:happy3:
FoxKat. I read that post and yep my battery really is at 15% per the meter when phone is off and charging. I did have a couple of issues the first night getting it to show it was charging, but after powering it on and off a couple of times it seemed to fix itself there. I had phone off over night and charging and have done nothing but answer these two posts and battery it's already down to 80%... It also gets very hot while using it.I guess I need to exchange
Checked and top is d isplay (on power saver mode) at 56% browser 17% (only used for this forum this thread) voice calls (made two less than two minutes each) scramble (2 games), Android OS, and Swype 5% Android system, cell stand by, media (not sure what that would be) google play store and words with friends 2%...so big one is display which I would expect. Battery has been on for just under 2 hours and battery info says I'm at 50% and answering a few posts, sending one text message making two phone calls (both short!) and2 games of scramble seems like minimal use!
OK Shutterbunny, let's go over the items mentioned above. First, even though it said 15% while powered off and per the Charge-only battery meter (the animated battery), that doesn't mean it was actually AT 15% (I'll explain later in this post). These phones are shipped with a partial charge from the factory. The charge level out of the box is maximum 40%, and decreases gradually while on the way from the factory to the stores and while sitting on the shelves in inventory. It is necessary for these battery types to have a partial charge while sitting unused to prevent the battery from shutting down completely due to a protection circuit built onto the battery.
Now, the battery is not like a fixed capacity tank (like your car's gas tank for instance), where each time you fill it, the same amount is there when full is reached. These batteries (as all batteries to a lesser or greater extent) will get older and when they do they hold less and less charge over time. As a result, unlike your car's gas tank, 3 years later the battery in your phone may only hold 50% -70% of its original capacity. Imagine your car's gas tank shrinking over the 3 years. If it did, your gas gauge would either never reach full again, or it would say you have plenty of gas left when you're empty and sitting on the highway. This obviously isn't the case with your car, but it would be with your phone if the meter wasn't "intelligent" and able to "learn" the newer, shrinking capacities of aging batteries. Since the maximum charge level will decrease over time, the metering and charging circuits must adjust accordingly and they do so by "learning" the newer, reduced capacities with infrequent repeated 100% charge with power off and low battery discharge cycles (the three step process I've described below).
When you receive the phone, whether it be through the mail or at a phone center store, the FIRST thing you SHOULD be doing - BEFORE POWERING IT UP INITIALLY is to plug it into the charger and allow it to fully charge with the POWER OFF (100%). This sets a "flag" to tell the phone's charging and metering circuitry what a full charge looks like (fully saturated voltage and reduced current draw by the battery). After that first flag is set, the phone knows the maximum capacity of the battery. That's only part of the battle since the phone also sets a second "flag" for low battery at 15%. Trouble is, if it never knows what the TRUE maximum capacity is, and you set the low battery flag at 15%, it gets confused and can result in dramatically inaccurate charge level readings. Same can happen in the reverse.
So once you've done the initial 100% saturation charge, and then immediately thereafter allowed the phone to deplete to 15% (you MUST see the Low Battery warning), the last step is to charge again with power off, and this time it confirms with the meter the RANGE of charge and helps it to show interim levels of depletion (90%, 80%, 70%, etc.). Also powering the phone on and off won't "fix" the problem.
The issue of the phone heating up is tough to address because what you feel is "hot" I might consider "warm". It's normal for the phone to heat up during use. The more you use it, and the more components you use (3G, 4G, screen, Bluetooth, background apps, streaming, syncing of Facebook, weather widgets, etc.), the more it will heat up. This is a VERY THIN phone and there is almost no open space inside to allow for heat transmission, so the heat will radiate quickly to the surfaces of the phone and feel hotter at specific points, such as directly over the 3G/4G chips, over the processor, etc.
The amounts of consumption you listed above are not unusual, though to have it "appear" to use 50% of charge in the time you mention is unusual. Remember, those percentages of use are a percentage of the total consumption, so in the case of the display, it used 56% of the 50% of total battery consumption, or about 28% of the battery's power in that 2 hours. Still, unless the meter is accurately displaying actual charge level, the 50% may be 80%.
Finally, about 90% of all phone batteries returned to manufacturers as "defective" test out fully operational, and a great percentage of phones sent back as defective also test out fine. It's usually the unique combination of apps and usage patterns, as well as improper charging and maintenance of the batteries, coupled with using low quality non-OEM chargers that results in the warranty claims.
Please keep us posted with your battery training results. Good luck! :biggrin:
