Database Info

[Q] Poor battery life

So I just switched from a rooted Evo to a Charge. I rooted it on day one and have had what I consider to be poor battery life. With everything off except mobile data, I'm losing about 5% per hour just idling. My Evo would lose 1% an hour or less when running AOSP roms an little more with sense roms.
I took my phone off the charger around 9 this morning. I've sent 50 texts, maybe a few more. My battery is as 52% right now. Maybe I expected too much, but I didn't get a TB because of the crappy battery life.
Right now I'm running Gummycharged 1.8.1 with the standard kernel that it came with. I don't have 4g here so I have that auto search turned off as well.
Is normal or should I unroot and bring the phone in?

quantim0 said:
So I just switched from a rooted Evo to a Charge. I rooted it on day one and have had what I consider to be poor battery life. With everything off except mobile data, I'm losing about 5% per hour just idling. My Evo would lose 1% an hour or less when running ASOP roms an little more with sense roms.
I took my phone off the charger around 9 this morning. I've sent 50 texts, maybe a few more. My battery is as 52% right now. Maybe I expected too much, but I didn't get a TB because of the crappy battery life.
Right now I'm running Gummycharged 1.8.1 with the standard kernel that it came with. I don't have 4g here so I have that auto search turned off as well.
Is normal or should I unroot and bring the phone in?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From my day to day use, this sounds about right. You have 4G kn right? Not 3G? If on 4G this sounds totally accurate from my experience.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA Premium App

I get roughly 19 hours on a charge with my thunderbolt..so not sure what you ment there...anyway it looks like you are getting 8-10 hours.. that's normal

I get anywhere from 8-10 hours of heavy use, when I say heavy I mean it, music and browsing the web at the same time, calls and browsing the web at the same time, txting, skype, email.. but keep in mind while I do have the stock battery I kill EVERY task and clear RAM whenever I set my phone down, the biggest killer of battery life is just tasks running in the background, remember this phone has a built in task killer, even when rooted & ROM'd.
Another tip would be to keep a spare battery in your wallet, when I stay over at a friends and don't have my charger or I just need a quick full charge I just pull out my wallet and switch the batteries, it's only like $10-$20 for a spare battery depending on where you get it.

If you want longer battery life, you left on the only one that is key to saving the battery !! If you are just in standby or just using the telephone and textings, turn off mobile data, that is the power sucker. Turn it on as needed. Even if you are in a 3G area, the LTE chip stays powered up and this is a big drain.
My phone will last the weekend using this method.

What actually drains the battery is having your screen on. Look at your battery stats in your settings. That will show you what is killing your battery the most and then you can adjust what is needed
Sent from my SCH-I510 using XDA App

Battery drain

I've had crazy battery drain on my phone in the last couple of months.
My phone will be almost dead by the time I get home from work and I barely use my phone during the day.
From reading on here, I see it's the 3G radio that is mostly responsible.
What kind of tweaks/adjustments can I make on my phone to keep the battery from draining so much.
I have NOT rooted my phone and have Android 2.3.3

Personally, I have a Tasker profile that turns off my 3G when I'm connected to WiFi.

Since you are on the stock rom, I can tell you that that is the reason for your battery drain. The stock rom is AWFUL and full of bloat that constantly runs in the background even if you kill it. Your best bet would be to root, and flash a modified stock rom such as Revolution HD.

djeaton said:
Personally, I have a Tasker profile that turns off my 3G when I'm connected to WiFi.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
im interested in your profile for this. can you share?

I've had that crazy battery drain that started with the lastest version of the stock software.
6am Phone sitting idle at 88%
8am Phone sitting idle at 8%

biontc said:
Since you are on the stock rom, I can tell you that that is the reason for your battery drain. The stock rom is AWFUL and full of bloat that constantly runs in the background even if you kill it. Your best bet would be to root, and flash a modified stock rom such as Revolution HD.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree. Rooting was almost like getting a new phone. I'm using ARHD 5.2.6 and the new Ace Hack Kit will have you ready to go in no time.
Sent from my Inspire 4G using XDA App

I've been using a custom rom since I got the phone home. I'm on Gingerbeast AOSP and after a day of not using my phone, except at lunch when I check facebook, I get home with 80% battery or better. You need a new rom.

alternatively check out juice defender. i have the ultimate app. turns on and off wifi by location (triangulation) and turns on/off 3/4g accordingly. can be scheduled to check mail every x minutes, if at all. easily doubles my battery life!

nhshah7 said:
alternatively check out juice defender. i have the ultimate app. turns on and off wifi by location (triangulation) and turns on/off 3/4g accordingly. can be scheduled to check mail every x minutes, if at all. easily doubles my battery life!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1. Juice defender is the answer to better battery life on the Inspire.
Sent from the future with an Inspire 4G powered by Doc Brown.

Every PDA 'big' screen phone I've had only gets a days worth of batt use. That lit screen is a battery hog, prolly more so than any wireless communications that is taking place. Unless you are streaming content of course.

Fast discharging

I896, Rooted, factory Gingerbread.
I have a Captivate and a Tab. Both Wifi only, no Sims, Airplane mode on, Bluetooth off. Machines are on but screen is off. The Tab looses 3% over the course of the morning and the Captivate looses 20%!
I'm running regular 'power user' type apps; Titanium Backup, Tasker, LauncherPro. If there are any apps notorious for secret batt consumption, let me know what to avoid.
Running SystemPanel Lite - I can't see any app that is taking up more CPU time than normal that would explain this kind of drain. The battery page shows a good proportion of battery use display and wifi. In one instance I used the Captivate so little that display showed less use than wifi. In the course of just checking phone power consumption, the display use percent way up, just like expected (Just to show that wifi was really doing almost nothing) and still I had lost more than 15% of battery over the time when the phone was supposedly idle, not connected to anything with the screen off. Some ghost is sucking the life out of my battery. Grrrr. What could it be?
I loose 30% in a night with wifi off, backlight set to absolute min and nothing runninng or syncing.
I don't get it. Any ideas? What do I try next?

get use to it, its androids horrible power management

rsx19 said:
get use to it, its androids horrible power management
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
His tab is running Android too.
If you don't have anything helpful (or knowledgeable) to say don't say anything.
Op, download watchdog from the market, (system panel is kinda ..meh.) and see if there us a rogue app munching battery.
You may consider flashing a ROM see if its just that firmware/kernel reacting to your phone.

Have you tried Juice Defender?
Also, check to make sure you don't have applications constantly running. What version of android are you running? Check in system settings -> status -> somewhere in here you can check the battery status and what applications are pulling the most juice ... From there if one application needs to be removed you can action it ...

Also try the "Battery Calibration" app in the market. It's free.

studacris said:
His tab is running Android too.
If you don't have anything helpful (or knowledgeable) to say don't say anything.
Op, download watchdog from the market, (system panel is kinda ..meh.) and see if there us a rogue app munching battery.
You may consider flashing a ROM see if its just that firmware/kernel reacting to your phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
my captivate running cm7 STOCK will drain down to 20% from being idle for 12 hours
my battery will also drain 30% from 45 mins of wifi only use.
doesnt help him but thats my experience from my captivate

Menu -> Settings -> Wireless and Networking -> Wi-Fi settinngs -> Menu -> Advanced -> Wi-Fi sleep policy
Set it to when screen turns off.
We have to switch that every time we flash. I really wish it was default. Some ROMs also have background data control, but it's usually when wi-fi is on so it shouldn't be a problem.

rsx19 said:
my captivate running cm7 STOCK will drain down to 20% from being idle for 12 hours
my battery will also drain 30% from 45 mins of wifi only use.
doesnt help him but thats my experience from my captivate
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You do know that cm7 doesn't have the proper hardware drivers from Samsung so the battery life is known to be HORRIBLE right? If not you should really read up on the ROM you're using
Flash any touchwiz ROM, especially a native I897 build and you will see a dramatic increase in battery life.

studacris said:
You do know that cm7 doesn't have the proper hardware drivers from Samsung so the battery life is known to be HORRIBLE right? If not you should really read up on the ROM you're using
Flash any touchwiz ROM, especially a native I897 build and you will see a dramatic increase in battery life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm on CM7 and am going on 27 hours with moderate usage.. Granted, I have the 1800 mah battery from the Sprint Galaxy S2

trying flashing to pinnacle. I too have battled weird captivate drain issues.
if you wanna try CM, read my thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1364357

I've held off replying as I was trying a few things and figured I would report only once I was done.
I found and ran Battery Calibration, just before I read the post. Between that and turning Wifi sleep policy to off with screen off, I had a great weekend. I was getting a day and a half out of my phone, which considering the use, was very acceptable. I was getting about the same drain as my Tab. I had 1% battery drain after 4 hrs of screen off time. That seemed fine for me.
I got back to school where I teach and yesterday the phone drained as fast as it has before. Interestingly, it continued its rapid drain even after I left the school and went back home. So, it died at 4am this morning. I heard it shut down. The school has at least 4 routers, two of which have 5k access options. I know if I choose them, my laptop drains way faster. Is there a way to limit my wifi connection on the captivate and not use the faster 5k connection?
But, this still doesn't explain why, even after I leave the school, the Captivate continues to drain when it is 10ft from a single 100mb wifi router.
I'm almost ready to try a custom Rom, but not sure how that will affect my ability to use it as a phone, once I get my Sim activated. Still new to this all.

You think everyone running a custom ROM doesn't use the phone?
Shouldn't affect your ability to do anything...

The WiFi and cell radio do increase power on lower signal as we know, but that's not always the cause of drain. I remember times using Froyo when kswapd goes nuts for no reason, or trillian, email, twitter or some other app just starts using massive CPU. Many apps are probably never tested on a system that has no connection most of the time. That's where all the utilities come in handy to find the culpret. OSMonitor can help find CPU hogs. TiBu can freeze apps, or uninstall them temporarily. Juice Plotter can monitor drain over time (newer Androids have something like it built-in). It takes some time to find it, but newer versions of the OS make it easier and have less trouble.
Also the battery % is only estimated. I'd trust full to empty time rather than 90% to 80% time as 10% use since it's not really as linear as we think.

Not to point out the obvious, but it can be the battery itself that has the problem. They aren't exactly manufactured to NASA standards... well, maybe their standards lately, but the point is, sometimes the ghost you're chasing is staring you right in the face.

Terrible Battery life problem

I recently got a new lg g2x. Seems like an alright device (it's not the best out there, but it was free so it'll do). The only thing I can't stand it even with pretty low usage i'm getting around 12 hours of battery life max. With the same type of usage from the sensation I had before I would be getting around 24 hours or more.
Any one got any ideas of what to do? I'm currently on eaglesblood, I was on CM7 latest nightly before, and before that was stock. All battery life sucked though.
Any help would be appreciated. I did order a spare battery on ebay, that i'm hoping might do some good.

mjm128 said:
I recently got a new lg g2x. Seems like an alright device (it's not the best out there, but it was free so it'll do). The only thing I can't stand it even with pretty low usage i'm getting around 12 hours of battery life max. With the same type of usage from the sensation I had before I would be getting around 24 hours or more.
Any one got any ideas of what to do? I'm currently on eaglesblood, I was on CM7 latest nightly before, and before that was stock. All battery life sucked though.
Any help would be appreciated. I did order a spare battery on ebay, that i'm hoping might do some good.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What happened to your Sensation?
Have you tried calibrating after flashing a new ROM? Personally, fitsnugly's CM7 Kang plus Faux's or Morfic's Trinity kernel has always given me really good battery life. Around 24 hours with average useage.

I'm returning it via American Express premium returns. By calibrate you mean?
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App

Use the battery calibration app in the market after flashing new roms. If you can't figure out how to make your battery last longer, just buy an extended battery for like 12 dollars off ebay. Everybody has had good luck with them. There's a thread over it in the accessories portion of the g2x forum.
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App

Alright, I already ordered a spare battery, but I'm not sure what else it could be. I'll post back after I get the battery and try calibrating it.

Just in case you may have overlooked this....turn your wifi off when not using it. Wifi burns goood.

My wifi is always off, although a few times when trying to turn it on when just flashing CM7 it resulted with not being able to turn it on due to some "error." A recent example of my battery drain is: Cell Standby 43%, Phone Idle 32%, Display 16%, Android System 11%.

Calibrating would be my advice. I get a good 24 hours of usage with CM7 with normal usage. I get 30+ with light usage, and this is with wifi set to never sleep.

Everyone that gets 16+ hours, do you have Data running all the time?
Data + Light Use = 8hr MAX
Juice Defender "Data Off" + Light Use = 14hrs MAX
Juice Defender "Data Off" + Medium USE = 8hrs
Only did a couple texting and my battery is at 35% already, and its only been 6 hours...
Battery Calibrate = Flash new rom > 100% > Calibrate > use and recharge for 3 days...

kiddiosky said:
Everyone that gets 16+ hours, do you have Data running all the time?
Data + Light Use = 8hr MAX
Juice Defender "Data Off" + Light Use = 14hrs MAX
Juice Defender "Data Off" + Medium USE = 8hrs
Only did a couple texting and my battery is at 35% already, and its only been 6 hours...
Battery Calibrate = Flash new rom > 100% > Calibrate > use and recharge for 3 days...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you check what is using battery? And if your phone is actually "sleeping" in battery info?

I'm running [ROM] [PORT] G2X SINGH UI v1.12.30 (MIUI + MODS)
Cell Standby 26%
Phone Idle 23%
Andriod System 17%
Telephony System 15%
FOTA Kill 7% << Don't know what that is
Launcher 6%
Voice Calls 5%
10017 4% << Don't know what that is
Everything else is 1%
How can I find out if my Phone "Actually Sleeping"?

If it's actually sleeping, then your phone would not have any activity under "awake" while the screen is off. Also currently I'm on 30 hours battery with 33% left.
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App

It show that it's was awake the whole time... the past 7 hours...
When I scroll down it show these that is on the whole time:
Launcher
Telephony Service on and off
Messaging
Facebook
Gmail
Email
Weird though, I have Juice Defender on Extreme.. so there isn't any data running until I enable it.

Well to find out if it's been awake the whole time you have to go in one more menu deeper. You can do that by pressing the graph in the battery stats.
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App

i recently installed stock froyo (just rooted) and i actually get amazing battery life...not even running juice defender or anything and ive been using my phone quite frequently. data on and off throughout the day, near constant texting, approx 1hr worth of talk time and other miscellaneous activities and i still have 60% left of my battery...its been on for about 16hrs now

otang said:
Well to find out if it's been awake the whole time you have to go in one more menu deeper. You can do that by pressing the graph in the battery stats.
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm looking in the graph, Awake is on the whole time. Then when I scroll down, these are the program is always on:
Launcher, Telephony Service, Messaging, Facebook, Gmail, Email, Maps
Well I just installed Advance Task Killer again.. even though alot of people said it doesn't work. I'm going to test that for the rest of the day.

kiddiosky said:
I'm looking in the graph, Awake is on the whole time. Then when I scroll down, these are the program is always on:
Launcher, Telephony Service, Messaging, Facebook, Gmail, Email, Maps
Well I just installed Advance Task Killer again.. even though alot of people said it doesn't work. I'm going to test that for the rest of the day.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm currently exploring which programs are preventing the phone to stay "asleep."
I freeze lots of programs I don't use, the only ones I see constantly active now are Google maps, Facebook, and the launcher (which I hope isn't one of the issues).
I froze the first 2 and I'll be doing tests today to see exactly what it is.
Do you guys use the default MIUI launcher?

Yeah I'm using the default MIUI launcher..
I also freezed MAP and FACEBOOK... see how that goes for the rest of the day.

Phone was off for about an hour straight, think I'm getting better "sleep" periods. Launcher activity is constantly blue.
I use the modified launcher with the extended settings. Only widget on it is fancy widget pro.
Going to see how well the phone fairs for the rest of the day.
EDIT:
Been doing research, apparently telocation causes a lot of battery drain, and alarm manager (although mine is almost always asleep).
I recently uninstalled fancy widget in hopes that launcher won't keep itself awake, and froze the telocation and no freeze or force close on anything.

I had a major battery issue with my last install of CM7 on a new G2X, what fixed it for me was enabling "use wireless networks" in location and security settings. I noticed something was odd when I ran speedtest and every time it would try to connect to servers in NY or NJ(I live in NC).....I'm not exactly sure what was going on, but enabling it fixed my battery life.

Battery saver apps

I really need a better battery life for my business phone. My last 3 androids have all had a 20% battery by 3pm....
All of the battery apps claim to turn off network when screen goes blank and so on... however I still have bars of service imidiately after turning screen on. Will I still receive phone calls?

Root your phone, under clock when screen off and manually turn off your interwebz...
Rooted MT3G XM-8 Even Moar Stripped with XDA Premium..

FB is one of the bad culprits. I generally use Autokiller on strict to tweak the Android process things and it works good.

Did you try Juice defender? It's the only one I've tried and works fine so far. My battery last 30% longer after using it, and it wasn't tweaked.

If you don't want the hassle of underclocking, then just go for apps like Green Power and Juice Defender. Set it to turn on every 15 minutes during the day and totally off during the night when you sleep; you'll be surprised how much time you can squeeze out of your battery.

You must use battery saver pro or juice defender and task killer

Okay, task killing apps randomly won't always improve your battery life, for an example, if you kill let's say a play on tv app which is a system app, you might end up wasting more battery as it re-starts.

Juice Defender
I can personally vouche for Juice Defender Ultimate. I love this app, it's always the first I install when I get a new phone. It's saved me at least 3 hours of battery per day. I have the extended battery upgrade on my HTC Rezound, and I used to be at around 30-40% after a day at school (somewhat heavy 4G use, like listening to Grooveshark, browsing the web frequently, etc). Now, with the same, if not more usage, I'm at close to 60% by the end of the day, and it lasts me usually until around 9 at night.
So, Juice Defender=awesomeness. And you're going to want the Ultimate version for extra settings, definitely worth it.

I personally found that Easy Battery Saver which is free on the market gives me the best battery life even better than JuiceDefender which I found hard to believe till I saw the results. My Motorola Atrix has really bad battery life usually only lasts me about 5 hours without the app but with the app it lasts up to 8 or so which is a pretty swell improvement if I say so myself.

I would also say that Juice Defender is a good app... saves quite alot of battery.
but all of the apps using data in the background (facebook etc.) are the battery life drainers

Use juice defender

I use Juice Defender myself. works fine. you can edit what you want on or off. Also memory killer works but you need root

stevenjf88 said:
I really need a better battery life for my business phone. My last 3 androids have all had a 20% battery by 3pm....
All of the battery apps claim to turn off network when screen goes blank and so on... however I still have bars of service imidiately after turning screen on. Will I still receive phone calls?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you see you

stevenjf88 said:
All of the battery apps claim to turn off network when screen goes blank and so on... however I still have bars of service imidiately after turning screen on. Will I still receive phone calls?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can second the votes for JuiceDefender - it's done wonders for me.
For the rest of your questions...
Even when an app is toggling your data connection for you it won't affect your cellular connection. You'll still see bars of service (though without a data indicator next to it like "3G" or "H").
You will also still receive phone calls and text messages as (again) your network service remains untouched. Emails or other data services will be delayed until the app enables data.

Try out Bataria. I really notice a difference using it.

Chief_runningwater said:
My Motorola Atrix has really bad battery life usually only lasts me about 5 hours without the app but with the app it lasts up to 8 or so which is a pretty swell improvement if I say so myself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's weird, I got about 1 day of battery life with my Atrix, sometimes 2 when I disable data from time to time.
Which rom do you use ?
Anyway I also use JuiceDefender.

dark_kaizer said:
Use juice defender
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thx dude..

Tasker + greenpower
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S II using Tapatalk

it depends what version of android it has with 2.2 or higher i read that they manage memory pretty well so the task killers might actually take more battery rather than save it. If your Phone 4G you will save alot of battery by turning it to 3g and only turning on 4g when you need the speed

dpmpv said:
it depends what version of android it has with 2.2 or higher i read that they manage memory pretty well so the task killers might actually take more battery rather than save it. If your Phone 4G you will save alot of battery by turning it to 3g and only turning on 4g when you need the speed
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Task killers are never necessary on Android. Apps to manage and toggle data and radios are far more useful - and can be quite beneficial to your battery life.