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?
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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
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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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Click to collapse
Sounds like you have got a rogue app you need to take care of, more so than the phone being bad.
Related
If you have gotten your hands on a TB, what kind of battery life are you seeing under various scenarios (3G, Wifi, 4G, etc)? This is the biggest hesitation that I and other folks are having...
Battery life is not that great, but much better than it was 4 months ago. With early firmwares it lasted about 4 hours without even using it. Now it is good for 8 hours of moderate use in 4G coverage. The phone does eat more battery while in 4G coverage than in 3G due to the higher uplink power used by LTE over EVDO. I think future firmwares will help, but the MSM9600 chipset was designed for datacards and not phones like the MSM8960.
need bb said:
Battery life is not that great, but much better than it was 4 months ago. With early firmwares it lasted about 4 hours without even using it. Now it is good for 8 hours of moderate use in 4G coverage. The phone does eat more battery while in 4G coverage than in 3G due to the higher uplink power used by LTE over EVDO. I think future firmwares will help, but the MSM9600 chipset was designed for datacards and not phones like the MSM8960.
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That is such a stupid reason for poor battery life. It was also a problem when 3g stuff was new. The solution seems quite simple to me, automatically turn off the 4g radio when the phone is in sleep mode. There is no reason to have it using a higher data transfer rate when sleeping. The solution could be extrapolated further into an app based solution. Turn on the 4g radio only when certain apps are open and running. Who really needs 14Mb connection to read e-mail? To make everyone happy, allow the users to configure which apps turn on the 4g radio as well as allowing them to leave it on all the time or leave it off all the time. Viola, battery problem solved.
need bb said:
Now it is good for 8 hours of moderate use in 4G coverage.
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Hmm, that's pretty weak. What about 3G?
I have gotten into the habit of turning of 3g on my incredible while I'm at work anyway .. I dont need to be that connected while I"m busy working anyway... and pressing the little widget takes 2 seconds to get back online... that will help you increase your battery by 3 times
Battery life is terrible for me, I an on 3g, charged the phone to 100 when I got it and now after 1 hour of use its down to 60%. This is the first charge so its all up in the air, but def way worse than I am used to.
Not bad for me (Central Dallas area), but it is switching between 4G and 3G a noticeable bit, so I'm sure it could be better. I'm not too worried about it as my extended battery comes in tomorrow.
I don't care about the battery issues ,I just love this phone for what it is. Is there even a 4.3in phone out there that last 24hrs of heavy to moderate use, no there isn't. If u want 48hr heavy usage get a blackberry.
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This thread is pointless on release day. The battery needs several charge cycles before it performs as it should.
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In theory, LTE should use less power than CDMA as it's on the 850 Mhz spectrum so the TX power needed should be a lot less.
While in LTE mode the CDMA will kick down to 1x and so should also use less power.
I don't care about the battery issues ,I just love this phone for what it is. Is there even a 4.3in phone out there that last 24hrs of heavy to moderate use, no there isn't. If u want 48hr heavy usage get a blackberry.
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I came from a long line of HTC phones and I wold say that the battery life is better if not on par with the Incredible I had before this.
I bought the phone @ 9am and the battery was at 39%. I almost positive I did not put the phone to sleep until after 1pm. The phone was still at 33%
I am on the fringe of 4G, so it was switching between 3G and 4G, lots of downloads, about 6 calls, lots of texts, surfing/email and only a 6% loss. I'm happy with that.
Tomorrow will be the real test as I have not completed a full charge yet. I did notice that when I did connect it to the charger a little while ago, it charges much slower than my Incredible did.
Battery life is great so far. Better than my Droid X, Samsung fascinate, EVO
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App
Unplugged at 3:30pm after fully charged. It's now 7:50pm and it's giving a warning to connect charger (at ~10%). I hope battery life improves after a few full discharge/recharge cycles otherwise may have to look into other options such as extended battery. I guess that's the price to pay to have screaming LTE on all the time. I'm guessing Verizon intentionally left out a way to disable LTE to keep data usage off the 3G network.
Very nice batt here
meXdroid Ghost Chilli
mycomputerisjunk said:
Tomorrow will be the real test as I have not completed a full charge yet. I did notice that when I did connect it to the charger a little while ago, it charges much slower than my Incredible did.
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This is because the USB Port only pulls .5 amperes, and the T-Bolt's charger is rated at 1.0 amperes. This is why the charger charges much quicker than USB. Also, my motorola droid charger was .5 amperes too. So this kinda sucks. Power is definitely going to be an issue for the t-bolt.
I came from the fascinate which had a terrible battery but this is much worse. I don't mind though, I have a charger in my car and at my desk. I am very happy with this purchase so far.
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Yeah... I actually bought a car charger for the first time since phones used proprietary connections (read lg chocolate). Good investment
It's ok, fully charged at 5, its 11 and down to 25%, need to cycle through a few times.
gtg465x said:
This thread is pointless on release day. The battery needs several charge cycles before it performs as it should.
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App
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^This... seriously people... the power manager needs several COMPLETE charges to calibrate... also because it is new most people are using it far more than they will after the calibration is completed (remember display is than #1 battery drain and the hours you spend configuring and playing with it the first day or two gives an inaccurate assessment of 'normal' use)...
Put it to a real test. Went to the grand prix today in st. pete.
Didnt even have a full charge around 90%. Had 4g on all day.. Brightness all the way up. Facebook , twitter, and 2 e-mail accounts running in the background. Took tons of video clips and tons of pictures, and streamed music through the bluetooth on the way home. As I type this its been 10 hours since it came off the charger and its at 50% battery with all the same items running.
At 1st I had very very bad battery life. But after using it for a few days and then doing a battery pull (read it would get better after all this) it has been working great, with the same or more use then I was doing the 1st few days of ownership. Just wanted to share a postive experience on battery life since I keep hearing and reading so many negative things.
Edit: Thunderbolt not tunderbolt LOL
Thanks for the tip.
I'm noob w battery. Do you mean just charge it full, pull it out and put it back in and it lasts you that much? I'm skeptical....The most I could have so far is 12 hours and I have 3 bars (out of 10) left.
quattr0 said:
Thanks for the tip.
I'm noob w battery. Do you mean just charge it full, pull it out and put it back in and it lasts you that much? I'm skeptical....The most I could have so far is 12 hours and I have 3 bars (out of 10) left.
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The main reason people are having drain on 4g from what i heard was the software for the radio was re-written at the LAST minute (the reason for the delay) because they had to change their 700 MHz frequency just a bit higher.. something like 5 or 10 Mhz due to interference with with communication towers at airports. this sucker keeps dropping 4g like its no ones business. the new baseband which will be pushed out in the first update for the phone (hopefully in next month) should correct it.
Thats funny because i was at the gp today and my battery died before i left at 1p. Took a couple of pictures and 1 video. Used gps for like 10 mins and that was it. Stayed in my pocket for the rest of the day.
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hmm
I Disabled my 4G with dialing the *#*#(forgot the 4 numbers)*#*# and my battery has been lasting me alot longer
I'm in a 4G area so I have the phone set to LTE mode only and I get great battery life.
I probably have the worst battery life ever... 70% before putting it away and not using it. 5 hours later, I check my battery and I'm at 10%!! I didn't even use it!
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my battery was about to die on me today within 3 hours of being off the charger, granted it was with heavy use.. flashing multiple roms using titanium backup etc... but i still think that is asinine..
Powell730 said:
my battery was about to die on me today within 3 hours of being off the charger, granted it was with heavy use.. flashing multiple roms using titanium backup etc... but i still think that is asinine..
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flashing roms will eat battery...once you are on a rom it takes a cycle or 2 to settle
anourack said:
I probably have the worst battery life ever... 70% before putting it away and not using it. 5 hours later, I check my battery and I'm at 10%!! I didn't even use it!
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Click to expand...
Click to collapse
U need to learn how to charge it. Search around.
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The battery life on the TB is just as good as it was on my rooted dinc with a custom kernal. I have no complaints with stock unrooted TB so far and I use the **** out of it.
I turned off 4g and am going 16 hours on 50% battery. Really, to sit in my pocket, do calls, text, and check email I don't need 4g. I too noticed the 4g radio switching on and off constantly. Hopefully the baseband update will fix this.
ZBoater said:
I turned off 4g and am going 16 hours on 50% battery. Really, to sit in my pocket, do calls, text, and check email I don't need 4g. I too noticed the 4g radio switching on and off constantly. Hopefully the baseband update will fix this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It has more to do with where you live and how good your 4G coverage is
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i get 12hrs easy with moderate use. All I've done is turn off the GPS services when not needed and disable the lock screen... hope things improve for everyone having issues... :/
quattr0 said:
U need to learn how to charge it. Search around.
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What do you mean, is there a special way to charge it now?
anourack said:
What do you mean, is there a special way to charge it now?
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Click to collapse
I think he may be referring to the "bump" charge. Where you charge the phone to full, unplug it, turn it off, charge it to full again, unplug, turn it on, and charge it to full again. Not sure if this is an HTC thing or just a general lithium ion battery thing. But it helps IMO.
I get about 12 hours of battery life with moderate use. I little web surfing, lots of texting, light app usage. My phone is constantly switching from 4G to 3G when I'm indoors. Outside though I'm fine. I'm surprised about the different experiences people are having with battery life.
Since I can't get through a whole day without it dying I bought a second home charger on amazon. I'd like to get the extended battery, but it looks like it'd make this phone too big at that point. I wish there was some better battery tech coming out soon, since there hasn't been too much progression on that front.
Turn on the wifi radio. When you are home or anywhere you have access to wifi, the device will automatically turn the 4g radio off when wifi is up. That simple change has made a huge difference and I dont have to worry about turning the 4g radio on/off manually.
I've been seeing, under heavy use, at minimum 8 hours of use consistently since I've been through a few cycles, including bump charging the first few cycles. Also, a few things that greatly helped me:
Read somewhere that the stock blockbuster app, even if it has never been opened, has a service that updates the movie catalog in the background. Run the app, update it, and in settings turn off movie catalog updates. After doing this my battery didn't drain nearly as fast while in my pocket. I can't verify that this actually helps, but it did for me. I disabled the 4G radio since I live in a 3G area as well.
I also run Green Power as of this morning. My phone has been running over 12 hour with 3:30 of that being actual usage and I'm at 68% remaining. I have it set to 1 minute on and 10 off for data while it is locked in my pocket.
Beyond that, GPS is disabled unless I need it. So is WiFi. Brightness is at about 30%, with a widget to bump it to full when I'm outside in sunlight. I also noticed a big jump when I disabled HTC sense Facebook updates, and used stock Facebook instead. Every time I went to contacts it would download that contacts Facebook updates, which is pointless and uses data constantly under normal usage.
Of course your mileage may vary, but this all gets me through the day under normal usage, and over a half day under heavy usage.
I am currently at 8.5 hours with 79% left on my battery. Stock Battery. If I didn't have to work tomorrow, and be able to make phone calls and such I'd leave my phone unplugged all night to see how long it can go.
nosympathy said:
I am currently at 8.5 hours with 79% left on my battery. Stock Battery. If I didn't have to work tomorrow, and be able to make phone calls and such I'd leave my phone unplugged all night to see how long it can go.
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Click to collapse
I'm assuming thats with Virus Rom as it says in your sig? If so, that makes me want to try it. I'm stock unrooted right now, haven't had time to invest in rooting the ADB original method yet, don't want to rush through it. When I do, I fully intend to try that rom out.
Am I the only one?
I upgraded to a native android device from a modded HTC HD2 to hopefully have a longer battery experience.
This battery is absolutely trash. My 2 year old HTC HD2 running Sense Android Non-Native ran at almost exactly the same.
I tested my HTC HD2 side by side with a close friend who has an Evo 4g.. Both Devices still being HORRIBLE in battery life performed almost IDENTICAL.
HTC HD2 is TWO YEARS old, why is it so close in performance to our device..
I love the phone in general, it's snappy (once i removed all bloatware).. Boots fast, runs nice.. i have very few complaints about it.
But how does an 1100 MaH battery run the SAME as an 1600 MaH battery?
I thought technology is supposed to improve, but my non native android phone ran almost the same as this one. Took longer to restart/boot up, but general speed is the same, larger screen size.. similar settings, and same battery life. Pisses me off frankly.
That's how I felt. hopefully we will get rom's or gingerbread on this phone soon that will improve battery life. And by gingerbread I mean the leak from Samsung for the i9000. I've been reading reviews and it seems like it Greatly improved battery while speeding up the phone a lot.
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I have to disagree. I've owned may android phones including the evo. This phone has the best battery life in my opinion. I can easily make it almost all day with use without charging
Sent from my DAMN Galaxy 4G¡!
Well like I said, i admittedly abuse the phone.. but I'm comparing to other phones getting equal abuse. It stands up about the same, better yes, but not by much.
If I'm barely using it however.. let's say, mainly just texting, yes it will last all day. But that never really happens.
I love how people admit that they "abuse" the phone all day and then complain that the battery life sucks. If you're going to use your phone that much, bring your usb cord. Or strap a battery pack to yourself and plug it in for "all day" use and abuse.
It's the screen. If you want the super amoled you have to put up with the battery.
What i don't understand is that why the Droid x which has similar specs to our phone can go up to 10 hours of continuous web browsing when our phone/vibrant can only go up to 4 according to tests. Is it because of the screen? If it is then that's just stupid.
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It was horrible for me at first, but I then realized the system has to calibrate the battery first. I am getting about 16-20 hours with moderate usage now, which is better than the G2 I had before.
My g2 can go up to 28 hours with light texting and 2 hours of web browsing through wifi and 10 minutes of calls (manual syncs and low brightness also). Once I use the gps and browse through hspa, it's a different story. My sister has a SGS4G and her battery seems to drain faster than mine.
Oh, and if I keep my phone charged for a while after reaching the 100% mark, it stays at 100% even after 1 hour of heavy browsing and watching videos. I think we should all just assume that the battery meters are inaccurate.
I use juice defender and put my brightness setting on auto and I can literally go all day with "abusing" my phone.
DirtyPISTOLA said:
I use juice defender and put my brightness setting on auto and I can literally go all day with "abusing" my phone.
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WHAT? I have brightness on minimum with juice defender and all I get is 8 hours Max. All i really do on this phone is text and play words with friends so its not like i am abusing it or anything.
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How did you calibrate thee battery
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let the phone die, to the maximus. meaning once it turns off, turn on again until it doesnt turn on anymore. Now fully charge it, once again when fully charged restart the phone and charge it to 100 again. then let it die again, and full charge. should be fine then
i bought a 3500mah extended battery for my phone. the battery is designed to work with vibrant. it really made my life a lot easier.
I noticed if I set the phone to GSM only, battery lasts almost twice as long. If I'm on auto select (WCDMA/GSM), it lasts from 7AM till about 4PM.
But then again, I don't have a very good 3G/4G reception (or 2G connection for that matter), so my phone is probably working extra hard to find signal all day long.
The new Bali Kernel has shown tremendous battery improvement on my phone. I'm really impressed.
dualkiller said:
The new Bali Kernel has shown tremendous battery improvement on my phone. I'm really impressed.
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Same here.
I used to only have dark wallpapers and take all the other extra steps for my battery to make it through the work day, and as soon as i got home i had to charge it.
I'm now running fireflies live wallpaper, abusing the phone a little more then what i used to, and i still have battery to spare, not by the time i get home, but by the time i go to bed!!
i also have installed bali. seems to do well, as said its all about the brightness.
My problem with this phone is that wifi uses way too much battery. I have it to turn off when phone is asleep but i'll have the phone at 100% with wifi on. Put it on sleep. 4 hours later. battery is at 65%.
If i have wifi turned off. Battery will be at 98%.
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?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
I think it's crazy how many people are downing the battery life on the Sensation. I used my phone a bit today. Off the charger at 10AM, used GPS to go to work with Bluetooth activated as well. Forgot to turn them both off while at work. I used my phone like ever 5 minutes checking Twitter updates(also weather/news/facebook/email/etc updates are automatically updating as fast as the app allows. So quick updates for all my apps, GPS and bluetooth turned on all day. Home around 5, watched a few episodes of South Park on Netflix with my phone. Read some news. Played a few different games for about 5-10min each just trying out new games. It's now almost 1AM the next day, and I'm above 40% battery life. I manage my screen brightness, that may be the only thing I remembered to manage well today. While outside/in car, full brightness, inside, as low as possible.
It's shocking to me when I see threads of how the battery life stinks. I'm using the stock battery, I don't even seen the need of getting a larger battery because this already gets me through a day full of activity. Anyone else find the battery life on this device, quite handy? Mine is rooted, but it's stock ROM. I'm also using a skin posted by a member of our forum, the transparency. I'm running the stock T-MOUS(why is it called tmous..? are people that lazy to spell out t-mobile?) ROM, because I accidentally deleted a few apps I discovered I needed back, and did not do a backup. Oh, and I'm also using the battery mod, for the battery icon in my notification bar.
I guess I'm just praising the battery life, is all
I have only had my sensation for about 5 days and battery life is amazing! Im still stock too.. I came from an evo 4g rooted running cm7 and or miui and battery life doesn't come close to being as good as my sensation. Not only is battery life awesome, this phone is awesome. I moved to Southern California a couple weeks ago and Sprint out here is horrible.. so I switched and couldn't be happier. Plus I like this phone was better than the evo series. Battery life is sweet!
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA Premium App
You would have to post a screendoor shot of your battery usage and screen on time to completely determine how much the phone was used and how long the screen was on.
Bluetooth and GPS don't use any battery or have low usage (depends on the chipset because some completely turn off) during standby since they're not being used at all.
So we can all praise our phones for having good battery life, but it all depends on usage. If you don't use your phone a lot (you could turn on your screen every 5 minutes but at the end of the day have only like 45 minutes of screen on time and like 70% battery left.) Then you get good battery life. Use your phone a lot and quite simply battery life sucks.
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App
I think it can largely depend on how you use your phone, not just how often or for how long. For example my Fiance also has the Sensation and on her first charge she got 3hrs52minutes before hitting 10% battery. Since then she has only gotten ~2hrs each day now that she has Twitter and Facebook for Sense accounts set up.
That's not good. There's gotta be something wrong with either her phone or something. 2 hours of battery life warrants an exchange.
lokhor said:
I think it can largely depend on how you use your phone, not just how often or for how long. For example my Fiance also has the Sensation and on her first charge she got 3hrs52minutes before hitting 10% battery. Since then she has only gotten ~2hrs each day now that she has Twitter and Facebook for Sense accounts set up.
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Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App
enoch861 said:
That's not good. There's gotta be something wrong with either her phone or something. 2 hours of battery life warrants an exchange.
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App
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The phone lasts longer than 2hrs, that's 2hrs of the screen being on. my sensation get's about the same. This is with Gmail on Autosync and Twitter/Facebook for Sense accounts enabled too.
If I do what u did, my batt will be flat in 6 hours. Somethings just not right with my sensation.
xSeany said:
I think it's crazy how many people are downing the battery life on the Sensation. I used my phone a bit today. Off the charger at 10AM, used GPS to go to work with Bluetooth activated as well. Forgot to turn them both off while at work. I used my phone like ever 5 minutes checking Twitter updates(also weather/news/facebook/email/etc updates are automatically updating as fast as the app allows. So quick updates for all my apps, GPS and bluetooth turned on all day. Home around 5, watched a few episodes of South Park on Netflix with my phone. Read some news. Played a few different games for about 5-10min each just trying out new games. It's now almost 1AM the next day, and I'm above 40% battery life. I manage my screen brightness, that may be the only thing I remembered to manage well today. While outside/in car, full brightness, inside, as low as possible.
It's shocking to me when I see threads of how the battery life stinks. I'm using the stock battery, I don't even seen the need of getting a larger battery because this already gets me through a day full of activity. Anyone else find the battery life on this device, quite handy? Mine is rooted, but it's stock ROM. I'm also using a skin posted by a member of our forum, the transparency. I'm running the stock T-MOUS(why is it called tmous..? are people that lazy to spell out t-mobile?) ROM, because I accidentally deleted a few apps I discovered I needed back, and did not do a backup. Oh, and I'm also using the battery mod, for the battery icon in my notification bar.
I guess I'm just praising the battery life, is all
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Sent from my HTC Sensation Z710e using XDA App
Oh! Makes sense..
But 2 hours with screen and dead in 6 hours? I'm glad I have a G2x then. Cause I get 3 hours and like between 13 and 16 hours.
lokhor said:
The phone lasts longer than 2hrs, that's 2hrs of the screen being on. my sensation get's about the same. This is with Gmail on Autosync and Twitter/Facebook for Sense accounts enabled too.
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Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App
You can go by statistics and on screen time and what not. but I just got home from work, and I literally used my phone for about 2 hours straight calling carriers for a customer. I'm above 80%. So from 9AM-4PM, only saw a 20% drain. Once again, keeping BT and GPS on just to see how it goes. ALL of my autosyncs are once again, on, and set to the most frequent can be.
Compared to any other stock phone, this is amazing. Compared to my Cyan N1 and my Cyan NS, it's not a huge difference. Although, at this rate I may give the lead to the Sensation, since I'm leaving all these extra features on throughout the entire day.
good
I get two to three days out of my Sensation, and I'm a relatively heavy Internet user... don't phone much.
At first I wasn't getting great mileage - having to re-charge after only 10 hours or so, but did two things to improve it dramatically...
First, charge the battery once using the following method:
1. charge battery to 100% and leave on charger for an extra hour
2. unplug the cable, turn off* the phone, and plug the charger back in. leave charging for another hour.
3. unplug the phone, turn it on for two minutes, turn the phone back off*, and plug in the phone again. leave charging for another hour.
* when I say "turn off", I mean completely, without fastboot. so either disable fastboot before switching off, or turn off the phone and pull the battery then put it back in.
Second:
Turn off automatic screen brightness, and set the brightness manually to what you need. Ideally, I'd like to have an auto-screen brightness adjustment that automatically sets it, say, 25% lower than what the built-in function does.
That's pretty exceptional. I usually get 13-14 hours with 5+ hours of screen time before I'm at 20%. Using the chichitec battery, btw.
My chichitec battery went 18 hours yesterday before it got to 10% and I charged it. That was with a lot of web browsing, some phone calls, music, games. Id say, medium-heavy usage.
Matt
Same here I have had several Android phones with different carriers and this is hands down the best, on par with the iPhone I had previously with Verizon. No problem getting through the day with Exchange and 2 IMAP accounts and heavy phone use, the only mod is I set screen brightness, battery is stock.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App
no one is complaining i watch sparticus on netflix and game of throne on hbo go for 5 hrs straight while facebooking random hoes . and i am out of battery..
we are complaining that the 4g drains the phone while on idle.
this is the best battery life i've ever had on a phone. i can't complain at all... i even have gps on and i could never do that before. lol!
Guys, having GPS on doesn't use any battery. It only uses battery when it is active. So for most of you 99% of the time your GPS is off aka standby or whatever you wanna call it.
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App
One reason many people complain about bad battery life is that it seems some Sensation models are actually faulty. Best evidence: TechRadar review.
http://www.techradar.com/reviews/phones/mobile-phones/htc-sensation-943466/review?artc_pg=9
UPDATE: We've finally managed to get our hands on a new review model of the HTC Sensation, and the good news is the battery life is definitely improved.
It seems that a combination of data-hungry applications and a slightly dodgy model caused the odd readings from before, although we're not entirely convinced the above scenario isn't one power users will face, which is why we've left it in.
But in normal use, and by that we mean sending 42 texts, spending 49 mins on the phone, watching an hour and bit of video and using the music player constantly, plus a few minutes spent using GPS to track ourselves and browsing the internet for roughly 45 mins, the battery pretty much lasted the day, although it was often in the yellow zone come 11PM.
However, what was more impressive (and a relief) was the sleep state of the HTC Sensation. Where before the phone would get very hot and start spewing out battery life in our pocket for no reason, if you leave the phone locked up for around 10-15 minutes on our new model the power consumption dropped to almost nothing.
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