Database Info

25 min cost 27% battery

I unplugged the phone and got onto the bus. I read news with Captivate. Nothing fancy, just NY Times, Fox News etc. I got off the bus later, I only have 73% battery.
Yes, I just started my day and it's only 70% of battery.
#FAIL.

There are a few simple things you can do to increase battery life. Turn the screen brightness down and use a solid black background as a wallpaper. The screen uses the majority of the batter. so dimming the screen helps, when using a black background the amoled display does not light up black pixels so there is power drain.
I've been running on the same charge since 4pm yesterday. I've streamed music through pandora for about an hour while exercising, browsed the xda forums using the XDA App for 30 mins, made a few calls, browsed Facebook for 30 mins, surfed the web for a couple of hours before bed. Its now 10AM and I'm sitting at 36%. Not to bad really! The phone functions exactly the same at 36% as compared to 100%.

I wonder why everyone says to use a solid black background? Do most people use their phones primarily by staring at the home screen? I'm never at my home screen more than perhaps five seconds while switching apps
I've had pretty poor battery life as well, even after discharging, recharging, and deleting batterystats.bin. There are small tips here and there, like black background and screen brightness, but even following them all, my phone lasts me barely ten hours, and most of that time it's idle. For instance, I listened to local must (no streaming) with the screen off for about an hour and lost 10% of my battery life. What's up with that?

TimF said:
I've streamed music through pandora for about an hour while exercising, browsed the xda forums using the XDA App for 30 mins, made a few calls, browsed Facebook for 30 mins, surfed the web for a couple of hours before bed. Its now 10AM and I'm sitting at 36%.
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Click to collapse
I am also shocked and confused by how people can use their phone so heavily.
I already killed those unnecessary processes (e.g., all AT&T crap). I have a static wallpaper. I have screen brightness at 60%. And all I have been doing is just reading news and surfing the web. It literally cost me 1% of battery for every 1 min of use. It's just ridiculous.

You are probably on your home screen a lot more than you realize.
Anyway it's a smartphone, they all eat through battery time. you will never get superb battery life unless you crowbar a 3000mah battery into your device.
edit:
set the screen on its lowest brightness setting, the only time I've had to increase the brightness is when I am outside in the sun.
if you are on a bus, if you are not using wifi, turn off the radio.

TimF said:
Anyway it's a smartphone, they all eat through battery time. you will never get superb battery life unless you crowbar a 3000mah battery into your device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You just said your phone is at 36% eighteen hours after charging! Compared to the 0% I'm at ten hours after charging...I'm not looking for superb battery life at all, just somewhat decent. I'm actually bringing a backup feature phone with me to college this semester in case I can't resolve this issue, because I will need to use my phone both in the morning and at night some days

TimF said:
edit:
set the screen on its lowest brightness setting, the only time I've had to increase the brightness is when I am outside in the sun.
if you are on a bus, if you are not using wifi, turn off the radio.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have Wifi, BT always off. And I don't listen to Pandora.
I think the key is you have the lowest brightness on your phone. It is going to save you a lot of battery 'cause half of the battery is for the screen.
But I just couldn't stand it. I wish I can set to 100% all the time. It looks so much better.

The phone radio is a huge consumer of battery - especially in weak signal areas. The bars are not that accurate either. that coupled with 3rd party apps that don't always behave nice, can equal rapid battery drain.
Putting the plain in Airplane mode is good way to see what battery life is like without the Cell radio always doing its thing. It is not a fix, but it can show that the battery/phone are not broken. There probably can be improvements and tweaks made by samsung, but I don't think the phones are defective.

mwxiao said:
I think the key is you have the lowest brightness on your phone. It is going to save you a lot of battery 'cause half of the battery is for the screen.
But I just couldn't stand it. I wish I can set to 100% all the time. It looks so much better.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is what you would call a trade-off I like the bright screen also but I like having longer battery life more.
The screen is still pretty bright on it lowest setting and you gt used to the lower brightness after a while.
magicdanw said:
You just said your phone is at 36% eighteen hours after charging! Compared to the 0% I'm at ten hours after charging...I'm not looking for superb battery life at all, just somewhat decent. I'm actually bringing a backup feature phone with me to college this semester in case I can't resolve this issue, because I will need to use my phone both in the morning and at night some days
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
how are you using your phone? What apps are you running, are you using any emulators.

There's an app called Spare Parts, which will show you what is using your battery when the screen is off. Open it up and choose "Partial Wake Usage" from the drop down to see.
My Captivate appeared to drain battery very quickly, but with moderate to decent usage throughout a day I was trying to kill the battery it lasted me over 13 hours. I think it's a matter of the battery reporting taking a good while to calibrate properly.

I've had an issue twice now with absurd battery usage. Both times I charged the phone to full and disconnected it; after doing that the phone would lose 10% charge every hour sitting completely idle! Using the phone during that time drained it even faster. Both times powering the phone completely off and back on resolved the issue.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

magicdanw said:
I wonder why everyone says to use a solid black background? Do most people use their phones primarily by staring at the home screen? I'm never at my home screen more than perhaps five seconds while switching apps
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Click to collapse
In AMOLED, black pixels dont use power. This is different from LCD where even black pixels still use power.

Have you guys tried fully charging, then fully discharing then repeating this step 3 more times? It helps with the battery life tremendously.

You gotta do a factory reset. Many people as well as myself had the same issue. For me, a side effect was also that the att start up swoosh was stupidly loud.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

I only did the discharge thing once, last week, and today I am going on a 21 hours with 28% left.

2g app
I was told there is a 2g / 3g application. Has anyone tried this? Apparently it puts the phone in 2g when no data connection is needed and then updates to 3g when a data process is required...

i'm on day two of not charging mine... and i'm at 25%...
i unplugged it from a full charge yesterday (monday) morning before i left for work and today (29 hours later) i'm at 25%... this is with advanced task killer auto killing tasks when screen is off as well as being aggressive about it. i've been listening to music from my sd card, browsing facebook and taking some pictures (and uploading them to fb). i guess i'm either super lucky not to have any problems with GPS or the battery, or i'm a very light user.

I dunno what happened to the main battery thread?
I just got a new phone two days ago because of the restart issue. This one has the same battery issue. Drains 2-4%/hour just being idle. I have nothing beyond launcher pro and google voice installed. Everything is on lockdown in terms of batt usage. The only thing I haven't done is turn off the cell antenna.
I've tried the tricks I knew: factory reset, calibration trick. These didn't help at all. My last phone just needed a factory reset and it was all good. Now I'm sad again :-( will it just improve itself when the phone "learns" the battery or something? I wish I could teach it

Several things you can do.
1) Use WiFi if you can use it, it uses less power. If you don't have somewhere to use WiFi, leave it off.
2) Same goes for BT- leave it off if possible.
3) Use this to get rooted and remove all the ATT crap that sucks battery life. Applying the lag fix also means you spend less time with the screen on, so that can also help you out.
4) Use Auto Brightness
5) Disabling haptic feedback and the tapping sounds (I find it more annoying regardless)
6) Use a static black wallpaper- or something really dark. IMO it looks great black and plus the AMOLED... Black doesn't use power.
7) Use Advanced Task Killer. I have mine on Aggressive and Moderate security every half hour. This will make sure hung apps, etc get killed and apps you haven't ran. Make sure you whitelist the apps that run your widgets and such though.
That's the best things to do to.
Edit- above all, remember this is a SMART phone, not a feature phone like the iPhone is. The simple fact this full blown SMART phone can even begin to rival just a feature phone like the iPhone speaks volumes to how much more efficient it is than what you think it is.

starwolf256 said:
I've had an issue twice now with absurd battery usage. Both times I charged the phone to full and disconnected it; after doing that the phone would lose 10% charge every hour sitting completely idle! Using the phone during that time drained it even faster. Both times powering the phone completely off and back on resolved the issue.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I too have had issues with battery life but quickly realized what had been causing the issues, twice it had been snesoid not closing down all the way after use, and this combined with an app that was hurting battery life (word feud), I realized what my problem was.
I leave the brightness jacked all the way down. I believe the lowest it goes on the stock rom is like 15%, but there are ways to go lower than that.
I've not used my phone much the past two days since charging it, and i'm currently down to 35%, but most of my battery use is cell standby, with display being 3rd or so on the list.
You can always use a program like tasker to make the phone go into airport mode between certain hours of the day (IE: while you're sleeping) to help conserve the battery life.
There are also tons of other good tips in this thread.
And trust me, the phone can last; i've managed 3days on one charge

Normal Battery Drain?

So after 2 hours and 3 minutes...my battery is at 25% ...since starting to write this message it has dropped 3%. The display is taking up 80% of use. Screen brightness is about a centimeter from the far left side. Screen has been on about 90% of the time...however...after only 2 hours and now at 23%...I'm a little concerned. Any suggestions?
Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk

Change your screen timeout to 30 seconds...

ITGuy11 said:
Change your screen timeout to 30 seconds...
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Click to collapse
I like to have my screen on while at work. It would be easy to just turn it off ...I'm hoping for another workaround. I thought these screens were supposed to pull less power.

Grillrd said:
I like to have my screen on while at work. It would be easy to just turn it off ...I'm hoping for another workaround. I thought these screens were supposed to pull less power.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I does pull less power but having it on all the time while at work will still drain your battery pretty quickly and why want you have this on all the time?

Poloasis said:
I does pull less power but having it on all the time while at work will still drain your battery pretty quickly and why want you have this on all the time?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It was more of a test to see how long it lasts with the screen on. I am a little concerned though because lets say I'm sitting in an airport or on a plane watching a movie(I travel for business). My old Droid X could get me through that. But I'm thinking that it wouldn't be an option if my battery is dieing after 2 1/2 hours with the screen on.
Coming from the droid x, kernels weren't an option so I don't know much about them. Would an enhanced kernel be able to help with this drain or am I SOL?

I'm having battery issues as well and hoping someone can help. I heard people are getting great battery life with this device, but so far mine is about the same as the thunderbolt was. My charge says its mostly the display taking up the battery life, but I've done all I can to help this. My screen time out is at 15 seconds and my brightness is at about 20%. I am running ADW EX but I wouldn't think that would cause this. Anyone have any other ideas?
Sent from my Xoom using XDA App

ghettomuffin said:
I'm having battery issues as well and hoping someone can help. I heard people are getting great battery life with this device, but so far mine is about the same as the thunderbolt was. My charge says its mostly the display taking up the battery life, but I've done all I can to help this. My screen time out is at 15 seconds and my brightness is at about 20%. I am running ADW EX but I wouldn't think that would cause this. Anyone have any other ideas?
Sent from my Xoom using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am on the same boat as you. I thought rooting my phone and freezing apps would help with my battery but it seems to be about the same.

Never worry about battery drain anymore with this thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1096167
BOOM.

yyhd said:
Never worry about battery drain anymore with this thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1096167
BOOM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol...yeah. I had an extended battery for my Droid X...but it didn't triple the size of my phone haha

The screen does use less power, but a significant amount of the power savings comes from displaying black, as black uses no power on the display, where it does for LCD displays. For me, the Display is usually responsible for 65-80% of the power drain, so your usage seems somewhat normal. Custom kernels can help with drain some, but what can be tweaked with a kernel won't help with the display draining the battery.

imnuts said:
The screen does use less power, but a significant amount of the power savings comes from displaying black, as black uses no power on the display, where it does for LCD displays. For me, the Display is usually responsible for 65-80% of the power drain, so your usage seems somewhat normal. Custom kernels can help with drain some, but what can be tweaked with a kernel won't help with the display draining the battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for the explanation. Looks like I'll be using dark wallpapers.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk

Potential Solutions?
So besides reducing screen timeout to minimum, turning off background data, and cutting off literally every single connection (wifi, BT, 3g/4g, gps, everything) except 1x for calls and texts, removing bloat, are there ANY other measures one could take to enhance the stock battery life? I find myself talking on the phone for roughly 1hr per day but I do send nearly 500 text messages daily thus my screen is on a good portion of the time. I have to charge this phone twice per day at 2.5hrs per charge, it sits near an outlet for 5 hours a day heh... In fact even though I live in a 4g area I can't really use that feature because it beast's the battery down like a ravenous monster even with ALL other services disabled, not making calls, just texting and syncing email.
Task killers:
To me the task killing programs (ATK, ATM, etc) do actually kill background tasks and sometimes even services depending on your particular settings but since they just restart automatically does it not use MORE cpu time to re-run the damn things than just leaving them in the first place?
Launchers:
I have found no significant difference whatsoever between battery life under TouchWiz and LauncherPro. If anything its worse with LP because of the nifty graphical effects.
Kernels:
I'm pretty sure I read somewhere people were experiencing better life with the v4 voodoo kernel however I've noticed no difference at all there either with regard to battery life.
Running the phone with no services and charging it twice daily seems fairly extreme, eh? The extended battery is tempting, but one thing that attracted me to this device was its slim design. I don't care if its a little thicker and all but that ext battery is a freaking monster! Forget having a case with it too, at least for now.
Thoughts, suggestions?
hok

hokulus said:
I find myself talking on the phone for roughly 1hr per day but I do send nearly 500 text messages daily thus my screen is on a good portion of the time. I have to charge this phone twice per day at 2.5hrs per charge, it sits near an outlet for 5 hours a day heh...
Thoughts, suggestions?
hok
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
500 text/day? Wow, you must be under 20 with thumbs/pointing fingers of steel! If your average text message takes 30 seconds, your screen is on and the screen/keyscan interrupts are running full bore about 4.5 hours a day just texting...when do you have time for Angry Birds?
Maybe a thin white text on black background for your screen theme? Just kidding (sort of), but I'm amazed at the talk/text times; gettin old, I guess!

imnuts said:
The screen does use less power, but a significant amount of the power savings comes from displaying black, as black uses no power on the display, where it does for LCD displays. For me, the Display is usually responsible for 65-80% of the power drain, so your usage seems somewhat normal. Custom kernels can help with drain some, but what can be tweaked with a kernel won't help with the display draining the battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Seems like this explains while some report great battery and others terrible times...depends on what somebody considers "normal" to "light" usage and while some consider "texting" light usage if the screen is on black text on white background the whole day, there goes the battery stats. Same with screen on sitting doing nothing (maybe displaying time)...
Should "Battery Life" be normalized or adjusted something similar to "Time Between Charges" divided by ("Time Screen Display is On" times "percent White pixel counts")? Are there any battery stats / device stats / display stats that can help figuring out a "Battery Life Index"?
Sorry for the random thoughts....

rmanaka said:
500 text/day? Wow, you must be under 20 with thumbs/pointing fingers of steel! If your average text message takes 30 seconds, your screen is on and the screen/keyscan interrupts are running full bore about 4.5 hours a day just texting...when do you have time for Angry Birds?
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Click to collapse
Actually I've been keeping track and the screen is on 3-4 hours per day, plus the haptic feedback, interrupts, etc. Doesn't take me anywhere near 30s to send a text message, few seconds TOPS for most of them and I never said it was light usage haha. Just asked if anyone knows of other measures I did not list which I may employ to extend it more.
hok

The vooodoo kernel will help a bit as it uses a much more optimized file system so your phone will spend less time cache thrashing and reading/writing large downloads.
Essentially though it is down to how long your screen is on and how many accounts you have syncing in the background, also if you don't need full 1ghz for texting/calling smoothly then use setcpu with an ondemand or interactive type scheduler and set the max to like 700-800mhz...

rmanaka said:
Seems like this explains while some report great battery and others terrible times...depends on what somebody considers "normal" to "light" usage and while some consider "texting" light usage if the screen is on black text on white background the whole day, there goes the battery stats. Same with screen on sitting doing nothing (maybe displaying time)...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This....
BUT i will say that the battery life on this phone takes a great big dump on the TB`s battery, now thats a bad battery life, i would consider myslef a heavy user i make around and receive around 100 calls a day, around 100 emails and around 75-125 texts per 8 hour working day
i can get through my day putting my charge on charge ONCE for around 30 mins, my thunderbolt had to be plugged in most times, 2-3 hours max for total battery death ( 3 hours is extreme generous, was more like 2 hours ), i carried 3 batteries with my thunderbolt.
The charge for me is great, on a par with my old galaxy S for battery life, if only they coukd give me iPhone battery life, for as much as people dont like the iPhone, it sure does sip the juice
Myphone ie ed2 stock, no rooted.....YET im waiting for a stable CWM

[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.

Mythical 4 hour limit on screen display

I've heard in multiple ROM threads that you basically can only get four hours of screen display out of the captivate battery. The concept is that the screen is the single largest drain on our battery. I'm not sure that's the case, as the following screen caps show.
The first pair was run a couple days ago (wifi and data off). I charged the captivate to full, and turned the screen on permanently, set the screen filter program to 25% (darkens the screen - supposedly saves battery), ran "Desk Home", and went to sleep. I woke up, and the battery still was not drained. In the end, I was able to minimize usage until 11am or so, and took screen shots before the battery drained completely, and ended with over 12 hours of screen display on 80% of the battery (and some trivial usage).
To see if it was the screen filter program was the cause, I repeated this last night. This time, I didn't run desk home, but just turned the lit up phone upside down. Again, there was still significant battery when I woke up. I had to turn the screen off at 9am (as I was going to be away from the phone), and checked back and screen captured at 11am again. In the undimmed (but lowest brightness setting), I got 9 1/2 hours of display usage on somewhat less than 80% of the battery.
Conclusions I draw are that the screen filter program does extend the life of the battery a small amount - say, 7% per hour vs. 8% per hour with no external dimming program. In the past, I've had similar results playing games or reading ebooks (about 8-10% per hour usage). But it seems obvious that 4 hours of indoor (lowest brightness) screen display on my captivate should only be using a third of the power. Where is the rest going, and why doesn't the battery usage display show what is really drawing down the power?
I have my theories - all related to the modem functions: connecting to the data network, connecting to wifi, and connecting to cell phone towers. Perhaps when I have time to move some massive file across a good wifi connection, I'll see what kind of battery drainage that gives me.
This is on Continuum 6 RC1 with the JVQ modem and talon 0.3.1 - 1400, for reference.

Huh ? who comes up with stupid myths or why would you even believe that when review sites like gsmarena did a review and they tested media playback they got 7:25 hours of media playback with screen at 50%.
Alot of things can drain battery radio , cpu , screen.

Ya I have to agree. It is meaningless when like you did you turned brightness down l left screen on doing nothing. It in no way tests actual usage
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

The 4 hour limit is one I've hit on ever rom since 2.1. It is not based on the phone/cpu sitting idle. It's based on actual usage (browsing the internet, playing games, texting, etc.). When you are actually using it the cpu clock ramps up and that along with the display being on is what eats the battery.

ghost77 said:
Huh ? who comes up with stupid myths or why would you even believe that when review sites like gsmarena did a review and they tested media playback they got 7:25 hours of media playback with screen at 50%.
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Criminy. First of all, the "four hour limit" is mentioned in multiple ROM threads, as well as by nybmx in the post above. So I'm surprised that you are inferring this is new to you.
And if you try a little reading comprehension, you'll see that I specifically tested this out because I didn't believe it.
I hadn't heard of a 7 hour test. I've heard of some roms lasting 5 hours or so, running a single task. Which, in theory, could be consistent with a "four hour display life" and a days worth of other stuff - random calls, messages, etc.
Alot of things can drain battery radio , cpu , screen.
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Click to collapse
Which, coincidentally, is how the conclusion I came up with at the end of my post. Except for the CPU. In normal phone usage (for me at least), the CPU isn't under constant strain. Does anyone have actual data about what the CPU is doing under typical tasks, like talking on the phone or listening to music? I have looked at CPU usage with the GPS test program in Froyo, and the cpu usage was always at 100 and 200 Mhz (i.e. not topped out at 1 Ghz, or more if OC'd).

crystalhand said:
Ya I have to agree. It is meaningless when like you did you turned brightness down l left screen on doing nothing. It in no way tests actual usage
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Click to collapse
It's called the scientific method. You test each variable separately. If you know how much power the display draws per hour of use, and how much the phone draws, and how much wifi draws, etc. you should be able to figure out what kind of use you will get in any scenario.
Do you know how much battery is used when GPS tracking alone? If you don't, then you won't know if you can track constantly during a 6 hour hike or whether that will drain the whole battery. I do, because I've tested it separately. If you gave me a scenario where you said I would track GPS while listening to music, and checking my position occasionally (say an hour of screen time) over the course of four hours, I'd be able to give you a pretty good idea of what my remaining battery will be, because I've tested those variables multiple times. On my phone, that scenario would drain the phone about 64%. [I imagine I'd give it a plus or minus of 8%].
For my money, that's "actual usage". If you are trying to figure out battery drain without controlling conditions, you'll never have accurate information.

nybmx said:
The 4 hour limit is one I've hit on ever rom since 2.1. It is not based on the phone/cpu sitting idle. It's based on actual usage (browsing the internet, playing games, texting, etc.). When you are actually using it the cpu clock ramps up and that along with the display being on is what eats the battery.
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Click to collapse
First of all, thanks for confirming to ghost77 that such a limit is "known".
Reread my post. I think it's clear that I'm not saying that I think the 4-hour limit is based on an idle phone. The point I hope I'm making (explicitly in the 3rd to last paragraph) is that, even though "the cpu clock ramps up" and is used in whatever program you are using, the battery monitor is reporting that it is the display that is using the battery. It does not seem to credit the program (messaging, phone, internet, game, etc.) with the boost in CPU needed to do whatever you are doing.
After all, if we can all agree that the display uses 8-10% of the battery per hour, then having the display on while idle or when displaying a web page shouldn't make a difference to how much energy the display is using. In reality, if your phone is good for 5 hours of surfing, it's not the shiny display that has drained your battery, it is the transfer of data and rendering of the data as you manipulate the pages - all usages that should be credited to your internet program, not your display.
And if I've got you to agree that far, then it's a short step to reiterate what we've both said - it's the actual usage on the phone, not the display time, because the phones are more than capable of more than four hours of display. In which case, the four hour display limit is really unrelated to the display, but is a proxy for how much time you've spent using your phone for other stuff.
And then we can agree that you can get maybe eight hours of doing something simple like using a book reader program like Aldiko.
And then maybe you can see why I called the four hour limit a myth.

It's not a myth... Your taking a statement out of context. And wasting a lot of white space in the process.

Soccer_Dad said:
After all, if we can all agree that the display uses 8-10% of the battery per hour, then having the display on while idle or when displaying a web page shouldn't make a difference to how much energy the display is using.
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Actually it might, depending on the colors the screen has to show.
It's a well know fact that for OLED screens showing white uses up a lot more power then any other color. Most articles even say that showing white is the one area that LCD screens end up using less. Unless the screen actually contains white OLEDs (which ours does not, but whatever comes after the SuperAMOLED+ most likely will)
A second way that color matters is that for our SuperAMOLED screens the number and size of the green OLEDs is different then the blue/red. Without the specs on them no one can say just how much electricity is being used, but it is a factor.
Also, I recall reading that red LED/OLED use the least amount of electricity then any other color (given that all other details of comparison are equal) So there may very well be a difference between a screen that is using mainly red then blue, even tho they are the same in size and number.
Since the vast majority of web sites are a white background and black text, or a similar bright screen and dark txt, they are gonna use up a good deal of power (in comparison to any showing any other screens). This is also why there are no white, light gray or other such bright themes made for our phone.

I'm pretty sure that "Screen" includes the Display, multi-touch sensors, tilt sensors, GPS, compass, and all other sensors/input devices.

Hey, this is to anyone, but i saw Soccer_dad's graphs/ battery usage, and I noticed my battery stats dont reset when i plug in to charge and unplug. Even if i reboot my phone it still keeps past charges and discharges. Right now it says my phone has been on battery for 4 Days and 7 hours, when clearly Ive been charging every night. Is this a bug?

noside12123 said:
Hey, this is to anyone, but i saw Soccer_dad's graphs/ battery usage, and I noticed my battery stats dont reset when i plug in to charge and unplug. Even if i reboot my phone it still keeps past charges and discharges. Right now it says my phone has been on battery for 4 Days and 7 hours, when clearly Ive been charging every night. Is this a bug?
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Looks like TasKilla is abusing it's launch on startup power. You should remove that app. No app should be using that much over a 4 day period unless you had it running for that long.
Yes it's a bug.

Four hours of use is not the same as four hours of screen time.
Sent from my Infuse 4G

AdamOutler said:
Looks like TasKilla is abusing it's launch on startup power. You should remove that app. No app should be using that much over a 4 day period unless you had it running for that long.
Yes it's a bug.
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sent from a piece of plastic and glass It says CPU usage is 1 hour
sent from a piece of plastic and glass

noside12123 said:
sent from a piece of plastic and glass It says CPU usage is 1 hour
sent from a piece of plastic and glass
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out of a total of 11 hours of processor usage. Just sayin... As a rule of thumb, good android software spends 99% of it's time dormant. That thing is using more processor then it should.

Is the always-on display a power hog for the U11+?

Giving that the plus isn't using OLED, won't the always on display feature be a huge power drain for it? Or the Gen6 super LCD can do local dimming and only lit up the part of the screen where the notification is?
I'm really close to pulling the trigger on this despite having an U11 already. But the new screen, larger battery, features are just too much to pass by.

So you really like that U11 don't you.
Sure why not. Just grab it. You won't regret it.

lebigmac said:
So you really like that U11 don't you.
Sure why not. Just grab it. You won't regret it.
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Click to collapse
Yeah, I think I'm just gonna go ahead and grab it. But I'm a bit curious about the ambient display/always-on that the plus has will be a problem for the battery giving its LCD screen. I know it can be turn off but I just want to get some input from any owner.

Always on display causes battery drain on an OLED panel so LCD would result in a higher drain rate

No, it's an LCD display and can't do local dimming. In a pitch black bathroom, I can see the backlight on ever so faintly but it's still on. There's an option for that to turn on only when you move the phone which uses a lot less battery, but from the short tests I did earlier the always on display does drain battery noticeably faster.

I measured this for about 6 hours. Although the screen on HTC U11+ is very dark, it still drains battery. The rate is 2% per hour. The phone was idle during those 5-6 hours. I think its not worth it.
The mode I want is "Turn the dimly lit display on when notifications arrive, and keep turning it on every 5 minutes until notifications are acknowledged". Why can't HTC do when LOS can do it?

devsk said:
I measured this for about 6 hours. Although the screen on HTC U11+ is very dark, it still drains battery. The rate is 2% per hour. The phone was idle during those 5-6 hours. I think its not worth it.
The mode I want is "Turn the dimly lit display on when notifications arrive, and keep turning it on every 5 minutes until notifications are acknowledged". Why can't HTC do when LOS can do it?
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Click to collapse
Somehow i agree with it. After being on Android for almost 5 years with note 2 and Samsung S6 and now moving in to Iphone 8. IOS is just brilliant at standby times. My s6 was horrid in the last few months with battery and i wouldnt dare to step out with anything less than 90% and at times even 100% . So with 4G on all the time and if used the phone for 1 hour including playing lot of pictures and all i knew the battery wont last me more than 4-5 hours. It was a pain to go out with anything at 60-70% battery. However with iphone i can actually go out with 50% and still feel that i can last through 6-7 hours or even more with phone being used for 1 hour or more. I know IOS is restricted but somehow that just works for it. Wish Android could fix it.

Hemant said:
Somehow i agree with it. After being on Android for almost 5 years with note 2 and Samsung S6 and now moving in to Iphone 8. IOS is just brilliant at standby times. My s6 was horrid in the last few months with battery and i wouldnt dare to step out with anything less than 90% and at times even 100% . So with 4G on all the time and if used the phone for 1 hour including playing lot of pictures and all i knew the battery wont last me more than 4-5 hours. It was a pain to go out with anything at 60-70% battery. However with iphone i can actually go out with 50% and still feel that i can last through 6-7 hours or even more with phone being used for 1 hour or more. I know IOS is restricted but somehow that just works for it. Wish Android could fix it.
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That's not a rule, the s6 is known to have ****ty battery.
Android got good with the standby battery, don't judge the whole android system just by using samsung devices.

adsubzero said:
That's not a rule, the s6 is known to have ****ty battery.
Android got good with the standby battery, don't judge the whole android system just by using samsung devices.
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yep
saying that, my iphone 7 had mediocre battery life

Galactus said:
yep
saying that, my iphone 7 had mediocre battery life
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I'm guessing this guy isn't quite up to date, haha.
The battery drain tests all give the newest iPhones as the loser.

adsubzero said:
I'm guessing this guy isn't quite up to date, haha.
The battery drain tests all give the newest iPhones as the loser.
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Click to collapse
Lol maybe.
In the past year I have had an S8, iPhone 7, S7 Edge, OP3T, U11, Nokia 5 (budget phone) and every single on lasted longer than the iPhone lol

I've just noticed after the recent update, maybe it was there from the beginning, that this device has a lot of light bleed around the sides when using always-on feature. However I believe that any light bleeding is a hardware thing not a software thing.
This could be a reason why it drains the battery so much.