Battery Life?

[zigalucard]

Just got my Droid yesterday, really happy with it, however I had it fully charged last night, woke up today and the battery was completely dead...is this the result of not having a power manager app, any suggestions?

 

[jonf]

Are you certain you shut it off or did you put it in sleep mode? For full off hold the power button for a few seconds and when the menu appears, tap power off. Then confirm on the next menu. If you did that,then try charging 100% at night and then TAKE THE BATTERY OUT!. Put it back in when you wake up . If it's 100%,then it's not a battery problem. Charge to 100% the second night and leave the battery in. Shut down and in the AM if battery is down,there is a phone hardware problem. Exchange it for a new phone. There are some hardware problems

 

[zigalucard]

new to the whole smart phone thing, I didn't realize that it has to be shut off when not being used? I'd like to still receive calls so is there a certain battery saving mode I have to put it in while not in use? I'll do what you suggested tonight, find out if its hardware or bad battery

 

[icecold]

Are you certain you shut it off or did you put it in sleep mode? For full off hold the power button for a few seconds and when the menu appears, tap power off. Then confirm on the next menu. If you did that,then try charging 100% at night and then TAKE THE BATTERY OUT!. Put it back in when you wake up . If it's 100%,then it's not a battery problem. Charge to 100% the second night and leave the battery in. Shut down and in the AM if battery is down,there is a phone hardware problem. Exchange it for a new phone. There are some hardware problems

I think what zigalucard is saying is simply that the battery was fully charged when he/she went to sleep and totally dead when they woke up. They didn't say anything about shutting the phone off.

I would recommend getting some type of power management app. A lot of the programs on this phone can be very power hungry, so you'll need something to keep an eye on that. For instance, don't leave your wifi on if you're not using it as well as bluetooth...if you're not using them they're just eating away at the battery.

 

[zigalucard]

Yea, I'm guessing its because I left it in its default state with wifi, bluetooth and lots of apps running in the background, will try to check on this stuff tonight before leaving it on battery power.

 

[jonf]

If its a Droid,go to the menu--settings--sound&display--screen timeout. Then set your timeout length which triggers the screen going dark. This puts it in a sleep mode. If you have Taskiller make sure Bluetooth and the other apps youre not using ,are off. All things considered your battery charge will last a day. Things like GPS and Wireless network are shut off in your settings menu . Unless there are other problems this should give u usable battery life

 

[kbrede]

You could start with the Power Control Widget. Hold your finger on the screen for a couple seconds, select "Widgets," then "Power Control." The widget takes a whole row of desktop space, so make sure you have at least that much cleared, before placing the widget.
Kent

 

[tripp racioppi]

one of the problems i have had with previous pda/phones was that i had to charge the battery everyday. on older phones we had a problem called "battery memory" where the time between charges is shortened, the battery life also shortened. does the droid suffer this same problem?

r3

 

[windstrings]

one of the problems i have had with previous pda/phones was that i had to charge the battery everyday. on older phones we had a problem called "battery memory" where the time between charges is shortened, the battery life also shortened. does the droid suffer this same problem?

r3

Nope, LiIon does not have memory issues... but when you get a new device with LiIOn... its good to give it an honest charge.... honest being 12+ hours.
It good to leave it on the charger when not in use.

When you get a new phone and battery, sometimes it has sat a long time and the cells need equalizing... a good long charge will do that.

With reasonable regular use, you should never have to do it again.

When you first get your phone, don't expect that the battery will be charged to any decent degree.

I leave all mi LiIon devices on the charger when I'm not using them. They are protected cells so no worries of overcharging or getting hot.

I get about14 - 16 hours of use on a charge.

I work 12hr shifts and by the time I"m off, my charge is usually around 50% or as low as 20%.. based on how much playing I've done on it.

I would expect to charge it every night... get a car charger and plug it in while in the car... it can charge from 40% to full within about an hour.

 

[cwalter24]

Try battery life widget, i think its still a beta but it is freaking sweet, takes about 2 full days to calibrate but after that it is great.

 

[LordKastle]

If you aren't using your phone there is no reason for the battery to be dead upon waking up.

 

[windstrings]

Try battery life widget, i think its still a beta but it is freaking sweet, takes about 2 full days to calibrate but after that it is great.

which one are you playing with.. the one by "curvefish?"
Seems its a tad big.. takes up two icon spaces. It is cool being able to see battery temp and voltage.

I don't see anything about it taking time to calibrate?
Mine shows accurate as soon as I installed it... whats calibrating?

I"ve been using batterywidget... I like meter mode it takes up one icon space and has a meter that moves with the percentage.... also has several other choices of display.

 

[jltung]

Dead battery

If you had the phone on the charger all nite and battery is dead, I doubt it is

1. usage, my phone and my screen (biggest drain on battery) stays on while charging all nite

2. programs like wifi which constantly search for you in a poor cell phone coverage area (Adv Task Manager - help this problem) The Spare part app
will give you an idea what is draining the battery.

I think the problem may be:

1. defective battery

2. battery not seated correctly or dirty contact points

3. defective charger

4. charger is not connected and/or plugged in correctly

If you cannot easily fix it, I would bring it back and have it checked out.

You could try a reboot but I do not think it will help.

 

[windstrings]

Most definately... it sounds like your phone thinks its getting charged.. makes me wonder if your battery is not accepting a charge "as in a bad battery".
When you take the battery out, there is a little indicator to show if its ever been wet.

Also, when you lay it on a perfectly flat surface, it should not spin like a top when layed on either side and you spin it.. if it does, its bad because it has a bad cell and its bulging allowing it to no longer be perfectly flat.

Something a tech told me once at the Verizon store.

 

[New2u]

What alot of people seem to misunderstand about charging on the droid, is that while it may need to be charged fully to 100%, charging it all night will do the same thing as charging it to 100%, at 100% it doesn't using battery power to do anything and stops charging the battery. It runs fully off the AC power from the power adapter. Charge it for 2 days, or 200 days, it will change this fact. If the battery has been sitting there for ALONG period of time, i've seen many places that suggest charging it to 100 and then letting it drain down till it turns off, but only once, as doing this multiple times in a row can hurt a LiIon Battery. Unless your GPS or wifi was going nuts on your phone all night, then there shouldn't be a reason why it died overnight. I get a good 10-15 hours of of my battery when in moderate usage. +/- about 2 hours depending on how many calls i make.