Understanding Battery Life...

[Azmordean]

I guess my real concern is this: I am almost always somewhere I can charge a phone at night. During the day, not so much. A phone is a phone first. What if I'm traveling or something? I need to know my phone will work when I pull it out. With my blackberry, I know that's the case as long as I've charged it the night before. If the droid can't offer me similar security, its not for me.

Note I do not use my phone for music and such so that may save some battery comparatively. I also have only a single email account (gmail) so no POP pinging. Generally I will operate with wifi OFF, bluetooth OFF and GPS ON. I have no problem with a short screen dim timeout.

So maybe ill be okay. I will try it and report back!

 

[SlamDroid]

I use my phone for email, web browsing, messaging, and some simple games. I also have a Weather Bug running, use Bluetooth when driving, and have used the Droid's navigation feature. Given all that, I've never pushed the battery below 30%. I'm the kind of person who HATES it when their vehicle is below half a tank, so I'm the same way with my phone battery. I did spoil myself by having the extended battery on my Chocolate, which never got below 50%. I'm certain Motorola will hit the market with a better battery soon, given that battery life is a major point for peeps today. Still...my Droid is the best device of it's type that I have ever owned, bar none.

:motdroidhoriz:

 

[hazydave]

Ok.. So I am planning to pick up a droid this evening. The battery life issue concerns me. I have no problem charging a phone every night but honestly I cannot be bothered with charging a phone mid-day.

Personally, I use the DROID all the time, on Wifi and 3G, and so far have had zero problems with battery life.

Of course, I have owned smart phones before... I know the agreement. You get a phone that can do anything, but in the process, it does use more power. I had a dumb phone that I charged once a week... this isn't that. The more useful this device becomes, I rekon the more often I'll need to recharge it. Same can be said my laptop computer... I'd be lucky to get 3 hours on a charge.. but it's way more useful than my old dumb phone.

The big win with the DROID (and probably any new smart phone that's not an iPhone) is that, if you do need a charge, that's easy... USB is literally everywhere. I already had TWO USB adapters for my car, I didn't need anything more special than $6.00 or so worth of extra USB cables, just in case (this was before I usually found myself at 25% by 3AM or so)... I bought four cables, you see.

I currently have a BB Tour. I use it heavily. I have Google Talk and AIM running all day during the week (they are blocked at work, so yeah). I use the web a lot. I use the phone occasionally but not all that much.

It's hard to say, because the situation is very variable. The main power draw is the screen... if you use it all the time, you'll get less mileage than if you don't. Technically, network can be a big draw, if you have a bad signal... Wifi or 3G. But the phone scales on power, so if you have a good signal, it'll last. I have a good signal here, and I'm seeing about 6% of my power going to Wifi, another 4% for cellular standby.

Maybe there are some BB owners here to comment. Compared to my Treo, it's better, doing the same things. Though I didn't have the Wifi option on the Treo.. that's probably saving power at house, at least (boondocks == weaker cellular, more power from the phone to push the signal up to the cell).

 

[hazydave]

I guess my real concern is this: I am almost always somewhere I can charge a phone at night. During the day, not so much. A phone is a phone first.

That's a personal usage pattern, not a hard definition. My DROID is specifically and entirely NOT a phone first, it's a replacement for PDA, that happens to have a full-time network and, within that context, a live voice option. Since I got it, I have used it for IM and email EACH 20x more than voice.

If I was really after a phone as the once device I carry, if that was a critical primary function... well, I had this cheap-ass LG flip-phone with extended battery. It lasted me a good week or more without charging. But I have far more use for things other than voice comms.

With that said, the amount of power you're using for voice or network is largely a function of the quality of service you're getting. If the phone has to run at full power, probably somewhere between 1/2W and 1W (most handsets limit it to 1W, the legal limit on cell client power is 3W... your cell tower actually tells the phone what power level to set, based on its RSSI), you'll eat that battery quickly. I totally LOVE the power history function in Android (Settings/About phone/Battery use)... if I know where the power goes, at least I have the option of making use changes.

What if I'm traveling or something? I need to know my phone will work when I pull it out. With my blackberry, I know that's the case as long as I've charged it the night before. If the droid can't offer me similar security, its not for me.

If you use any phone enough, the battery will run out. That's just as true of the Blackberry as the DROID or the iPhone or my cheap-ass LG yard-sale phone. You didn't necessarily know your BB would last the day... I'll wager you're either just lucky (it always did) or you adapted your use patterns so that it would (eg, I won't play an hour of "Tetris" at lunchtime, I need my phone this afternoon).

I have the DROID at least as good as other smart phones and PDAs I have used, within reason. Sure, I got a week or two of use out of my Palm V, but then again, it was far less useful, not on a network, and only had a monochrome screen.

Try it... it's just dandy for me.

 

[jonf]

There is a HUGE problem with some droids. I charge to 100% at night and shut off the phone. True shut down,not "sleep". Battery is at 60-70 % upon startup in the AM. Tried new battery...same results repeatedly. Last night I removed battery after 100% charge. Reinserted it at startup,,,charge was at 100%. Must be some kind of current leakage if it remains in overnight. Major problem for what supposed to be newest and best.

 

[metsnfins]

Motorolla is sending me a new battery, think they will let me keep the old one too? Hope so

My battery seems inconsisent. Some days it will die in 6 hours without superheavy use (maybe 1 hr web and some texts and 15 mins calls). Other days it seems to last long if i dont use the web much

 

[rothenbj]

i never had an issue with my BB Pearl battery!

I guess my real concern is this: I am almost always somewhere I can charge a phone at night. During the day, not so much. A phone is a phone first.

That's a personal usage pattern, not a hard definition. My DROID is specifically and entirely NOT a phone first, it's a replacement for PDA, that happens to have a full-time network and, within that context, a live voice option. Since I got it, I have used it for IM and email EACH 20x more than voice.

If I was really after a phone as the once device I carry, if that was a critical primary function... well, I had this cheap-ass LG flip-phone with extended battery. It lasted me a good week or more without charging. But I have far more use for things other than voice comms.

With that said, the amount of power you're using for voice or network is largely a function of the quality of service you're getting. If the phone has to run at full power, probably somewhere between 1/2W and 1W (most handsets limit it to 1W, the legal limit on cell client power is 3W... your cell tower actually tells the phone what power level to set, based on its RSSI), you'll eat that battery quickly. I totally LOVE the power history function in Android (Settings/About phone/Battery use)... if I know where the power goes, at least I have the option of making use changes.

What if I'm traveling or something? I need to know my phone will work when I pull it out. With my blackberry, I know that's the case as long as I've charged it the night before. If the droid can't offer me similar security, its not for me.

If you use any phone enough, the battery will run out. That's just as true of the Blackberry as the DROID or the iPhone or my cheap-ass LG yard-sale phone. You didn't necessarily know your BB would last the day... I'll wager you're either just lucky (it always did) or you adapted your use patterns so that it would (eg, I won't play an hour of "Tetris" at lunchtime, I need my phone this afternoon).

I have the DROID at least as good as other smart phones and PDAs I have used, within reason. Sure, I got a week or two of use out of my Palm V, but then again, it was far less useful, not on a network, and only had a monochrome screen.

Try it... it's just dandy for me.

Of course, I didn't have music (let alone music of my choosing), a GPS always at hand, amazing resolution and a screen I could see in daylight, browsing at the speed I get on the Droid, actually the ability to get a signal at home, TV and video, etc, etc, etc. This is a computer in the palm of my hand. The Pearl was a phone the wasn't completely dumb.

I'll eventually buy redundancy, but for now I just keep an eye on the charge and top it up when convenient. I've sat here browsing away for hours at night. Right now it's plugged in, recharging.

 

[rothenbj]

One more thing that I tried today. My two email accounts- gmail and netscape mail, were set at checking every 5 or 10 minutes. I changed it to an hour and I was still at 90% four hours later. I have noticed that if I search a lot the battery tends to drain faster.

 

[DesktopDevin]

I have found that the battery gets drained excessively when automatic brightness is turned on for the display brightness. I found that over 50% of my battery usage was for the display.

I went from auto brightness to havinng it set manually at around 30 -36 % brightness manually battery usage from the display has now dropped to 37-40 % on average.

 

[tktouch12]

very helpful post/thread

 

[switchedfromiphone]

OK - am I doing something wrong?

Full charge - unplug time - 4:00 am.

As of 9:10pm I am at 30% battery.

I have push AND fetch for email accounts OFF. I only check for new messages when I open the mail app. I have syncing with Facebook & Gmail OFF. I only synced once to get my contacts onto the phone and then disabled syncing. I have background data and auto-sync OFF.

I made 3 phone calls all under 5 minutes long. Texted maybe 15-20 times. Browsed for about 15 minutes. Screen brightness is set ALL the way to the lowest position on the slider, and screen timeout is 15 seconds.

Doesn't this sound horrible? I know I've switched from the iPhone which can't multitask, but even without multitasking, with mostly ALL options disabled, 30% after 15 hours mostly in standby, that doesn't seem good?

 

[zmeflyby]

Full Charge at 8:50 pm last night.
I am at 20% as of right now...which is 10:06 pm.

Settings:
Lowest brightness on screen display
Update every hour for my yahoo account and every five mins for my outlook account


I have made maybe 2-3 calls under 5 mins each.
Checked my gmail account about 10 times.
Few text messages.
Browsed a few apps for like maybe 45 mins to 60 mins total.
Browsed the internet for about 2 hours max.



What do you guys think?

 

[DesktopDevin]

OK - am I doing something wrong?

Full charge - unplug time - 4:00 am.

As of 9:10pm I am at 30% battery.

I have push AND fetch for email accounts OFF. I only check for new messages when I open the mail app. I have syncing with Facebook & Gmail OFF. I only synced once to get my contacts onto the phone and then disabled syncing. I have background data and auto-sync OFF.

I made 3 phone calls all under 5 minutes long. Texted maybe 15-20 times. Browsed for about 15 minutes. Screen brightness is set ALL the way to the lowest position on the slider, and screen timeout is 15 seconds.

Doesn't this sound horrible? I know I've switched from the iPhone which can't multitask, but even without multitasking, with mostly ALL options disabled, 30% after 15 hours mostly in standby, that doesn't seem good?

How good of signal strength do you have where you are at?

One of the things I have come across is that being in a weak signal area of a home can drain a battery fast. I have had my moto slvr that would normally hold a charge for about 4-5 days.

(yep lots of standby for me as I don't talk on the cell that much, my last months bill only had 18 minutes used on it out of 450.)


But this phone if I drove over to my brothers house and spent the night would drain in 4-5 hours after leaving it on the coffee table in the room I was staying at. I was puzzled shortly as to why it would drain so quick.

Well then next time I went over I was setting the phone down when I noticed that the phone was searching for a signal and switched to analog. Then it would search for a signal then switch back to evdo. And it just kept doing this... but only in that room . As soon as I would walk out of the room with it, it would lock in evdo and stay on.

To cut to the chase what ever was going on with the signal in that room kept causing the phone to search for another network even though there was 2-3 bars of signal there. This was eating up my battery in a very short amount of time. Check your signal and if it is weak move it to another location that has a stronger signal.

But I hope that they come out with an extended battery soon for the droid.

It is not a deal killer for me as I am just a guy that uses it when I to go to work then back home in the evenings. But if I were younger before I had a family then I would need all the extended standby as I was very rarely home so I could see this would affect a person on the move.

 

[rothenbj]

OK - am I doing something wrong?

Full charge - unplug time - 4:00 am.

As of 9:10pm I am at 30% battery.

I have push AND fetch for email accounts OFF. I only check for new messages when I open the mail app. I have syncing with Facebook & Gmail OFF. I only synced once to get my contacts onto the phone and then disabled syncing. I have background data and auto-sync OFF.

I made 3 phone calls all under 5 minutes long. Texted maybe 15-20 times. Browsed for about 15 minutes. Screen brightness is set ALL the way to the lowest position on the slider, and screen timeout is 15 seconds.

Doesn't this sound horrible? I know I've switched from the iPhone which can't multitask, but even without multitasking, with mostly ALL options disabled, 30% after 15 hours mostly in standby, that doesn't seem good?

How good of signal strength do you have where you are at?

One of the things I have come across is that being in a weak signal area of a home can drain a battery fast. I have had my moto slvr that would normally hold a charge for about 4-5 days.

(yep lots of standby for me as I don't talk on the cell that much, my last months bill only had 18 minutes used on it out of 450.)


But this phone if I drove over to my brothers house and spent the night would drain in 4-5 hours after leaving it on the coffee table in the room I was staying at. I was puzzled shortly as to why it would drain so quick.

Well then next time I went over I was setting the phone down when I noticed that the phone was searching for a signal and switched to analog. Then it would search for a signal then switch back to evdo. And it just kept doing this... but only in that room . As soon as I would walk out of the room with it, it would lock in evdo and stay on.

To cut to the chase what ever was going on with the signal in that room kept causing the phone to search for another network even though there was 2-3 bars of signal there. This was eating up my battery in a very short amount of time. Check your signal and if it is weak move it to another location that has a stronger signal.

But I hope that they come out with an extended battery soon for the droid.

It is not a deal killer for me as I am just a guy that uses it when I to go to work then back home in the evenings. But if I were younger before I had a family then I would need all the extended standby as I was very rarely home so I could see this would affect a person on the move.

I believe you're right on how the battery gets affected by searching for a signal. I took mine off the charge at 5AM today and when I headed home at 3 PM I still had 90% battery. I gave two mail systems checked every hour and made a few call. When I'm home, the battery drains very quickly but I spend a lot of time on the web.

I was doing some searching on the iPhone forum. On thread had 120 pages of battery concerns about the 3GS. Same situation over there. These powerful little wonders need a lot of juice. Battery capabilities aren't up to the task yet. At least we have the advantage of being able to buy a second battery. The poor iPhone people don't have that option.

 

[Azmordean]

Ok, so I got the Droid, and I really like it. Most days, even with pretty heavy use, the battery lasts through MOST of the day. Wi-fi and GPS off, and brightness kept at minimum of course .

I do think battery life is a weakness though. I am hopeful some 3rd party extended batteries may come out that will relieve the problem somewhat.

I do have one question though. I've heard vibrate sucks battery. That being the case, does haptic feedback have any appreciable effect on battery life? I like the feedback, but if turning it off will net an increase in battery life, it's well worth the sacrifice.