Something has gotta give with this battery life

[Garemlin]

I'm at wits end trying to conserve battery life. No social network updates. No other frequent updating. GPS off. Task killer. Dim screen. The list goes on. I leave the house in the morning with 100% charge. I web browse and send a few messages to my wife during breaks and lunch. Prolly a total of an hour worth of browsing and maybe 5-10 messages. No video. No streaming music or playing music at all. No calls. In fact the Droid stays in my locker outside of breaks and lunch. By the end of the day I am at 30% or less. What gives??? Is there anything else I can possible do?? I'm to the point that I really don't wanna use the phone so I don't drain the battery and end up in a situation where I need it and it is dead.

 

[bomber889]

You can use JuiceDefender, found in the market. It saves a lot of battery if your phone is on standby a lot.

 

[iPirate]

stays in my locker outside .

I'm going to ignore the bad choice of running a task killer, but you should check the signal quality in your locker. I'm going to guess it isn't great and when the signal isn't great the phone normally kicks up the juice to the transmitter/receiver to keep connected.

Does the same thing happen during the weekends?

 

[hookbill]

I'm at wits end trying to conserve battery life. No social network updates. No other frequent updating. GPS off. Task killer. Dim screen. The list goes on. I leave the house in the morning with 100% charge. I web browse and send a few messages to my wife during breaks and lunch. Prolly a total of an hour worth of browsing and maybe 5-10 messages. No video. No streaming music or playing music at all. No calls. In fact the Droid stays in my locker outside of breaks and lunch. By the end of the day I am at 30% or less. What gives??? Is there anything else I can possible do?? I'm to the point that I really don't wanna use the phone so I don't drain the battery and end up in a situation where I need it and it is dead.

What does the phone say is using your battery? You do know how to get your battery usage at settings/about phone/battery usage?

Also keeping your phone in a locker may be causing it to use more battery searching for a signal.

 

[Garemlin]

I was wondering about the locker thing. It is really my only option other than leaving it in my car or the tour pak of my bike. And I'm not gonna risk heat damage.

Battery usage consistently says around 50-60% for display and 10-15% browser. Other is the usual stand-by, OS, etc.

 

[tonydelite]

... why not shut it off while its in your locker?

Is cell phone standby causing the greatest amount of battery usage? If so, it's probably constantly searching for a signal in your locker. If you don't want to turn it off, at least put it in airplane mode.

 

[FootballRef]

I would imagine surfing the web for an hour isn't great on the battery.

 

[Droids]

I'd also like to know if it is better on weekends, to rule out the locker/signal issue. I can surf web sites for a couple of hours, couple phone calls, many many emails, constant syncing of multiple email accounts, news & weather widget, calendar widget, Astrid widget, and have 60% or more left in the evening. Today was an especially heavy use day and it got down to 40% by the time I got home from work. I think it's the web browsing that hurts it the most, with the screen on full brightness. I was also on 3g all day when I usually use wifi whenever possible.

 

[Droids]

Tomorrow, try putting it in airplane mode while it's in the locker.

 

[gmack35]

i must be lucky. i take my droid to work at 100%, have twitter updates every 15 minutes, weatherbug updates and bw updates at 30 minutes. maybe 20 minutes of news app play at lunchtime. when i get home after 9 hours i am usually at 80%, never less than 70%. i do occasionally get that false weak battery warning but a reboot solves it. happened today in fact. i do use task killer and have no know problems but now wonder if that could be causing the false weak battery warnings i get every few weeks.

 

[tu3218]

I'd also like to know if it is better on weekends, to rule out the locker/signal issue. I can surf web sites for a couple of hours, couple phone calls, many many emails, constant syncing of multiple email accounts, news & weather widget, calendar widget, Astrid widget, and have 60% or more left in the evening. Today was an especially heavy use day and it got down to 40% by the time I got home from work. I think it's the web browsing that hurts it the most, with the screen on full brightness. I was also on 3g all day when I usually use wifi whenever possible.

does using 3g use more battery then if on wifi?

 

[Jcook54]

Something isn't right. I've only had my Droid for a few weeks and your battery life should be better than that. I leave the house with 100% and have plenty to spare when the work day is over. I surf, download, and stream music all day long. I'm new to computers as a whole but the locker sounds like it might be something to look into. I have noticed that when I'm in the mountains my battery drains on standby. It sounds like keeping the phone there is creating your own personal weak signal and causing the battery life to be diminished. It kind of makes sense and switching it into airplane mode when it's in there is worth a shot.

 

[Jcook54]

Dang! In the time it took me to reply you guys posted 3! It's not easy getting these old fingers in gear!

 

[lithoman]

We all have to realize if we use our phone like a laptop we will lose battery life like a laptop. My laptop lasts 4 hours if i am lucky before it needs a charge.....my Droid 12hours not to shabby.........my 2 cents sorry

 

[dwagner88]

Well you are making it through one days usage. That's really all it was designed for. Smartphones really need to be charged every night. That said, I have similar usage to you, maybe a hair less web browsing, but I leave wifi on. I usually have 50 percent left after 10-12 hrs off the charger. Maybe you have an app using location while the phone is sleeping. A memory leak could be the culprit also.