Database Info

Informal battery test

There are a lot of battery threads out there, but i wanted to try something new. I want to see how much our phones drain in real world situations. So here are the rules:
1. Use your phone normally for ten minutes.
2. Note your battery percent at the beginning and then at the end.
3. Post details about what you did, what ROM you're using, and the percent battery drain.
Hopefully we can compare our experiences and learn something.
I used my phone to surf a few websites, send one text, and use xda app. Started at 80% and ended at 77%. Using rcmix3d at 50% brightness.
I know there are tons of factors that affect battery drain, and I'm not trying to be scientific. I'm just curious how we all compare!
Sent from my HTC Inspire™ 4G using XDA Premium App

The only way you will get a decent idea is to test with others in your area as it will depend alot in signal strength. I would use more battery if I was bouncing between signals instead of having a steady connection.

shermanshen said:
There are a lot of battery threads out there, but i wanted to try something new. I want to see how much our phones drain in real world situations. So here are the rules:
1. Use your phone normally for ten minutes.
2. Note your battery percent at the beginning and then at the end.
3. Post details about what you did, what ROM you're using, and the percent battery drain.
Hopefully we can compare our experiences and learn something.
I used my phone to surf a few websites, send one text, and use xda app. Started at 80% and ended at 77%. Using rcmix3d at 50% brightness.
I know there are tons of factors that affect battery drain, and I'm not trying to be scientific. I'm just curious how we all compare!
Sent from my HTC Inspire™ 4G using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Screen-on time is the only thing I ever look at. I've only managed to squeeze about 5h45m, out the sense-based gb ROM I've been using.
The phone does really well in standby on most if not all roms that have been flashed properly, don't have non-rom-related battery hogging app issues, and, as zelendel mentioned, signal issues.
It's this big fat screen that's obviously the biggest battery sucker.

Scott_S said:
Screen-on time is the only thing I ever look at. I've only managed to squeeze about 5h45m, out the sense-based gb ROM I've been using.
The phone does really well in standby on most if not all roms that have been flashed properly, don't have non-rom-related battery hogging app issues, and, as zelendel mentioned, signal issues.
It's this big fat screen that's obviously the biggest battery sucker.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My phone does great in standby as well, but seems to die quick when I'm actually using it. I've never had an issue with the phone dying on me though as I recharge every night. I think i had a little better battery life on miui than I'm getting now.
I know there are many many factors that go into battery performance, I'm just curious what other people actually get when using their phones.
Sent from my HTC Inspire™ 4G using XDA Premium App

shermanshen said:
My phone does great in standby as well, but seems to die quick when I'm actually using it. I've never had an issue with the phone dying on me though as I recharge every night. I think i had a little better battery life on miui than I'm getting now.
I know there are many many factors that go into battery performance, I'm just curious what other people actually get when using their phones.
Sent from my HTC Inspire™ 4G using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've gotten accustomed to putting my phone on the charger before bed as well. Mine pretty much will last the entire day... Off charger at ~8-9am, back on it at ~12am.
Averaging about 5 hrs screen on time with usually no voice calls of significant length, WiFi on, gps off, relatively stable signal.
I'm running Inspired Ace 1.0.1, and the 04.11_M2 radio. Seems I was getting a little better with the OTA radio, but signal fluctuated a lot more on that one, than with the 04.11_M2.
Edit: doesn't really use your testing procedure, just more of a general feeling, as there's so many other contributing factors...

10 minutes of on-line gaming (storm8 games) = 10% drain
WiFi off, gps off, mobile data on, screen brightness on auto, stock rom

zuriken said:
10 minutes of on-line gaming (storm8 games) = 10% drain
WiFi off, gps off, mobile data on, screen brightness on auto, stock rom
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Holly crap that's a heavy drain. I couldn't possibly use this phone with that type.of battery drain. Thanks to our great dews I managed a little over 7h screen on time. Could only accomplish that by reducing the screen brightness and UC to 768mhz. Stick speed and auto brightness I get about 6-6 1/2 screen on.
Sent from my Inspire 4G using Tapatalk

My battery will drain about 5% if I even just leave it sitting for ten minutes... I JUST rooted my Inspire and flashed the RCMix3D ROM, and it almost seems worse. Have background data, auto sync, wifi, gps, bluetooth, all that stuff shut off, too. I love this rom, but really want to find one that improves battery life!

elijahpr said:
My battery will drain about 5% if I even just leave it sitting for ten minutes... I JUST rooted my Inspire and flashed the RCMix3D ROM, and it almost seems worse. Have background data, auto sync, wifi, gps, bluetooth, all that stuff shut off, too. I love this rom, but really want to find one that improves battery life!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You probably got a bad flash, or have something else running, as I mentioned in your recent thread.
Did you full wipe prior to flashing?
Try out gingerbeast, if you still have battery issues with that, after properly wiping prior to flashing of course, then it's hardware, as that ROM has produced some record-breaking battery life performance.

Mine has twice decided to randomly have days where it just drains like crazy. The battery is a lot warmer and just dies out in like 6 hours with very minimal usage. the majority of the time my battery is great but the last 2 days and then about a month ago it did this. No reason for it either, I have made no changes on my device.
Anybody seen this?
Sent from my Inspire 4G using XDA App

Scott_S said:
You probably got a bad flash, or have something else running, as I mentioned in your recent thread.
Did you full wipe prior to flashing?
Try out gingerbeast, if you still have battery issues with that, after properly wiping prior to flashing of course, then it's hardware, as that ROM has produced some record-breaking battery life performance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I did a full wipe before flashing. I'll be sure and try that out tomorrow, I really hope it helps. If the issue is hardware, should I contact HTC? After I believe you said my phone should still be under warranty, I called them, and indeed it is. The rep I had before must have been new or something. Thanks

From a full charge, on TPGB with wifi, gps, and sync on, and everything refreshed 3-4hrs, I lasted about 8 hours. I was using super accurate gps for 20 minute intervals or so, but it lasted the day I'd say. Some occasional web browsing.
Lucky for me my head unit on my car has a usb port. For this whole trip I left it off though.

Are all Android phones this bad with battery life? *Update*

So here's a screen grab of my phone's battery. I work 9-5. Started the day with fully charged battery, and end of work day it's almost dead. Honestly, I never thought it would be this bad. I don't play games or watch endless videos on youtube. I've sent about 15 texts messages max, used the phone to make about 4 calls for a max talk time of 6min. And browsed the net for no longer than 5min. I have wifi always off, GPS off, my screen is always set right down to absolute minimum all the time. I have never used live wallpaper, and have a black wallpaper. All I've done to this phone is root it and remove a lot of bloatware. Nothing else. I've read through the forum and came upon this thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1092249
So without running the Bali kernel or running any specific rom, Is this the expected battery life for the average person who just leaves the phone completely stock.
*UPDATE*
JuiceDefender works!!! Battery now last much longer. Thanks goes to jager555 for the great suggestion.

Most high end ones are. because android runs things in the background and allows you to customize many settings, Battery life usually looks like that when you first get your phone. That said once you get familiar with your phone you will start to recognize things that run in the background that serve you no purpose and you can stop them or get rid of that app. You can also get custom roms that have great modifications to enhance your battery's life. It takes some experimentation but gone are the days of getting 4 days out of you Razr. Try searching "battery saver" in the market, too.
It could look like this...

Well I have to say that's quite shocking. The average person just has no clue on how to flash roms or anything like it. They just charge their phone and go. It really makes me wonder why Google or the phone manufacturers wouldn't think battery life to be a priority. The battery life isn't just bad, its unacceptably bad.
Thanks for the input though.

Yeah no thats not normal. When i first got this phone i could go up to twelve hours non stop with regular use text here and make some phone calls, watch one or two videos... And i still had battery left probably like 40% maybe less. Well at least for me i dont know if i was a special case or not.
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA App

if you are on stock and do not use the bali kernel, get Juice Defender from the market. try it out for 2 days and get back to me on how it works. if you want the best battery life, especially since you take off gps and wifi, set it to aggressive. that should make the battery last MUCH longer with your type of usage. but once again, use it for 2-3 days for it to settle in properly

jager555 said:
if you are on stock and do not use the bali kernel, get Juice Defender from the market. try it out for 2 days and get back to me on how it works. if you want the best battery life, especially since you take off gps and wifi, set it to aggressive. that should make the battery last MUCH longer with your type of usage. but once again, use it for 2-3 days for it to settle in properly
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Will do. You got my hopes up.

its usually the screens, emails, and txts that kill my battery lol

Tempott said:
Will do. You got my hopes up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yea, my dad is on stock with this phone and it wouldnt last from 7am to 2pm. now it lasts from 7am to at least 8pm with the same type of usage. its a neat program. i hope it works well for you.

I'll second juice defender. Even the free beta version has helped my phone last a long time. but if you aren't using your phone much, you should really get a lot better battery life than that. if it's brand new, it can take the battery a couple of charges from a full drain to get up to snuff.
With light use, I can get well over 2 days, and have even gotten over 3. Here's a screenshot I took a couple of weeks ago.

mike-y was the one who introduced me to juice defender, btw. great find, man

Wow, Tempott, that's very short battery life. I actually had pretty decent battery life on stock. I lasted about 12 hours on moderate use. Then again, it's funny that I last 18 hours on very heavy use now with ICBINB with 4G on, first level brightness, and sync always on (no JuiceDefender, etc.).

i am using Audiophile ROM. i get 10-15h of battery life.

Im using black ice with bali 3.1uv dsexton's build.prop and im getting round 12-15 with heavy use(mobile AP, pandora, calls)
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA App

Did you try juice defender? if so, what were the results?
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA Premium App

jager555 said:
Did you try juice defender? if so, what were the results?
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry for the late reply, but I just wanted to give the app a thorough usage. I'm happy to say it really makes a difference. I was so disappointed with the battery life that I had a serious bout of buyer's remorse. This App made a world of difference. Thanks for the suggestion! Glad to have this phone now. Check out the screen shot!

Nice!! that's great. I liked the beta app so much I went ahead and paid for the "plus" version. "Plus" gives JD control over wifi, and lets you set a "night mode" that turns off data/wifi/gps/bluetooth during the night when you sleep. There is also app control, which I played with, but ended up just disabling it (makes things a lot simpler).
Honestly, if the beta is working for you, there isn't much need for the paid versions. especially if you put your phone in airplane mode when you got to sleep (or just turn it off).
btw, current uptime = 40 hours, 45 mins, and I still have 70% battery left.

It seems to me Battery Calibration doesn't work...however, this phone lasts longer than the Sensation, which personally sucks.

battery calibration works fine. make sure your phone is charged to 100%. check spare parts amd make sure it is at 4200mV. sometimes, if it is not calibrated properly, it will show 100% and not 4200. unplug the phone and immediately plug it back in and you will notice a fluctuation in the numbers. usually, it is a big fluctuation. once you are as close to 4200 as you think you are going to get while the phone is plugged in, open the battery calibration app and click calibrate. then immediately unplug the phone. use it until it is completely dead (i do it until i shuts down). once this is done, charge the phone until it is 100%. do no unplug the phone until it is at 100%. then drain it again. and charge it to 100% again. after that, use it normally for 2 to 3 days and you will notice the difference in efficiency.

jager555 said:
battery calibration works fine. make sure your phone is charged to 100%. check spare parts amd make sure it is at 4200mV. sometimes, if it is not calibrated properly, it will show 100% and not 4200. unplug the phone and immediately plug it back in and you will notice a fluctuation in the numbers. usually, it is a big fluctuation. once you are as close to 4200 as you think you are going to get while the phone is plugged in, open the battery calibration app and click calibrate. then immediately unplug the phone. use it until it is completely dead (i do it until i shuts down). once this is done, charge the phone until it is 100%. do no unplug the phone until it is at 100%. then drain it again. and charge it to 100% again. after that, use it normally for 2 to 3 days and you will notice the difference in efficiency.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would like to add that the first charge drains amazingly fast. You can be idling your phone the whole day, and it'll still be gone.
After you go through a few charges, it'll be omgwtfbbqhax battery life.
Btw, I'm betting Bali 3.3UV + JD is pretty beast battery life compared to Bali 3.3 + JD, right?

Juice defender works great for me as well! Very noticeable difference

[Q] Battery draining extremely fast. Any suggestions?

This rom used to be fine, now it is draining extrememly fast and I don't know why.
I am on Gingerbread KF2 and really haven't done anything else yet. I used to be able to make it through an average day of ~15 or so hours using the phone only for some messages, a call or two, and a few minutes of music. After this type of usage, the battery would be around 70-80% at the lowest usually. This is even with the screen at FULL brightness all day.
About a week ago, it started draining super fast. The same usage runs the phone down to about 20-30%, which is ridiculous. In battery stats, Android OS is always FAR above everything else with like 60%. A couple battery calibrations did nothing. I don't use task killers, but I do check my running apps. OS monitor didn't help me at all, and checking my currently running apps just showed mostly system apps that should not be draining hardly any battery at all.
Any suggestions? I think that about covers it all. This just has me stumped...

go through your apps and see how often they check for updates. there were a lot of updates recently and some settings may have changed. If nothing changed, can you do a quick scan with look out? Just to be safe. Also, try juice defender and set it to aggressive
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA Premium App

Lookout didn't pick up anything and I set JuiceDefender to aggressive. Will JuiceDefender warn me of an app using excessive battery?

Nope, that battery is still dropping like crazy. (8% in half an hour from almost no use.)
Maybe I just need to reflash and start over fresh...

It will take a day out two to settle in. is your phone sleeping properly when the screen in off? Press the volume keys once it locks and if it makes the sound then it if still on.
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA Premium App

jager555 said:
It will take a day out two to settle in. is your phone sleeping properly when the screen in off? Press the volume keys once it locks and if it makes the sound then it if still on.
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sleeping just fine.

Yea, I guess if you can't figure it out, you can reflash. That is a pain though. I would say to try out jd for a while longer and see if you get results. fb us usually the culprit for my battery drains, but if you checked all of your apps and changed them to manual, then there isn't much more you can do.try putting your screen to auto brightness
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA Premium App

So either juice defender is helping or ADW launcher was using excesive battery. It is working better today after I switched back to launcher pro, but still going down pretty fast.
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA App

ADW doesn't really drain much battery for me. It actually uses less RAM compared to LauncherPro and Go Launcher (for me).
I think you should just try reflashing your ROM, maybe flashing the new GB ROMs too.
Also, are you sure you're doing the battery calibrations properly? That might also be an issue.

Maybe it's not your phone or ROM...
I've had several ROMs in the last few weeks and have noticed this behavior on many of them....after searching, I found this.
T-Mobile has apparently noticed some abnormal battery issues in areas with their "4G" HSPA+. They're asking people in their support forum for a bit of info to help them find the issue.
support[dot]t-mobile[dot]com /thread/3544
The problem was initially believed to be affecting the G2 only, but is now believed to be affecting all phones in their "4G" footprint that started when they updated their towers in late July. The update provides the government an emergency channel to use, but it appears that it may be causing network issues.

Thanks for bringing it up, this is affecting me too. i lose 20-40% battery PER HOUR of use on the phone at 25% screen brightness playing a card game online (no wifi, just on HSPA+). This is on a BRAND NEW flash of KH2 (GB 2.3.4).
The top half of the phone gets really hot and battery drains like crazy. ceasing data use cools it down and reverts to normal battery use.

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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

[Q] How to increase battery life?

hey im a noob here so im sorry if this has been asked before but right now i upgraded my phone to ics and the battery life is horrible and im too cheap to get a battery extender so is there anything i can do to improve it or am i just going to have to deal with it?

Get your phone to 100% battery and then just play whatever you like until it completely dies. Then, plug it in to charge and dont touch it until it gets back up to 100%. That is supposed to increase the battery lasting time by 20%. It only works once...so dont do it 5 times hoping for results. This is supposed to be done when you first get the phone, but if its never been you've never done it, its worth the shot.
Sent from my SGH-T959V using xda app-developers app

rygtuu said:
hey im a noob here so im sorry if this has been asked before but right now i upgraded my phone to ics and the battery life is horrible and im too cheap to get a battery extender so is there anything i can do to improve it or am i just going to have to deal with it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Let the ROM 'soak' in. It'll get better. You are probably busy messing with it figuring out all the features which is normal and makes the battery seem terrible. But overall it is pretty good.
And the post above is an old wives tale these days. It's funny to read people still recommending it.

lumin30 said:
Let the ROM 'soak' in. It'll get better. You are probably busy messing with it figuring out all the features which is normal and makes the battery seem terrible. But overall it is pretty good.
And the post above is an old wives tale these days. It's funny to read people still recommending it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Kinda, when you first flash with a factory reset, you don't have a battery stats file. This is another good reason to flash when your battery is 100% charged. When Senior Members here say "soak in", they are saying that the first boot all of the system apk (application packages) are cached to /cache. Doing too much while these apps are being cached screws up the statistics of the battery stats. If I really want good battery life, I totally wipe, and let the phone sit for 10-15 minutes. I leave usb plugged in till it's 100%, then pull the usb and use the phone until it totally dies.
By this time, the day is over and it needs to be charged anyways. I plug it into the charger before bed and let it charge up all the way with nothing running (no wifi, no bt, no background apps running).
After that charge, battery life seems soo much better. ymmv. it would be good to know if that works for you too.
Otherwise, everyone uses their phone differently, and some people install stupid apps that have intensive background services running that eat batteries, then complain about the rom sucking instead of introspecting about how they use their phone.

bhundven said:
Kinda, when you first flash with a factory reset, you don't have a battery stats file. This is another good reason to flash when your battery is 100% charged. When Senior Members here say "soak in", they are saying that the first boot all of the system apk (application packages) are cached to /cache. Doing too much while these apps are being cached screws up the statistics of the battery stats.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just to clarify - battery stats file have nothing to do with battery performance and the battery stat file "is reset every time you unplug from power with a relatively full charge (thus why the battery usage UI data resets at that point)." Google Engineer Dianne Hackborn

ahh ok thanks guys ill do what you guys said and see if it helps

you can also install one of the battery saver apps on the market, like juice defender or similar. They will typically help and some can control how often background services are allowed to collect data.

mike-y said:
you can also install one of the battery saver apps on the market, like juice defender or similar. They will typically help and some can control how often background services are allowed to collect data.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
These arent as helpful as they use to be. I have seen and challenged people to run with and without and the added battery life is either very minimal or actually worse with these apps.
Battery saver apps where created when android was very young and had bad management of the battery power. The way it works now it should lower the power to the radios low enough to save battery but not completely shut off the radios. Shutting them off will actually harm battery life because it takes so much more power to turn them on and off repeatedly then to let them idle.

no i think it was more designed for froyo and gb because if you try those battery savers in froyo or gb you can see it works and battery last long but if you test it in ics or jb (i have test juice defender with jb in the sgs3) and what i can see its that sometimes it lags (not always just when you like two or three apps open which for me in the sgs3 was weird) and data sometimes hangs i mean it doesn't load pages
Sent from my SGH-T959V using Tapatalk 2

Download Gemini from the play store and manage the autorun for apps. That's what I do and it saves quite a bit of battery
Sent from my SGH-T959V using xda app-developers app

solrac1212 said:
no i think it was more designed for froyo and gb because if you try those battery savers in froyo or gb you can see it works and battery last long but if you test it in ics or jb (i have test juice defender with jb in the sgs3) and what i can see its that sometimes it lags (not always just when you like two or three apps open which for me in the sgs3 was weird) and data sometimes hangs i mean it doesn't load pages
Sent from my SGH-T959V using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ill agree with you on froyo but gingerbread towards the end was much better.
The biggest thing is people dont realize how much power is used to start and stop things. Letting them idle will use battery but not nearly as much if you start and stop many times a day. Now at night if you want to turn off those things then yeah go for it. But if you are a frequent phone checker then starting and stopping them everytime will chew through the battery.
A good example is this, its summertime go outside and look at your electric meter when the ac first turns on. It will spin reeal fast for a minute or so while the system gets everything going then it will slow down. This same thing applies to your phone and its radios. Each time you shut it off it has to go through a process so you dont get corrupted data. And when you turn it on it has to use a lot of battery to make sure things dont get messed up and get to the proper operating form.
So any app that shuts off the radios manually and such will end up costing you battery if you are a power user.

If you can follow the steps exactly as i wrote them, then install the team FAH-Q kernel found in the dev section...
Sent from my SGH-I727 using xda app-developers app

thomas.raines said:
If you can follow the steps exactly as i wrote them, then install the team FAH-Q kernel found in the dev section...
Sent from my SGH-I727 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I put FAH-Q kernal on AOKP and it seemed to help a bit. I was using systempanel and it said facebook was sucking cpu at night while the phone was resting... so i took off facebook for the moment to see if any other apps/processes could be causing a drain.
side note:
I spend 15-20 min in the morning going through stuff on my phone. Then I will listen to music in the car on my way to work 35 min. My phone will be at 80% by the time i walk in to work. I check things during the work day once and a while and by 2pm I will be around 40%. leaving work I will have 35-30% .... ok i'll just quit now and say running 12hrs i will have about 15% left. I think I am an average phone user. not sure how much everyone else uses theirs.

justiz33 said:
I put FAH-Q kernal on AOKP and it seemed to help a bit. I was using systempanel and it said facebook was sucking cpu at night while the phone was resting... so i took off facebook for the moment to see if any other apps/processes could be causing a drain.
side note:
I spend 15-20 min in the morning going through stuff on my phone. Then I will listen to music in the car on my way to work 35 min. My phone will be at 80% by the time i walk in to work. I check things during the work day once and a while and by 2pm I will be around 40%. leaving work I will have 35-30% .... ok i'll just quit now and say running 12hrs i will have about 15% left. I think I am an average phone user. not sure how much everyone else uses theirs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Music soaks up a lot of battery as well as display, data, and sync. You can try turning off sync and data when you don't need them. But it sounds like you are doing better. I am still concerned with what else you have running in the background though... however, 12-16 hours isn't bad at all...
Sent from my SGH-I727 using xda app-developers app

bhundven said:
.... If I really want good battery life, I totally wipe, and let the phone sit for 10-15 minutes. I leave usb plugged in till it's 100%, then pull the usb and use the phone until it totally dies.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What do you mean by totally wipe? do you mean go into recovery to wipe data, cache, and davlik cache? then restore after the battery is fully charged?

HKSpeed said:
What do you mean by totally wipe? do you mean go into recovery to wipe data, cache, and davlik cache? then restore after the battery is fully charged?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, as well as /system/ and at least .android_secure on your microSD
I would recommend against fully discharging your battery as a matter of course. While this might have been useful in the days of NiCads, deep discharges and heat are the Kryptonite of LiIon batteries.