Well the battery life on this phone, is terrible.

[jsh1120]

The first month my son had his cell phone (LG rhythm) he had 22,000 texts! About 75% of those were incoming texts though. Thank goodness we had unlimited texting. Since he's had his phone for almost a year now he's slowed down to about 14,000 texts. He got his LG rhythm in Feb of 09 and by Dec it was completely worn out and now he has a chocolate touch.

Hopefully your son will find a career in a field that calls for athletic thumbs.

 

[snake]

I am curious about the logic behind task killer draining the battery. I've used it since the 3rd day with my Droid. My friend who is a Verizon Rep recommended it. My wife got a Droid last weekend and the Rep installed it before we left the store. I understand the OS is supposed to regulate tasks on its own but I kill apps all the time that run in the background using tk. My battery life is very acceptable. I charge during the night and always good till the next night with 50percent or better batt life remaining. I just don't understand how using one app all the time in order to shut down many others is considered less economical towards battery life than always having several apps running? I'm not trying to make any argument here..just looking for insight. Why is relying on the OS for management better for battery life when apparently the OS lets these unused apps continue to run? I know u can force close manually but atk just seems quick and accessible.

 

[darreno1]

My battery life is above average and seems to be improving with time. I leave GPS on and I use push with my Gmail and exchange accounts. I keep wifi and bluetooth off. No task killers. 4 widgets (weather, music, calendar and digital clock). I do moderate to heavy web browsing, emailing, moderate phone calls,sms and navigation. My screen brightness is usually under 40% (26%-36%).

On the worst days, I'm at 20-30% battery at the work day's end (6.00pm or so) - that's on days with heavy web usage. Usually I'm at or over 50% battery at the work day's end, getting around 15-19 hours before I have to charge.

Seriously, I'm pretty impressed with the Droid battery wise considering the amount of use it gets on the average day.

 

[BayouFlyFisher]

I am curious about the logic behind task killer draining the battery. I've used it since the 3rd day with my Droid. My friend who is a Verizon Rep recommended it. My wife got a Droid last weekend and the Rep installed it before we left the store. I understand the OS is supposed to regulate tasks on its own but I kill apps all the time that run in the background using tk. My battery life is very acceptable. I charge during the night and always good till the next night with 50percent or better batt life remaining. I just don't understand how using one app all the time in order to shut down many others is considered less economical towards battery life than always having several apps running? I'm not trying to make any argument here..just looking for insight. Why is relying on the OS for management better for battery life when apparently the OS lets these unused apps continue to run? I know u can force close manually but atk just seems quick and accessible.

Well, in a Windows world everything you are saying is correct. In the android world, as I understand it, you are off base. The apps that we normally think of as being active are not. In Android when an app is not on the screen they are totally asleep and not drawing power. Android will kill any app that it needs to in order perform whatever tasks come up. The app is sitting in ram and it is not drawing any addition power.

Also, with apps sitting in ram, they are instantly available when you need them. If you task kill them, then they will have to be restarted and loaded before you can use them. Also, almost everyone that uses a task killer ends up in the habit of killing everything, or almost, before they put the Droid to dark - more battery drain.

The Verizon rep installed Advanced Task Killer on my droid and I deleted it as soon as it was explained to me how Android manged apps. I have always had excellent battery performance and end most days at 11 PM with 40-60% battery left and that is with running overclocked at 950 mhz. IMHO, task killer are a best a benign waste of time and the worse is causing additional battery drain and are slowing down your Droid. But for your OCD, there is no better program.

Also, don't take all this too seriously - it is just a phone after all and one man's opinion.

 

[Liderc]

You're doing it wrong, I end the day with 80% battery life and I'm on my phone more than you.

 

[snake]

I am curious about the logic behind task killer draining the battery. I've used it since the 3rd day with my Droid. My friend who is a Verizon Rep recommended it. My wife got a Droid last weekend and the Rep installed it before we left the store. I understand the OS is supposed to regulate tasks on its own but I kill apps all the time that run in the background using tk. My battery life is very acceptable. I charge during the night and always good till the next night with 50percent or better batt life remaining. I just don't understand how using one app all the time in order to shut down many others is considered less economical towards battery life than always having several apps running? I'm not trying to make any argument here..just looking for insight. Why is relying on the OS for management better for battery life when apparently the OS lets these unused apps continue to run? I know u can force close manually but atk just seems quick and accessible.

Well, in a Windows world everything you are saying is correct. In the android world, as I understand it, you are off base. The apps that we normally think of as being active are not. In Android when an app is not on the screen they are totally asleep and not drawing power. Android will kill any app that it needs to in order perform whatever tasks come up. The app is sitting in ram and it is not drawing any addition power.

Also, with apps sitting in ram, they are instantly available when you need them. If you task kill them, then they will have to be restarted and loaded before you can use them. Also, almost everyone that uses a task killer ends up in the habit of killing everything, or almost, before they put the Droid to dark - more battery drain.

The Verizon rep installed Advanced Task Killer on my droid and I deleted it as soon as it was explained to me how Android manged apps. I have always had excellent battery performance and end most days at 11 PM with 40-60% battery left and that is with running overclocked at 950 mhz. IMHO, task killer are a best a benign waste of time and the worse is causing additional battery drain and are slowing down your Droid. But for your OCD, there is no better program.

Also, don't take all this too seriously - it is just a phone after all and one man's opinion.

Thank you for the reply. I have read this information regarding the way android operates. I'm just wondering how it obtains generally to all apps. In this theory Atk is the one app that will run using memory while all others don't? The memory monitor on atk is something to keep my attention? Killing apps along with killing Atk till another session is considered a waste..even tho atk is no longer. running? Perhaps it comes down to what the apps are and what they do? Maybe it benefits some while doesn't benefit others...or just mearly satisfaction for ocd because some see no difference?
And BTW...I don't take your info or comments in a bad way. Im an easy going dude....I'm not a keyboard tuff guy

 

[Grey Hawk]

Well, I looked into what was killing the battery, and the Display is always over 50% battery usage.

So this is what I have now:

• Brightness is almost at zero on the slider
• GPS off
• Wifi off
• Bluetooth off
• Default home screen
• Beautiful Widgets Home Widget
• Sync Gmail
• Phone is on silent

Lets see what happens. Hell the phone usually drops 10-20% just sitting idle without me touching it.

 

[dylanthecat]

does leaving GPS on drain the battery

From my experience no. It only comes on when you run an app that uses it. I have WIFI on (never sleep mode) all the time as well with no battery issues. I actually get better battery life using WIFI. Verizon should lower my bill for staying off of their network so much with this phone.

I am sorry about this late post. I had two windows open with the forum open, and read an old message I missed yesterday.

 

[drkpablo]

are you rooted? install setcpu and underclock using the profiles. I am overclocked now and seem to have BETTER battery life than before because when I'm not using it, it's underclocked.

This is what I found also after overclocking. I average about 14hours... install battery graph so you can see about when you start to kill your battery on a daily basis and the power widget that comes with the phone is GREAT, I turn everything off leaving only sync on. Do not get discouraged when you first get the phone because the battery life sucks you need to adjust it to work for you and get used to managing its battery life.

 

[jsh1120]

does leaving GPS on drain the battery

From my experience no. It only comes on when you run an app that uses it. I have WIFI on (never sleep mode) all the time as well with no battery issues. I actually get better battery life using WIFI. Verizon should lower my bill for staying off of their network so much with this phone.

Ain't it the truth! And it's even worse with my HP Mini311 from Verizon that I use for broadband access. I almost NEVER use the Verizon network on that little netbook and pay $60 a month for up to five gigabytes of data transfers. Unfortunately, when I need the 3G network for internet access, I really have to have it. (Business trips.) So I plunk down $60 a month for "insurance."

Of course, I could tether my Droid to my other laptop for that purpose. However, I needed a small netbook anyhow and the HP Mini311 is a great choice. Got it for $149 from Verizon and would have had to pay about $600 for the same netbook from HP. In the end, I just bit the bullet and decided not to violate my service agreement with VZW by using the tether option.

 

[640k]

Well, I looked into what was killing the battery, and the Display is always over 50% battery usage.

So this is what I have now:

• Brightness is almost at zero on the slider
• GPS off
• Wifi off
• Bluetooth off
• Default home screen
• Beautiful Widgets Home Widget
• Sync Gmail
• Phone is on silent

Lets see what happens. Hell the phone usually drops 10-20% just sitting idle without me touching it.

50% is huge. that just goes to show how long you leave the display on. most people average around 20%.

 

[droidfannd]

I can only make it through half the day. Which is:

• Zero phone calls
• 300 texts
• 30 mins of web

Thats all I do, and that kills my phone. I adjusted the brightness to auto, and WIFI is off, Bluetooth off.

Help.

300 texts is A LOT of text messaging for half of a day. Your screen is probably the main source of battery drain.

 

[BayouFlyFisher]

Well, I looked into what was killing the battery, and the Display is always over 50% battery usage.

So this is what I have now:

• Brightness is almost at zero on the slider
• GPS off
• Wifi off
• Bluetooth off
• Default home screen
• Beautiful Widgets Home Widget
• Sync Gmail
• Phone is on silent

Lets see what happens. Hell the phone usually drops 10-20% just sitting idle without me touching it.

50% is huge. that just goes to show how long you leave the display on. most people average around 20%.

When I saw this post I checked mine and it is at 29% for the display.

 

[640k]

yeah, 20-30... depending on usage. on my light days, my display is rarely above 20%. but even when i play emulators for 2hrs on end, my display rarely gets past 30%.

 

[Grey Hawk]

yeah, 20-30... depending on usage. on my light days, my display is rarely above 20%. but even when i play emulators for 2hrs on end, my display rarely gets past 30%.

Well why the hell is it 50% then? I mean its already at 90%, and all I have done is sent maybe 30 texts. Thats it, been about an hour and a half since unplugged.