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[Q] Battery Life TERRIBLE Once Rooted!

I'm having the strangest problem with my HTC Evo...
I used to get over 22hrs of moderate use (rooted) and ever since flashing any ROM running Sense 3.0 my battery life is affected to the point I'm lucky to get 6 hours of use. It discharges 15% within the first 10 minutes after unplugging the charger and continues to discharge at an increased rate throughout the day.
I unrooted the phone and took it to Sprint to "test" and after 3 hours they gave me back the same exact phone claiming they had "updated" it and everything, including the battery, had tested perfectly fine.
I feel like they are giving me the run around because obviously something is wrong here.
Any ideas as to what is going on here?

Rooting doesn't improve battery life, never did. Think of rooting as gaining admin privileges to a Windows PC, for example.
I think you have a background process running that is taking up a lot of battery, check the Battery Use page or reboot the phone.

I know, but it shouldn't diminish it either. It does gives you a chance to see a potential increase by undervolting, underclocking, ect.
Anways, no background apps running. All display scaled down, GPS off, ect, ect.
I have no clue as to why this sudden decrease in life. And Sprint says the battery is testing "excellent" as is the phone. Obviously something is not right here. Feels like they are being lazy and trying to avoid giving me a replacement.

Evo is known for bad battery usage. Best thing for you to do is get a backup battery.

Lol. I know that too, I'm not new to the Evo. I work with phones, Evo included, on a daily basis at my place of employment.
I'm saying this same battery used to last over 22 hours with moderate use when the phone was rooted and underclocked. Now the phone drains the battery amost instantly.
I refuse to purchase an additional battery to combat a problem Sprint should be fixing. I paid over $500 for this phone and haven't even had it a whole year yet. Something else is going on here...

Sounds like a rom issue, not a hardware one. Those sense 3.0 features and eye candy come at a cost.

Yeah. Sense 3.0 is a battery hog. Try cm7 or something AOSP
ADR6300

yeah, one turne off and reboot, Battery Life TERRIBLE too, i'm lost 10% when reboot

watt9493 said:
Yeah. Sense 3.0 is a battery hog. Try cm7 or something AOSP
ADR6300
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's ture ！

Have you tried an app that shows you battery usage over your running apps? May tell you which programs are stealing all the juice

!. Rooting does not have anything to do with battery life...well..not directly..it depends on your kernels, apps, phone settings, etc.
2. I agree, Sense 3.0 seems to drain your battery a bit more than previous Senses... well...you know what they say, beauty has its price..about the AOSPs, they have better battery live but they are not so pretty as the Senses...again...beauty has its price

If it helps the 'Live wallpapers' are known to eat battery, but what it could be is Wifi, if you leave it switched on all the time it may be connecting to open wifi networks without you realising and eating the battery.
Interestingly though, a whole day of use, some wifi a bit of camera and some calls on a wildfire with wifi on, didn't seem to drop the battery much and this is with a rooted phone.

you can try green power

Even though it may sound lame to some of you, the app Juice Defender has actually helped extending the life on battery quite nicely for me...
Another possible route might be to try different Radio/RIL combinations, some can also extend your battery life.
Not to forget, as someone posted previously things like live wallpapers or background process. Task Killers have been known to cause battery drain for instance.
Good luck in your quest for battery life!
Hans

if you go to battery use in settings, youd probably find out whats causing your battery drain

TBH very disappointed

Hi
Have had this phone for just a day.
Been struggling to make up my mind whether I want to get it because of the limited memory.
But finally decided to go ahead because it has good reviews on its performance and battery life.
No complain about the performance, but the battery life?....
Played Tripple Town for just about one hour and 30 mins and the battery goes down from 66% to 35%, the majority of which is comsumed by the screen.
So here is where I am. 5 h 47 m on batter, 32% left, 69% of the power drain is because of the god damned screen.
Seriously HTC, how can you manage to get so screwed up with such a decent processor.
you get rid of the removable battery, ok, nowadays the battery lasts reasonably long.
you get rid of the Micro SD card and force us to use the rubbish dropbox. 50GB 1 Yr cost $99. Why don't spend that money to get us a decent bigger memory? But ok I want the performance, I am willing to give up a bit of space for that.
But Finally SUPER AMOLED. Seriously, what kind of dump decision is this to fit a more-than-a-year old technology to such a decent new processor?? when we know all the bad thing about this screen.
It alone kills all the power efficiency the 28nm processor can offer us.
So now this phone's battery cannot out perform (when you are actually using it) neither of my previous phones: Dell Streak and Atrix. Don't tell me I have to compare the battery life by switching off the screen and just let them sit there.
I am very disappointed. very disappointed.
This will be the last phone I buy from HTC.

It sounds like you don't know about how to manage phones.
You prob was running lots of applications at once and brightness all the way up it still won't go from 66% to 35% sounds like a bad unit you have.

no... the brightness is at it's lowest level.
I use anrdoid assistant to kill process once an hour.
There is very unlikely this is a bad unit. Nowadays these manufacturers control the production quality very good that the chance I get a bad unit is probably as low as winning some lotto.

For starters, your device is BRAND NEW so battery will take about a week or so to break it in, just be patient. Also, killing tasks will only end up using more resources since Android will most likely just start them back up once it gets the chance. Run your battery down the first couple of days and charge it overnight and you will start to notice it getting much better.

unclespoon said:
For starters, your device is BRAND NEW so battery will take about a week or so to break it in, just be patient. Also, killing tasks will only end up using more resources since Android will most likely just start them back up once it gets the chance. Run your battery down the first couple of days and charge it overnight and you will start to notice it getting much better.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Kill Process runs only once an hour. So during the time I was playing, it probably just ran once. I doubt it will cost much power at all.
I understand it needs time for the battery to warm up. But even with that taken into account. it is not looking good. It reminds me the suffer that Desire caused my friend.

Hopefully this doesn't turn into a bigger issue; keep us posted!

yuan_1202 said:
Hi
Have had this phone for just a day.
[...]
I am very disappointed. very disappointed.
This will be the last phone I buy from HTC.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sorry mate but this is just stupid. first of all the battery meter is not calibrated in a new phone meaning the reported battery state is not accurate. you have at least to charge the phone once to 100% and discharge it fully to calibrate the 2 extrem states. before that everything displayed is just a rough approximation. at the first discharge i had ~20% left and the phone was down to 0 in just some minutes of heavy use. after 2 cycles i get ~-10% for an hour of heavy use. so stop crying and give the phone some day's to adjust

yuan_1202 said:
no... the brightness is at it's lowest level.
I use anrdoid assistant to kill process once an hour.
There is very unlikely this is a bad unit. Nowadays these manufacturers control the production quality very good that the chance I get a bad unit is probably as low as winning some lotto.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think you have a bad unit.
Android Assistance/Android Task Killers only mess up your battery more.

jodue said:
sorry mate but this is just stupid. first of all the battery meter is not calibrated in a new phone meaning the reported battery state is not accurate. you have at least to charge the phone once to 100% and discharge it fully to calibrate the 2 extrem states. before that everything displayed is just a rough approximation. at the first discharge i had ~20% left and the phone was down to 0 in just some minutes of heavy use. after 2 cycles i get ~-10% for an hour of heavy use. so stop crying and give the phone some day's to adjust
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I sincerely hope you are right. Because I will be much happier. Let's see in a week time.

Adjust said:
I think you have a bad unit.
Android Assistance/Android Task Killers only mess up your battery more.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I hope jodue is right: the battery needs time to fix itself.
I will give it a week to see whether things will improve. If not I will go to store to get a new one.
I have been using Android Assistant for my Streak and Atrix. It turned out to be just alright.
Anyway I will remove it and see how it goes.
Ppl have wrong idea that AMOLED is more power efficient. I remember reading a review some time ago on battery life of smart phones. It tested a number of phones and the outcome is that actually on average the AMOLED (at that time there wasn't SUPER AMOLED yet) devices last less than others.
But anyway...

yuan_1202 said:
I use anrdoid assistant to kill process once an hour.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is the most stupid thing one can do. The processes will likely be restarted by the OS and you consume more power than you would have consumed by letting android do his things as designed.
Google itself suggests not to do it. Even the most honest task manager apps suggest not to do it. (e.g., http://android.nextapp.com/site/systempanel/doc/autokill ).
Anyway, before judging battery life wait few days. I own a One X, and battery life improved suddenly after few recharging cycles. ;-)

About the display. I readed somewhere in this or X forum, that:
1. LCD does consume less power, but for X version, since its bigger screen, it takes more
2. AMOLED screen power consume depends on what it have to display (colors). Black/dark colors need less power to be shown while white takes the most power...

You get 25GB free on dropbox with all one series phones plus a further 25 per referal
Mod or Die

Stiflerlv said:
2. AMOLED screen power consume depends on what it have to display (colors). Black/dark colors need less power to be shown while white takes the most power...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This. Many people don't know/forget about this. Using a dark theme on apps you use most on an AMOLED phone can save a lot of juice, much more than all those stupid Juice Defender/task killer/manager apps can ever hope to.

snowwhite007 said:
...plus a further 25 per referal
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
250MB per referral

Leviathan2k said:
This. Many people don't know/forget about this. Using a dark theme on apps you use most on an AMOLED phone can save a lot of juice, much more than all those stupid Juice Defender/task killer/manager apps can ever hope to.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You cannot ask all the website to go dark background can you?
Ppl use the phone to do different things. Games, Browing internet... thats the whole point, the phone should perform consistantly for all tasks, not just looking at dark home screen. HTC hasn't even figure this out yet??

yuan_1202 said:
You cannot ask all the website to go dark background can you?
Ppl use the phone to do different things. Games, Browing internet... thats the whole point, the phone should perform consistantly for all tasks, not just looking at dark home screen. HTC hasn't even figure this out yet??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
in browser-setting you can invert white background/black background

no battery issues here
No battery issues, with slightly higher than average use (downloading loads of apps, playing some games, using google maps and a half hour driving nav and some music lsitening) over the first few days I've averaged 24-36 hours which I'm pretty happy with.
There are a few software things I don't like though
First, I miss having settings in the notification tray, it's one less tap of the screen. Also, the tweaked recent apps list seems pointless, you have to flick from one to another... the Stock android 4 recent apps scroll is much better, it let's you see/do more with less interaction. I also noticed a bug where the wireless signal will appear as null in the notification bar but if you view the the details in settings it says that the wireless signal strength is excellent!
Don't let any of this put you off though it really is a great phone and feels great in the hand... CM9 may rescue all!

Have the One S now, arrived a short while ago. The most annoying thing is that a stock device only has 9GB of that 16GB free when you get it.
This is nuts, I will not be using dropbox, there are many nefarious reasons why HTC want people to use dropbox or any cloud storage, this does not work well while I am roaming folks. This is not good for a business phone, I maybe sticking with my DesireHD.

Its sad, that many ppl who consider themselves technophiles do not even understand the battery of their devices.
ANY device with a modern battery should be initially charged overnight or 7-8hrs at least even of the little green light tells you it is all OK after 4 hrs. Do that, and give it a week to break in and I assume there won't be anything to complain about anymore.
Somy link to a decent site discussing these battery care tips and characteristics should be auto-pinned to each new device subforum cause the first complaints are ALWAYS about the battery life it seems...

[Q]Battery wearing out?

I've had the XT 1080, droid Maxx, about 9 months now. For the last 6 months, I really giving the battery a good workout... Keeping it plugged in while running many apps at once. I do occasionally let it run almost all the way down before completely recharging it. Lately, it will not even slowly recharge while plugged in and running all those apps at once. The battery has gotten very hot a time or two, but not very often at all. Should I seriously think about changing the battery, I can do it...I've been inside the phone before.

Yes! I am running an Ultra with a similar issue. Today my phone was telling me it would take 4 hours to charge from 50% and it's been discharging about twice as fast as usual. I run with pretty much everything off because I try to squeeze every second of life out of the battery and it's still pretty ****ty. I'm completely stock.

Good news for both of us, is that the phone is relatively easy to get into, and replace the battery. Couple of videos out there on YouTube on how to get in the phone. Similar to the Droid Razr, but easier I think. My new battery is already on its way.

AFAIK there are problems with battery somewhere inside android-os on 4.4 (and 4.4.4 fixes this issue).

Motorola assist just updated, & I think that may have been the battery hog. I noticed it not functioning very well at times. I'll let you know after my shift tonight.
Ah, nope, still draining, but I know who's doing it now. Could be an update changed the power usage. Still going to change the battery.

I won't waste space. If you want tips on replacing the battery PM me. It was...interesting.

[Completed] Massive battery drain for Samsung S3 - tried most solutions on the web

Dear XDA experts,
It seems I have a typical problem for most Samsung Galaxy S3 I9300 users. I've been testing my phone's battery capacity on two different batteries, and four custom roms, yet something leeches out their power incredibly fast.
I've been deeply investigating the issue across the web, with no prevalent solutions that worked. Below I will describe exactly what my problem is, my specs, and what I've done to this point.
This will be my first post. I'm only doing this because I want to bring BetterBatteryStats data into consideration, without just speculating "do this". Please have mercy on my soul - I really appreciate all the stuff on the forum, and I wouldn't like to violate any rules.
Problem
My Samsung Galaxy S3 I9300 drains my batteries as a vampire, regardless of what I've tried. Just to give you an example: the phone loses 6% out of a 100% in just 40 minutes of standby, while being optimized, with no "lost signal" search processes. Without charging it twice a day, the S3 remains mostly unusable.
Purchase and Specs
I'm its second owner. The previous one sold it to me through an auction site (he was changing to S4). The phone seems legit. Mint conditions, little or no scratches visible. The system was factory wiped, and later it turned out that it wasn't flashed before. I also got original Polish carrier boxing with instructions, and equipment.
Note: The guy didn't handle the receipt to me, and I don't know if there's still warranty on the phone. Servicing might not be an option.
System:
[Cannot upload - all files in a MediaFire folder. Please look over there. Just add the missing characters]
www (dot)mediafire(dot)com(slash)folder(slash)wfb1spe9ez9al(slash)xda_S3_thread
SentinelROM 6.00
3.0.64-CM-gfab9e4c Kernel
Android 4.4.2
Factory battery EB-L1G6LLU 2100 mAh
Second battery M-Life ML0373 2300 mAh 8.5Wh 3.7v Li-ion
Normally, Bluelight Filter and GoLauncher EX Prime are the minimum that I have in the background.
What I've already done
Rooted my S3 with CM Autoroot
Installed CWM Recovery 6.0.4.6
Always did a factory, cache, and dalvik wipe
Tested CM11 NIghtly from 09.12.14
Tested CM10.2 Stable
Finally flashed SentinelROM 6.00 4.4 KK
Debloated my phone - not syncing, no tracking
Disabled "All, that's Google" #notonmywatch
With every new ROM, I've been optimizing settings and tweaking the CPU to ONDEMAND. Also, same time I've been running Go Power Master and Greenify. That covers nearly everything people were recommending in the many threads I've visited.
Weird facts
Phone can lose 6% in 40 minutes after charge while idle
Writing an sms can take as much as 10% of the battery
It seems odd that the S3 can fully charge in just 1h on both batteries
When trying to discharge my phone, it deadlocks below 4%, lasting unusual 2.5h when used
Screens
I've been monitoring my phone for a day with BetterBatteryStats while I had Greenify hybernate some apps. Obviously, I've seen an improvement in the performance, but it just seems not right. There's a lot of pics here, but I hope that someone can spot a tracing app, or some other spying tactics, because I just can't explain what's on.
[Cannot upload - all files in a MediaFire folder. Please look over there. Just add the missing characters]
www (dot)mediafire(dot)com(slash)folder(slash)wfb1spe9ez9al(slash)xda_S3_thread
That's all I have for now. I think it would be a great favor to everybody on XDA to finally crack the case. I'm open to suggestions, and I can run tests on the S3 and provide results here.
Last question
Could someone recommend the best ROM and kernel for energy optimization?
Thank you, and good luck.
PS: Imagine playing Watchdogs with Aiden having an advanced S3 phone... Wouldn't happen

Your symptoms sound like bad batteries honestly. The biggest giveaway here is that the battery drains ridiculously fast to 4% then lasts the "normal" amount of time. This is usually indicative of dead cells.
My suggestion, buy another battery, avoid the cheap aftermarket batteries, either go stock or a good quality 3rd party battery and see if it changes anything.
How long between flashes are you allowing your device to settle? Battery drain may appear high on fresh flashes for the first few cycles, this could also contribute to what you're seeing.

conmc
Stryke_the_Orc said:
Your symptoms sound like bad batteries honestly. The biggest giveaway here is that the battery drains ridiculously fast to 4% then lasts the "normal" amount of time. This is usually indicative of dead cells.
My suggestion, buy another battery, avoid the cheap aftermarket batteries, either go stock or a good quality 3rd party battery and see if it changes anything.
How long between flashes are you allowing your device to settle? Battery drain may appear high on fresh flashes for the first few cycles, this could also contribute to what you're seeing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello Stryke,
Did you had a chance to look through the screenshots? I might buy a legit Samsung battery, but just something tells me that could not work. I've already seen posts from people saying they tried replacing the battery with another original, but without luck.
I must admit that I didn't consider the time in between flashes as important (never heard about it previously). Normally, I would just copy my zips to SD, reboot to recovery, do a wipe and then flash.
Please tell me - what do you think about the charge time? Is 1 hour enough for a full charge?
I welcome any other suggestions!

zulugulu said:
Hello Stryke,
Did you had a chance to look through the screenshots? I might buy a legit Samsung battery, but just something tells me that could not work. I've already seen posts from people saying they tried replacing the battery with another original, but without luck.
I must admit that I didn't consider the time in between flashes as important (never heard about it previously). Normally, I would just copy my zips to SD, reboot to recovery, do a wipe and then flash.
Please tell me - what do you think about the charge time? Is 1 hour enough for a full charge?
I welcome any other suggestions!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Generally no, even with fast charge my note takes longer than 1 hour to fully charge. I'd try the new battery, that will at least rule out one possibility. Time between flashes can make a huge difference as well, especially if custom kernels are involved.

New T-Mobile G5 - poor battery life/unlock

Hi guys, wondering if anyone can help
I bought a new unlocked T-Mobile LG G5 from ebay last week for my wife, after buying it I didn't realize that the unlock code is a software unlock, not a SIM unlock, and that I am not able to flash to the stock LG firmware if I want to keep the unlock on hand.
I was looking at flashing to stock because the battery life is quite poor for a new phone, much worse than my S7 Edge, even though she doesnt do anything crazy on it. Are there any tips or tricks to improve the battery life, its using H83020i_un software with what appears to be the regular/default T-Mobile stock apps...
Any help would be appreciated, either regarding the battery, the unlock, or both. Also, will I get any OTA updates, and if I do will it re-lock the phone? Im in Canada btw
Thanks

There is a thread covering all the ins and outs of the 20i_un custom SIM unlock ROM. Everything about locking and updates is thoroughly discussed 1 thread up from this one.
About battery life, that ROM shouldn't be impacting battery life. You should get 4 hours of screen on time (roughly) per charge. If that's not enough to get you through the day, then this isn't the phone for you.
If you aren't getting 4 hours of screen on time, something is wrong. It's not the ROM because the ROM is PROBABLY the stock ROM with 1 small modification for SIM unlock.
Things like Facebook are NOTORIOUS battery drainers so if you run a lot of apps like that, they could be hurting you. Have you looked at your battery stats? Do any apps jump out as taking up a lot of battery? Is it the Android system that's using the battery?
Android's battery stats chart will tell you a lot about what it using your battery. We'd need to know what it is before we could suggest fixes.
Also...be sure to leave the seller negative feedback on eBay. This phone was misrepresented on eBay, even after they were aware if was not factory sealed and had been modified. They lied about how many they had too, saying they were nearly out of stock at least a thousand units ago. That's deceptive advertising. They lied to multiple people about putting that second clear seal over the broken factory seal. And they contacted at least me outside of the eBay message system which is a blatant violation of the eBay terms of service. Even if you keep it, the seller deserves negative feedback.

Skipjacks said:
There is a thread covering all the ins and outs of the 20i_un custom SIM unlock ROM. Everything about locking and updates is thoroughly discussed 1 thread up from this one.
About battery life, that ROM shouldn't be impacting battery life. You should get 4 hours of screen on time (roughly) per charge. If that's not enough to get you through the day, then this isn't the phone for you.
If you aren't getting 4 hours of screen on time, something is wrong. It's not the ROM because the ROM is PROBABLY the stock ROM with 1 small modification for SIM unlock.
Things like Facebook are NOTORIOUS battery drainers so if you run a lot of apps like that, they could be hurting you. Have you looked at your battery stats? Do any apps jump out as taking up a lot of battery? Is it the Android system that's using the battery?
Android's battery stats chart will tell you a lot about what it using your battery. We'd need to know what it is before we could suggest fixes.
Also...be sure to leave the seller negative feedback on eBay. This phone was misrepresented on eBay, even after they were aware if was not factory sealed and had been modified. They lied about how many they had too, saying they were nearly out of stock at least a thousand units ago. That's deceptive advertising. They lied to multiple people about putting that second clear seal over the broken factory seal. And they contacted at least me outside of the eBay message system which is a blatant violation of the eBay terms of service. Even if you keep it, the seller deserves negative feedback.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I did notice that about the seal when I opened mine.
I noticed the battery drains alot while idling, not sure what could cause that though...

Well...look at the battery stats charge in the settings. It will tell you what's using the battery.
Are you using the Always On Display? If so that's your answer. That chews up battery like crazy at around 0.8% per hour. Conversely I get 0.1% to 0.2% drain per hour on idle with the Always On Display turned off.
I'm also a fan of Greenify for putting the phone into Doze mode after minutes rather than an hour or two like Android does natively. I'm not a huge fan of Greenify as a task killer as that's counterproductive in most cases. Though I do let it kill an annoying persistent Major League Baseball app that I like but that doesn't know when to shut up.

Skipjacks said:
Well...look at the battery stats charge in the settings. It will tell you what's using the battery.
Are you using the Always On Display? If so that's your answer. That chews up battery like crazy at around 0.8% per hour. Conversely I get 0.1% to 0.2% drain per hour on idle with the Always On Display turned off.
I'm also a fan of Greenify for putting the phone into Doze mode after minutes rather than an hour or two like Android does natively. I'm not a huge fan of Greenify as a task killer as that's counterproductive in most cases. Though I do let it kill an annoying persistent Major League Baseball app that I like but that doesn't know when to shut up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Always on display is off, using greenify, helped a bit, but I notice that most of the battery usage % is "Phone Idleing"

Agree, in the past month or so, my LG G5 battery life has become noticeably worse. The top two battery burners are Android OS and Phone Idle. I've tried multiple hard resets, clearing cache, etc, but nothing seems to help. I haven't shut off the always on display, but it wasn't shut down before. Something has changed recently, maybe in the last update, but the battery life is terrible now. Any help would be appreciated.

hawkintx said:
Agree, in the past month or so, my LG G5 battery life has become noticeably worse. The top two battery burners are Android OS and Phone Idle. I've tried multiple hard resets, clearing cache, etc, but nothing seems to help. I haven't shut off the always on display, but it wasn't shut down before. Something has changed recently, maybe in the last update, but the battery life is terrible now. Any help would be appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If youre on 20k update, then I agree. Battery life was fine until 20k update. Now I cant get through lunch. Battery stats is not helpful. Shows no issues.

coreygator said:
If youre on 20k update, then I agree. Battery life was fine until 20k update. Now I cant get through lunch. Battery stats is not helpful. Shows no issues.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have had no change in battery life since updating to 20k

Skipjacks said:
I have had no change in battery life since updating to 20k
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the info. Will try a factory reset and see if that helps.

coreygator said:
If youre on 20k update, then I agree. Battery life was fine until 20k update. Now I cant get through lunch. Battery stats is not helpful. Shows no issues.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do u know how to downgrade?
Sent from my LG-H830 using Tapatalk

Were you ever able to solve the battery problem?

There are a couple of comments on the previous page that Phone Idle is a large consumer. That happens when you pick the wrong carrier, and the signal is weak most of the places you spend time. When that happens, it's assumed that the phone's signal will be weak at the tower, so the phone transmits at maximum power - and that kills a battery fast. Choose a carrier that has solid green in the battery stats (tap the graph to get to that page, then scroll down). That's the first thing you should do when choosing a carrier - not that they're the only ones carrying this great new phone so far, but that they give you a solid signal where you spend most of your time. And it's exactly what most people don't do (because they're not aware of it). (And the phone matters too - some just have more sensitive receivers than others.)