xxnonamexx
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I hope the extended battery works. My cousin hates the battery life. He used it to send 2 texts only and already a battery bar dropped off.
Incredible's battery life is not incredible
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- Start date
I used my phone normally today without trick charging just to see the difference. This time I played some games, sent texts, replied to emails, and surfed the web.
cell standby: 29%
system: 23%
idle: 21%
wifi: 14%
display: 5%
falling ball: 8% (???)
10h 24m since unplugged.
Currently at 61% battery life.
cell standby: 29%
system: 23%
idle: 21%
wifi: 14%
display: 5%
falling ball: 8% (???)
10h 24m since unplugged.
Currently at 61% battery life.
manilaboy1vic
Member
Falling ball is a great game.
gamine
New Member
I recently got the Incredible as a business phone so i could sync everything with google, which i use heavily. I have an iphone but found that because i don't use outlook, i was having to use up to four separate programs to do basic things like keep tracks of tasks, appointments, contacts and notes. the iphone, though, will last all day with heavy usage (talking 2+ hours, frequent texting, facebook check-ins, music, even pandora). I've had the iphone going on 2 years without any issues or reduced battery life. I just charge it before i got to bed and in the morning it's ready to go.
I had overwhelming buyer's remorse when i finally got the droid incredible. i signed up with verizon for the droid, then after i saw how the incredible more resembled the iphone, i swapped with about 3 weeks wait on back order. I charged it for 6 hours before using, and started noodling around at about 4pm-- by 9, it was dead. I figured it needed a longer charge time so charged it overnight, and the next day had high hopes. yet without a single call (no one has my new number) and only a half hour of looking at the market applications, the battery life was down to critical within five hours.
skip to reading almost everything in this thread, and making some basic changes, and now the thing is turbo charged. granted, i'm still not using it for long calls, but the phone's benefits are finally seeming worthwhile. here are the changes i made as suggested by all you folks (you rawk!!):
1) do the double charge: after a full charge, unplug, power off, re-plug with phone still off (orange light will reappear) and then keep it charging until light turns green.
2) put the "power control" widget on my home screen and use it to power off internet/wifi/bluetooth. this seems to keep the phone at a very low idle, but when i need to get information by using a program, the engine kicks in again.
3) in settings/ accounts & synch, I ditched the flickr, twitter and facebook accounts. this might be a problem for some people, but i welcome the opportunity to ditch soul suck social networks that have yet to benefit anything other than my voyeuristic and self-aggrandizing tendencies. also, i got the phone for business.
4) changed the brightness setting to dim
5) stopped using "live wallpaper"
6) got rid of the big clock/weather/cool things moving on the screen widget, and not have a small weather widget that i set to update every three hours.
7) in settings/ accounts & synch, i keep "background data" checked on, but turned of the "auto sync". not sure if this has really helped, but i believe this allows the incredible to push emails and stuff into the phone when it shows up, but isn't obsessively synching every ten seconds.
8) In location, turned off "use GPS satellites." from what i hear, that's another big draw on power if it's always looking for your position i can still use maps, so turning off satellites has not yet interfered with my needing to find my way to starbucks.
So now the question is, without all the bells and whistles (oh look! twenty of my closest acquaintances have given new random details about their lives) is the Droid Incredible worth it, and will it pull me away from the eye candy iphone. I think it will, for the following reasons:
1. i want a phone that will help me be more effective in life, not more entertained. i know that it can streamline all your social networks, etc etc, but what is even more powerful is the droid's brilliant integration with google, contacts, phone, tasks, maps and links. And accessing/ managing data is painless.
2. want to stop living my life via a small device permanently gripped in my hand (precious!!!). the droid is a machine, not a boyfriend. I started sleeping with my iphone. it was scary. the droid is a fwb, definitely. And if i want the full on love fest, i can turn on all the accounts, contact everyone i know, and start the insanity all over again.
3. it's challenging.
Next up i'm going to start using it for long phone calls, some of them will be radio interviews and i'll be able to see how well the phone holds up, the quality of the sound (will use a jawbone headset) and am also getting a card reader with a merchant account to do business transactions. If the incredible can see me through these phone calls and let me make money via credit card sales, i'm going to drop my iphone entirely. Will keep you posted.
and THANK YOU for all the posts helping me get the battery issue resolved. i'm very glad i didn't send the phone back. it does take some research, thinking and twiddling to get it into the zone you need, but worth it.
I had overwhelming buyer's remorse when i finally got the droid incredible. i signed up with verizon for the droid, then after i saw how the incredible more resembled the iphone, i swapped with about 3 weeks wait on back order. I charged it for 6 hours before using, and started noodling around at about 4pm-- by 9, it was dead. I figured it needed a longer charge time so charged it overnight, and the next day had high hopes. yet without a single call (no one has my new number) and only a half hour of looking at the market applications, the battery life was down to critical within five hours.
skip to reading almost everything in this thread, and making some basic changes, and now the thing is turbo charged. granted, i'm still not using it for long calls, but the phone's benefits are finally seeming worthwhile. here are the changes i made as suggested by all you folks (you rawk!!):
1) do the double charge: after a full charge, unplug, power off, re-plug with phone still off (orange light will reappear) and then keep it charging until light turns green.
2) put the "power control" widget on my home screen and use it to power off internet/wifi/bluetooth. this seems to keep the phone at a very low idle, but when i need to get information by using a program, the engine kicks in again.
3) in settings/ accounts & synch, I ditched the flickr, twitter and facebook accounts. this might be a problem for some people, but i welcome the opportunity to ditch soul suck social networks that have yet to benefit anything other than my voyeuristic and self-aggrandizing tendencies. also, i got the phone for business.
4) changed the brightness setting to dim
5) stopped using "live wallpaper"
6) got rid of the big clock/weather/cool things moving on the screen widget, and not have a small weather widget that i set to update every three hours.
7) in settings/ accounts & synch, i keep "background data" checked on, but turned of the "auto sync". not sure if this has really helped, but i believe this allows the incredible to push emails and stuff into the phone when it shows up, but isn't obsessively synching every ten seconds.
8) In location, turned off "use GPS satellites." from what i hear, that's another big draw on power if it's always looking for your position i can still use maps, so turning off satellites has not yet interfered with my needing to find my way to starbucks.
So now the question is, without all the bells and whistles (oh look! twenty of my closest acquaintances have given new random details about their lives) is the Droid Incredible worth it, and will it pull me away from the eye candy iphone. I think it will, for the following reasons:
1. i want a phone that will help me be more effective in life, not more entertained. i know that it can streamline all your social networks, etc etc, but what is even more powerful is the droid's brilliant integration with google, contacts, phone, tasks, maps and links. And accessing/ managing data is painless.
2. want to stop living my life via a small device permanently gripped in my hand (precious!!!). the droid is a machine, not a boyfriend. I started sleeping with my iphone. it was scary. the droid is a fwb, definitely. And if i want the full on love fest, i can turn on all the accounts, contact everyone i know, and start the insanity all over again.
3. it's challenging.
Next up i'm going to start using it for long phone calls, some of them will be radio interviews and i'll be able to see how well the phone holds up, the quality of the sound (will use a jawbone headset) and am also getting a card reader with a merchant account to do business transactions. If the incredible can see me through these phone calls and let me make money via credit card sales, i'm going to drop my iphone entirely. Will keep you posted.
and THANK YOU for all the posts helping me get the battery issue resolved. i'm very glad i didn't send the phone back. it does take some research, thinking and twiddling to get it into the zone you need, but worth it.
kmo
Member
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Wow, sounds like you purchased the wrong phone. What's the point having a phone like this and not using any of the cool features. Maybe a Blackberry for business?
gamine
New Member
love it anyway
i think it's still the right phone. i've had two years of cool stuff and discovered that the most important aspect of technology is how well it works for you, not how distracting or entertaining. but i have different priorities and goals than other people perhaps. i know there's buckets of fun waiting to be poured out if i want to go in one direction with the driod, or i could button it up and get a BB, but the big draw for me is google. I use g docs, maps, gmail, notebook, contacts, picassa-- no other platform will do this, and i believe will only get better with time. the business/fun distinction that's typified the divide between iphone/blackberry is actually erased with the driod. another excellent thing. so depending on what you want to do, you can have it without sacrificing coolness or efficiency. just not yet sure of the phone aspect-- kind of funny that's the least of my concerns, since it is a phone!
i think it's still the right phone. i've had two years of cool stuff and discovered that the most important aspect of technology is how well it works for you, not how distracting or entertaining. but i have different priorities and goals than other people perhaps. i know there's buckets of fun waiting to be poured out if i want to go in one direction with the driod, or i could button it up and get a BB, but the big draw for me is google. I use g docs, maps, gmail, notebook, contacts, picassa-- no other platform will do this, and i believe will only get better with time. the business/fun distinction that's typified the divide between iphone/blackberry is actually erased with the driod. another excellent thing. so depending on what you want to do, you can have it without sacrificing coolness or efficiency. just not yet sure of the phone aspect-- kind of funny that's the least of my concerns, since it is a phone!
kmo
Member
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Point taken, enjoy....
RyanPm40
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Since I am on vacation in Canada, I have been taking a lot of pictures and videos. It has been DESTROYING my battery, but hopefully the trick charge will help me last the remainder of my time in Old Quebec 
How can you find out what is using your battery the most???
In Settings I go the Battery and I can see the Battery level.
Then, I can also select Battery Use. But this does not indicate actual battery use.
All this does is tell me what percentage each item is using of whatever the current battery use has been. If it had been using only 10% or 80% of the available battery use, this list only indicates each items part of that usage.
Android System: 60%
Cell Standby: 25%
Phone Idle: 5%
Display: 10%
---------------
Total: 100%
It does not indicate the actual usage.
Maybe this doesn't matter? Or am I wrong here? If the battery is being used by something a lot, how would I find that out from this?
In Settings I go the Battery and I can see the Battery level.
Then, I can also select Battery Use. But this does not indicate actual battery use.
All this does is tell me what percentage each item is using of whatever the current battery use has been. If it had been using only 10% or 80% of the available battery use, this list only indicates each items part of that usage.
Android System: 60%
Cell Standby: 25%
Phone Idle: 5%
Display: 10%
---------------
Total: 100%
It does not indicate the actual usage.
Maybe this doesn't matter? Or am I wrong here? If the battery is being used by something a lot, how would I find that out from this?
ffej89
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System will give you a break down of all running apps. Thats all i use
Battery life answers
Alright, so I've done extensive testing on battery life, and after about a 12 hour day with moderate to heavy use, I still have about 50% of my battery left. When I first got the phone, I could chew through 50% in about 6 hours.
First thing you should know is when your DINC is finished charging (green light), it halts charging and runs off of the battery. The reason for this is, LiOn batteries are sensitive to being overcharged. Second reason is if it charged the battery while it was in use, it would generate excessive heat which is any battery's worst enemy (besides water). So, when you put your phone on the charger at night, it typically takes 1-3 hours to charge depending on your battery level, and once it's done it's now running off of battery power despite being plugged in. So, when you take it off the charger in the morning, it's already been running off of battery power for ~8 hours. I do know that the battery will show MAX while it's plugged in, but that's simply because it's plugged in. As others have noted, it will quickly drop to its actual charge level within a short period of time. So, moral of the story is, once it has reached maximum charge, you may as well just take it off the charger as it's essentially doing nothing at that point.
Second thing you should do to increase battery life is to install Advanced Task Killer. Not all applications will terminate themselves when you exit/back out of them, so it's a good idea to kill any apps you're not going to be reopening anytime soon. Google maps if left open is a battery hog as it wants to constantly update your location if you have Lattitude installed.
Third thing is to keep your GPS off, bluetooth off, and brightness on automatic. GPS & Bluetooth are amazing power hogs. When you go to bed, turn off the sync feature that keeps your mail/facebook/gchat/etc all sync'd up as it serves no purpose to be checking for updates while you're sleeping (unless you're specifically waiting for something important). One one of my home screens, I have the a power bar up for easy access to turn on/off these radio/sync functions w/o having to go into settings every time. Quite handy.
Fourth thing to do is to go into your phone's settings, then Accounts & Sync and remove anything you don't use from the list of items to automatically sync. You will want to adjust Facebook's update frequency to something more reasonable like once every 4 hours or something. I have mine set at once a day because it seems to only update your friend's status for you to view in your contacts list for the contacts that are linked w/ their FB accounts. Changing this from once per hour to once per day has a fairly large impact on my battery life in addition to adjusting the weather update frequency. I use Weatherbug Elite, so I don't care about HTC's weather app, so I have its syncing turned off all together. If you also don't use HTC's built-in weather, remember to also disable its sync feature. Every time something needs to update/refresh its data, it's preventing the phone from sleeping so it's spending more time awake and using the transmitter which of course uses a lot of power.
Fifth thing you can do to increase your battery life is to turn off all vibrates. This includes the vibrate on incoming call, vibrate while browsing through menus, vibrate while entering text using the keyboard, etc. If you send any decent amount of txt's in a day, just this vibrate feature will use up a decent amount of battery in itself.
Sixth thing would be to stop using live wallpapers as these will use a large chunk of battery for the animation. The super mario brothers live wallpaper is very sweet, but I want as much battery as I can get.
So, moral of the story is keep in mind once the green charging light comes on, your phone is running on battery, install a task killer to close unnecessary apps running in the background eating up power, turn off all unnecessary radio/gps/sync features and to adjust their sync frequencies down, quit using live wallpapers and finally to turn off all vibrate features. These things alone will have a huge impact on your battery life, guaranteed. I used to long for the extended battery but since doing these things, I'm no longer sure that an extended battery is even necessary.
Alright, so I've done extensive testing on battery life, and after about a 12 hour day with moderate to heavy use, I still have about 50% of my battery left. When I first got the phone, I could chew through 50% in about 6 hours.
First thing you should know is when your DINC is finished charging (green light), it halts charging and runs off of the battery. The reason for this is, LiOn batteries are sensitive to being overcharged. Second reason is if it charged the battery while it was in use, it would generate excessive heat which is any battery's worst enemy (besides water). So, when you put your phone on the charger at night, it typically takes 1-3 hours to charge depending on your battery level, and once it's done it's now running off of battery power despite being plugged in. So, when you take it off the charger in the morning, it's already been running off of battery power for ~8 hours. I do know that the battery will show MAX while it's plugged in, but that's simply because it's plugged in. As others have noted, it will quickly drop to its actual charge level within a short period of time. So, moral of the story is, once it has reached maximum charge, you may as well just take it off the charger as it's essentially doing nothing at that point.
Second thing you should do to increase battery life is to install Advanced Task Killer. Not all applications will terminate themselves when you exit/back out of them, so it's a good idea to kill any apps you're not going to be reopening anytime soon. Google maps if left open is a battery hog as it wants to constantly update your location if you have Lattitude installed.
Third thing is to keep your GPS off, bluetooth off, and brightness on automatic. GPS & Bluetooth are amazing power hogs. When you go to bed, turn off the sync feature that keeps your mail/facebook/gchat/etc all sync'd up as it serves no purpose to be checking for updates while you're sleeping (unless you're specifically waiting for something important). One one of my home screens, I have the a power bar up for easy access to turn on/off these radio/sync functions w/o having to go into settings every time. Quite handy.
Fourth thing to do is to go into your phone's settings, then Accounts & Sync and remove anything you don't use from the list of items to automatically sync. You will want to adjust Facebook's update frequency to something more reasonable like once every 4 hours or something. I have mine set at once a day because it seems to only update your friend's status for you to view in your contacts list for the contacts that are linked w/ their FB accounts. Changing this from once per hour to once per day has a fairly large impact on my battery life in addition to adjusting the weather update frequency. I use Weatherbug Elite, so I don't care about HTC's weather app, so I have its syncing turned off all together. If you also don't use HTC's built-in weather, remember to also disable its sync feature. Every time something needs to update/refresh its data, it's preventing the phone from sleeping so it's spending more time awake and using the transmitter which of course uses a lot of power.
Fifth thing you can do to increase your battery life is to turn off all vibrates. This includes the vibrate on incoming call, vibrate while browsing through menus, vibrate while entering text using the keyboard, etc. If you send any decent amount of txt's in a day, just this vibrate feature will use up a decent amount of battery in itself.
Sixth thing would be to stop using live wallpapers as these will use a large chunk of battery for the animation. The super mario brothers live wallpaper is very sweet, but I want as much battery as I can get.
So, moral of the story is keep in mind once the green charging light comes on, your phone is running on battery, install a task killer to close unnecessary apps running in the background eating up power, turn off all unnecessary radio/gps/sync features and to adjust their sync frequencies down, quit using live wallpapers and finally to turn off all vibrate features. These things alone will have a huge impact on your battery life, guaranteed. I used to long for the extended battery but since doing these things, I'm no longer sure that an extended battery is even necessary.
Last edited:
Looks like you've got a lot of applications constantly running in the background. My highest two power drains is cell standby and phone idle.
Extended Battery - Not Very Extended
I've had my Incredible for three weeks and the Verizon 2150 mah extended battery for two weeks. I have done all the charging tips/tricks multiple times so my battery should be broken in by now. I charged the phone over night and turned it on while still plugged in. I disabled all background operations and used Task Killer to kill as many apps as I could. Brigntness is set at 45 .
I wanted to use the stock navigation program for my ride home. I turned on GPS and put my locations in to the Navigation program. Once my route was calculated I unplugged the phone, checked out of my hotel and loaded up my car. This took about 15 minutes and I was now at 95%. After 4hrs and 35 minutes I started getting the low battery warnings. After a total of 5hrs and 16 minutes the phone shut off.
I never touched the phone at all, no call, no messages, no nothing. I cant believe the extended battery only lasts that long. Is this normal?
I still have a week to go to return the phone and possibly switch to the X,. Not nearly as many battery complaints there. I called my Verizon rep and was basically told all the things I should turn off to extend battery life. Why have a phone that yo have to turn everything off with?
Thanks
John
I've had my Incredible for three weeks and the Verizon 2150 mah extended battery for two weeks. I have done all the charging tips/tricks multiple times so my battery should be broken in by now. I charged the phone over night and turned it on while still plugged in. I disabled all background operations and used Task Killer to kill as many apps as I could. Brigntness is set at 45 .
I wanted to use the stock navigation program for my ride home. I turned on GPS and put my locations in to the Navigation program. Once my route was calculated I unplugged the phone, checked out of my hotel and loaded up my car. This took about 15 minutes and I was now at 95%. After 4hrs and 35 minutes I started getting the low battery warnings. After a total of 5hrs and 16 minutes the phone shut off.
I never touched the phone at all, no call, no messages, no nothing. I cant believe the extended battery only lasts that long. Is this normal?
I still have a week to go to return the phone and possibly switch to the X,. Not nearly as many battery complaints there. I called my Verizon rep and was basically told all the things I should turn off to extend battery life. Why have a phone that yo have to turn everything off with?
Thanks
John
John, 5 hours while using GPS navigation is pretty good. You've gotta keep in mind that the GPS chip while active is going to cause a huge power drain no matter which phone you've got. Even while it's on in the background will consume additional power. Not as much as it being constantly active during navigation, but it's just something extra the battery needs to power. A friend of mine has the X and his battery life isn't that much better, either. However, doing the above mentioned things in my last post has my battery last pretty much the entire day without requiring a recharge (unless of course I'm using the GPS excessively) and this is with the standard battery that came with it.
The biggest power drains I had though were all of the background updates from Facebook. The accounts & sync settings in the phone had it refreshing Facebook every hour, and then the Facebook app itself was refreshing every 30 minutes. Most people forget about the Facebook app. Open it up, click menu then settings and adjust the refresh interval to something more appropriate. There was another thing that was refreshing every 3 minutes which of course had to be disabled.
When you go into your battery info in your phone's settings, check the up time and awake time. If the awake time is anywhere near your up time, there's something going on in the background that's causing a power drain. For example, my up time is 26 hours, awake time 2, and I have no complaints with my battery life. Pretty darn tootin' good for a smart phone w/ a 1GHz processor in it if I do say so myself.
Alternatively, you can root your phone and underclock the CPU so it consumes less power, but that will require a little bit of technical expertise.
The biggest power drains I had though were all of the background updates from Facebook. The accounts & sync settings in the phone had it refreshing Facebook every hour, and then the Facebook app itself was refreshing every 30 minutes. Most people forget about the Facebook app. Open it up, click menu then settings and adjust the refresh interval to something more appropriate. There was another thing that was refreshing every 3 minutes which of course had to be disabled.
When you go into your battery info in your phone's settings, check the up time and awake time. If the awake time is anywhere near your up time, there's something going on in the background that's causing a power drain. For example, my up time is 26 hours, awake time 2, and I have no complaints with my battery life. Pretty darn tootin' good for a smart phone w/ a 1GHz processor in it if I do say so myself.
Alternatively, you can root your phone and underclock the CPU so it consumes less power, but that will require a little bit of technical expertise.
Alright. I've got one of the 'new' batches of the Incredible (the recent radio update preinstalled, early shipment, etc.) and so far the battery life has been exactly what I expected, considering the fact that I use the bump-charging method and I've had the phone for two and a half days now.
I'll go on record saying that even using Engadget, playing games heavily, web browsing, texting, and voice calling, my Incredible lasted for 23:40 'up' time, 5:40 awake time. Note that I say 'lasted' but I still had somewhere around 10% when I plugged the phone in.
Didn't setup HTC Sense Facebook, installed standard Android as soon as I got the phone. GPS satellites and mobile networks are on, but everything else is completely off (Bluetooth, Wifi, etc.) display is on automatic. I've gotten A LOT of use out of this phone with decent battery life, and from what I understand, the first week is actually the worst week to judge a phone's battery life, as it will generally be very poor.
I don't know if it's because it's a new shipment or I came into the phone informed, but so far I'm pleased with the battery, on the condition that it gets better. Fixing the battery charging issue would also be a-okay, I'm trying really hard to not get my hopes up though.
I'll go on record saying that even using Engadget, playing games heavily, web browsing, texting, and voice calling, my Incredible lasted for 23:40 'up' time, 5:40 awake time. Note that I say 'lasted' but I still had somewhere around 10% when I plugged the phone in.
Didn't setup HTC Sense Facebook, installed standard Android as soon as I got the phone. GPS satellites and mobile networks are on, but everything else is completely off (Bluetooth, Wifi, etc.) display is on automatic. I've gotten A LOT of use out of this phone with decent battery life, and from what I understand, the first week is actually the worst week to judge a phone's battery life, as it will generally be very poor.
I don't know if it's because it's a new shipment or I came into the phone informed, but so far I'm pleased with the battery, on the condition that it gets better. Fixing the battery charging issue would also be a-okay, I'm trying really hard to not get my hopes up though.
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