Does this battery life make sense?

[kenkamm]

Sorry if this has been covered somewhere, I did a few searches without luck.

I'm noticing pretty poor battery life. My droid has been unplugged for 12.5 hours. I have only made 1 call all day, 19 minutes in length, and exchanged 49 text messages. Used the browser for a total of about 5 minutes. My battery is at 20% now, and the battery usage screen says:

Voice Calls 36%
Display 24%
Phone idle 18%
Cell Standby 14%
Android System 4%
Android OS 3%
K-9 mail 2%

Would this battery life be considered normal?

 

[gentlefury]

Sorry to let you know but 12.5 hours is AWESOME battery life for a smartphone. Most of us are charging halfway thru the day.

For such little use tho I would say you have your display brightness up all the time, since mine is like 30% and I use it constantly.

Set brightness to auto.

Also if you are root try getting SetCPU and set a sleep profile to 250x125.

 

[jacobrv]

Unfortunately I don't have numbers for a low battery, but here is what I have @ 60% today.

7h 5m since unplugged
Display 52%
Phone Idle 12%
Cell Standby 11%
Dolphin Browser 8%
Android System 7%
NewsRob 6%
Android OS 2%
Gmail 2%

This includes about 1.5 hours of websurfing/reading rss feeds over 3G while on the bus, but NO phone calls. Usually I only have 1 or 2 calls a day, but it lasts from when I get up to when I go to bed without it dying.

 

[samiusmc]

Your battery life is better than most. If you have GPS and WiFi on, it will drain faster. Also, if you have it set to sync your Gmail, that will drain it. We have a saying in the great state of Texas, don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

 

[New2u]

Sorry if this has been covered somewhere, I did a few searches without luck.

I'm noticing pretty poor battery life. My droid has been unplugged for 12.5 hours. I have only made 1 call all day, 19 minutes in length, and exchanged 49 text messages. Used the browser for a total of about 5 minutes. My battery is at 20% now, and the battery usage screen says:

Voice Calls 36%
Display 24%
Phone idle 18%
Cell Standby 14%
Android System 4%
Android OS 3%
K-9 mail 2%

Would this battery life be considered normal?

It's considered normal for me. I get good battery life. Those look like good % for it.

 

[kenkamm]

Thanks for the replies guys. Just to let you know, I do have brightness set to auto, wifi off, BT off, gmail sync off. But I have two yahoo accounts being polled every 10 minutes.

But why would less than 20 min of phone calls result in that high percentage on the battery? What is the claimed talk time for this device again?

 

[640k]

Thanks for the replies guys. Just to let you know, I do have brightness set to auto, wifi off, BT off, gmail sync off. But I have two yahoo accounts being polled every 10 minutes.

But why would less than 20 min of phone calls result in that high percentage on the battery? What is the claimed talk time for this device again?

the battery percentage meter is representative of usage based off of much larger picture. since making calls drains the phone the quickest, it is represented as such. so it's not to say that you've been on the phone for 36% of the battery's life so much as it represents the amount that it drained while in use...

...i know that probably doesn't make much sense, but you have to think of it as an averaging system. 12 hrs is a decent amount of time on the phone without needing to charge it up again.

 

[New2u]

Thanks for the replies guys. Just to let you know, I do have brightness set to auto, wifi off, BT off, gmail sync off. But I have two yahoo accounts being polled every 10 minutes.

But why would less than 20 min of phone calls result in that high percentage on the battery? What is the claimed talk time for this device again?

the battery percentage meter is representative of usage based off of much larger picture. since making calls drains the phone the quickest, it is represented as such. so it's not to say that you've been on the phone for 36% of the battery's life so much as it represents the amount that it drained while in use...

...i know that probably doesn't make much sense, but you have to think of it as an averaging system. 12 hrs is a decent amount of time on the phone without needing to charge it up again.

It was my understanding that it does represent how much % that you have used it that battery charge cycle, seeing as it resets itself once you've plugged it in, or removed it.. can't remember. Unfortunately Phone calls do toll the battery the most of just about anything on the phone, that's usually why when you see battery usage it's in talk time, because most of the time that's what drains the battery the quickest. (If i'm wrong your more then welcome to correct me)

 

[640k]

i've still yet to see any official "documentation" that states otherwise, but if you look at your battery usage from the moment you unplug it from the charger, your initial reaction will be to start fixing things with the higher percentages.

those initial numbers will vary throughout the day, while the device is off of the charger.

my phone was off of the charger for about 4hrs and said that my display was using 23% and wifi was at 13%. since taking it off of the charger, the display shows 77% and wifi @ 9%. so in the last 1 min of usage, the display was the #1 thing draining the battery (it usually is, but notice the difference).

as the day moves on, the numbers will change, because they are averaging across the entire day, based on drainage. the display won't (shouldn't) ever show that after 10 hrs of usage, it used 80% of the battery. if the display was the only thing that the device ever did (like if you left the display on and did nothing else), it would probably still show about 80% because it is averaging against other processes running.

i regard the battery usage as more of a representation of where i am at the end of the day. if i played zelda for 2hrs straight, i know exactly why my battery is where it is.

 

[syntax53]

Voice calls using so much battery is pretty annoying.

Funny as it is, I rarely use the actually phone part of my phone. The passed two days I've been doing some pretty mundane video taping at work which only requires me to press the record button a couple times, in reality. As a result I've been spending a lot of time on my phone.

I can use the phone off and on for like 3 hours straight and still have 60% battery life. But I make one 5 minute phone call and I lose 40% of my battery. Today, for example I was free and clear in the green (about 75%) after being unplugged for 7 hours and doing a lot of heavy email and web surfing. I made one 4 minutes phone call and now I'm yellow and the battery warning just popped up.

 

[johall07]

Your battery life is better than most. If you have GPS and WiFi on, it will drain faster. Also, if you have it set to sync your Gmail, that will drain it. We have a saying in the great state of Texas, don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

leaving gps on doesnt drain the battery unless you see the picture in the status bar

 

[cellphones123]

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[Slider46]

Your battery life is better than most. If you have GPS and WiFi on, it will drain faster. Also, if you have it set to sync your Gmail, that will drain it. We have a saying in the great state of Texas, don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

leaving gps on doesnt drain the battery unless you see the picture in the status bar

True. From what I've read, GPS does not constantly look for a signal unless an application requests that. Bluetooth and wifi do constantly look for a signal. (iirc)

As long as there isn't an app checking your location all the time, GPS should only pop up when you use an app that needs GPS.