unusable phone?

[smileygladhands]

had it for less than a week, and the battery is a disaster of epic proportions. I can't spend a full 8-9 hours outside without charging the thing. I've already turned down the brightness significantly.

Here's what I'm dealing with, i unplugged it just under 3 hours ago when i left for work.

I'm at the office, and i'm already down to 60%. My usage is:

cell standby - 24%
display - 20%
com.android.calendar - 18%
android system - 17%
com.motorola.service -11%
phone idle - 9%
android os - 2%

Its completely ridiculous. Likely returning this for a blackberry. If you are thinking of buying this phone, don't do it unless something is done about the battery. Its a beautiful phone and very "cool", but what good is that if it needs to be plugged in ALL THE TIME.

 

[Martin030908]

I just converted a friend from a BB Curve to the Droid Pro and I can say he is not suffering the battery woes you are.

Screen Brightness, I would set to auto.
Do you have a lot of widgets on your home screens? Do they refresh on their own? (ie Weather widgets, etc) You can lengthen the refresh intervals if so.

Even though there are 7 home screens available, I had my buddy shrink to only using 3 or 4.

I don't use the calendar but that seems like a lot of battery for it to be consuming... hopefully someone else can chime in on this one.

Also, how's the signal strength in your area? A weak signal can be detrimental to battery life.

These are just some basic things I'm sure you've already looked into but I'm just trying to give ya some help

 

[DF Smod]

...an extended battery would be a good investment - but going back to an inferior device doesn't make much sense

 

[smileygladhands]

i'm based out of NYC, so signal strength shouldn't be an issue?

I have no idea what i'm doing wrong...3 hours and 39 minutes since unplugged, and now its down to 50%???

i understand its going to be battery intensive, but i will be unable to go out for a full day without the thing dying??

i've turned off wifi, bluetooth, and gps. My screen brightness is very low. I want to love this device, but how can they expect corporate users to function on this thing?

 

[Backnblack]

Sounds like you have a Task Killer installed.....

 

[smileygladhands]

so what should i do?

 

[Frow]

I switched my settings for global to cdma not sure what that does. But That helped my battery the most. I use the brightest display setting. Gps always on. Laucher pro with 5 full screens of widgets. My battery last from 5am til 10 at night with 30 %. I did have a problem when I put my phone in my locker. It lost signal and the screen had a pop up that left the screen on. That drained it


Sent from my DROID PRO using DroidForums App

 

[BayouFlyFisher]

Here's my tips (I do not have a Pro, but I've been using Android for the past 13 months):

1. Go to settings/wireless & networks/mobile networks/Enable always-on data. Uncheck always on data. Your phone will still receive email, text, & phone calls as before as well as internet usage but your battery will last a lot longer.

2. Emails: I don't know what email app he uses, but have him try this. It saves battery power and in some cases gets his emails to him quicker. This scheme will have him using only the Gmail app on the phone for all his email accounts whether they are pop3 accounts or Gmail. Go to the Google Gmail inbox on his computer and log into his Gmail account. On the top right of the screen is an options called Settings. In there is an option to have the Gmail program poll his regular, non-Gmail accounts. He provides the email address and the password. The Google Gmail program will then poll his other accounts on a frequency from 1-5 minutes and push the email immediately to his phone. The polling frequency is determined by each account's activity - more emails = faster polling. It will always be at least every five minutes. This saves battery power because on the android os with pop3 accounts they are polled at a frequency of 1-30 minutes and that really eats battery. Because the phone goes and checks those accounts for mail whether there is mail there or not.

3. If you are using Live Wall Papers, stop!

4. Use wifi any time it is available. It uses a lot less power than 3G and it is much faster.

5. If there are widgets on any of the screens that automatically update (facebook, weather, etc.) change their update frequency in their settings menu. Set them to 30mins or 1 hour.

6. Oh, almost forgot, get the extended battery from Verizon.

7. Turn off the GPS unless you are actually using it. There are some background apps that can burn a lot of power via a live gps.

8. The Power Control Widget is a good tool for easily turning on and off some of these features (gps, wifi, screen brightness, etc.).


9. Get Screebl. It will turn your phone off anytime you are not actively using it.


10. If you have either a task killer or an anti-virus app, uninstall. Your phone needs neither.


That's all I can think of right now.


Hope some of this helps. Good luck with your phone.

 

[smileygladhands]

thanks, i dont think i have any sort of task killer, because the only thing i DL'd was the power control widget. RIght now i've turned everything off.

what about that "always on" data functionality. What does it do exactly? i need my work email to be live synching - will this do something to that if i play around with it?

 

[mspm47]

so what should i do?

I am on my second Pro (i have numerous postings regarding my issues). I am waiting for a D2G replacement as this second Pro is problematic also.

In my opinion, this phone is a bit buggy and maybe not ready for prime time.

 

[ravenhawk]

Here was my biggest thing: I had GPS on from when I used the nav, and WIFI on from when I was at Starbucks. My battery was drainging from 100% to 30% or less overnight. I keep those off except when I genuinely need them, and now my battery goes from 100% to about 80% overnight.

Maybe you've already noticed this and done this and I'm the only idiot on here that went a full couple weeks without doing it, but I just thought I'd share, because this made such a HUGE difference in my battery usage, and might be overlooked.

 

[smileygladhands]

i've tried making some tweaks this morning - overall phone lasted about 5 hours unplugged. Its charging now, and i'll see if i've made much of a difference

 

[smileygladhands]

well i made some of the suggestions in this thread. My phone got to a 100% charge 2 hours and 18 minutes ago (when i unplugged).

so in 2 hours and 18 minutes, i've gone from 100% to 60%. have no idea what i'm doing wrong.

 

[mspm47]

Here's my tips (I do not have a Pro, but I've been using Android for the past 13 months):

1. Go to settings/wireless & networks/mobile networks/Enable always-on data. Uncheck always on data. Your phone will still receive email, text, & phone calls as before as well as internet usage but your battery will last a lot longer.

2. Emails: I don't know what email app he uses, but have him try this. It saves battery power and in some cases gets his emails to him quicker. This scheme will have him using only the Gmail app on the phone for all his email accounts whether they are pop3 accounts or Gmail. Go to the Google Gmail inbox on his computer and log into his Gmail account. On the top right of the screen is an options called Settings. In there is an option to have the Gmail program poll his regular, non-Gmail accounts. He provides the email address and the password. The Google Gmail program will then poll his other accounts on a frequency from 1-5 minutes and push the email immediately to his phone. The polling frequency is determined by each account's activity - more emails = faster polling. It will always be at least every five minutes. This saves battery power because on the android os with pop3 accounts they are polled at a frequency of 1-30 minutes and that really eats battery. Because the phone goes and checks those accounts for mail whether there is mail there or not.

3. If you are using Live Wall Papers, stop!

4. Use wifi any time it is available. It uses a lot less power than 3G and it is much faster.

5. If there are widgets on any of the screens that automatically update (facebook, weather, etc.) change their update frequency in their settings menu. Set them to 30mins or 1 hour.

6. Oh, almost forgot, get the extended battery from Verizon.

7. Turn off the GPS unless you are actually using it. There are some background apps that can burn a lot of power via a live gps.

8. The Power Control Widget is a good tool for easily turning on and off some of these features (gps, wifi, screen brightness, etc.).


9. Get Screebl. It will turn your phone off anytime you are not actively using it.


10. If you have either a task killer or an anti-virus app, uninstall. Your phone needs neither.


That's all I can think of right now.


Hope some of this helps. Good luck with your phone.

I am sure those are all good suggestions but why should we have to get a phone then dumb it down to work correctly?

 

[Janet1025]

Pro

Ugh the Pro,

Besides all the other issues, Battery was Major one, I took my phone off the charger one day at 630am and by 1030am the battery was completely dead, maybe 4 calls (not that long) and one or two web pages..

What made me most angry is that Im a Visiting nurse in the South Bronx and I was walking into a dangerous housing project with a dead new phone. UNACCEPTABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Tech geek wannabe but have to settle being a Superhero Mom to two BOYS!