badly. Fascinate never completely lost signal at our house and it rarely jumps to 1X.
I did a factory reset yesterday and so far so good... I''ll update as time goes on.
As far as signal strength goes in general,my wife's Droid Charge always pulls in a few more LTE dBm's than my GS3. Based on general public feedback, GS3 is below average on signal and radio issues. It's too bad because the rest of the phone is above average.
It's been 2 days after the factory reset and no problems with battery drain or radio lock up.
The only app that I could maybe try and blame is Elixir 2's create widget feature for signal strength. This always returned bogus values and may have embedded itself at an unholy level. Simply uninstalling elixir 2 didn't fix it.
If anyone still cares... I found my radio lockup and battery drain issues returned only after I reinstalled Better Battery Stats. I again removed it and will see if I stay good.
I just got a P7 pro and ran a speed test. I was consistently getting over 300mbps indoor, yet my signal strength was maybe one bar or two. Every once in a while the icon will fill up with white completely but always stays around one bar. Is this kind of behavior normal?