Related
The S2 was a good phone for it's time and the display is still pretty nice compared to many phones available now. But the battery life is really atrocious compared to the newer devices. I was using an Alcatel OneTouch Fierce before but I put it in my pocket with my keys and shattered the screen so I pulled the S2 out of a drawer and starting using it again. I loaded a couple of custom ROMs and currently have ParanoidAndroid 4.4 RC1.
What I have noticed is that both the screen and the GPS both take a ton of battery on the S2. On the Alcatel, the screen was down usually at the bottom of the list of things using battery. On the S2 it is always at the top of the list. I have the S2 screen turned down to minimum brightness, which is fine for indoor usage, and also set the screen timeout to 15 seconds, but still the consumption issues persist.
I do a lot of fitness logging and the most I have been able to log on the S2 is around 40 miles of bike riding until the battery runs out. This is from starting with the battery in the mid 90s percentage. With the Alcatel phone I had been able to data log over 200K/125miles before running out of battery.
Saturday I was out in the sticks riding my bike. I put it in airplane mode to save battery in case I needed to call home. After the 44 mile stop at a country store, I forgot to put it back in airplane mode and by the time we went another 30 miles to the next food stop (about 2 hours) the phone had drained from 70% to 14% percent. And I wasn't even using it, it was just riding along in my pocket as I pedaled.
Even with just web surfing on 4G data or WiFi takes a lot of battery. Seems like I can play with the phone for 30 minutes and the battery goes down at least 20%.
On top of this I've also been having problems with lockups. On the first ROM I tried, Liquid Smooth, it was getting android.systemui crashes pretty often. But if I waited a while, the system would right itself and I would be able to keep on going. When I first installed PA it was doing great but now I'm getting random lockups as well. On PA the lockups require a hard boot to fix. Perhaps a hardware issue, who knows. The S2 has not been dropped and is in excellent condition, but I suppose that's neither here nor there.
If it was just the battery consumption issues, I could try an extended battery and see how that went. But in the end I decided that I was going to bite the bullet and get a new phone. I thought about a refurb S4, or Nexus 4 which were both under $300, but in the end I went with the LG G2 as it was less than $400 new from T-Mobile direct.
Farewell Galaxy S2, your days are numbered.
:crying:
My wife has a s2 t989 running cm 10.1.3 with a new anker 2200 battery. Her phone flies, zero lag. And Her battery gets her through the day. This phone is a old little beast.
Lokke9191 said:
My wife has a s2 t989 running cm 10.1.3 with a new anker 2200 battery. Her phone flies, zero lag. And Her battery gets her through the day. This phone is a old little beast.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If it wasn't for the lockups, I might have tried a new or larger battery. The battery will last all day as is if you don't ask the phone to do anything and you have good signal. The screen and the GPS use so much power on this phone though. It's just older silicon.
I agree it's still a fast phone when you use a cm10 or cm11 ROM. It's just not meeting my needs.
Sent from my SGH-T989 using XDA Free mobile app
brons2 said:
If it wasn't for the lockups, I might have tried a new or larger battery. The battery will last all day as is if you don't ask the phone to do anything and you have good signal. The screen and the GPS use so much power on this phone though. It's just older silicon.
I agree it's still a fast phone when you use a cm10 or cm11 ROM. It's just not meeting my needs.
Sent from my SGH-T989 using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Get the M8
Rushing said:
Get the M8
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
too expensive!
I ordered an LG G2 for less than $400, and signed up for the payments divided over 2 years. So I'm trading a really old phone for a 1 year old phone
Funny thing is, the S2 has not locked up once since I ordered the new phone. Haha.
I can really relate to your frustration as I have had quite a bit trouble getting great performance out of this device in the 7 months I've had it. I've went through what seems a million ROMs and have had problems with every single one. To the point I believe it was just the phone and not the ROMs. The last month was really bad when CM made a lot of changes that seemed to adversely affect this device. Then I started trying JB ROMs that were even worse than KK ever was. I've had way over 2 years experience flashing ROMs and kernels so in nearly every case I wouldn't say user error was to blame either. That said, after nearly making a coaster out of this thing, PA RC1 really has come to the rescue along with the Wild kernel. Which is why I'm a bit surprised you are not even having good luck with that. The battery drain you describe is very extreme. At the worst my battery drains 3% an hour on standby. I always have everything on, such as Wifi, GPS and high accuracy location reporting too. Not to mention Viper audio mod with super quality driver which uses a chunk of battery as well.
Overall I can typically get 20 to 24 hours on an average weekday. If I use the screen for a couple hours, listen to music, browse the web and make a call or two, more like 10 to 16 hours. At any rate things are good enough I can live with this phone for while now, provided I do myself a favor and leave well enough alone.
i've had my s2 for almost 3 year, i believe, and i know the pain in the ass it can be. the screen issue happens to me, too, and there isn't a solution, so you learn to deal with it. seems like you may have a faulty battery? i still have the stock battery and it doesn't hold up well as it used to. i run carbonrom with wildkernel (testing) and it's not too bad. but it's a dated phone in techie age.
Yea PA RC1 was the best of the ROMs that I tried on the S2. But I've moved on and am super happy with my new phone. The LG G2 is the best phone I've ever had. 3000mAh stock battery, huge screen, blazing fast LTE and I love the volume buttons on the back!
Sent from my LG-D801 using XDA Free mobile app
The T989 may be difficult to deal with but with a few customizations (new battery and rom), it'll be faster.
HeadachePuppies said:
The T989 may be difficult to deal with but with a few customizations (new battery and rom), it'll be faster.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Too late, I already have the new phone and it is way better even with the stock rom. I might update the S2 again though just for kicks when PA goes stable. It probably does need a new battery also but there's no reason to go that route when I have another phone already.
Glad to see I'm not the only one that's having battery problems. It seems as if using Apollo for music and using Messenger to talk to a friend, the battery drains really quickly. Can't wait to upgrade in the near future.
Any custom ROM that i have tried are not to good for the battery life. I think the best ROM so far for battery life is SHADOW 1.5 ROM because it is based on Stock ROM and has the Power Saver feature.
Now i am using CM 11 and loving it, the features and speed are incredible. Thanks CM Team for your great work.:good:
The T989 is one of the best phones in his time. Now is almost obsolete, we grow ups, every months there are lots of new devices, sooner or late the time will come when we will let go the T989 and have a newer one. It's like a childhood girlfriend experience. I now have the Moto G LTE version, I keep my T989 in my archived electronic things, he is simple something not to forget.
I gave my old S2 to my wife after I got my Note 3. At the time all the Jellybean ROM's for it were unstable, so I put the Jedi ROM on it. For some reason it was ridiculously slow, despite being based on the stock ICS ROM. I had figured the phone's age was just showing and didn't think much about it.
Recently my wife asked me to upgrade the ROM on her tablet to KitKat, so I figured I would do her phone as well. To my surprise, KiKat runs amazingly smooth on the S2 - especially with Wild kernel (1.89GHz overclock + sio governor). Tried both SlimKat and Carbon. It's just liquid smooth and feels totally like a new phone.
Lorien_Silmaril said:
I gave my old S2 to my wife after I got my Note 3. At the time all the Jellybean ROM's for it were unstable, so I put the Jedi ROM on it. For some reason it was ridiculously slow, despite being based on the stock ICS ROM. I had figured the phone's age was just showing and didn't think much about it.
Recently my wife asked me to upgrade the ROM on her tablet to KitKat, so I figured I would do her phone as well. To my surprise, KiKat runs amazingly smooth on the S2 - especially with Wild kernel (1.89GHz overclock + sio governor). Tried both SlimKat and Carbon. It's just liquid smooth and feels totally like a new phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
is really surprising how kitkat can give new life to this old phones.. I've changed my T989 for a nexus 4 as a daily driver but still keep the S2 as a work phone, after using the AOSP of the nexus4 I tryied evervolv in a MyTouch 4G and really liked it then though of trying that on the S2 and wow that was an improvement. right know Im currently using Evervolv kitkat 4.4.4 with Cl3kerner on the T989 and I tell you is a really good combination if not perfect.
KB
I love this phone much like you guys but it's time for the sweet prince to nap!
One of the issues I had a few months ago is that my power button got stuck. My device kept rebooting every few minutes to the only option was to open up the phone and remove the power button entirely. This fixed my issue but now the only way to turn the phone on when it dies (or turns off due to crashes!!) is by plugging it via USB and going into download mode then cancelling. Talk about a hassle!
I also got some dust particles (I think?) on my camera lens so I have several black dots whenever I take a picture.
My battery life is also HORRIBLE. I can relate to OP. My phone can barely make it to lunch let alone get through a full day. If I want to get through a full day, brightness needs to be low, bluetooth/wifi/data/gps/screen rotate all need to be off and I can't expect much screen on time. Basically, I use my phone for communication (texting, calling, etc) and for listening to music. Nothing else really. I might also try flashing another CM rom. I've tried KitKat CM roms but they are all incredibly laggy, so I don't know. Perhaps a new battery could fix this but it's too late.
(By the way, if anyone can recommend a good KitKat rom [preferably CM based], I'd appreciate it. I plan on giving this away to someone who will mainly use it to listen to music, web browse, read. Nothing too major but I'd like to update it as much as possible before giving it away.)
Although there a number of problems, this phone has lasted me 2.5 years. I got it in May of 2012, about 6 months or so after launch. That couples with Cyanogenmod has given me one hell of an experience. This phone, without a doubt, has been one of the best phones I've owned. It just works, in spite of all odds. Heck, I've had it for several months with all of these issues and it can still go until the end of the year (or longer, who knows). But all good things must come to an end.
So good night sweet prince. You were amazing, will never forget! Also, thanks Cyanogenmod for supporting this device! Thank you devs and fellow T989 users for all the support!
As far as the future goes, I am putting all my eggs in one basket and hoping that the Nexus 6/X is solid. There are rumours that it is going to be nearly 6" which is just too big for me to use reasonably. I also considered the Note 4, but honestly, after almost 2 years of using Cyanogenmod, it's very difficult to go back to TouchWiz. The other phone I have considered is the Moto X (2014). If none of these work, I might settle for last year's Nexus 5. Who knows! All I know is that I'm getting a new phone soon!
Try also the new CM11 by Sultanxda:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/gal...rom-kernel-unofficial-cyanogenmod-11-t2885259
Seems to give best battery life for this device.
tuxx1337 said:
Try also the new CM11 by Sultanxda:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/gal...rom-kernel-unofficial-cyanogenmod-11-t2885259
Seems to give best battery life for this device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Absolutely, I no longer feel anything like I did when I posted the previous comment in this thread. I'm not ashamed to own this device anymore, LOL. Sultan did things with his kernel that made CM11 stable & fully optimized for the Hercules.
tuxx1337 said:
Try also the new CM11 by Sultanxda:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/gal...rom-kernel-unofficial-cyanogenmod-11-t2885259
Seems to give best battery life for this device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for the suggestion! i was thinking about changing the ROM for my Hercules and this seems like a really good choice..
I just bought a note 10.1 2014 edition, and i was reading all about kitkat and its issues, so i was wondering. After all this time is jelly bean still better for this note?
Mine came with kitkat 4.4.2, and it had a 102 mb update, wich i applied, battery usage said 2.8 hours left or something when fully charged and unplugged. I deactivated most of the fancy stuff i dont need atm, but isnt 2.8 hours a little bit low?
I've read a ton of posts about kit kat draining battery, having some sort of sd card problems and other things. Is there a way to downgrade? does it have to be rooted for that? and if so, is there noticeable benefits from it? by the way the lock screen inking is still there, and i thought it was suposed to be removed on these tablets with kitkat.
I also read that when installing custom roms, there are functions, apps or whatever that might not work properly or at all ?
I have the wifi model, and i'd apreciate any info about all of these questions, thanks in advance!!!
Some people have said that battery levels are the same as jelly bean if not better but god knows.
Btw your tablet probably just needs to settle as its brand new. Use it and charge it a few times and see if it sorts itself out. My Tablet at the start used to drain faster and take donkeys to charge but now that I've had it for 8+ months it sorted itself out nicely.
Sent from Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition via Tapatalk.
This tablet flies after upgrading to kitkat, everything is smooth and responsive and indeed a whole new experience. The multi-touch problem on my tablet has also been fixed in KK and no issue on battery life. Can't think of a single reason going back to 4.3.
So, I just got this phone about 2 days ago (After sending one back due to over heating issues) Anyways, I want to get the most out of my new phone.
So, I have a few questions I can hopefully have answered.
1). I want to know the BEST way to improve my battery life if need be and to avoid any type of heating issues since I am a heavy gamer (Order and Chaos, Brave Frontier, PPSSPP emulator)
2). What is the benefit to rooting my device? Will rooting my device void my warranty, and if so, if I were to unroot, would i still be under warranty?
3). ROMs and Kernels, are they stable? My last device was the Galaxy S4. Ran perfectly never overheated (Got slightly warm, even when hardcore gaming) though. When I installed a ROM (Wicked, Cyanogenmod Android KitKat 4.4.4) to it, it started to overheat from just going on Facebook or about 5 minutes on any game. Continued to overheat even after I flashed back to the Original Stock Rom.
Really loving this device as is right now but would love to learn some new techniques especially when it comes to heating issues or battery drains (So far so good, with the exception that Brave Frontier made my phone really hot earlier when on for about 10 minutes on 100% brightness)
Thanks in advance
zxandrewxz said:
So, I just got this phone about 2 days ago (After sending one back due to over heating issues) Anyways, I want to get the most out of my new phone.
So, I have a few questions I can hopefully have answered.
1). I want to know the BEST way to improve my battery life if need be and to avoid any type of heating issues since I am a heavy gamer (Order and Chaos, Brave Frontier, PPSSPP emulator)
2). What is the benefit to rooting my device? Will rooting my device void my warranty, and if so, if I were to unroot, would i still be under warranty?
3). ROMs and Kernels, are they stable? My last device was the Galaxy S4. Ran perfectly never overheated (Got slightly warm, even when hardcore gaming) though. When I installed a ROM (Wicked, Cyanogenmod Android KitKat 4.4.4) to it, it started to overheat from just going on Facebook or about 5 minutes on any game. Continued to overheat even after I flashed back to the Original Stock Rom.
Really loving this device as is right now but would love to learn some new techniques especially when it comes to heating issues or battery drains (So far so good, with the exception that Brave Frontier made my phone really hot earlier when on for about 10 minutes on 100% brightness)
Thanks in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. Best way to improve battery life to is freeze un-needed apps and remove their start-up abilities.
2. The benefits to rooting your device are limited only by your knowledge of the apps and why you are rooting it. It is safe to say your warranty is voided. You should just accept that and move on.
3. It depends on what rom and kernel you intend to run. The Alpha AOSP builds are stable but have known bugs. Zone-Rom is a very stable 10m build that i run on my little brothers phone with no issues. I am currently running stock on a modified kernel and will run the aosp roms on the weekend to get test them. The only heating issues i have ever seen are dependent on the cpu governors. If you are running 100% performance with keeping all 4 cpus on they are going to get hot, simple as that.
Browse through the forums. There is a ton of good information for you here.
Toneman07 said:
1. Best way to improve battery life to is freeze un-needed apps and remove their start-up abilities.
2. The benefits to rooting your device are limited only by your knowledge of the apps and why you are rooting it. It is safe to say your warranty is voided. You should just accept that and move on.
3. It depends on what rom and kernel you intend to run. The Alpha AOSP builds are stable but have known bugs. Zone-Rom is a very stable 10m build that i run on my little brothers phone with no issues. I am currently running stock on a modified kernel and will run the aosp roms on the weekend to get test them. The only heating issues i have ever seen are dependent on the cpu governors. If you are running 100% performance with keeping all 4 cpus on they are going to get hot, simple as that.
Browse through the forums. There is a ton of good information for you here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, I have been browsing since this morning. Found a few thins here and there Like Snapdragon Kernel (WHich I am really interested in) , but not really any help in how to even start.
I have a slight problem that has been on my phone since last ngiht when I switched to ART, whenever I start up my phone, estimated battery time left always says around 3 hours at 100 percent, but increases during the day to about 22 hours lol dont know if its really a problem or not though, but I dont think i should be asking that here...
I ask about Rooting because my device is fresh and I still have my waranty just incase something happens to my phone. I want to know if unrooting and going back to original stock will avoi problems if I need to return it.
If you're able to, I would like to be able to learn what rooting method is best and ho to go about getting the SNapdragon kernel on my stock firmware (This was so much easier on my s4 lol)
zxandrewxz said:
Thanks, I have been browsing since this morning. Found a few thins here and there Like Snapdragon Kernel (WHich I am really interested in) , but not really any help in how to even start.
I have a slight problem that has been on my phone since last ngiht when I switched to ART, whenever I start up my phone, estimated battery time left always says around 3 hours at 100 percent, but increases during the day to about 22 hours lol dont know if its really a problem or not though, but I dont think i should be asking that here...
I ask about Rooting because my device is fresh and I still have my waranty just incase something happens to my phone. I want to know if unrooting and going back to original stock will avoi problems if I need to return it.
If you're able to, I would like to be able to learn what rooting method is best and ho to go about getting the SNapdragon kernel on my stock firmware (This was so much easier on my s4 lol)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use purple drake to root in Android development... It will freeze up and require a battery pull. Once you reboot install supersu from Playstore and twrp manager. Once you have twrp installed, create a back up and then install the zip drive for the kernel. This must be loaded on internal storage. Reboot and enjoy
Toneman07 said:
Use purple drake to root in Android development... It will freeze up and require a battery pull. Once you reboot install supersu from Playstore and twrp manager. Once you have twrp installed, create a back up and then install the zip drive for the kernel. This must be loaded on internal storage. Reboot and enjoy
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Will do that now, but for the Kernel, it says that my phone must be unlocked? How can I tell if it is?
zxandrewxz said:
Will do that now, but for the Kernel, it says that my phone must be unlocked? How can I tell if it is?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you are running the T-Mobile d851 we have unlocked bootloader.
Feel free to pm me. This thread should be in questions and the mods can get mad
Toneman07 said:
2. The benefits to rooting your device are limited only by your knowledge of the apps and why you are rooting it. It is safe to say your warranty is voided. You should just accept that and move on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's not true, you can go back to 100% complete stock via CLICK HERE and you should have no problems returning your device and not having to worry about an out of warranty fee if there's nothing else with your phone.
I have the Verizon flavor and passed on the upgrade due to my experience on my lg g2. My battery life went all to hell so i rolled back to kitkat and am quite happy to stay there. I'm curious as to how the upgrade is working for you on this device.
I personally love CM12.1 right now. It very (as in never) rarely crashes and for some reasons, apps seems to be more stable than on other roms. I have not experienced any battery issues and it seems to be the contrary for me because I am getting noticeably better battery life than before. Just to clarify things, I am running a V500, rooted, and running TWRP 2.8.
mach01 said:
I personally love CM12.1 right now. It very (as in never) rarely crashes and for some reasons, apps seems to be more stable than on other roms. I have not experienced any battery issues and it seems to be the contrary for me because I am getting noticeably better battery life than before. Just to clarify things, I am running a V500, rooted, and running TWRP 2.8.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That was not his question...
Although I recognize some things I don't like in official Lollipop for the VK810.4G, I like it. Smoother, faster, especially [insert plug here] on my maximum debloated stock ROM in my signature below [/insert plug here]. ?I'm a function over form guy, though.
Sent from my VK810 4G
Thanks for the reply. Hopefully some more will reply.
I upgraded my VK810 (Verizon) and I am not very happy with it. The battery life is similar to kitkat during normal use, but it is terrible at idle - burns 1.5%/hour overnight. It lags pretty regularly, sometimes even on the pin unlock screen for a few 5-10 seconds in the middle of entering.
I have done a full factory reset and set it up from scratch, which didn't improve the performance.
I am considering a flash of KK or even going back to JB. 4.2.2 was the most stable and bug-free version, in my opinion. I am reluctant to flash it, because it's a work tablet and I'd rather not risk bricking it. The only real reason I upgraded to LP was for the proper handling of trim on encrypted devices.
(I am not usually one to bash new releases. My Sony Z1c is incredible with LP, though it needed a factory reset to get there.)
rjkmadison said:
I upgraded my VK810 (Verizon) and I am not very happy with it. The battery life is similar to kitkat during normal use, but it is terrible at idle - burns 1.5%/hour overnight. It lags pretty regularly, sometimes even on the pin unlock screen for a few 5-10 seconds in the middle of entering.
I have done a full factory reset and set it up from scratch, which didn't improve the performance.
I am considering a flash of KK or even going back to JB. 4.2.2 was the most stable and bug-free version, in my opinion. I am reluctant to flash it, because it's a work tablet and I'd rather not risk bricking it. The only real reason I upgraded to LP was for the proper handling of trim on encrypted devices.
(I am not usually one to bash new releases. My Sony Z1c is incredible with LP, though it needed a factory reset to get there.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here. Upgraded and not very happy with it. Has more issues connecting to hotspots in my house (issues I didn't have with KK) and it lags, a lot. Some things are certainly better, but I don't think it's any faster - if anything, just the opposite. Is anyone else having the lagging issues? I find it mostly when I'm playing games or doing things that tax the processor.
Greetings,
so I have been running nAOSPROM (most recently b24) for about two months now. And I reluctantly switched back to the latest stock firmware. Reason being that, while battery life with screen off was amazing with the LP roms, it was horrible when I was actually using the phone for surfing or light app usage (no games). I swear I could watch the battery go down in steps of 2 and 3 percent as soon as the screen was on. With stock firmware I feel that the phone actually allows being used.
And now I'm in a bit of a pickle. Because having seen what my beloved XS can do on Lollipop, I really want to keep that experience. On the other hand it's no good to me if I have to carry around a backup battery charger just out of fear the battery will break down in the middle of the day if I use the device too much. Also I have seen that the XS can do everything I expect from my phone, I really want to avoid buying a new phone just for battery life.
I am now asking for your experience that is certainly further reaching than mine: Is this something that can or will get better? I.e., is it natural due to the increased complexity of Lollipop, or is it something that can be remedied by optimized builds, optimized CPU governors or similar? Or even has already gotten better with Chroma (which claims battery optimization but I haven't gotten around to trying yet)?
Thank you for any insight, I appreciate it.
Alright, to answer to myself, maybe it will help others in the same situation:
Going back to the stock ROM was not an option anymore. It installed fine alright, but obviously even light use of contemporary apps (Google Maps, Facebook) brings it to a screeching halt. I've had multiple occasions when I would exit an app, and the stock launcher would groaningly launch all over again, bringing up widgets one by one. On a completely fresh factory install. So, no, besides JB being horribly outdated if you had LP in hands, it is just not viable anymore.
Now I'm running Chroma and I must say, as impressed as I was with nAOSPROM, I like Chroma more. If you go by perception alone, nAOSPROM runs a little "smoother", it feels a little zippier and more fluid. However, I can't shake the feeling that it comes at a steep price, and that Chroma is much easier on the battery, especially in active app use which is backed up by my battery stats. Asides from probably a few days with screen off, I get between 4 and 6 hours of active app use out of the system, which is perfectly fine for my needs -- I didn't keep logfiles of nAOSPROM, but it seemed considerably shorter. Also, having already only flashed the Pico gapps, I feel right at home with the minimalistic installation of Chroma. So for the time being, I'll stick with that one.
The only thing I actually miss from the stock ROM is its snappy, lightweight stock camera that starts quite a lot faster than anything on an AOSP ROM. But, eh, if that's the price to pay, I'll happily accept it.
My thanks go out to the developers of both ROMs. Thank you for keeping my device alive.