How battery does GPS really use? - EVO 4G Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Ive been wondering this for a while. Ive always assumed it was a blood thirsty beast ready ravage my soul for every ounce of life and energy within me, but i think thats only because ive only ever kept it on with google maps giving me turn by turn directions. I see almost everybody out there keeps there gps on just about all the time and now with these new kernels and the fact that i carry 2 spare batteries with me, it seems silly to have to keep toggling it off and on everytime i use a location based service.
So, when idle, i.e; not being directly polled by google maps or something of the like, does the GPS really super suck down the battery that bad? If some one can make a comparison of its battery usage to say the 3g or 4g radios i think that would be the best way to gauge it. Thank you all for your help!

GPS doesn't do that much damage to the battery. The GPS will only run when it is requested by a program. I have a golf GPS program (skydroid) and I can play a round of golf with the GPS running 100% of the time and over about 4 hours I will lose about 30-40% of my battery. Now this is also w/ the phone never sleeping and the screen probably on for about an 40-60 minutes.
I am running CM6.0 w/ 7.6CFS w/ Turbo and I have setCPU w/ profiles set up.

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First full day at work ..... poor reception and more poor battery life.

Today was my first day at work since i got my Desire on Sat. So it was the day without regular charging.
Firstly, reception was poor as compared to what i was getting with Touch Pro 2. Same network (Orange), same place, less signal bars and less 3G coverage.
Secondly, unplugged phone 7 o'clock this morning, 100% charged. All day only had time for couple of calls (10-15mins). Used internet (3G when available) for max 20-30mins. Tried couple of games for 15-20 mins and at 7 o'clock at night, the battery was 15%. This is not a heavy use by my standards. Used to do a lot more on Touch Pro2 and battery used to last 2-3days. (I know the capaciy difference btw Desire and TP2 battery but still, Desire should last atleat > 24hours)
Not sure if all these issues are related to Orange ROM/Radio. Will we (on Orange) get OTA firmware update like T-mobile, which has apparently improved their battery life? If not then ...... :-(. Not satisfied with the battery life. Shame it is such a good phone but battery life and signal strength is putting me off.
Whats the fun if you have a "superphone" in your pocket but cannot use it to its full potential due to these two isuues.
Mine was the same,
But after a weeks worth of usage, its now reasonable, IE 18 hours between charges,
Fon22
I totally agree, there are other posts telling us to turn off or reduce all sorts of settings, its ridiculous that you would have to run any phone at less than its full potential just to compensate for a poor battery.
Sure you could buy a second battery but if that was necessary then they should put two in the box
If you leave gps on then you are asking for trouble, a lesser extent wifi. Having a toggle on off isn't such a hardship though. Poor signal hammers the battery too.
I easily last the working day (7-7) with an hour of music and 2 hours surfing and a smattering of calls and texts.
lukeyboymac said:
If you leave gps on then you are asking for trouble, a lesser extent wifi. Having a toggle on off isn't such a hardship though. Poor signal hammers the battery too.
I easily last the working day (7-7) with an hour of music and 2 hours surfing and a smattering of calls and texts.
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Click to collapse
Come on guys, if you have a laptop, and you turn on bluetooth, wi-fi, play some games etc, it WILL run the battery down faster. It's just common sense. Just because this phone does heaps of things, dosn't mean it will last forever. As phones get more features, they are getting worse battery life - in general. And android is a data centric device, I would get used to it, or simply turn off some synching features if you need to get through more than half a day. Or perhaps get a spare battery etc.
Just out of curiosity did you have your previous phone to constantly sync throughout the day for time, email, google account, marketplace updates, location, weather using gps, 3g, hsdpa, accelerometer etc? Remember some of these connect are activated every 5 mins or so. Will make it worse if you have poor reception. COMMON SENSE PPL!
My issue is that even after the T-Mobile update, last night I charged phone on this time and it would only get to 98% again. Then drop down quickly.
If I charge it off, It seems to be ok (although I will test this again.)
Frustrating.
My battery life is woeful (TMo uk, updated firmware). I've been trying to figure it out using Juice Plotter to record power usage. Basically, whatever I'm doing, if it's on the battery falls off a cliff - I'd say 10% per 30m and my first impression is that it makes little difference whether networking is enabled or not. This makes little sense to me, I've always found in the past that 3G is just about the most power intensive activity on the smartphone, but it's consistent with some experiences I had flashing roms on my Blackstone - some of them would just run the battery down, others would go for ages. One hypothesis is that when a phone is in that kind of "sick" power state, the drain is not really related to which facilities you're using, but something deeper - perhaps the CPU is running full throttle all the time, or something else. I have no idea what's going on right now but I know I have an unusable phone which lasts half the time my Blackstone did with heavier use. I think many others have the same problem and I wonder if there's a bad batch. Bad news if so as we'd have trouble proving it and getting exchanges.
My next step I think will be to hard reset and run it in a very basic mode for a while, maybe some of the apps are causing it.
I'm also finding out that battery life improves dramatically after the 5th 6th charge. When I first got my Desire I could barely make it through the day, after properly charging and letting it discharge all the way to 10-15% now I get 18-20h of battery life with wi-fi on non stop (but with the setting to to turn itself off after 15mins of inactivity).
I was very worried about this when I first got the phone, but now it's starting to be better and better at battery life. I know my demands from a smartphone when I buy it and if a phone get's me through the day I'm OK with that, plus I have chargers at home, in my car, at work, so it's not a problem
I've got one of the very first batch of T-mobile Desires that were shipped on 26th March. It has been updated with the T-mobile 1.15.110.11 patch.
I last charged it on Saturday afternoon. I've only had to start charging it again this morning Tuesday. I've been making a few calls, probably 10-15 minutes total. A few texts. Browsing with G and 3G, maybe a few of hours worth in total. Little bit of Bluetoothing, though that's only a couple of minutes worth. I've had it down the pub a few hours where the T-mobile signal isn't brilliant, so it will have been doing a little "shouting" to find and communicate with the nearest T-mobile mast.
But that means it's lasted a good 66 hours admittedly with fairly moderate use. GPS, Wifi and Bluetooth are turned off unless needed. And it's not regularly Syncing with Facebook, Twitter and all that stuff. The only regular syncing is the weather.
Not sure if these are bugs with some hardware/software or standard functionality with your usages. I'm getting excellent battery life with my usage patterns/settings and far happier with this than with any of my previous devices, since this adds an exorbitant amount of power-draining functionality and flexibility over them too.
- Heaviest use is netting 28-33 hours.
- Typical use is getting minimum 3-3.5 days.
- Light use (also the norm for me me) lasted 5.5-6 days.
- Basic inconsistent call/message/email/net/stocks/news/stop watch/GPS/ compass/notepad/office/weather/ vid/pic/audio throughout the day kept the battery at 84% after 24 hours. 3G off, using WiFi. I don't keep any but the needy apps/settings running BTW.
- Charges to 100% always and stays up there consistently as expected.
However there is a pertinent aspect yet unmentioned;
Biggest difference between my usage and the typical internet crowd is that I don't use or bother with "social networking" (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc) or its likes nor do I play any games on this (hence sync with such apps is off and any updates are set to manual). However rss feeds, e-mail and IMs with close ones I do use during the day when I have spare minutes.
Sent from my HTC Desire using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk
I've got one of the very first batch of T-mobile Desires that were shipped on 26th March. It has been updated with the T-mobile 1.15.110.11 patch.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same situation as mine there.
Sent from my HTC Desire using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk
I'm deffo leaning now that there are faulty batteries out there causing the problem. I can get good life if I can get the battery to charge properly. but when it doesn't battery lasts hardly half a day. I don't use any apps that require automatic updates (all manual or off). But net on drains it very quickly (if I leave data on). Faulty Batteries I feel.
My Desire has a better ability to hang on to a weak signal than my other phones. I am on T-mobile. Battery life is adeqaute, in that, I can get through a day of use before a charge is needed. Will switch-off GPS and see what happens -I never had GPS on all the time on my other Smartphones.
Coming from a G1 that could barely make it through the day on standby this phone seems pretty good.
I got mine last friday it has just come off of it's third charge. I charged it for 3 hours when I got it, ran it right down >10% then left to charge up fully again.
I installed JuiceDefender and bought the UltimateJuice upgrade as soon as I got the phone.
Day 2 (with JuiceDefender) - battery lasted 13h27m, thats with WiFi, phone calls, MMS, 3g, internet browsing/showing it off to mates in the pub and then listening to an album on spotify in the car.
Considering this is a new battery and it still needs several charges before it is working at full capacity, I think that is pretty good for a smart phone! It can only get better, right?
JuiceDefender - I can't recommend this app enough, I don't want to mess about with Task Killers (that don't really save battery), I don't want to stop stuff syncing (because thats the whole point of this phone) but I want to optimize my battery life to get me through the day and this app does it so well!
I've currently got it setup to turn 2g/3g off when in standby but set to turn data back on every 5mins for 30s to allow apps to sync. You can specify a longer interval which will obviously save more battery over the course of a day. The phone connects back to a 2/3g connection so quick when you bring it out of standby so your not waiting around to get back online.
Switch on WiFi at known locations - I have this setup because at home, 3g signal is a bit patchy and it probably uses more battery constantly trying to get a 3g signal all the time, than it does if it is just connected to WiFi.
Turn data off between 2am-8am while I am sleeping.
Turn data off when battery is below 15% - with my G1 it would hit 15% just as I'd be heading home on the train in the evening, so I'd turn data off just so I could send a few texts or so I had just enough battery to make a call. So I figured I might as well use that last 15% battery for basic phone operation and give me enough battery to get home! I probably don't need this with the Desire though.
Any one else using JuiceDefender?
th3 said:
Not sure if these are bugs with some hardware/software or standard functionality with your usages. I'm getting excellent battery life with my usage patterns/settings and far happier with this than with any of my previous devices, since this adds an exorbitant amount of power-draining functionality and flexibility over them too.
- Heaviest use is netting 28-33 hours.
- Typical use is getting minimum 3-3.5 days.
- Light use (also the norm for me me) lasted 5.5-6 days.
- Basic inconsistent call/message/email/net/stocks/news/stop watch/GPS/ compass/notepad/office/weather/ vid/pic/audio throughout the day kept the battery at 84% after 24 hours. 3G off, using WiFi. I don't keep any but the needy apps/settings running BTW.
- Charges to 100% always and stays up there consistently as expected.
However there is a pertinent aspect yet unmentioned;
Biggest difference between my usage and the typical internet crowd is that I don't use or bother with "social networking" (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc) or its likes nor do I play any games on this (hence sync with such apps is off and any updates are set to manual). However rss feeds, e-mail and IMs with close ones I do use during the day when I have spare minutes.
Sent from my HTC Desire using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk
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WOW, can I have your battery please ...
What did u do to get this powerhouse. Was it weaker in the begining and got better with charges or was it like this from the begining?
I dont use GPS at all. Only for navigation, when in car and then it is on charge. Normal day.. no gps, no auto data connection - do it manually when internet connecttion is neede. But battery doesn't last a day, merely 12-14 hours. Charged 3 times yet, only 3 days old Desire.
I cant find juice defender in the market?
When I first got my Hero I remember my battery life being terrible, most of it was down to fiddling all the time, however over time my usage changed and the battery had been charged a lot the life was a lot better. Also there were a number of radio upgrades installed, which probably helped.
Since I've got my Desire, the "desire" to fiddle hasn't stopped and I feel as if I'm in the same situation as I was with the Hero.
My opinion is that over time the battery life will be better, as with the Hero.
callummc said:
I cant find juice defender in the market?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes both Ultimate Juice and Juice Defender are in the Market.
Juice defender was missing for me a couple of hours ago. But actually, when I installed it thinkgs started to go wrong for me. May be a coincidence, or may be a conflict with some other sw.
Following shocking power drain, I have hard reset, and left it with nothing syncing and all networking disabled. As you'd expect, battery level is barely falling in standby. Now to start adding things back in and see what efects it has. First step is to spend 30 mins browsing over 3g, previously this would take out 10% of my battery.
Ramedge said:
Yes both Ultimate Juice and Juice Defender are in the Market.
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Click to collapse
It's not there for me either currently, neither is mybackup pro... :/

[Q] EXTREMELY horrible battery life

I've read on many reviews (Gizmodo, Engadget, CNet, etc) that the battery on the DInc is not that great, but mine is incredibly... bad. Examples:
I browse the web (mostly mobile websites with not many images, flash etc) for ~20 mins and battery life decreases by 20%
I leave the phone ON overnight without charging and it's at 2% in the morning. When I went to sleep it was at 60%
I turn the phone OFF overnight without charging and it dies (I couldn't turn it on, had to charge for 15 mins even to turn on). When I went to sleep it was at 30%
I've also heard both that ATK is useless and that it's a gift from God for battery life. I'm running the Pro version killing every 30min and it's not helping that much (maybe 30 mins)
Is my battery defective, or are other users also experiencing this bad of battery life? My DInc is SLCD, running UberZ RC1.2 with stock battery.
Im guessing you havent had your incredible for more than five months right? Considering htc didnt start making them until the late summer. Anyways I do know that desire z ports often use up quite a bit of battery in their displays. However considering you left it on overnight and it was nearly dead I dont think it was that. Something you can try is going in the advanced menu on clockwork mod and erasing battery stats. This seems more like a defective battery though. New batteries can be bought for fairly cheap and if you do decide to get a new one you can get them for pretty cheap. Touchpro 2 batteries supposedly work with the incredible as well
Make sure you turn off GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, etc. when not in use.
kaiserII101 said:
Im guessing you havent had your incredible for more than five months right? Considering htc didnt start making them until the late summer. Anyways I do know that desire z ports often use up quite a bit of battery in their displays. However considering you left it on overnight and it was nearly dead I dont think it was that. Something you can try is going in the advanced menu on clockwork mod and erasing battery stats. This seems more like a defective battery though. New batteries can be bought for fairly cheap and if you do decide to get a new one you can get them for pretty cheap. Touchpro 2 batteries supposedly work with the incredible as well
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I've had it for about a month. I will reply after erasing battery stats and trying it out. I'm not sure that I would use a Touch Pro 2 battery - seems like too much of a risk. However, I have seen Evo Batteries on Amazon that supposedly work with the Dinc. Do they?
If it helps, I use widget locker, with: extended controls, fancy widget, nexus revamped (with a lot of spawns on slow) and 3 sliders.
Keyboards said:
Make sure you turn off GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, etc. when not in use.
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Click to collapse
I have, I barely use BT or GPS so they're almost always off. I only turn GPS on when I'm charging and I'm using location based apps. 3G is off at home and Wifi is off on the road / at school and when I'm not using the phone.
What you might want to try doing is uninstalling widget locker and charging your phone all the way up. If after uninstalling widget locker the drain is still significant it may be the battery. And from what I read, the evo battery works with the incredible, it just makes the back cover fit a bit more tight.
kaiserII101 said:
What you might want to try doing is uninstalling widget locker and charging your phone all the way up. If after uninstalling widget locker the drain is still significant it may be the battery. And from what I read, the evo battery works with the incredible, it just makes the back cover fit a bit more tight.
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Click to collapse
OK, I've wiped battery stats, though it's only been a few mins so I can't tell yet. I'll reply in a couple of days. Also, can I just disable WidgetLocker instead of uninstalling it?
I also have a silicone case that hooks on the front edges, will an Evo Innocell (with back cover) mess with that?
I dont think an evo back cover would work for the incredible as they are not the same dimensions.
And btw touchpro 2 battery will work with the incredible
http://androidforums.com/incredible-accessories/72006-fyi-touch-pro-2-battery-works-incredible.html
Heres one for $5 if youre thinking about it.
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.35632
I just moved to an Incredible from my Droid 1 and the battery life is horrible compared... I got it as a replacement for having so many issues with my Droid but the battery life is almost unusable I'm running CM 6.1 and I wiped my battery stats, drained the battery then let it charge overnight powered off and I still get really bad life... I think a lot of it may have to do with the stock 1300mAh battery compared to the Droid having 1500mAh but I'm not sure... I'm considering the 3500mAh sedio battery but $70 bucks is a bit steep atm
kaiserII101 said:
I dont think an evo back cover would work for the incredible as they are not the same dimensions.
And btw touchpro 2 battery will work with the incredible
Heres one for $5 if youre thinking about it.
Thanks for the great find, though I was thinking about maybe one of those seidio 3500's. Though since it's so cheap, I'll probably buy it
nagmier said:
I just moved to an Incredible from my Droid 1 and the battery life is horrible compared... I got it as a replacement for having so many issues with my Droid but the battery life is almost unusable I'm running CM 6.1 and I wiped my battery stats, drained the battery then let it charge overnight powered off and I still get really bad life... I think a lot of it may have to do with the stock 1300mAh battery compared to the Droid having 1500mAh but I'm not sure... I'm considering the 3500mAh sedio battery but $70 bucks is a bit steep atm
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I've seen one on amazon for ~$25. Not seidio though. Reviews were meh.
I don't think its the 1300 mah vs 1500 mah. That's less than 20% (so like 10 hrs vs 12 hrs).
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Didnt see the part about disabling widget locker, sorry.
Yes you probably can disable it just make sure it is definitely not running.
pianoplayer said:
I've read on many reviews (Gizmodo, Engadget, CNet, etc) that the battery on the DInc is not that great, but mine is incredibly... bad. Examples:
I browse the web (mostly mobile websites with not many images, flash etc) for ~20 mins and battery life decreases by 20%
I leave the phone ON overnight without charging and it's at 2% in the morning. When I went to sleep it was at 60%
I turn the phone OFF overnight without charging and it dies (I couldn't turn it on, had to charge for 15 mins even to turn on). When I went to sleep it was at 30%
I've also heard both that ATK is useless and that it's a gift from God for battery life. I'm running the Pro version killing every 30min and it's not helping that much (maybe 30 mins)
Is my battery defective, or are other users also experiencing this bad of battery life? My DInc is SLCD, running UberZ RC1.2 with stock battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't run ATK. Android manages apps by itself. There's a whole lifehacker article on it.
Sounds like a run-away app.
Hmm, turn your screen off and let your phone sit for 5 mintues. Go into Settings > About Phone > Battery > Compare uptime vs awake. They should be AT LEAST 5 minutes apart.
If they're not, go to the market and install "Watchdog Task Manager" (<--this is NOT the same as ATK, again, lifehacker article on it) to monitor rouge apps.
Hope this helps!
gmichaelow said:
Don't run ATK. Android manages apps by itself. There's a whole lifehacker article on it.
Sounds like a run-away app.
Hmm, turn your screen off and let your phone sit for 5 mintues. Go into Settings > About Phone > Battery > Compare uptime vs awake. They should be AT LEAST 5 minutes apart.
If they're not, go to the market and install "Watchdog Task Manager" (<--this is NOT the same as ATK, again, lifehacker article on it) to monitor rouge apps.
Hope this helps!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My phone has been sitting and charging for ~2 hours, but up - awake = 5:12. Is it normal?
Great work, by the way.
There is no normal.
Up time is the elapsed time since you turned your phone on. (i.e. after the phone was completely off, not just screen off/sleep mode).
Awake time is suppose to only be the time your phone was actively being used (i.e. screen on).
So, Up time minus Awake time should equal the time your screen has been off, (i.e. asleep).
If Up time and Awake time are equal, and you've had the screen turned off (i.e. asleep) for part of that time, then you have some app that's staying active durning sleep mode.
________________________________
Unrevoked forever
SkyRaider Sense 3.5
Radio 2.15.00.11.15
rigman said:
There is no normal.
Up time is the elapsed time since you turned your phone on. (i.e. after the phone was completely off, not just screen off/sleep mode).
Awake time is suppose to only be the time your phone was actively being used (i.e. screen on).
So, Up time minus Awake time should equal the time your screen has been off, (i.e. asleep).
If Up time and Awake time are equal, and you've had the screen turned off (i.e. asleep) for part of that time, then you have some app that's staying active durning sleep mode.
________________________________
Unrevoked forever
SkyRaider Sense 3.5
Radio 2.15.00.11.15
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I might reboot when I go to sleep tonight and do nothing on the phone, then check uptime vs awake when I wake up.
1300 Mah battery is not acceptable for a phone of this caliber. There are alternative options for battery's. I use setcpu to underclock the proc and I've seen a dramatic increase in battery life.
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App
MagnaCore said:
1300 Mah battery is not acceptable for a phone of this caliber. There are alternative options for battery's. I use setcpu to underclock the proc and I've seen a dramatic increase in battery life.
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App
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Click to collapse
I've been using Setcpu as well, with 998 mhz while charging, 245 when screen off, 245-520 when hot or <20%, and 245-850 otherwise.
Agreed about the battery, HTC and VW probably want to force you to spend more on extended batteries.
Too bad, otherwise it'd be a perfect phone.
HTC usually seems to skimp on the battery. It really hurts their reviews but I suppose they can save costs and assume people can always buy an aftermarket battery. I don't agree with it but it's their business.
Anyway, that does sound like abnormally bad battery life, but I have a question - are you in a poor service area? If so, the radio might be working extra hard to acquire a signal. Even when I had my dumb phone Samsung alias (which had decent dumbphone battery life) I would experience complete battery drain if I left it in my poor coverage basement overnight.
Also, when you're browsing the web and such do you use wifi or 3g? I notice that when I continuously surf with 3g the phone starts to get warm, especially in mid-poor coverage areas. When the phone gets hot the battery gets hot, and when the battery gets hot it drains much much quicker. Of course, high power usage generates more heat so I'm inclined to believe our 3g radio consumes way more battery than our wifi radio.
Over the months I've combatted poor battery life by doing the following:
1. Purchase aftermarket batteries. I've fallen into HTC's trap. I bought an evo battery which can last me of 6-7 hours of wifi awake time and 4-5 hours of 3g awake time. I also purchased the extended 2150 battery from Verizon which I can get up to 10 hours of wifi surfing and 5-6 hours of 3g surfing. Back when I was on stock 1300 I would get 3-4 hours wifi surfing and 2-3 hours 3g surfing.
2. Install an undervolted kernel, if you're into that sorta thing. One of the main reasons I'm able to obtain the numbers above is due to my kernel which undervolts the processor. I use adrynalyne's experimental undervolted kernel and it works without a hitch. I use it in conjunction with setcpu so I can have a screen off profile which underclocks the processor to 128-384MHz while I'm not using it. The only caveat to using this kernel is you can only use the conservative CPU governor. This means lower clocked speeds will be preferred as the CPU actively scales itself, and will take longer to ramp up to the higher speeds. But we're talking about maximizing battery life so that isn't necessarily a bad thing.
3. Try to keep screen brightness down, minimize usage of other radios (Bluetooth, GPS). Sounds like you already do this though. Rogue apps have also been discussed but if awake time != uptime then that's usually not the case.
As also prevoiously mentioned, it is possible you have a defective battery and should go about getting a new one from them though I'm not sure how that process goes... someone here is bound to know though.
Sent from my Droid Incredible using the XDA app.
Div033 said:
HTC usually seems to skimp on the battery. It really hurts their reviews but I suppose they can save costs and assume people can always buy an aftermarket battery. I don't agree with it but it's their business.
Anyway, that does sound like abnormally bad battery life, but I have a question - are you in a poor service area? If so, the radio might be working extra hard to acquire a signal. Even when I had my dumb phone Samsung alias (which had decent dumbphone battery life) I would experience complete battery drain if I left it in my poor coverage basement overnight.
Also, when you're browsing the web and such do you use wifi or 3g? I notice that when I continuously surf with 3g the phone starts to get warm, especially in mid-poor coverage areas. When the phone gets hot the battery gets hot, and when the battery gets hot it drains much much quicker. Of course, high power usage generates more heat so I'm inclined to believe our 3g radio consumes way more battery than our wifi radio.
Over the months I've combatted poor battery life by doing the following:
1. Purchase aftermarket batteries. I've fallen into HTC's trap. I bought an evo battery which can last me of 6-7 hours of wifi awake time and 4-5 hours of 3g awake time. I also purchased the extended 2150 battery from Verizon which I can get up to 10 hours of wifi surfing and 5-6 hours of 3g surfing. Back when I was on stock 1300 I would get 3-4 hours wifi surfing and 2-3 hours 3g surfing.
2. Install an undervolted kernel, if you're into that sorta thing. One of the main reasons I'm able to obtain the numbers above is due to my kernel which undervolts the processor. I use adrynalyne's experimental undervolted kernel and it works without a hitch. I use it in conjunction with setcpu so I can have a screen off profile which underclocks the processor to 128-384MHz while I'm not using it. The only caveat to using this kernel is you can only use the conservative CPU governor. This means lower clocked speeds will be preferred as the CPU actively scales itself, and will take longer to ramp up to the higher speeds. But we're talking about maximizing battery life so that isn't necessarily a bad thing.
3. Try to keep screen brightness down, minimize usage of other radios (Bluetooth, GPS). Sounds like you already do this though. Rogue apps have also been discussed but if awake time != uptime then that's usually not the case.
As also prevoiously mentioned, it is possible you have a defective battery and should go about getting a new one from them though I'm not sure how that process goes... someone here is bound to know though.
Sent from my Droid Incredible using the XDA app.
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Click to collapse
My signal is 3 to 4 bars on a 4 bar meter. Can you recommend a good undervolting Sense kernel?
Temp >50c 499/245
Screen off 245/245
Charge/full 998/245
Batt { 25 460/245
Batt [ 50 998/245
Batt{ 100 998/245
All are set to ondemand except charge is perfomance. Looking at this its nothing special but I do get a good charge from this setup
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App
pianoplayer said:
My signal is 3 to 4 bars on a 4 bar meter. Can you recommend a good undervolting Sense kernel?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I definitely stand behind adrynalyne's experimental undervolted. You can find a link in the kernel thread on the android development section of this board. He makes a sense and AOSP version. I've tried some of the newer ones like Chad's but I love the longevity and stability of adrynalyne's too much to live with the switch. As aforementioned, if you decide to use setcpu, make sure to only use the conservative governer. Ondemand will cause it to freeze! Otherwise it's rock solid.
Sent from my Droid Incredible using the XDA app.

[Q] Crazy Power Consumption

Hey please don't tear my head off, Ive been looking through all the threads that I can, but haven't really found an answer.
So I got my g2 and left it stock for a couple of days and the battery did pretty good, meaning I didn't have to charge it during the day. I then rooted and flashed cm 6.1.1 stable and the battery was terrible it would drop about 1% every 5 min or worse if I was playing a game or using maps etc.
I tried switching to pershoot's cm_2632.28 012211 and it was just as bad. I then tried reverting to a back up of stock and it is still bad, I also tried RC4 and one of the nightlies, same problem. I tried wiping the battery stats with the instructions on cm's wiki, still terrible.
It is really frustrating to me and I have been looking around and it seems a lot of people are having trouble with battery life. I don't really want to buy another battery, and have tried removing anything on my phone that could use battery (widgets, apps, etc.) I also think it's odd that Cell Standby takes up the most battery.
So really what I want to know is does anyone have an idea of something for me to try? A mistake I might have made? Tip? Or am I just crazy in expecting my battery to last the day on stock?
Any help would be appreciated thanks
A lot of people who ran the cm rom seemed to have this problem I don't and I assume it only happened after cm and still occuring I think somethings wrong with cm's kernal idk but it seems like it shorts out the battery because I ran a wrong kernal on my stockrom and had terrible battery life.
Sent from George2.0 (G2)
The battery truly might be a dud... The fact that your Cell Standby consumes most of the power is probably normal because you said you stripped your phone of widgets, apps, etc.
My gf has a Wildfire and her first battery couldn't last more than a couple hours, and she's a fairly light user. She switched out the battery and now it's fine, goes for a couple days now..
I am running cm 6.1.1 oc to 1.2 I do not have this issue. Try a new battery maybe?
Which kernel are you using? And with what settings?
Kernel is toxygene #1, screen brightness auto, gps off, bluetooth off, Wifi only when I need it, "wcdma only" so I don't get any edge drop-offs, overclocked to 1.2ghz-368mhz screen on, 245mhz screen off. My battery will last 9-12 hours of normal use, that's a few calls, some txting, facebook, mp3s in the car on the drive home from work, and an hour or two of XDA. I unplug at for work at 10am, I let it die and charge from 0 every day..
Google sync every hour, weather widget sync 4 hours, facebook widget every hour. Those are all my widgets.
You should really upgrade to CM7 now. Pretty stable, and my battery life is SO MUCH BETTER. If I use my phone heavily I will lose about 30~40% during the ENTIRE DAY lol. So my battery with moderate usage will easily last 12 hours. Before I had the exact same battery life as yours.
Also, I'm using the UV kernel from pershoot.
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 running Cyanogenmod.
I'm on Virtuous v0.9.0 and I routinely get 12-15 hours a day out of my phone. That's with brightness set full, WiFi running (and usually connected), Tweetdeck, gmail, gtalk, etc all running with constant updates, etc.
If I pull it off the charger at 7a, by 7p I'm typically still around 20%, depending on how much extra use I've done (sms, voice calls, etc)
Yes, the newer version of virtuous is great on battery life and doesn't even have to be oc. I just flashed back to cm today to get everything up to date (I'm ocd like that and have to have all my ROMs current) and I too am having the cell standby issue with 70% battery after 2 hrs and light use. Just flashed the newest pershoots and letting it fully charge before I clear batt stats... will report back.
Have setcpu set to lowest with screen off and oc 1.2-346mhz
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA App
synchronization
I am using Visionary 0.9.0 and I had lousy battery life too, and have now either turned off background synchronization or at least made it very infrequent for all my apps that use it (facebook, peep/twitter, HTC Sense, HTC Hub, News, Weather, etc. etc.)
This has made a very big difference!
The biggest difference of all came from turning off synch within the HTC Sense and HTC Hub apps. These were having trouble connecting to their servers, and were constantly tying up my 3G signal causing battery drain. This change alone has almost doubled my battery life.
I recommend you check what is using wifi/3G and how much before we assign blame to kernel or ROM.
Also, I can recommend GreenPower app which turns off connectivity automatically when it's not needed, greatly extending battery life. However after a long period of using this successfuly, I have turned it off as I started having trouble "waking" my 3G connection during the day. Hopefully future updates will help with that app.
I had the same problem with my first G2 and after complaining/convincing T-Mobile it was defective, they sent me a replacement and that problem never came up again.
Alright I feel stupid but I was charging my phone with my bluetooth charger (didn't even think about it) but now I'm using the stock charger and my battery is lasting way longer. Night and day difference. I don't exactly understand why this would make such a difference in technical terms but eitherway major facepalm.

[Q] Terrible Battery Drain

Any help is appreciated...I'm at my wits end with this phone. I've been unable to make it through a day of work since I've had it.
I charged the phone from 1130 to 7 am, at that point i shut it down and did the hour charge, at 8am when I got out of bed I turned it on, let it run 2 minutes, charged it for another hour +. When I took my phone off the charger to head out the door it was 9:14AM. Its now 11:10 AM and it already shows 79% battery. I've barely used the phone. (trying the HTC tricks or just letting it hang normal both seem to make no difference really).
Spare parts reports 9m51s used without sleeping, and 9.4% used, 6.6% screen on, 0.6% phone.
Wifi, bluetooth, 3g, and sync all off since leaving the house. I've done nothing but send a few texts and listen to a voice mail.
I dont get the best reception at my current seating area, but I am able to make some calls / get service despite. Could this still be the cause? If so - is there ANYTHING I can do to alleviate that?
I have CM7 02262011 nightly, build GRH78C - on zendroid CFS. I thought zendroid would help with battery life immensely (as many reported) but I've seen almost no improvement. At this point, I'm not even making use of the smart phone features - no wifi, no playing games, no browsing the web...as soon as I fire up a game the battery plummets. EDIT to add I've had this kernel and rom for about 4 days now, and I did clear battery stats after flash. All I've read would indicate this should be enough time for it to "settle out". Is that true? END EDIT.
At this point the phone is virtually pointless to me....is the battery life that bad? I see users talking about 18-20 hours with light usage - I generally put myself in that light usage category and I cant imagine making that mark. Any suggestions?
If your "time without signal" in battery usage is really high, that'll eat your battery super fast. Really, having a low signal constantly will do the same thing. Because where I live & work never gives me more than a bar or -90 dbm, my battery goes pretty quickly too, even without a high "time without signal".
I keep 3g, Bluetooth, and GPS off almost all the time & keep wifi connected at home. I recently switched to 2.37.6.2-SavagedZen-0.1.2-CFS-HAVS-WiMAX-Froyo+. I unplugged the phone 8 hours ago (I don't like to keep in charging overnight) and it was at 98%. When I got up an hour ago, it was still at 98%. My time without signal was 73%. I've used it heavily for the past hour & it's at 95% now.
My battery life isn't great by any means, but it's better than it was. I also use CPU Boost (a free app similar to Set CPU but with less options) to undervolt. I slightly undervolt to around 700 MHz while using it lightly & set it down to about 460 with a screen off profile. Since I rarely do anything that needs the full ghz processor, this doesn't affect my phone's performance & really saves battery.
Hope this helps
Sent from my badass HTC Supersonic (Evo 4g) using XDA Premium App
It sounds like poor signal is hurting you.. your phone may be constantly searching for better signal and killing your battery. Just be sure you have no wakelocks...
Also, when you wipe battery stats.. make sure you re-calibrate your battery as well. When I wiped stats it actually did more damage than good until I re-calibrated the correct way.
Thanks...I'll try under clocking a bit and see if it has a gain...I had that disabled up to now.
I put on ZenDroid-1.1.0-cfs-avs... (about phone shows it as 2.6.35.10ZenDroid) with anywhere from -96dBm to -104dBm. Could that be the explanation?
I'll have to monitor a bit more closely at home to get a better idea of service and battery consumption.
Thanks for you input and help though.
Anyone else able to comment on their signal strength and relative battery peformance?
Rippley05 said:
It sounds like poor signal is hurting you.. your phone may be constantly searching for better signal and killing your battery. Just be sure you have no wakelocks...
Also, when you wipe battery stats.. make sure you re-calibrate your battery as well. When I wiped stats it actually did more damage than good until I re-calibrated the correct way.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could you elaborate on wakelocks? I havent heard of this before... (ill do some searching as well).
Again, could you possibly comment on re-calibrating? I was under the assumption that was letting it charge fully and drain fully after a wipe of stats. I wiped stats on a full charge, let it run down, and then charged back to the phone reporting 100%. Was that incorrect procedure??
Thanks for your input!
Have you let the battery drain and than recharge several times? Part of letting the phone "normalize" for a few days is letting the phone go through several charge and drain cycles. If you get "scared" when it hits 60% battery and plug it in, your not allowing the phone to properly calibrate your battery percentage.
Also, go into spare parts and your battery history and find out what is under "partial wake usage". That will let you know what is being used when your screen is off.
For comparison sake I'm on CM7 RC2 (same results w/ RC1 though) and savaged zen 0.1.0 CFS SBC. I have one push email account, sync always on, wireless data on when no wifi, no bluetooth, and no gps. My screen brightness is always at 25%, which is plenty bright. I also have several apps running in the background like weather update once an hour, kakao talk, gtalk, etc. With Wifi on at work (NOTE: wifi saves TONS of battery over using 3g), I unplug at 7am and at 11am I'm right around 90%. A few texts/gtalk and about 30 minutes of web browsing since unplugging. I generally leave work at 5pm with around 70% battery left. However, after I leave and start using the phone more battery does drop pretty quick. I can usually make it to 11pm, but I use the remaining 70% in those 6 hours as opposed to my "work battery" which is only 30% in about 10 hours. When you start using the phone you are going to get fast battery drop. The large screen and fast processor are the culprits of that.
Always keep in mind. You have a mini computer in your pocket. You are not going to get days of battery life like you would with a crappy flip phone. Laptops with gigantic batteries last 4-6 hours, and your phone is doing similar work on a much smaller battery. It's amazing these things can get 20-24 hours of use.
Well after poking around in spare parts at the prompting of you all, I found that my phone was without signal for something like 81% of the day. I put on airplane mode and put wifi on and i was seeing normal drain. Oddly enough, it seems my HTC Hero was able to stay connected to the network better in the same "office location" - as I didnt see that kind of drop.
Regardless, its no big to kick on airplane mode for most of the day and fire up normal service on short breaks or whatever else. So issue resolved all in all. I appreciate the assistance prompting me to look into the spare parts and its various features.
Again, with airplane mode on my numbers are MUCH more inline with that of other users. Thanks to you all!
thisperishedmin said:
Well after poking around in spare parts at the prompting of you all, I found that my phone was without signal for something like 81% of the day. I put on airplane mode and put wifi on and i was seeing normal drain. Oddly enough, it seems my HTC Hero was able to stay connected to the network better in the same "office location" - as I didnt see that kind of drop.
Regardless, its no big to kick on airplane mode for most of the day and fire up normal service on short breaks or whatever else. So issue resolved all in all. I appreciate the assistance prompting me to look into the spare parts and its various features.
Again, with airplane mode on my numbers are MUCH more inline with that of other users. Thanks to you all!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea, just gotta watch out for bad signal areas, as those are the biggest battery eaters. Some phones [of the same model even] handle areas differently than others. So if, like in your case in a bad area for extended periods of time, kick on airplane mode. Also like also said, turning off your 3G when not in use is also a big battery saver.
Rippley05 said:
It sounds like poor signal is hurting you.. your phone may be constantly searching for better signal and killing your battery. Just be sure you have no wakelocks...
Also, when you wipe battery stats.. make sure you re-calibrate your battery as well. When I wiped stats it actually did more damage than good until I re-calibrated the correct way.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ditto! I wiped stats without knowing what they did, found that it got WORSE. Then I looked up how to actually calibrate. My battery life rules now
I also found that calibrating your battery helps. I realized that if I unplug and then plug my phone back in almost immediately that it has to charge a little more to get back to 100%. If you do a search for calibrating EVO battery you'll find detailed instructions.

battery issue

I've been an owner of the Samsung galaxy s 2 since may from a nexus one which I had for two years...
Since I got this phone, noticed I've been having issues with the battery life on this phone. If I unplug from full charge at like 2pm, and use it, I wouldn't say a lot but not like not at all, the battery would be dead before midnight. That's a battery life of less than 10 hours.... that sucks...
My data is usually on most of the time considering I have 5gb and can't use it all... I tether near end of bill cycle to use it up... lol
GPS is rarely ever on... Bluetooth is only turned on when I plan to use my plantronics voyager pro bt headset
I look at my advanced task killer,, on avg of 15+ things are open, 1/2 of which I don't use or touch....
Any way to improve on the battery life without rooting/custom rom?.?
iandroo888 said:
I've been an owner of the Samsung galaxy s 2 since may from a nexus one which I had for two years...
Since I got this phone, noticed I've been having issues with the battery life on this phone. If I unplug from full charge at like 2pm, and use it, I wouldn't say a lot but not like not at all, the battery would be dead before midnight. That's a battery life of less than 10 hours.... that sucks...
My data is usually on most of the time considering I have 5gb and can't use it all... I tether near end of bill cycle to use it up... lol
GPS is rarely ever on... Bluetooth is only turned on when I plan to use my plantronics voyager pro bt headset
I look at my advanced task killer,, on avg of 15+ things are open, 1/2 of which I don't use or touch....
Any way to improve on the battery life without rooting/custom rom?.?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well i got my battery to last 17+ hours on average. Granted yes i am running a custom ROM, but you should be able to hit pretty close to that. I had to teach myself about wakelocks and installed and used a combo of GSam Battery Monitor, Better Battery Stats and a CPU Spy.
I have a drop of 5% for 3 hours last i really tracked it. Since you don't want to root....you cannot use better battery stats which shows you more in depth what is keeping your phone awake. But luckily GSam Battery Monitor can see wakelocks too, just not in depth. then use CPU spy to see how often the phone goes into deep sleep. GSam can also show you what apps (like Facebook) is constantly running.
What i noticed is you save alot of battery by putting everything on manual sync and turning Google sync off. Put phone screen brightness down to 20-40% ( don't always need it at 100%). BTW Bluetooth does kill alot of battery
Don't use task killers, 99% of everything shown is task killers are active processes, if you kill those tasks.....they will restart and waste battery trying to restart. you can only stop those from running when you are rooted.

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