Do Super AMOLED screens use battery power whilst displaying black?
I've heard this before and it makes sense considering the Nexus S was the first 2.3 phone (which has SAMOLED) and 2.3 is nearly all black.
So, if I were to change 99% of the things on the screen to black, would it technically not use as much power? Is it even worth making everything black or is the amount of power saved not very much?
Amoled display uses far less power to display black than to display color or white.
When the display is on it still uses battery. But you might notice some small battery savings if everything is black. I always use black wallpaper for this reason, plus I like how it looks.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App
It uses less power but I don't find it's needed really.
I use about 4 hours of screen time, over an hour of calls, over 100 texts, half an hour of web browsing, angry birds, a bit of music, stream 20 mins or so of video online and have a live wallpaper running all day and I still make it to about 30 hours.
When a pixel is black on a SAMOLED display, it has essentially been turned off and there is no power consumption from it.
Maybe I will try it out though and see if I can push for 48 hours lol, I just really love how the colour pops on this screen so I can't imagine myself using black backgrounds much.
Google made Gingerbread keyboard, keypad and all the menus dark/black for this very reason.
Related
Hey guys, I consistently have the Captivate screen displayed as consuming about 90% and up of the battery life in the Android settings menu. Is this odd? I have the screen at the lowest brightness setting too. I don't make many calls but I do browse the internet a lot.
I have also noticed pretty poor battery life. Do you think a new battery from eBay would help. The build date on my battery says July 7 2010. I just bought this phone on craigslist and love it minus the battery life and gps.
No, that's normal. AMOLED screens use less power when displaying black pixels than normal TN or IPS screens but also consume more power when displaying non-black pixels.
So I guess if you stare at a black screen all day, it'll be more efficient.
If the pages you view have an option to change to a dark background, preferably completely black, do it. For instance I had all my e-book readers invert colors and it saved a lot of power.
New battery will likely not help. OEM batteries tend to be excellent.
i had normal wallpaper with that display uses was 53%
but now with live wall paper on it reduced to 42% in one hour ??
confused
which one uses more battery simple wallpaper or live wallpaper ??
symond said:
i had normal wallpaper with that display uses was 53%
but now with live wall paper on it reduced to 42% in one hour ??
confused
which one uses more battery simple wallpaper or live wallpaper ??
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live is using more CPU !
maybe your stock background is more "light" and the live darker so the Samoled can handle the darker much better
and you cant compare 2 wallpapers cause of that thing in the settings! you did not used the two wallpars the equal time! so maybe you woke your phone with live lesser then with normal wallpaer up !
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA Premium App
Borky_16 said:
live is using more CPU !
maybe your stock background is more "light" and the live darker so the Samoled can handle the darker much better
and you cant compare 2 wallpapers cause of that thing in the settings! you did not used the two wallpars the equal time! so maybe you woke your phone with live lesser then with normal wallpaer up !
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA Premium App
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+1
That just means the screen is responsible for a smaller percentage of the total battery loss, compared to everything else. My screen often eats about 50% of the battery. That could either mean that the screen is a battery hog, or that everything else on the phone is crazy efficient. Turn airplane mode on, auto brightness off, and screen timeout to 30 minutes. Then check the actual battery drop with each wallpaper after the phone sits idle for a half hour.
AMOLED screen
I'm pretty sure its the colour. As you may be aware, with AMOLED technology, darker colours on screen use less battery because unlike LCDs, the light is only generated where needed instead of being generated everwhere and blocked out where its not need. It also makes for much better contrast. So try experimenting with darker wallpapers if you want to get more battery life. I think the difference would be quite small though.
I'm surprised that after so much time since android has been released, people still don't know how the built in battery monitor works. The percentage shown there equals 100% if you add all of them. That shows the total energy that the phone uses and displays which apps consume it and how much of it. If it displays 100% for the android OS (let's just say, that it would display only this), it means that the only thing which consumes energy on your phone is the OS, nothing else. That doesn't mean that the battery usage is 100%, it would killl the phone in a few seconds from full charge.
So if you had 53% for the display before applying the live wallpaper and 46% after, it means that there is a new process in the phone that eats voltage.
Those values show what uses the most energy from your current total usage, it doesn't mean that the display eats 46% of your battery. The live wallpaper probably has 15% or so, but it has a much bigger impact on the battery then 15%.
Hi,
just a question just on that topic:
I got the I9023 with SLCD and i want to optimize my battery life.
What is a good % of power usage for the display? Mine is 54% and i think it's quite high, is it normal?
Is there anything i can do? I just got the phone 2 days ago, so i'm using it more often than usally (well it's new, i'm not familiar with android.) but in a week or so, when i'm used to the phone, i want to get the maximum battery life out of it.
Data:
Android 2.3.6
I9023XXKF1
Kernel
2.6.35.7-gf5f63ef
[email protected] #1
Build Nr.
GRK39F
If anyone knows, how i can get a better battery life and overall performance, pls tell me, i really don't know where to start, i just downloaded the most common apps i needed, or wanted to use and used go launcher ex to get the touchwiz 4 theme on the phone, as i am more familiar with that (i had bada system before, hated it (well atleast i liked touchwiz )
Thanks a lot in advance guys!
Just wondering how much your screen eats off the battery. Mine seems like cannot get more than 4h screen on time tested with dolphin open with always screen on time config and lowest brightness set. Is it me or slcd really eat this much?
Sent from my Nexus S
I have a NS4G samoled and i can get maybe 5 hours, or a tad more with the screen on and me doing nothing. Real World use(pandora, messaging, games, music, dl, Web... Etc) about 3-4 hours screen on time on a good day.
Follow the leader @corythug
For all you guys who need the edge on battery, and dont need alot of screen brightness, like me, then try out this app on the play store called screen filter. (I am not affiliated with this in any way, I just like the way it works). What it does is apply a "film" over your screen going even lower than android screen brightness. Perfect for office setting (like me), at night when brightness is too much (laying in bed playing a game), or where bright lights might not be wanted (movie theater, work, etc...). I personally love it, I use it usually at 75% with the android brightness off, and everything is still visible, just that extra kick of brightness is gone. Sometimes I go down to 50%, but that gets me seeing my reflection just as well as the screen itself...
It also helps to keep out them creepers that try to look at your screen while sending private texts, pics, etc... Helps keep wandering eyes off of the fancy 4.8 super AMOLED display!
You can add widgets to custom brightness settings to suit yourself, I have 4 right on one of my screens that I use frequently!
I recommend this app to anyone and everyone!
It wont let me post links, but if you search "screen filter" it should be the first app. The logo has a white rectangle outlined in orange with a grey circle in the corner. Not too hard to find at all.
I'm almost positive that screen filter won't increase battery life. I think the phone basically "thinks" its still at a higher brightness than what you see, so it really doesn't improve battery life. I may be wrong though but I remember seeing that when I used it on my droid x.
kench33 said:
I'm almost positive that screen filter won't increase battery life. I think the phone basically "thinks" its still at a higher brightness than what you see, so it really doesn't improve battery life. I may be wrong though but I remember seeing that when I used it on my droid x.
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OLED pixels produce their own light (that is, without a separate backlight). Colors are made darker by dimming pixels. If the app makes what's being displayed on the screen darker, it should be helping battery life. The same reasoning applies to saving juice with dark backgrounds and inverted apps. It just only works on OLED screens and not backlit screen types.
Okay. I wasn't sure if I remembered correctly. Thanks!
Sent from my rooted galaxy s3 on beans build 6
Lux Auto Brightness works a little better, in my opinion. It can go less than the screen's brightness without the filter look.
Hi guys,
A friends uses auto brightness, and only speaks ~ 20 minutes / day. A few browsing, reading e-mails, games, just got him at 2 days of usage. Not bad in my oppinion, but certainly they should have improved the battery.
To me it seems like the battery life is longer. My first week of use around 9 or so it would be in the red, but using it throughout the day, at 9 tonight it sits at 37%. Yes it will vary depending on use, but mine has been on battery 15h 30m and screen is only 18%. Cell standby is 30%, and chrome and facebook are each 11%. Everything else is quite small compared to those main apps used.
It seems to me it is helping, but it may not idk. I will continue to use it unless I run into a major issue with it.
gkrules said:
Lux Auto Brightness works a little better, in my opinion. It can go less than the screen's brightness without the filter look.
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+1 to Lux. Set your own brightness levels for various light levels. It can make the brightness very low, almost not visible.
TheLynxy said:
+1 to Lux. Set your own brightness levels for various light levels. It can make the brightness very low, almost not visible.
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Anyone have some good values for the automatic brightness settings? I just want to go dimmer across the board compared to stock but I'm confused with all the options so far lol
Alex_Hypnose said:
just got him at 2 days of usage. Not bad in my oppinion, but certainly they should have improved the battery.
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Lol two days of usage and you think the battery needs to be "improved"??
How good does it have to be before people don't complain about it??
jmorton10 said:
Lol two days of usage and you think the battery needs to be "improved"??
How good does it have to be before people don't complain about it??
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I would be happy to get 2 days of usage... I probably could get 1 and a quarter, but I charge mine every night to be safe. Really varies on how much I use it during the day. Some nights I plug it in with 10% others with 50%... I know its not the best for the battery, but I just plan on getting a new one when this one takes a crap. I have a feeling this phone will be around long enough that the option will still be available
XXchocolatetouchXX said:
but I charge mine every night to be safe. Really varies on how much I use it during the day. Some nights I plug it in with 10% others with 50%... I know its not the best for the battery
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That won't hurt the battery, I plug mine in every night also.
Thanks!
What I'd like
jmorton10 said:
Lol two days of usage and you think the battery needs to be "improved"??
How good does it have to be before people don't complain about it??
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What I would like is for my battery to last just *ONE* day. It doesn't do that. I don't mind charging it every night, but I'd prefer it last the day without me having to either charge it or switch batteries.
Spence
nice find
nice find on this. i use inverted apps, and i like the way this works
In my 8 hour day, I really only physically use my phone maybe 2-3 hours total.
I'll send a text, be at 90%, leave in pocket for 2 hours, and all of a sudden 79%. Urg!! I understand it's essentially inevitable, but can it be improved?
Sure, there are several obvious things;
-Turn Data/Wifi off during sleep
-Turn sync off
-Turn device... off!
But personally I prefer Data/Wifi on so my phone is always readily available if I need to do something fast! Turning it off would be even worse for me.. and I have sync slimmed down to almost nothing.
What else is there I can do?
--- If the answer is simply.. "nothing" that's fine, please let me know if that's the case ^_^
I've owned many Android devices and iPhones, sometimes both at the same time, and honestly, every iPhone I've had does an amazing job at reducing battery loss while the phone isn't in use.
If you've clicked this thread, please leave your opinion, whatever it may be! Thanks ^_^
Go into your settings and see what's draining your battery.
Planterz said:
Go into your settings and see what's draining your battery.
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Always is Screen, Android System, and Android OS d:
2PMintheAM said:
Always is Screen, Android System, and Android OS d:
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Apart from the obvious (dimming your screen), you can decrease your screen's drain on your battery by using a "dark" theme as much as possible. Your Note 4 has an AMOLED screen, which is basically millions of tiny LEDs that make up the pixels. Unlike an LCD or TFT screen, which is back-lit regardless of color, AMOLED screens have the pixels individually lit as needed. So darker colors don't need as much energy, and black is basically "off".
Also, it sounds like maybe your screen is waking in your pocket because the power or home button keeps getting pressed. Perhaps try a different method of carrying it, or a (different) case or something.