Another battery life question

[Boarder277]

Ok so 2 quick questions about battery life.

1.) Does using a security program such as lookout mobile security really drain the battery allot and will I be susceptible to adware or spyware during normal internet browsing without it?

2.) Do programs such as juice defender really help with battery life or does it cause more harm than good...also can anybody recommend things I can try to improve battery life besides the usual suspects (already have motorola extended battery, don't leave GPS or WiFi active, don't have a live wallpaper running or any unnecessary apps)

Thanks for any help!

Sent from my DROIDX

 

[AngryHatter]

Ok so 2 quick questions about battery life.

1.) Does using a security program such as lookout mobile security really drain the battery allot and will I be susceptible to adware or spyware during normal internet browsing without it?

2.) Do programs such as juice defender really help with battery life or does it cause more harm than good...also can anybody recommend things I can try to improve battery life besides the usual suspects (already have motorola extended battery, don't leave GPS or WiFi active, don't have a live wallpaper running or any unnecessary apps)

Thanks for any help!

Sent from my DROIDX

Yes and No.
Yes Lookout will waste the battery - runs the gps, scans everything you run et cetera. And it does nothing for you, security wise.
The only thing I like about it is the remote lock and wipe - but even that won't keep a thief from using your phone.
(It does protect you if you lose the phone and it's not been stolen)

No - battery apps waste juice. The phone is very wise about what to load into memory. Most things loaded are not running, merely cached for your later use.

The use of live wallpaper will be a draw. Games with sophisticated graphics will draw.

I would not use either Lookout nor Juice Defender.

 

[Boarder277]

Thank you for your advice! I really appreciate the help

Sent from my DROIDX

 

[BodyBagz]

Just typed this up in response to another person asking questions/requesting advice on battery use...be cool if we had a Search Feature....

Anyway...from that thread to your thread...

"But, there are a few things you can do, such as:

1) Go into Settings--->Battery--->Nightime Saver Mode..this is actually IMO a better setting than Maximum Saver, a tleast on my Droid X.

2) Your e-mail accounts, do they sync on their own? What type of schedule? Sync only over WiFi or over 3G as well?

3) What type of signal reception do you have, Great, Good, Lousy or 2 Soup Cans and some String? If your signal reception is Low, your phone will work harder trying to stay connected and trying to bounce between stronger towers. If signal is really bad, but a free WiFi connection is available, switch the WiFi on and keep it on until you are in a better 3G area.

4) Do you have any Social Widgets, RSS Feed Widgets, Weather Widgets or any other Widgets/Apps that like to update themselves regularly? If so, what are the refresh times for each? Can you set them to only update on a Manual Push? If not, then set the frequency to the longest permissible timeframe for your ease of use and lifestyle.

Thats basically all my "tricks" that I utilize to keep my Droid X going for upwards of 17-20 hours on any given day....I hope they might help you as well..."

See if you can use any of these suggestions...might help, YMMV.

 

[Boarder277]

Thank you for the tips, I was able to set my email accounts to sync every 4 hours, they were set for every hour so that has helped a great deal with my battery life, I did the same with facebook and my news, weather and social feeds...so far so good! Thanks again

Sent from my DROIDX

 

[Hawaiian Princess]

I differ on juice defender as I do use it. im a moderate user and have not bought an extended battery. getting anywhere between 15-22 hours of life before charging. u need to customize the settings to ur needs. u need to know what ur white list are. to each is their own but I say it works

Swype with an Aloha from Hawaii

 

[Hawaiian Princess]

and def if u set these apps to sync over longer periods it will absolutely help even greater on battery life.

Thank you for the tips, I was able to set my email accounts to sync every 4 hours, they were set for every hour so that has helped a great deal with my battery life, I did the same with facebook and my news, weather and social feeds...so far so good! Thanks again

Sent from my DROIDX

Swype with an Aloha from Hawaii

 

[Asphyx]

Pretty much anything that requires the Radios will eat up battery life.
Nighttime saver will help in that it will limit background data check to only when you are using the device.

Some of those tracker security apps can turn on the GPS remotely (Via Txt) which is better than one that requires GPS on all the time.

The other thing that will eat up battery are any proc intensive services.
This is where Battery monitors really suck the life out of you because you are wasting proc space on monitoring the battery. It means the proc won't scale down as much at idle (because it is doing more) and your battery will burn faster.

I suggest if battery is an issue, Root and install SetCPU.

Set up parameters that will scale down the proc when the screen is off (300-600) and then scale down when battery < 50% and 25% (600-800).

You will hardly notice the slowdown when operating it but you will see a huge jump in the battery life.

 

[Coaster]

I have the HTC Droid Incredible and the first two weeks I had it I used task killers and such religiously trying to extend the battery. I was resigned to 2 chargings a day to keep it on 24/7--about 6 hours a day plugged in.

Then I took 2 steps which made all the difference.

1) Uninstalled all the battery monitors and task killers which were basically just killing things that would immediately restart only to be killed again. Not a lot of battery use there, but it was unnecessary as I learned more about how the OS handles tasks.

2) Turned on Wi-fi and left it on. This was the big one. When I'm home, it connects automatically and when I get out of range it switches to 3G automatically.

I use my phone mostly for email and internet but I do have a fair amount of push stuff and I poll email accts at least every 30 mins all day, and I am home most of the day so wi-fi is mostly what I'm using, but I'm down to one charging a day and 24 hours later my batt is still 50%--I just charge to keep it topped off if I happen to be away for extended times.

Use wi-fi when available. I was using 3G most of the time and using wi-fi only when browsing, but switching to wi-fi has improved my battery life more than 100%.

 

[takeshi]

Do programs such as juice defender really help with battery life or does it cause more harm than good...also can anybody recommend things I can try to improve battery life besides the usual suspects (already have motorola extended battery, don't leave GPS or WiFi active, don't have a live wallpaper running or any unnecessary apps)

Whether or not a battery saver app will help depends on what's eating through your battery. I always recommend looking into your specific usage and addressing your specific battery hogs. It does no good to randomly implement fixes if they're not relevant to you (or if the fix addresses something that uses very little battery in your particular situation).

Some of those tracker security apps can turn on the GPS remotely (Via Txt) which is better than one that requires GPS on all the time.

Just to clarify, leaving GPS on doesn't eat up your battery. Actively using the GPS receiver does.

 

[Boarder277]

Thanks everyone for the tips...i have definitely implemented a great deal of them and I am seeing much better battery life! Thanks again

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