Database Info

[Q] Infuse Display taking up 95% of battery usage

As someone who was looking to extend battery life, I downloaded "Battery Widget". After 9 hours off the charger and maybe 2 1/2 hours with the display on, I looked to see what was using up the battery the most. Everything from the OS to web to Wi-Fi was at no more than 2% but the display was at 95%. I know its a huge display and its going to use a lot of battery but is this much normal? The battery was dead in about 10 hours.

Sounds like you have the brightness up on it, I would turn it down a little if you have not done so already. Mine is on about a quarter brightness and it is only 79% and the battery lasts the entire day.

Are you on stock ROM? If so, you may want to consider flashing a custom ROM. When I flashed Infused ROM, my battery life significantly improved. And I am not exaggerating... I would drop 100 > 90% in about 5 hours before, now I can easily go 9-10 hours from 100 > 90% with light use.
Regarding display, please see this thread which may help with that:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1124102

keitht said:
Are you on stock ROM? If so, you may want to consider flashing a custom ROM. When I flashed Infused ROM, my battery life significantly improved. And I am not exaggerating... I would drop 100 > 90% in about 5 hours before, now I can easily go 9-10 hours from 100 > 90% with light use.
Regarding display, please see this thread which may help with that:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1124102
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My screen was on 100%. I changed it to 50%. Hopefully I will see a difference.
I am on stock ROM, however, I've been looking alot into Infused. This is my first android phone and I'm a little weary of custom ROMs being buggy. But of course those fears are pretty much unfounded since I've never seen a phone with a custom ROM in use.
BTW, thank you guys, or gals, for such quick responses.

wvcraft said:
My screen was on 100%. I changed it to 50%. Hopefully I will see a difference.
I am on stock ROM, however, I've been looking alot into Infused. This is my first android phone and I'm a little weary of custom ROMs being buggy. But of course those fears are pretty much unfounded since I've never seen a phone with a custom ROM in use.
BTW, thank you guys, or gals, for such quick responses.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I understand your concerns and if you are not comfortable, do not do it. However, I can say that the Infused ROM works much better for me than the stock ROM and I highly recommend it. It is much faster and better on battery. I can tell you that the version of Infused ROM I am on is not buggy and much better than stock. Cannot say anything about the latest version since I decided to stay on a previous version because I am so happy with it.

with your brightness up to 100%, i'm not surprised your display eats so much battery.
i'm still on stock and i used to run my display at 50% all the time. then i turned it down to 0% and i still have no issues seeing the screen in any kind of light, even outside. i only turn the brightness up to 50% when i'm playing a game or watching a video.
try 0%, you'd be surprised!

I have the nexus S and the Infuse. You're right, for some reason the Infuse Display percentage is WAYYY high!! My brightness is usually at 50%. But the Display is the cause of 90% of my battery drainage. It's very weird.

Okay so an update.... I've had my screen on 0% for the past couple days and I installed infused a couple of days ago as well. I haven't seen any kind of improvment. ( display is still in the 85%-90% range of battery usage.) Is it possible I just have a defective phone? I love this phone and but im really frustrated with havung to keep an eye on how much juice I have left
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using XDA App

What activities are you doing on your phone? Are you watching video or just emailing?
Even knowing that, I'm not sure what percentage one should expect the display to consume
sent from my fancy pants Samsung Infuse

keitht said:
I understand your concerns and if you are not comfortable, do not do it. However, I can say that the Infused ROM works much better for me than the stock ROM and I highly recommend it. It is much faster and better on battery. I can tell you that the version of Infused ROM I am on is not buggy and much better than stock. Cannot say anything about the latest version since I decided to stay on a previous version because I am so happy with it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 on Infused 1.5. Rock solid and amazing battery life.

Huh weird. Im running stock and I had brightness around 30 to 40 percent and my usage for the screen was 66 percent after like 6 to 7 hrs

reverendmilo said:
What activities are you doing on your phone? Are you watching video or just emailing?
Even knowing that, I'm not sure what percentage one should expect the display to consume
sent from my fancy pants Samsung Infuse
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No I'm not watching videos. Just using the web, words with friends, messaging, and messing around with the home screen.
A little more info...... last night I unplugged my phone from the charger at 4 am with 100% charge. When I woke at 8:30 am it had 97% charge and said the display was causing 37% of the drainage( I hadn't touched it since 4:00 am). At 8:40 I started playing around on XDA app and, starting at 97%, after twenty five minutes I'm now down to 88% battery with the display causing 80% of the drainage.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using XDA App

wvcraft said:
No I'm not watching videos. Just using the web, words with friends, messaging, and messing around with the home screen.
A little more info...... last night I unplugged my phone from the charger at 4 am with 100% charge. When I woke at 8:30 am it had 97% charge and said the display was causing 37% of the drainage( I hadn't touched it since 4:00 am). At 8:40 I started playing around on XDA app and, starting at 97%, after twenty five minutes I'm now down to 88% battery with the display causing 80% of the drainage.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is all a matter of how much you are using your phone and how long the screen is on for. It is not unusual for the screen to eat up 75% or more of your battery power if you are contastly turning the screen on or viewing things on it.
My display is sitting at around 80% right now, and on my old Nexus One, it was usually around 78%.
I don't take personal calls while at work, so almost all of what I do with my phone while at work keeps the display on constantly. I do text and check websites that are blocked at work as well as conduct all personal or financial business using my phone.
Things like calls turn the display off and other things like streaming or playing music will let the display time out and keep working.

The things you are doing are not processor intensive, wifi intensive, radio intensive, but do work the screen.
Are you running a live wallpaper?
sent from my fancy pants Samsung Infuse

No I'm not using live wall paper. I understand that the display is going to use a lot of battery. I guess what I'm asking is it normal for the battery to go down 10% points while looking at Xda forums for twenty minutes. If its normal ill deal with it but if its not I can still take it back and replace it. And thank you all for taking an interest in this thread.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using XDA App

wvcraft said:
No I'm not using live wall paper. I understand that the display is going to use a lot of battery. I guess what I'm asking is it normal for the battery to go down 10% points while looking at Xda forums for twenty minutes. If its normal ill deal with it but if its not I can still take it back and replace it. And thank you all for taking an interest in this thread.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually my experience is that the XDA app has some sort of memory leak. It takes a long time to load for me and crashes about 20% of the time for me. I use the browser most the time, and find it is very well optimized for smartphones.
And yes, your battery use is fairly normal if you aren't gaming, phone calling or downloading. In fact my use is at 87% for the screen. But still, I have 70% battery left and only an hour more of work.

I am not sure if I can explain this properly. I am not a word person.
What you see is a rolling average. If you were to not use the phone at all. Let it sit completely idle without firing on the display. You would see that the display is using a low to zero percentage (of course you could not, in fact, see that). You would find that wifi or 3g or android system (or some other task) are at 95% more or less.
The display being the most power consuming component on the device will make a dramatice change to these percentages the moment your fire it. Turning on the display simply to check the battery stats will have run the display's battery percent far higher than the others quicker than you can probably even get to the screen to check the stats.
Keep in mind this is a rolling average. It does not indicate fault or that the display is CONSTANTLY drawing 95% of the battery. It is just using 90% more of the the battery than something at 5% when it is in use.
One should chalk this up to completely normal. Make a poll if you want. You are likely to find near 100% of respondents will reply that display is highest in their stats (unless they have some kind of accessory or something that draws more power)

Nexus S = TFT LCD
Infuse = SAMOLED
To reduce battery drain from screen...use more blacks. Black on SAMOLED screens are actually pixels turned off...while TFT LCD and retina displays jave a pixel displaying black.
Hope this helps put more into perspective.
abudabu said:
I have the nexus S and the Infuse. You're right, for some reason the Infuse Display percentage is WAYYY high!! My brightness is usually at 50%. But the Display is the cause of 90% of my battery drainage. It's very weird.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using XDA App

tell me you did not just say that the nexus s has an lcd display... its a galaxy s phone, made by samsung. it has an amoled screen!

well, in his defense there is a SLCD version of it somewhere in europe/asia.

[Q] Quick question..

Just wanted to get a better opinion on something I had thought of.
Does leaving the backlight on with the clock app going, perhaps like overnight. Does that bear any negative effects on the screen. Especially if you do it regularly?

Cyanidex00 said:
Just wanted to get a better opinion on something I had thought of.
Does leaving the backlight on with the clock app going, perhaps like overnight. Does that bear any negative effects on the screen. Especially if you do it regularly?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Generally all screens would have a burn-out effect. But since the life span of a phone is short (assuming we change phones within an year or two), the possibility of anyone noticing it within that period would be very small to none.
It would be cheaper to get a night clock
Suggestion: If u could change the title to something like "reg. screen burnout" or something that's more related to question, it would be appreciated.

Alarm Clock Plus
I use this app for all my alarms and one thing I like most about it is you can configure it so that when you plug it in at nite ( i keep mine beside the bed) it displays the time in a screensaver fashion. I built a little stand for mine out of styrofoam that holds it at the best angle for viewing from the bed.

Battery life horrible? Try this!!

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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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

Screen Brightness

So back in the day When I first got an IPhone (this was 2 years back I think I may be wrong) I loved the screen on it. I cranked that thing up to full brightness and never looked back and never had it on auto brightness in my life. A few years later I went to the GNex and I did the same thing but then learned that It can actually cause a burn in on the screen. Over time I have just learned to live with the brightness at auto but just out of curiosity I cranked the thing up to full brightness today and omg...my eyes had an orgasim! This thing is amazing! just kinda sucks that be cranking up the brightness like this will really take a toll on the battery/screen =/ So anyways what do you guys normally keep the brightness at? or does everyone mainly stick to auto brightness?

Auto brightness or even lower. Samsung displays tend to be pretty bright.

i went into an at&t store today and played with a gs4 that was low on battery (it had the battery is low pop up). the phone wouldnt let me turn up the brightness at all. the brightness was so low that i had to hold the phone closer than normal to see what i wanted to see. even the brightness setting in the settings menu was greyed out. when i pluged the phone in, it would go back to regular brightness and the brightness setting would be usable again. i've never had a galaxy phone before, is this normal with galaxy phones on low battery? i honestly dont like it. it's the only thing i noticed that i didnt like when playing with the phone. i'm still going to get one tomorrow. because i know on aosp roms this wont be an issue.

I always keep my display on full brightness.
I have only seen burn-in on my captivate that is 3 years old... My old Infuse (19 months old) has never had burn-in and it was always on full brightness.
Sent from my Galaxy S4

Bjray said:
I always keep my display on full brightness.
I have only seen burn-in on my captivate that is 3 years old... My old Infuse (19 months old) has never had burn-in and it was always on full brightness.
Sent from my Galaxy S4
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does your battery not take a huge hit with that though?

blackguy101 said:
Does your battery not take a huge hit with that though?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes it does use more power but not a "huge" hit. I could still get 2 days out of a Note II with full brightness on the whole time.

[Q] Need a new battery?

Hey guys, i'm wondering what kind of battery life you guys are getting because my droid x is currently getting better battery than my s3.
On Wi-Fi I drain 10% every half hour of screen on time. I should be able to max at about 5 hours screen on time, however the best I've gotten was on 4 hours, on a good day. So I'm just wondering what the norm is for our phones. Thanks guys

joedajoester said:
Hey guys, i'm wondering what kind of battery life you guys are getting because my droid x is currently getting better battery than my s3.
On Wi-Fi I drain 10% every half hour of screen on time. I should be able to max at about 5 hours screen on time, however the best I've gotten was on 4 hours, on a good day. So I'm just wondering what the norm is for our phones. Thanks guys
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
3.5-4.5 hours of screen on when all on wifi is normal. 2.5-3.5 screen on time is about normal for LTE. I'd say these are normal screen on stats given the display size, user set brightness, and AMOLED's poor performance with bright colors compared to dark colors. Dark color screens require less light. Bright colors (browser, wallpapers) draw more power from AMOLED displays. I usually get 3-4 hours of screen on time with my display brightness at about 50%.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 4

SlimSnoopOS said:
3.5-4.5 hours of screen on when all on wifi is normal. 2.5-3.5 screen on time is about normal for LTE. I'd say these are normal screen on stats given the display size, user set brightness, and AMOLED's poor performance with bright colors compared to dark colors. Dark color screens require less light. Bright colors (browser, wallpapers) draw more power from AMOLED displays. I usually get 3-4 hours of screen on time with my display brightness at about 50%.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 4
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your response. I forgot to mention that I always have brightness really low. You claim to be able to get about 4hrs screen on at half brightness. I'm going to try setting my brightness and see where I end up. Right now I'm at 60% with 1hr 45m screen on, WiFi, minimum brightness. I could max at 4 hours in theory with the lowest brightness. I think my battery is starting to go.

joedajoester said:
Thanks for your response. I forgot to mention that I always have brightness really low. You claim to be able to get about 4hrs screen on at half brightness. I'm going to try setting my brightness and see where I end up. Right now I'm at 60% with 1hr 45m screen on, WiFi, minimum brightness. I could max at 4 hours in theory with the lowest brightness. I think my battery is starting to go.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is always the possibility that the battery is going bad, but your battery stats aren't that unusual in my eyes. I've been thinking of getting a newer battery as well just cuz I've had this one since release date. Seeing if there would be any improvement.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 4

joedajoester said:
Thanks for your response. I forgot to mention that I always have brightness really low. You claim to be able to get about 4hrs screen on at half brightness. I'm going to try setting my brightness and see where I end up. Right now I'm at 60% with 1hr 45m screen on, WiFi, minimum brightness. I could max at 4 hours in theory with the lowest brightness. I think my battery is starting to go.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try a free app called RootDim. Let's you set lower but still very viewable brightness settings. I think most days I set at 25% but the nice thing is the brightness control is a slider so you have more control. Plus you can set profiles.
Sent from my TouchPad using xda app-developers app

battery
I have never had a phone long enough to have to buy a new battery. What's the average life of one?

evertking said:
I have never had a phone long enough to have to buy a new battery. What's the average life of one?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is what I am trying to find out, no one seems to own a brand new battery lol. Im still debating whether to buy a new battery.

My own experience
since 1 year I'm using the Zero Lemon Battery 7500 mAh
Have unlimited Data Plan with Verizon - Wifi Tether to my laptop for 10 hours a day
Phones heats up a bit. But, giving me, excellent service.
The main reason, I ditched Apple is because of the extended battery
Not even the so called dedicated Jetpacks don't run that long.
I use everything - Full brightness - High Volume - Vibration - listen to songs - play games very rarely though - may be 30 min. in a week or 10 days.
I PUT FULL CHARGE THROUGHOUT THE NIGHT. IT WILL BE 100% CHARGED by 7:00 A.M.
As I have said, I have been using this for the past 1 year. Still going Strong.
This is the main reason, I'm not upgrading my SGS3.

qzmpal said:
My own experience
since 1 year I'm using the Zero Lemon Battery 7500 mAh
Have unlimited Data Plan with Verizon - Wifi Tether to my laptop for 10 hours a day
Phones heats up a bit. But, giving me, excellent service.
The main reason, I ditched Apple is because of the extended battery
Not even the so called dedicated Jetpacks don't run that long.
I use everything - Full brightness - High Volume - Vibration - listen to songs - play games very rarely though - may be 30 min. in a week or 10 days.
I PUT FULL CHARGE THROUGHOUT THE NIGHT. IT WILL BE 100% CHARGED by 7:00 A.M.
As I have said, I have been using this for the past 1 year. Still going Strong.
This is the main reason, I'm not upgrading my SGS3.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, aside from the reason it's still a highly capable phone and doesn't lack anything of importance over the newer models in my opinion. In fact I have a S4 and my mother's S3 is currently much faster than mine was before the fine dev's around here got their hands on it. Now they are dead even and most apps run identically on both.
Currently trying to figure out why hers won't charge. I have put a charged battery in there and that works fine but it won't charge in her phone. Guess I just gotta take 'er apart and see if there's a bad solder point or broken pins somewhere. This doesn't seem to be a common issue.

arikdahn said:
Well, aside from the reason it's still a highly capable phone and doesn't lack anything of importance over the newer models in my opinion. In fact I have a S4 and my mother's S3 is currently much faster than mine was before the fine dev's around here got their hands on it. Now they are dead even and most apps run identically on both.
Currently trying to figure out why hers won't charge. I have put a charged battery in there and that works fine but it won't charge in her phone. Guess I just gotta take 'er apart and see if there's a bad solder point or broken pins somewhere. This doesn't seem to be a common issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Might be a bad charging port. My fiancee had to get a replacement S3 from VZW recently because of this. But I'm no expert on taking it apart but if you successfully figure it out that way then kudos to you
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Xparent ICS Tapatalk 2

ShapesBlue said:
Might be a bad charging port. My fiancee had to get a replacement S3 from VZW recently because of this. But I'm no expert on taking it apart but if you successfully figure it out that way then kudos to you
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Xparent ICS Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We'll see. I'll give it a shot when I get a free second and let ya know how it goes. It's out of warranty so there's no way I can screw it up any worse.

arikdahn said:
We'll see. I'll give it a shot when I get a free second and let ya know how it goes. It's out of warranty so there's no way I can screw it up any worse.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea mine is now officially out of the 1 year warranty as of Monday
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Xparent ICS Tapatalk 2