I'm returning my Bionic.

[dunnse]

Just so i am reading this right??? One of Roach's reason for returning the bionic is because of the screen size??? Not the screen display, but the size?

The bionic is sporting a 4.3" display. What else coukd you possibly want in the screen size? That is pretty standard on these type a phones nowadays. I have heard that one of the devices coming out later may have a 4.5" screen size, but that could just be rumor.

For the battery life..... your running a device with dual-core processors AND 4G data. Not many devices are out there that can do that, and it makes sense that is going to drain the battery more. You need to optimize your batter life by turning off the 4G when not in use. And there is probably an app out there to quickly do this from the main screen.

I am running touchdown that syncs with exchange webmail every 3 minutes, running Sportstacular & ESPN Scorecenter, and receive my email thru gmail. I charge my device once a day. I have no problems. I was charging my droidx once a day too.

For issues with the screen display.... there are pros and cons to all of them. The Super Amoled (or whatever its called) probably has the most vivid colors. The qHD on the bionic probably has the most clearest screen out in daylight.

If your looking for the best of everything in one phone you just aren't going to find it. And if you are always going to wait for the latest and greatest then you will be waiting a long time. There is always something new around the corner.

I for one love the droid bionic. Not to mention i love the accompanying webdock too. It has its limitations, but there arent many devicez out there that can do that either.

Again.... 4G + dual-core processor = use of more battery.

The droid bionic is cutting edge and is awesome!

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using DroidForums

 

[Liderc]

Dual cores use less power.

As processing dies grow smaller, they need less power to run.

So if anything having a dual-core CPU actually improves a device's battery life.

 

[dunnse]

You can go anywhere on the Internet and find it. 4g uses more power. And dual core uses more power. That is why most of the phones out there including on verizon are running one or the other. And that is a big part of the reason the bionic was delayed for so long. Actually, motorola revamped the original battery for the bionic as compare to what was displayed in January for this very reason.

And most apps including gingerbread dont support much for actually using dual-core yet. The key word is yet. But icecream should and more apps are going to be developed to utilize dual-core processor. For anybody considering getting a device without dual-core, that is a waste of time since this is where the new technology is going.

 

[brandon9559]

Just so i am reading this right??? One of Roach's reason for returning the bionic is because of the screen size??? Not the screen display, but the size?

The bionic is sporting a 4.3" display. What else coukd you possibly want in the screen size? That is pretty standard on these type a phones nowadays. I have heard that one of the devices coming out later may have a 4.5" screen size, but that could just be rumor.

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using DroidForums

I was wondering about this too...as if he was told the screen was going to be larger.

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[dunnse]

And regarding the 4G... i am so satisfied with the 4g that i am considering downgrading my home internet speed. If i need something faster such as for vpn at work, i can always tether off of the bionic.

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using DroidForums

 

[Liderc]

You can go anywhere on the Internet and find it. 4g uses more power. And dual core uses more power. That is why most of the phones out there including on verizon are running one or the other. And that is a big part of the reason the bionic was delayed for so long. Actually, motorola revamped the original battery for the bionic as compare to what was displayed in January for this very reason.

And most apps including gingerbread dont support much for actually using dual-core yet. The key word is yet. But icecream should and more apps are going to be developed to utilize dual-core processor. For anybody considering getting a device without dual-core, that is a waste of time since this is where the new technology is going.

I can assure you, the 2nd gen TI OMAP dual-core processor in the Bionic uses less power than a first gen single-core processor.

You are correct in stating 4G LTE does affect battery life, but it's mostly because of the device having to search more often for a 4G LTE signal since it's not as developed in the US as 3G currently is.

Motorola never officially revealed why they trashed the original Bionic, but the rumor was the Tegra 2 processor was interfering with the 4G LTE radio.

 

[dunnse]

Great discussion. I get a lot out of these forums.

I also here that going to the Location & Security settings and turning off some of those options save on battery life...
-Google Location Services
-Standalone GPS services
-VZW Location Services

I know some people may say that they want and use these features. But at least for me it isn't like I am using these 24x7, so there is no reason to have them on unless i need them.

 

[revelated]

Great discussion. I get a lot out of these forums.

I also here that going to the Location & Security settings and turning off some of those options save on battery life...
-Google Location Services
-Standalone GPS services
-VZW Location Services

I know some people may say that they want and use these features. But at least for me it isn't like I am using these 24x7, so there is no reason to have them on unless i need them.

I can say from experience that Google Location Services is the #1 killler, followed by VZW Location Services, then Standalone GPS Services. That's likely because Google Location Services is used by any Android app that uses location, which is pretty much every Google-specific app including the search pages as well as a greater majority of the Market. That's a lot of data transferred to maintain location positioning. It's not as bad over WiFi.

In my experience I have yet to find out what Standalone GPS Services is actually good for. It seems to always require either Google or VZW Location Services as well as the Standalone to get zeroed in location. That's a waste of data, IMO. If I could just use Standalone GPS, assuming the phone has a discreet GPS chip, that should in theory take less battery than WiFi.

 

[ice456789]

Ok so here's what I'm doing today. Last night I played with the phone until the battery died completely and it shut off. I plugged it in and did NOT turn the phone back on. It charged fully last night with the phone off.
I removed all widgets except for power widget, pure calendar (set to update every 6 hours and NOT keep service alive), and beautiful widgets weather. As of right now my phone has been on battery for 1hr 12 minutes. It is down to 80%, which means that it will be completely dead in approx. 5 hours. I have not used it except to check my email for about 1 minute and to kill all the bloatware apps when I rebooted the phone. I also received 1 text which I replied to. So I would consider that VERY light usage. Here are my battery stats:

Cell Standby - 32%
Phone Idle - 30%
Social Location - 21%
Wifi - 9%
Android OS - 4%
Display - 3%
Android System - 2%

One more thing to add.... the phone is always warm. Not hot, but slightly warm. I can't think of a single time I pulled it out and it was room temp even after just sitting idle for hours.

 

[revelated]

Ok so here's what I'm doing today. Last night I played with the phone until the battery died completely and it shut off. I plugged it in and did NOT turn the phone back on. It charged fully last night with the phone off.
I removed all widgets except for power widget, pure calendar (set to update every 6 hours and NOT keep service alive), and beautiful widgets weather. As of right now my phone has been on battery for 1hr 12 minutes. It is down to 80%, which means that it will be completely dead in approx. 5 hours. I have not used it except to check my email for about 1 minute and to kill all the bloatware apps when I rebooted the phone. I also received 1 text which I replied to. So I would consider that VERY light usage. Here are my battery stats:

Cell Standby - 32%
Phone Idle - 30%
Social Location - 21%
Wifi - 9%
Android OS - 4%
Display - 3%
Android System - 2%

One more thing to add.... the phone is always warm. Not hot, but slightly warm. I can't think of a single time I pulled it out and it was room temp even after just sitting idle for hours.

Social Location is your culprit. Something is running in the background. You need to find out what social app is running. In the meantime, go to Settings --> Battery and Data Manager --> Data Delivery --> Social applications. Make sure "Sync over Wi-Fi only" is checked, and set Data delivery frequency as high as you can tolerate. That should help until you find the problem child. Reboot the phone once you make the change.

Mine is set to once per hour, since I don't use any social apps anyway.

Also I would download the Advanced Clock Widget. It's a text-based widget that gives phone stats that you can customize. One is a battery readout with a time estimate. That will help in determining what your phone is thinking the capacity is and what percentage you're at at any given time while you figure out what the violator is. It calculates time based on how long it takes to go from one 10% threshold to another. So however long it takes to go from 100% to 90%, 90% to 80%, etc. will determine the total estimated battery life, which should give you a good representation of what your phone's doing.

 

[ice456789]

Social Location is your culprit. Something is running in the background. You need to find out what social app is running. In the meantime, go to Settings --> Battery and Data Manager --> Data Delivery --> Social applications. Make sure "Sync over Wi-Fi only" is checked, and set Data delivery frequency as high as you can tolerate. That should help until you find the problem child. Reboot the phone once you make the change.

Mine is set to once per hour, since I don't use any social apps anyway.

Also I would download the Advanced Clock Widget. It's a text-based widget that gives phone stats that you can customize. One is a battery readout with a time estimate. That will help in determining what your phone is thinking the capacity is and what percentage you're at at any given time while you figure out what the violator is. It calculates time based on how long it takes to go from one 10% threshold to another. So however long it takes to go from 100% to 90%, 90% to 80%, etc. will determine the total estimated battery life, which should give you a good representation of what your phone's doing.

The only problem that I have with changing data to wifi only is that I use nothing but google voice to communicate to the world. I use it for all calls and all texts. Will that change cause a problem with GVoice push notifications? Also, does it affect gmail push?

I NEED both gmail and gvoice to push notify. If I can't have those without draining the battery in 5 hours then this is just not the phone for me.

 

[revelated]

The only problem that I have with changing data to wifi only is that I use nothing but google voice to communicate to the world. I use it for all calls and all texts. Will that change cause a problem with GVoice push notifications? Also, does it affect gmail push?

I NEED both gmail and gvoice to push notify. If I can't have those without draining the battery in 5 hours then this is just not the phone for me.

Social Location has nothing to do with Gmail or Google Voice. Google Voice is standard data and works independent, I use it all the time. Now what I don't know is, if you're having GVoice notify you directly, whether that is a battery killer. I have it send me an email, then I reply to that email, that way I make sure it's covered under the email usage which is a lot easier on the battery since it's not using data until you actually send the message and even then very little; it responds to the text the same way as if you texted directly. GMail is controlled by Accounts sync, so it's a separate function altogether.

Social Location only affects true social apps ala Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and some others. Google apps are not impacted in any way.

 

[ice456789]

Looking at task manager, all the bloatware has restarted itself (despite being on the auto-end list). I'm talking about bookmarks widget, IM, IM presence. Also despite the widgets being off, G+, twitter, and FB were all running. All listed as using 0% CPU so I assume they are just sitting in the RAM since they are frequently used programs. Since I'm not using the phone much, it has no reason to free up the RAM with other programs.


One GREAT thing about this phone is that apps that used to destroy my battery on my OG have almost no effect on the Bionic. I like tower defense games and on my OG I was just used to them draining about 2% of the battery per minute of use. On this phone they don't seem to affect battery at all. The processors are so powerful that it doesn't even blink to run these games. I'm sure it does drain the battery some... but in trying to drain the batt last night I played a tower defense game for an hour. That would have killed my OG battery outright. On the Bionic it only cost 4% of the drain according to battery stats, and it did not seem to drain it any faster than it is draining just sitting on my desk. That is extremely impressive.

 

[m00m00w4t3r]

my battery life was terrible at first then i turned off wifi and the battery lasts me a good 6-8 hrs with moderate use...i think its normal to see pixels on the screen? mine does that...also my 3G goes into idle and doesnt come out of idle unless i put it in airplane mode hopefully an update fix should come out by next month

 

[Zenmervolt]

You definitely need to get social location to shut down. In the overall app list, find it, open it, and then bring up the menu. There will be a single option that simply says "Off." Choose that. If you simply hit "Back" instead of using the "off" option in the menus, the program will continue to run indefinitely in the background.

I've had my Bionic running for 6 hours now and the battery is at 70%. Mostly Wi-Fi, responding to E-mails, checking the news, a few texts, just generally using it the same as I used my OG Droid. Granted, my house is in a 3G coverage area (by about 1/2 mile) so there's some battery saving from that, but overall the battery life has been pretty good for me.