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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.
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA App

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.
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA App

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.
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA App

How did you calibrate thee battery
Sent from my Galaxy 4g using XDA Premium App

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%.

Is it just me or is the Thunderbolt battery life... kinda good?

So, I was well informed from many different sources that the biggest drawback to the Thunderbolt was the horrendous battery life (people complaining in the 4 hour range). I came from a Samsung Fascinate, which would most of the time get me through the day, but just barely, and the Battery Use was almost always 70-80% screen (even at the lowest brightness). I primarily got the Thunderbolt for the possibility of 4G tethering, so the first thing I did was buy an external battery charger pack (extended battery was sold out).
Well, I've had it for a few days now and despite geeking out on the phone, tethering whenever I can, using it probably more than my Fascinate, I haven't had any issues with battery. I pulled it off charge about 8am this morning, it's currently 9:45pm, I've been using it pretty heavily all day, tethering on the train to work, using it at work, and using it the whole train ride home, and it's currently at 33% battery. 6:18:00 Awake time. Where is this horrendous battery life I heard about?
I'm not using any battery saving utilities (Juice defender etc), have it set to Auto Brightness, just letting it be on WiFi when WiFi is available. I'm using the bone stock HTC Android 2.2 that came with it, not root etc.
So far this phone has much better battery life than my Fascinate and I'm pretty impressed, especially since I believe it has a slightly smaller battery. If I check battery use today, it's 59% Display, with the next highest being 9% Cell Standby.
I haven't used it as a 4G hotspot for more than maybe 30 minutes at a time, but even then it doesn't seem to die too quickly. Am I just missing something that other people are doing that drains their batteries like crazy or is it just that I'm careful about not using stuff the indiscriminately uses 4G for no reason? (I removed all the auto updating widgets like the Friend Feed etc).
Anyone else had a similar experience?

Ummm, yah, well, it's just you...
JK... the battery is ok for me I haven't had it die on me yet but when ever I drive it goes in the charger so I'm sure that adds up.

Darthus said:
So, I was well informed from many different sources that the biggest drawback to the Thunderbolt was the horrendous battery life (people complaining in the 4 hour range). I came from a Samsung Fascinate, which would most of the time get me through the day, but just barely, and the Battery Use was almost always 70-80% screen (even at the lowest brightness). I primarily got the Thunderbolt for the possibility of 4G tethering, so the first thing I did was buy an external battery charger pack (extended battery was sold out).
Well, I've had it for a few days now and despite geeking out on the phone, tethering whenever I can, using it probably more than my Fascinate, I haven't had any issues with battery. I pulled it off charge about 8am this morning, it's currently 9:45pm, I've been using it pretty heavily all day, tethering on the train to work, using it at work, and using it the whole train ride home, and it's currently at 33% battery. 6:18:00 Awake time. Where is this horrendous battery life I heard about?
I'm not using any battery saving utilities (Juice defender etc), have it set to Auto Brightness, just letting it be on WiFi when WiFi is available. I'm using the bone stock HTC Android 2.2 that came with it, not root etc.
So far this phone has much better battery life than my Fascinate and I'm pretty impressed, especially since I believe it has a slightly smaller battery. If I check battery use today, it's 59% Display, with the next highest being 9% Cell Standby.
I haven't used it as a 4G hotspot for more than maybe 30 minutes at a time, but even then it doesn't seem to die too quickly. Am I just missing something that other people are doing that drains their batteries like crazy or is it just that I'm careful about not using stuff the indiscriminately uses 4G for no reason? (I removed all the auto updating widgets like the Friend Feed etc).
Anyone else had a similar experience?
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It's you.
Seriously though. Go to any one of the Thunderbolt forums or read any Thunderbolt review and you'll see the battery being discussed prominently. There is definitely an issue with it. Who knows what it is though..
The thing that really bothers me is the battery isnt consistently bad. Like the last two days Ive gotten 24 hours of use out of my phone. Normally that's unheard of.. but next week something will happen and it will be back to being dead within 6-8 hours with barely any use.

You are correct that this issue is oft-cited in regards to the TB. However, I think the 4 hour data points may be slightly exaggerated. I wound up buying the oem extended battery because I wasn't make it past 6.5 hours with regular use. I travel pretty far to get to work every day, switching between many towers over the course of my commute, constantly going from 4g to 3g to 1x and back. Besides the screen (which will be the biggest battery drain on any phone with a modern touchscreen) data should be your next highest drain, and the biggest variable you are capable of tweaking to change your battery performance. My 6.5 hour experience was with a pretty abusive data usage scenario, and I don't see many people inflicting much more upon the battery in actual, real-world use. That said, with the extended battery, the TB has the best battery life of any phone I have owned in the last five years, and I couldn't be happier.

I'm getting about 12 hours with pretty heavy use. Running BAMF 1.6.2 with kernel overclocked. I'm pretty happy with battery life...it's just as good as it was on my droid incredible.

I have learned thru experience that all HTC phones with 4.3 inches screens are bad at battery life. When I say bad, that's comparing it to a smaller less powerful device. But take in account all it does and to me battery is ok. I mean the HD2, and EVO when I owned them were battery hogs. But I always had a charge. Ppl want bigger and faster phones,Well there's a trade off until battery technology catches up, the bigger phones will consume more battery. Its like saying I want a better car more sporty and trendy but I don't want to pay that much. Not goin to happen.

With just 3G available to me and using everything stock...I get slightly better battery life than I did with my incredible that was on CM7. Compared to a stock incredible, much better. I'm a bit scared for when I do get 4G seeing all the posts though =)

Rooting gave me an extra 2% per hour usage. I can go 15 hours and still have 40% left on my battery. I'm happy with this battery.

Thunderbolt has better battery life than my Samsung Epic had. Stock, my battery wasnt all that great. However, changing some settings and finding a suitable kernel has helped with my battery life.

I have had the same experience. Coming from a Fascinate, the Thunderbolt is so much better on battery life. Mind you, I do not live in an LTE area. This is what I do:
- Juice Defender (Balanced settings)
- Brightness - half way
- GPS only on when I need it
- Wifi on almost 100% of the time (at home and work I use only wifi)
- Non-Rooted
I even have 100+ apps installed including leaving Google Talk and Yahoo Messenger on almost 24/7. I have about 8 or 9 widgets as well. Most that pull info.

The terrible battery life comes when the phone tries to hold a bad 4g signal drains the battery at an insane amount. If you're in strong signal expect much better battery life but because 4g is so new I expect a lot of people to be in areas with low 4g signal as Verizon has not even turned up 85-90% of the towers past 45% power.

I've had the TB for 3 days now and am coming from a rooted Eris (running xtr rom). I have noticed that with the same amount of usage I am also getting better battery life on the stock TB than I did on my Eris. I am in an area that does not have 4G so I have that turned off.

afallucco said:
The terrible battery life comes when the phone tries to hold a bad 4g signal drains the battery at an insane amount. If you're in strong signal expect much better battery life but because 4g is so new I expect a lot of people to be in areas with low 4g signal as Verizon has not even turned up 85-90% of the towers past 45% power.
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where did you get this info about the power of the towers? btw what power do they normally work at? 100W?

afallucco said:
The terrible battery life comes when the phone tries to hold a bad 4g signal drains the battery at an insane amount. If you're in strong signal expect much better battery life but because 4g is so new I expect a lot of people to be in areas with low 4g signal as Verizon has not even turned up 85-90% of the towers past 45% power.
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I'd love to see some sources backing this info up.
When I bought my TB I left the store with the extended battery in. The battery easily lasts me all day. After reading all the complaints about how bad the stock battery is I decided to try using it and I'm actually surprised by how long it lasts. I was expecting much worse. It's easily lasted me 8-12 hours with my normal everyday use. I'm going to stick to the stock battery from now on. I was getting annoyed by the heft and bulkiness of the extended battery. My phone feels so sleek with the stock one.

Yeah, I'm with the "it's just you" crowd.
Pretty bad battery life for me here in NYC (plenty of good 4G around).
Not a heavy data user (less than 20min browsing per day).
Not a lot of long calls.
Accounts update once every hour (FB, 2 email accounts).
Brightness at min.
No video playing, no music playing.
No speakerphone used.
Rooted, BAMF 1.3.2
GPS and WiFi rarely on at all.
I'm lucky, --LUCKY--, if I get like 6 hours out of a fully charged battery.

daniel178 said:
Yeah, I'm with the "it's just you" crowd.
Pretty bad battery life for me here in NYC (plenty of good 4G around).
Not a heavy data user (less than 20min browsing per day).
Not a lot of long calls.
Accounts update once every hour (FB, 2 email accounts).
Brightness at min.
No video playing, no music playing.
No speakerphone used.
Rooted, BAMF 1.3.2
GPS and WiFi rarely on at all.
I'm lucky, --LUCKY--, if I get like 6 hours out of a fully charged battery.
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Just curious, why are you still using BAMF 1.3.2?

running Bamf 1.6.1 and Imoseyon Lean Kernal set at 1.4Ghz with SetCPU on Smartass, along with ATK set to kill every 30 mins(oh I know they are the devil, yet my battery life is always better with one, so no comments about how they are bad.) I also always have 4G on, and usually fluctuate between -82 to -94dB in signal strength, and wifi is never on, as my home network is strained enough as it is. GPS is always off unless I need it.
I also use WPClock Live Wallpaper at the same time.
Yesterday I was at 18% with 2 days since last plugged in.
Of course I also calibrated my battery, after flashing Bamf 1.6.1.
I use my phone alot for facebook, angry birds, browsing the web and a crap ton of texting, I probably hit near 1000 text a month, I know that isn't what the high school brats are pulling, but still, for me, that is insane.
On my Evo 4G, with 4G off, I could hit 3 days running CM7 underclocked to 750Mhz max. That was with a bigger battery as well.
I am very exited for CM7 to go into a beta, or nightly stage, and the kinks worked out, as I am sure with 4G on I can hit near 3 days with the Thunderbolt as well.

nosympathy said:
running Bamf 1.6.1 and Imoysen Lean Kernal set at 1.4Ghz with SetCPU on Smartass, along with ATK set to kill every 30 mins(oh I know they are the devil, yet my battery life is always better with one, so no comments about how they are bad.) I also always have 4G on, and usually fluctuate between -82 to -94dB in signal strength, and wifi is never on, as my home network is strained enough as it is.
Yesterday I was at 18% with 2 days since last plugged in.
Of course I also calibrated my battery, after flashing Bamf 1.6.1.
I use my phone alot for facebook, angry birds, browsing the web and a crap ton of texting, I probably hit near 1000 text a month, I know that isn't what the high school brats are pulling, but still, for me, that is insane.
On my Evo 4G, with 4G off, I could hit 3 days running CM7 underclocked to 750Mhz max. That was with a bigger battery as well.
I am very exited for CM7 to go into a beta, or nightly stage, and the kinks worked out, as I am sure with 4G on I can hit near 3 days with the Thunderbolt as well.
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Update your sig, brah. Still says your running Tesla Coil.

Overall battery life is a lot better than my cm7 Incredible, and on mostly standby it lasted quite awhile before I had to charge it (I couldn't use it for a few days because vzw wonked up on activating my TB somehow), so it lasted almost 3 days with only occasional data use/seeing if the phone was working (I couldn't send texts or make/receive calls, but my data was working)

dbisch said:
Update your sig, brah. Still says your running Tesla Coil.
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I know, I am a lazy ass, haha.

Is the battery that awful???

I have a Droid Inc 2, but I wanted to switch to the Tbolt, but have heard the battery is awful. As of right now I am in a 3G only area, but will have 4G soon. I see the Tbolt has a 1400mah battery while the Droid Inc 2 has a 1450Mah battery, so would the difference on 3G be that much??

My battery life is good...usually get 2 or 3 days on a full charge ..push exchange mail. Gmail. Friendstream.phone calls texts etc?
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App

On 3g the battery is not that bad. I don't have 4g where Im at and when I was on a froyo rom the battery would last all day no problems.
When I go into SanFran I get 4g and it seems to way more battery if Im using the phone but it doesn't seem too bad. I just have to keep a charger handy butt that doesn't bother me.
Benefits of the thunderbolt are a bigger screen (part of the battery "problem"), 4g radio, and the development is here unlike with the dInc2.
Stock for stock I think the thunderbolt still wins for me. I was thinking about getting my wife a dInc2 but the lack of a development community kills it for me. Maybe it will pick up at some point but IMO its a step backwards for Verizon to release new phones without 4g.
If youre not going to root and stuff then it's not such an easy choice. If you are then IMO the choice is clear, get a thunderbolt.
Hope this helps.
Sent from Gingertits, I mean itis...

my thoughts
Yes, on 3G or WIFI the battery life is solid. I get a full day easily with gmail constantly syncing, gtalk on constantly and widgets such as beautiful widgets, calendar, twitter and face-book on constantly. Also, I work in a hospital and access patient data frequently on my phone. This is via the internet and data is refreshed at each access (50+ times per day). BTWI take the phone off the charger at 0530 and don't get home till 1930, and still have some juice left for the ride home. And I don't use any battery savers, or task killers.
But when I turn the 4G radio on, and there is frequent hand-off from 4G to 3G, the battery is dead in 6 hrs with the use stated above.
That said, when I go into the city where 4G is very strong and consistent, I can get a full day (8-10 hrs on 4G).
What I suspect happened when people first got the phone, is that they were so enamored with it; speed, screen, etc...(myself included), that the battery took huge hits, and everyone cried at how terrible the battery life was.
As with everything, wait for the dust to settle and you find the truth is somewhere in the middle.
Nevertheless, I still would like an 1800mah battery that fits the standard door.

Until 4G is fully developed in your area this phone isn't worth it. I've been through two of them that are frequently heating up when they're doing nothing but sitting in my pocket with auto sync off, brightness as low as possible, no notification LED, etc. It's pathetic. It over heats and drains into yellow by noon. 4G is amazingly fast, but since the outages it hasn't been the same. It comes and goes in areas where it used to be four bars.

If you're not in a 4G area then you should be good. Those of us with 4G are having a tougher time with battery. If I leave 4G running then my battery will die in less than 6 hours if with light use.
I most often turn off my mobile network though, letting me get around 8-10 hours.

On 3G, with the normal battery, it was much better than my old Fascinate.
With LTE, I went to the extended battery, and I struggle to get through the day on moderate-heavy use. (On LTE with the Regular battery your toast).
BTW, I am unrooted and am using Juice Defender.

There are apps on the Market which allow you to switch between 3G and 4G. I leave my Thunderbolt on 3G unless I am checking the internet, Facebook or Twitter. I usually get a full day on the stock battery. That is better than my battery usage on the LG Ally.

Well with the bamf gb remix i get 6 hrs full power all the time,everything possible running, slacker,maps,fb mail all syncin 10min,thats about 2 hrs better than my imagio, about 12hrs with just moderate use,i think thats pretty good.
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA Premium App

I live in a 3g area but I'm only a few miles away from 4g. As long as I'm in a 3g area my battery is good. But as soon as I enter a 4g area its not so good. It doesn't bother me too much since I have a car charger and have about ten usb cables and micro usb chargers laying around. But I probably will invest in an extended battery once VZW deploy 4g in my area a bit more.

Some good tips to get more out of the battery are...
1. For a good 10 - 15 days be sure to drain the battery all the way and then fully charge it.
2. When the phone is fully charged remove it from the charger. You may notice that if you leave it on the charger for a while after its fully charged it will go from 100% to 97% usually within minutes.
3. Screen protectors decrease the battery life due to holding heat into the phone.

brandoid said:
Some good tips to get more out of the battery are...
1. For a good 10 - 15 days be sure to drain the battery all the way and then fully charge it.
2. When the phone is fully charged remove it from the charger. You may notice that if you leave it on the charger for a while after its fully charged it will go from 100% to 97% usually within minutes.
3. Screen protectors decrease the battery life due to holding heat into the phone.
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You sure about that last one? I don't think screen protectors cause excess heat. Good tips otherwise.

I came from the Droid 1 and I think that the battery life is about the same. I have no complaints about it. I do live in a 3G area though.

Why do you suggest to fully charge and drain the battery for 10 - 15 days? I deained the battery fully a couple of times when I just got the phone. Do you think I should repeat the procedure?
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App

fully draining the battery shortens its life span. and once it reaches 100% charge, it stops charging and begins to drain--taking it off/leaving it on are the same.

These batteries don't need to be "conditioned" by fully cycling them. All that'll do is help calibrate your gauge.

iastonish said:
You sure about that last one? I don't think screen protectors cause excess heat. Good tips otherwise.
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This is all information that came for HTC about the phone.
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA Premium App

I trialed the DInc2 for 2 weeks and switched to the Thunderbolt while my wife stuck with her DInc2, after rooting and installing Das Bamf 1.6.3 remix with adrynalyne's kernel, I easily make it through the day with moderate usage (autosync on, several hours of gaming, hundreds of txt, hour of phone calls) on 3g/wifi. DInc2 will get a couple extra hours in a day with the same usage, but you get a phone with 4g capability for the future, a larger screen, and all the support of the devs here for your rooted device while my wife's waiting for her DInc2 to still be rooted.

Best thing to do is just buy some cheap ebay batteries. I use those and I keep a few in my pocket just in case
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App

Classick206 said:
Until 4G is fully developed in your area this phone isn't worth it. I've been through two of them that are frequently heating up when they're doing nothing but sitting in my pocket with auto sync off, brightness as low as possible, no notification LED, etc. It's pathetic. It over heats and drains into yellow by noon. 4G is amazingly fast, but since the outages it hasn't been the same. It comes and goes in areas where it used to be four bars.
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Sounds like you have got a rogue app you need to take care of, more so than the phone being bad.

Lte

I just had the coolest thing happen, I woke up and turned my phone on only to find I have lte at my house now! Has this happened to anyone else in the Atlanta area?

Jealous. I wish they'd work on my area. Upstate sc

gunnyman said:
Jealous. I wish they'd work on my area. Upstate sc
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Your day will come, and when it does.
You will be prepared
Sent from my HTC One

Be prepared to get worse battery life than before. LTE really chews battery life alive. I turn off mobile data when I'm not using it just to get better battery though.

im on LTE and get 24 hours easy...and id consider myself at least a moderate user.

I havent noticed bad battery life when I was using it before but its never been constant so I guess Ill find out soon haha

Ottawa - Canada
Where LTE covered pretty much everywhere. I've used LTE on my device and I get at the most 6hours of usage.
I consider myself very heavy user. Download, online music, browsing, IM+ etc... Switching LTE off and going only on 4G I get an extra 12hours worth of juice but the speed is more then what I need 4G speed here is an average of 8mpbs UP and DOWN. That translate to 800K per second in transfer rate. Just as fast as you regular high speed at home. So no there's no need for LTE personally. It just kills your battery off in no time.

I've consistently gotten over 24 hours with light usage on LTE. Obviously reception and level of usage will make a big difference. But for many people the battery life on LTE is plenty good enough to use all day, then charge when you sleep.

LTE destroys battery, but that's what 3g is for
Hail Cobra!

Shaddy-Z. said:
Be prepared to get worse battery life than before. LTE really chews battery life alive. I turn off mobile data when I'm not using it just to get better battery though.
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I haven't noticed a significant drain on the battery going from HSPA+ to LTE.
I don't use wifi because of the bugs so i'm always using data.

I easily get 18+ hrs with heavy usage, including 3+ hrs screen time on LTE, so not real sure what you are expecting from the battery. It's a high-end Smartphone, use it for what its meant to be used for.
Based on some of the responses, the logic is like buying a Ferrari and only driving it 55 in the slow lane cuz you're worried about not getting good gas mileage.... Com'on people, use the damn phone!
Sent from my HTC One X using xda premium

Justjusten said:
I just had the coolest thing happen, I woke up and turned my phone on only to find I have lte at my house now! Has this happened to anyone else in the Atlanta area?
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Yes, I never got a LTE signal at my house which is roughly 50 miles from Atlanta, but recently I've started getting a very good LTE signal at home.
I also don't see any of these battery drain issues everyone talks about. I'm on LTE for about 16 hours a day before I plug my phone in at night, and I always have some juice left. This has changed to be even better recently since I tend to need wifi more using AOKP and it's inconsistent mobile data. But my good battery life was consistent with stock and other Sense ROMs using only LTE.
Sent from my HTC One X using XDA

Justjusten said:
I just had the coolest thing happen, I woke up and turned my phone on only to find I have lte at my house now! Has this happened to anyone else in the Atlanta area?
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Lmfao, me too. I'm in hiram. I now have lte all the way from Atlanta to Paulding county. In fact, I have had constant lte since. I was sitting at the bowling alley, which I use to struggle just to get any signal, and I had two bars, lte.
Really haven't noticed much of a difference in battery drain either. Now I do use wifi at the house but still, been pretty impressed actually.
Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2

When you get throttled what are typical speeds?? Out of nowhere my speeds went from 16-24mb down and 7-11mb up to about 3-6mb down and 1-2mb up. Checked my usage (unlimited) and i've only used 200+mb so far. Whats up with that?

I suspect that the people complaining about LTE battery drain also have their brightness turned way up, like at full. I know, b/c I'm one of those people. Almost any phone is going to last you an entire day, of even heavy use, if the brightness is down to 10%. Even in the laptop world, the battery life differential going from 10% brightness to 100% screen brightness is double, real world use.

Does gsm really make that much of a difference in battery life?

I have been looking at this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1725921 and see all these people with att gs3's getting all this awesome screen time of over 5hours. Some go into the 7s!!! I can barely get 4 my record is 4:52 and I have never been able to duplicate it. I have sync turned off, power save, debloated, you name it. I know CDMA eats more battery but to give them a 25% better battery is normal?
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app

I get 5-7 hours all the time so no I don't think it makes that much of a difference. Then again I am connected to WiFi quite often.
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I think lte is the major battery killer if you have it in your area.
I got what was probably my best battery life so far yesterday I had 30% left with 4:15 screen time including time spent watching streaming videos, listening to a couple podcasts, and playing like fifteen minutes worth of games. This was using Wi-Fi with Bluetooth and GPS turned off.
Also I think the auto brightness kills battery life too. I have the brightness slider in the notification bar and tweak it to match current lighting conditions. In dark rooms the auto setting seems too bright.
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Last charge cycle I went 26hrs w/4hrs 52min screen on...LTE was on the entire time. I agree leaving the device on wifi might gain another hour of sot, especially those in fringe coverage areas.

cell128 said:
I have been looking at this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1725921 and see all these people with att gs3's getting all this awesome screen time of over 5hours. Some go into the 7s!!! I can barely get 4 my record is 4:52 and I have never been able to duplicate it. I have sync turned off, power save, debloated, you name it. I know CDMA eats more battery but to give them a 25% better battery is normal?
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I don't know. There might be something to it. I have the Galaxy S3 on T-Mobile and I am amazed at the battery life. In fact that ability was one of the things I told my sister who got the Galaxy S3 on Verizon and her battery life sucks compared to mine. I checked her power settings and they are the same as mine. I am by far the more "POWER USER" type. Mine is stock - got the Jelly Bean update two weeks ago and have noticed no difference in the battery life with the OS update.
The only difference is when I am home, it live off of WiFi. I have good WiFi in my house. She doesnt have WiFi but VZ's cell network as we all know is much bigger. She has more bars then me.
She thinks it might be a bad battery and is planning on taking it to the VZW store and getting it swapped out. I doubt that is the issue. I was with VXZ before had the Original Droid and HTC and Samsung phones. Last was the EVO 4G and with that puppy it was....
Wake up (phone plugged into AC adapter) go to the car and right away plug it into the car charger for the drive to work once in the office plug the USB into the office PC. And do the reverse going home. If I was in a situation like in a Doc's office or at the Mall or restarunt.....I would be @ or below 50% within an hour.
My Galaxy S3 lasts all day with ease even on days where I am out and about and not @ my home's WiFi

droidstyle said:
Last charge cycle I went 26hrs w/4hrs 52min screen on...LTE was on the entire time. I agree leaving the device on wifi might gain another hour of sot, especially those in fringe coverage areas.
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I usually get 5-6screen time
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I usually get an average of 4/5 hours of screen time.
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