Advice?

[bwaller25]

I tried searching for a thread about this but i didnt see one. Im new to the forums so please excuse if this is a repeat question. Are there any good apps that help save battery life? Any helpful suggestions on how I can save some of the power?

The phone is amazing by the way. I love it. Ive only had it for a week but its addicting as heck.

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Backnblack]

Battery life does get better after a few charge cycles. I get about 18 hours on my X with the stock battery.

Never had much luck myself with battery apps.

 

[BayouFlyFisher]

Here's some generic (may not apply to every phone) battery tips.

Battery Life

Here's my tips:

1. (Doesn’t apply to all phones) Go to settings/wireless & networks/mobile networks/Enable always-on data. Uncheck always on data. Your phone will still receive email, text, & phone calls as before as well as internet usage but your battery will last a lot longer.

2. Emails: I don't know what email app you use, but try this. It saves battery power and in some cases emails arrive quicker. This scheme will have you using only the Gmail app on the phone for all email accounts whether they are pop3 accounts or Gmail. Go to the Google Gmail inbox on your computer and log into the Gmail account. On the top right of the screen is an option called Settings. In there is an option to have the Gmail program poll your regular, non-Gmail accounts. Provide the email address and the password. The Google Gmail program will then poll your other accounts on a frequency from 1-5 minutes and push the email immediately to your phone. The polling frequency is determined by each account's activity - more emails = faster polling. It will always be no less frequent than every five minutes. This saves battery power because on the android OS pop3 accounts are polled at a frequency of 1-30 minutes and that really eats battery. Because the phone goes and checks those accounts for mail whether there is mail there or not.

3. If you are using Live Wall Papers, stop!

4. Use wifi any time it is available. It uses a lot less power than 3G and it is much faster.

5. If there are widgets that automatically update (facebook, weather, etc.) change their update frequency in their settings menu. Set them to 30mins or 1 hour.

6. Oh, almost forgot, get the extended battery from Verizon.

7. Turn off the GPS unless you are actually using it. There are some background apps that can burn a lot of power via a live gps.

8. The Power Control Widget is a good tool for easily turning on and off some of these features (gps, wifi, screen brightness, etc.).

9. From the home screen do the following: menu/settings/About Phone/Battery Use. This graph will show the 10 biggest power users on the phone. It should always be Screen as the top user and the android os, android system, phone standby and phone idle should be the other top users. If there is an app listed you should determine if it’s an app you actually use a lot or do you have a rogue app that needs to be uninstalled.

10. Get Screebl. It will turn your phone off anytime you are not actively using it.

11. If you have either a task killer or an anti-virus app installed, you should uninstall.

 

[bwaller25]

so task killers and battery apps are no-gos?

 

[Brandonovich]

Careful asking about task killers in here, they will punch you in the face! :icon_ banana:Try searching your topic in Google and add "droidfurums.net" to the end of your search terms, and you will find numerous threads in here about those things. I think that the previous poster hit on some great points, and I would try those ideas. Like task killers or don't, they are not going to have an appreciable effect on battery life.

 

[BayouFlyFisher]

so task killers and battery apps are no-gos?

Task Killers are battery drain with almost no real benefits. If you do in fact see a benefit from using a task killer, it is most likely due to having a rogue app that not only needs to be killed, but should be uninstalled and replaced with something that works correctly.

Battery apps are a waste of battery power. You already have a good battery meter in the notification bar. Anything more is just duplicating what the system already provides you.

Just My Humble Opinion and YMMV!!! Just enjoy your phone regardless of what you apps you decide to install and use!!

 

[Quicksilver7714]

Battery life does get better after a few charge cycles. I get about 18 hours on my X with the stock battery.

Never had much luck myself with battery apps.

Agreed. I can easily get 18 hours with moderate usage on my X and over 24 with minimal usage. I can just as easily kill the battery in 5 hours with heavy web, youtube and using the DF app. Thats with the stock battery.

As for task killers here's a tread to answer some of your questions:
http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-applications/65483-task-killers-answer-google-developers.html

 

[bwaller25]

when looking at my battery manager I see my display is using 37%. i have dimmed the brightness the wall paper is only picture of my son so its not a "live" wallpaper...any suggestions on how to lower that %? Thanks.

 

[Reefdiver]

I will add to not using live wallpaper. I stopped using live wallpaper and it was amazing at the battery life I gained.

 

[takeshi]

Any helpful suggestions on how I can save some of the power?

As always with battery life questions:

1. Analyze your specific usage.
2. Address your battery hogs.
3. Keep in mind that certain usage will kill your battery and there's nothing to be done about it. If you play games a lot, browse a lot, use the GPS receiver, etc you're going to quickly drain your battery.

The apps get mixed reviews but that's because there are any number of causes for battery life issues. It does no good to apply fixes that aren't relevant to your situation but that applies for any type of troubleshooting, not just battery life issues.

There are tons of threads on this topic that you can refer to. You can start with your battery info/usage screen. There are also apps that can report on what's using your battery. If you have some specific questions after doing your homework we're more than happy to assist.

so task killers and battery apps are no-gos?

Task killers are not the way to address battery issues. Background apps typically don't consume power for one thing. Task killers are a duct tape solution as well. If you think you need a task killer then your real problem is a poorly coded app that you need to address. Otherwise, you're just (ineffectively) treating the symptom. Again, there are countless former threads on task killers that you can refer to for more details.

Ive only had it for a week but its addicting as heck.

Playing a lot with your newly acquired device will also negatively impact battery life. See if your usage tapers off a bit after the new toy effect wears off.