I've read in a bunch of other threads that people are getting awesome battery life out of their Z or G2. Mine is okay-ish. I had a hero before which seemed a bit better. there are a couple of odd things I thought I'd check tho...
First, the keyboard backlight turns on and off at seemingly random intervals while open. Anyone else got this?
Also I've seen screenshots of the battery use screen showing how much power is used by each system. The screen always is at least 75% on mine, even when its been sat in a pouch most of the time with just a couple of messages or a phone call- this seems quite different to other peoples experience.
Is there any reliable way of benchmarking the battery to check? If not, does anyone fancy helping me test?
im actually suffering from the same problem,
i thaught it was because the first week i was using it lots thats why the battery wasnt lasting long, but on monday morning with a full charge ,
only with a few calls , texts and checking train times on TFL , by the time i got to sleep that night the battery was on 30%
I was shocked , checked the battery useage meter , everything was below 5% except the screen which was was on a shocking 80%
I Then formatted the phone , restored to default , removed everything ,
set the brightness to lowest useable which was just above the 'o' on 'ok' in the brightness screen let it charge to 100% for use on tuesday.
Tuesday - Morn before i left for work it was on 100% , the only thing i had setup on it was email, brightness on low - but useable .
Screen must have been on onliy for 20 mins throughout the day
Got home , battery was on 45%
battery useage - again display was taking over 70% of it when it was hardly on .
I am RMA'ing this one tommorow
I think its an issue internally with something shorting on the display, battery shoudlnt be draining that much if its not on
Out of interest was yours a UK Desire Z ?
Yep. This sounds exactly like my situation in every detail. I couldn't believe reports from other people saying their batteries were at 92% after 12 hours- even without using mine at all this wouldn't happen.
Mine is a UK desire z, from play.com. I think its over 14 days so RMA might be tricky, although I know I have lots of rights thanks to distance selling regulations. Hope I can exchange without too much fuss.
Ooh, just thought of something. When I set the brightness really low on mine (below 20% or so) the screen flickers slightly. It's most visible on a totally white page. Does yours do the same? Faulty backlight maybe?
pizza65 said:
When I set the brightness really low on mine (below 20% or so) the screen flickers slightly. It's most visible on a totally white page. Does yours do the same? Faulty backlight maybe?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just tested mine, definitely no flicker.
Now my experience with the battery....
I play about half hour - an hour of games every day, plus about up to an hour wifi, using the xda app throughout the day using data, 10 - 15 txts and a few 1 - 2 min calls... Not too heavy usage.
I'm getting 30-36 hours, I'm happy....
BUT..... I have not plugged in through mains once yet. I read that charging through USB gives better performance... so far that is looking true.
I got the same kind of time out of my Hero using mains but that was with zero game time.
yes! pizza65 , i noticed the flickering too! , i thaught it was just my eye being twitchy ! Noticeable on internet browsing on low brightness! .
Mine was from handtec .. (amazon delayed too much) so changed last min,
it comes with a 2 year manufacturer waranty i think so even if you take it up with HTC direct they should be able to help if play dont.
I tried a diff radio and rom , but it made no difference.
Maybe the UK batch is still faulty , wasnt that the reason why it failed google testing and got delayed for release here?
Whats your hinge like ?
ddot what network are you on ?
same to you pizza65?
im on 02 , i dont think it is a network radio issue with switching of hspda/3g to 2g signals as it does say cell standby battery useage is around only 6% , but then again the phone could be false reporting
pizza65 said:
Is there any reliable way of benchmarking the battery to check? If not, does anyone fancy helping me test?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not really if you want realistic real-world results with data connectivity etc. It varies too much since everything counts like signal strength.
You can always just turn off everything and burn the battery with a movie but first thing you should do is a few dozen full discharges before you do anything. I've noticed that HTC (and other manufacturers too) pre-use their batteries ie. charge and recharge them until they're optimal for consumers, hence the whine about bad batteries when people buy new phones (and in reviews as well).
I'm on Orange, I don't think its network because, as you confirmed, the "battery use" screen says that the screen is draining all the power. If nobody else gets a flicker on low brightness (it can take a few seconds to see it, but once you notice it...) then it looks like our screens are the culprit. Maybe.
I've deleted batterystats.bin and fully charged, so ill give that another chance before talking to play.
Ddot, what percentage of the drain is from the screen on your z? Also, if you press 'display' in that menu it will say how long the screen has been on, what does it say?
I have the same issue with battery performace. I've moved to Desire Z from my old Desire which had AMOLED display. On my old one, the display taked 5-8% of battery. On Desire Z I have minimum 50%, but ussually ~70%.
After reading that some people can use their DZs like "for two days of heavy use (gaming, browsing)" or "5% for 6 hours" I can't understand how?
Comparing to old Desire my DZ have poor battery performance. But the specs tells it must be much better.
I'll publish my battery usage stats after some days. Maybe it'll be useful.
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA App
In additional.
I have stock Sense ROM with root and S-Off. No overclocking kernel. My SetCPU profile is set for 245 MHz when screen is off.
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA App
Interesting read...desire users, amoled etc. cynogen mod, 2.2 android:
http://code.google.com/p/cyanogenmod/issues/detail?id=2012
Another snippet:
http://www.goodandevo.net/2010/08/h...ry-and-possibly-double-your-battery-life.html
a variation:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=6796078&postcount=1
i'm in similar shoes like you guys. i'll try these.
I'm using SetCPU 245MHz idle, stock Z rom.
tbalden said:
Interesting read...desire users, amoled etc. cynogen mod, 2.2 android:
http://code.google.com/p/cyanogenmod/issues/detail?id=2012
Another snippet:
http://www.goodandevo.net/2010/08/h...ry-and-possibly-double-your-battery-life.html
a variation:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=6796078&postcount=1
i'm in similar shoes like you guys. i'll try these.
I'm using SetCPU 245MHz idle, stock Z rom.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Very interesting, thanks for sharing
And a really "geek" method here quoted from cyanogenmod issue:
Comment 27 by david.j.erickson, Aug 19, 2010
Now, I was still having abnormal drain on my battery. As suggested in the Wiki and also confirmed in another cyanogenmod post, clearing the battery stats can help. I followed this procedure:
Fully charge the battery, says Full and 100% under Settings - About phone - Status.
Reboot into recovery, wiped battery stats. Phone still plugged in at this point.
Reboot into rom, checked to make sure battery was still Full and 100%.
Unplugged phone.
Killed it, used Maps on Wifi and messing around. Killed it in about 3 hours or so.
Tried turning it on a couple times to make sure it was *dead* dead. It still tried to boot, but couldn't complete without shutting off.
Plugged phone in, booted it up. It may be better to not turn it on until it is fully charged, but this is just what I did.
Let it charge overnight, next morning took it off charger since it was full.
I have noticed pretty good battery life since doing this. This morning on my bus ride in I pretty much constantly played some Storm8 games and used Listen with Bluetooth, was only down to about 82 or 84%, can't remember. This is on par with previous CM release for me.
Not sure why this rom in particular had so much worse battery drain out of the gate, and not just for me. Fortunately it seems correctable. Maybe if a few of you could give this a try and see if it improves your battery performance we could conclusively say battery calibration is the solution.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What about the flicker? Can anyone confirm that?
I have a UK (read: QWERTY) Desire Z, first batch.
I tried reprodocuing the flicker by lowering the brightness completely and looking at a blank white page in the internet browser. Couldn't see it. Maybe I wasn't looking hard enough.
That said, I'm not getting the great battery life that most seem to be getting, and the stats always show the Display as being the number one drain. HOWEVER, it doesn't seem quite as bad as you guys are saying.
Right now, it looks like this:
Unplugged for 18 hours and 16 minutes, battery at 36%
Display accounts for 41% of the drain
It has been on for 50 minutes.
(stock ROM, running an IM client 24/7, synced to three email addresses... Typoclock seems to use 2% of the battery every time as well, which seems relatively high for such an innocuous little widget)
Yeah. I have some slight flickering too, slight when low light set.
Uk stock.
I dont think high display percent is an issue too much reading cyanogen issue comments.if you use nothing but low cpu burden apps, display should eat most.
Also if i have it off, power is eaten by cell standby.
Im still hoping for a settled battery log mentioned in forums.
My 2 cents:
If I "use" the phone, I have to plugin it every night.
If I do not "use" it (nobody calls that day, no browsing or GPS (Just work!)), I plugin it every two day (ex. mon - wed - fri).
The display is always 65-80 % of the "drain problem".
Today the stats are:
7.30 am: full chargerd 100%
7.30 pm: display drains: 70% in 1h : 21m - battery at 20%
I leave automatic background gmail sync on (only daylight, I use the "Flight mode" overnight)
No bluetooth, no wifi, no gps, brightness 35-40%
lordevol said:
I leave automatic background gmail sync on (only daylight, I use the "Flight mode" overnight)
No bluetooth, no wifi, no gps, brightness 35-40%
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Click to collapse
No phone either.
I'm on a North American Desire Z and I see the display using 70%-80% of the battery when I have the display on for approximately two hours out of the day. I keep my display quite dim too, at 20% brightness.
I'm also running everything stock. No root, no custom ROMs, no anything.
Isnt display percentage actually the display driver cpu time eaten?its just a theoretical value isnt it, not watts gone? It seems obvious that its eating a lot as it refreshes all the time regardless of display light level.
My screen on is only 33% today, im sure its usually higher though. Maybe its due to me flashing stuff all day. Ill do a full charge tonight and report back Sunday.
...bought from e2save, a part of carphone warehouse.
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA App
Hey guys am I the only one who is getting extreme battery drain when listining to music and using the phone for anything else at the same time. I use battery monitor widget and i see the drain going into the 600's which is crazy high.
Just to make it clear, data is on bluetooth and wifi off screen on auto brightness and signal is 3-4 bars ie ok .
The phone bottom gets very hot and the battery percentage drops like a falling rock. Is something wrong with my phone or does anyone else see that kind of thing?
I am new to the SG3 and also wondering if its something specific to samsung phones as i never had issues like that with my HTC yes the battery would drain faster with music on but nothing like it is now.
docnas said:
Hey guys am I the only one who is getting extreme battery drain when listining to music and using the phone for anything else at the same time. I use battery monitor widget and i see the drain going into the 600's which is crazy high.
Just to make it clear, data is on bluetooth and wifi off screen on auto brightness and signal is 3-4 bars ie ok .
The phone bottom gets very hot and the battery percentage drops like a falling rock. Is something wrong with my phone or does anyone else see that kind of thing?
I am new to the SG3 and also wondering if its something specific to samsung phones as i never had issues like that with my HTC yes the battery would drain faster with music on but nothing like it is now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Where is your music coming from? Is your data connection 3G or 4G?
If you are streaming music (Pandora, Spotify, etc.) on 3G/4G, especially if you are driving, your phone will become warm and it will drain your battery. 3G is especially prone to this since it isn't very efficient for data transfer (meaning the phone has to work harder to send/receive data). Additionally, if your screen is on for most of the time you are streaming music, it will cause even more drain.
Different functions of the phone will drain the battery differently. The screen can drain the battery pretty fast, so if you are looking for good battery life, it should be off as much as possible. From my testing, 3G data transfer is pretty harsh on the battery, even more so if the signal is weak (1X can be even harder on the battery than 3G).
Hope this helps!
First of all thanks for the quick reply.
That being said sorry i didnt clarify data is 3g (LTE is turned off as its not available in my area) but my music is stored on my sdcard. and im sitting in a chair in a doctors office so no movement and data is just on as i have my email being pushed to my phone .
As for the reason why im saying its the music playing thats causing the drain is that sitting in the same place doing the same things with my phone (ie reading a book) it doenst even drain a quarter as bad as when doing the same exact thing but just plugging in headphones and listining to music saved on the SDcard. so with the only diefference being that I feel i can justifiably point a finger at it as the culprit.
Hmm...that is strange. I haven't listened to much music from my SD card, honestly. I agree that reading a book should train more battery than listening to music from the SD card (using headphones with the screen off). Maybe the decoding of the files themselves is causing a high amount of CPU use, hence the battery drain?
I would recommend downloading GSam Battery monitor as it will give better battery stats. This might help shed some light on the issue. Meanwhile, I will have to play around on my phone.
thanks for the recommendation i was looking for a program like thatg but didnt know any names. Please see what happens when you play music and tell me what your experience is so i can know if its just me or is it a common occurence.
I keep my music on my card as well. I don't find terrible drain unless I'm boosting the sound for any reason. It will drain slightly faster than just doing normal activities but not super severe.
what do you mean by " boosting your sound" ? do you mean the equalizer?
Idk I haven't had this probable with my GSIII.
same problem in my HD desire
Hi docnas,
I'm searching for this problem time ago in HTC HD desire forums but I'm not finding anything. I know this post is a little bit old but, did you find out how to fix this problem? Today, listening to music from my SD card + whatsapp the battery drains 30% in 10 minutes.
thanks guys!
I got a good deal on an open box WiFI only Galaxy Tab S 10.5 at Best Buy. I've been trying to put it through it's paces to make sure there wasn't a good reason it was an open box unit. So far all is well, but I can't tell if I'm getting a shorter battery life than I should. I read reviews with people talking about 8 - 10 hours of local video, but it's so hard to know what else they did since they don't detail exactly what they did very often (brightness level? Video used? Airplane mode? Task killer preventing anything else from running much? etc...)
Anyway, just to get a ballpark, I charged mine to 100%, left it charging for a little while once it hit the 100%, and I've been watching Netflix on 50-70% brightness since I took it off the charger (and a brief 10 minute period when the WiFi slowed down). It looks like it's going to manage about 4 and a half hours of streaming Netflix over WiFi after a fresh system restore (so, some Gmail and Google Sync activity in the background, but nothing else extra installed).
Does that seem low or similar to what others would expect with non-stop Netflix streaming?
Well I stream on YouTube with 30 percent brightness and get around 8 hours as this tablet is really bright for me. No mods are any changes. When I tweaked the kernel settings I got 9 hours screen on time. I measured these by watching/looping a YouTube video continuously. You'll start to get more after a few charging cycles since your tablet is still new.
Unfortunately it seems like something else is up with this tablet. As soon as I install any form of battery monitoring widget or app, it starts randomly rebooting and the battery life remaining percentage jumps up after each boot. It may not be the battery monitoring app actually causing it - but it seems to only happen when one is installed (and I've tried a few).
Seems there probably IS a reason this was a returned open box unit. Oh well, guess I'll exchange it for a new one tomorrow when the supposed one year free Netflix deal starts so I can get in on that promo.
evancg said:
Unfortunately it seems like something else is up with this tablet. As soon as I install any form of battery monitoring widget or app, it starts randomly rebooting and the battery life remaining percentage jumps up after each boot. It may not be the battery monitoring app actually causing it - but it seems to only happen when one is installed (and I've tried a few).
Seems there probably IS a reason this was a returned open box unit. Oh well, guess I'll exchange it for a new one tomorrow when the supposed one year free Netflix deal starts so I can get in on that promo.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just in case anyone sees this and wonders the same thing - after returning the above mentioned open box unit and buying one new, I conducted a similar test under similar conditions (good WiFi connection streaming Netflix around 50% brightness with a recently factory restored Galaxy Tab S 10.5).
After 5 hours, I was down to about 60% battery - so clearly the open box unit had severe battery issues.
anyone noticed massive battery drain since the update, thats the number 2 battery usage app, it was never that high up he list, and i have 45% from a full charge and screen on is 45 mins, it used to be about 4 hours per charge
I' have not seen any change. I don't use Silk much so not really sure. My battery usage seems accurate. Shows my Brave Frontier with the most followed by the screen. Ill try using it today and see if it jumps to the top.
Maybe its simce i installed spotify
russy23 said:
Maybe its simce i installed spotify
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Have you noticed any changes in battery life. The issue I have now is that my says Youtube has used just about a gig of data. I rarely watch Youtube in my phone and if do its just for 1 or 2 videos and Im almost always somewhere that has wifi.
After uninstalling battery life is back to being very good