What is considered normal battery life? (yeah, another battery thread)

[Jjaeger240]

FYI, I've searched and read the other battery threads about this phone.

This is my first smartphone, coming from a Voyager, so I wasn't sure what to expect by comparison-- but thus far I've been very surprised by my low battery life.

What is a normal consumption rate for a few 10 minute phone calls (on speaker with the display dimmed), 10 texts (sent and received), and maybe browsing one forum on Dolphin HD for 5 minutes?

I ask because I wound up replacing my Voyager because the battery was 3 years old and couldn't survive the day if I didn't charge it, and now I have the same problem with my Droid X.

When at work from 8am-1pm I have the following settings and usage:
Settings:
All Sounds Off
Power Saver Mode
Auto Brightness (normally the lowest brightness setting)
All widgets update hourly
Display is always off unless in use

Usage:
One sent, one received text message
One voicemail check (<1 minute)
One call on speaker phone (15 minutes)

By the time I get home from work 5 hours later my battery is down to 70% when I plug it back in. Given, only 30% loss doesn't sound substantial, but considering the phone is basically turned off and sitting idle for 5 hours it's a surprising drain.

Is this normal?

The only widgets I have are Facebook, Audiomanager, Weather Channel, and Motorola Calendar. Because I was having an issue I downloaded an Advanced Task Killer just to monitor what was running and I was shocked by all the apps it said I had going simultaneously. That list on average is as follows:
Voice Commands
The Weather Channel
Gmail
Facebook
Alarm & Timer
City ID
Text Messaging
Audio Manager
Dolphin Browser HD
Browser
Contacts
Music
Social Networking

I turned off the alarm this morning, haven't been on facebook or social networking today, don't have any music on the phone, don't use voice commands, have only used favorites today (not my contact list), haven't been on dolphin or regular browser, and don't know what city id is.

My point being, I haven't even used half of this stuff, and even if I select to kill the apps I will check back 5 minutes later and they will all be running again for some reason. I assume this has something to do with my battery drain as well but don't know how to stop it.

Any help, thoughts, suggestions?

 

[Smokie]

sounds pretty normal to me.. most smart phones suck down battery like crazy.. not to mention you bought the phone with the biggest screen available.. get a task killer app and set it up to auto task kill a list of things you don't want running constantly. that'll help out some. I charge my phone during the day while at work, plus at night when I get home. I'd say your phone is acting normal considering what you are running on it. anytime you run something and close it, it still runs in the background..

 

[ShowTime]

I don't own an X, but still sounds fairly normal to me. Keep in mind, just because the screen is off when you aren't using it, doesn't mean the phone isn't still doing stuff that uses battery (searching for/maintaining signal, etc).

Also, absolutely disregard Smokie's suggestion of a task killer. First, constantly autokilling a bunch of apps is only going to lag your phone and use even more battery. There is 0 need for a task killer, outside of occasionally needing to kill a single, rogue app. Furthermore, when you close an app, it does not continue to "run" in the background. It sits idle, not using resources, until you use it again. It's how the OS works.

 

[Sydman]

Yeah I like task killer for after listening to music or viewing web pages. But then I set task killer to kill itself so it does not keep running.

 

[ShowTime]

No. No task killer, ever.

 

[Backnblack]

I was able to get 14 hours today before needing to place it on charge.
And that was with a 90 min phone call....

 

[stryguy]

Remove your facebook widget and task killer and give it 1 day. You'll see huge improvements.

 

[Jjaeger240]

Thanks for the suggestions. I've read how poor task killers can be and result in the reverse effect you're after. I tried it out merely because nothing else was working and I wanted to see if there were things running that I wasn't aware of.

To refer to some of the posts:

(1) So by an application sitting idle, does it mean it's not using battery? Is there a reason that some apps, such as Music, turn on when I have never touched it, have a widget for it, or don't even have music on my phone?

(2) Does having gps/satellite on eat up battery?

(3) Killed the Facebook widget and just put a shortcut for it, not a big whore for it anyway.

Also, the other day I think I actually used my phone more than normal surfing a few sites, texting a bunch of people, a few speaker phone calls (15-30 min long) and the battery seemed to last about the same. Is that normal? Does that battery just kind of drain juice regardless and only intense "power" use will drain the battery even faster? Found it weird that it almost had identical, if not more life when under more use.

Looking to get the Tasker app too, seems extremely useful for me, but don't want to lose all battery again. I bought the phone for its functionality so I don't want to limit its capabilities but I also don't want to spend my day monitoring how it's used to preserve the battery-- need to find a middle ground to stand on. Not a crazy power user or have it just to show it off and play games/watch movies, only trying to help increase my productivity and efficiency with things.

 

[Immolate]

Over the last few days using my droid x normally with power saver mode I haven't gotten it under 70%. I'm rooted but haven't removed a single app. No live wallpaper or gps wifi bluetooth left running.

The only thing I did was research lithium ion batteries and drain my battery all the way in the first couple of days so my phone would have an accurate idea of where the top and bottom of a charge was.



Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

 

[ShowTime]

(1) So by an application sitting idle, does it mean it's not using battery? Is there a reason that some apps, such as Music, turn on when I have never touched it, have a widget for it, or don't even have music on my phone?
Yes, being idle means not using battery, atleast, not any significant amount. Some apps will always restart and sit idle, it's just how the OS works.

(2) Does having gps/satellite on eat up battery?
No. I leave gps on at all times. It is only "on" and using battery when you use an app that needs it. You will know when it's on because there will be a satellite icon in the notification tray. Otherwise, it isn't using any battery.

You should be able to use your phone all you want without having to monitor your usage/battery and make it through a day easily. Keep adjusting settings and such until you get the right setup. I use my phone a ton and can easily make it from 9am-11pm without needing to charge it. You can too.

 

[Jjaeger240]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone.

Made some serious adjustments over the weekend including:
-Adding Launcher Pro Plus
-Only have 3 home screens now
-Removing Facebook Widget
-Removing Advanced Task Killer
-Removing Motorola Calendar Widget
-Adding App Organizer to condense shortcuts

Given, I haven't had my normal work day yet so I haven't been able to compare it accordingly, however, I gave my phone some decent use for an hour this morning and had it on for over 7ish hours and had 70% battery when I charged it this afternoon. It definitely seems like I can use my phone significantly more and not watch the battery rapidly drop now. I guess tomorrow will be the true test.

 

[Laramie]

I was able to get 14 hours today before needing to place it on charge.
And that was with a 90 min phone call....

Who were you talking to??? The President?

 

[Fizban22]

Thanks for the suggestions. I've read how poor task killers can be and result in the reverse effect you're after. I tried it out merely because nothing else was working and I wanted to see if there were things running that I wasn't aware of.

To refer to some of the posts:

(1) So by an application sitting idle, does it mean it's not using battery? Is there a reason that some apps, such as Music, turn on when I have never touched it, have a widget for it, or don't even have music on my phone?

(2) Does having gps/satellite on eat up battery?

(3) Killed the Facebook widget and just put a shortcut for it, not a big whore for it anyway.

Also, the other day I think I actually used my phone more than normal surfing a few sites, texting a bunch of people, a few speaker phone calls (15-30 min long) and the battery seemed to last about the same. Is that normal? Does that battery just kind of drain juice regardless and only intense "power" use will drain the battery even faster? Found it weird that it almost had identical, if not more life when under more use.

Looking to get the Tasker app too, seems extremely useful for me, but don't want to lose all battery again. I bought the phone for its functionality so I don't want to limit its capabilities but I also don't want to spend my day monitoring how it's used to preserve the battery-- need to find a middle ground to stand on. Not a crazy power user or have it just to show it off and play games/watch movies, only trying to help increase my productivity and efficiency with things.

yeah i was kinda having the same problem too. i would go to work and not use my phone at all and it would drain down to about 50 or 60% within 6 or 7 hours. not terrible, but not favorable.

what i did was got rid of the facebook widget (which i think helped A LOT!) and i got rid of weatherchannel and got weatherbug elite instead. it costs a dollar or so but i think its a lot better, has a way cooler widget (widget consists of the temp, icon, etc. plus a 3 day forecast). i know a lot of people might disagree but it seemed to me like weather channel was eating up a lot more battery than weatherbug elite does.


oh and dont use task killers. i had one and deleted it cause i ehard they were bad. the phone is going to automatically reopen the things you kill anyway, and it takes more juice to power those apps back on after you deleted them than it does for them to just be running all the time.


doing these things, i can get a solid 20 horus out of my phone now, and thats with a decent amount of calling/texting/emial

 

[iHad a G1]

I know this is by no means a definitive gauge on anyone's battery life but mine, but here was my usage for yesterday, I went to my wife's sister's softball tournament:

Phone off charger @ 6:30 am, used nav from Fayettville, NC to Rocky Mount, NC (~ 1h30m), took 115 8mp photos (the camera is too nice to NOT take pictures), took 22 minutes worth of 720p video, played Card Ace: Blackjack for an hour, wife checked facebook (~30m), watched the play by play of the red sox - tigers game on MLB @ bat, checked facebook, answered hundreds of emails, sent and received over 100 text messages, played paper toss, used nav back home, phone dies at 11:45 pm.

so, with my > moderate usage and standby, my phone pulled almost 18 hours. I was shocked, stunned, etc. especially considering I came from a Palm Pre Plus that could barely squeeze 3 hours in standby...

the day before I only managed 11 hours though.

 

[Jjaeger240]

In case anyone has been following this thread or cares, today was my ultimate test of whether the changes I did positively impacted my battery...

To start, I used my phone a lot more today than normal during a workday. Sent and received 20 or so text messages, surfed the web for 15 minutes, made a couple 15 minute speakerphone calls, checked my email a few times and sent a couple replies. To further increase from my normal battery use, I wound up not going home this afternoon for lunch and was unable to charge my phone at 1pm like normal.

With the extra use, and an additional 4 hours of time unplugged, I came home to my battery still at 80%. This is a huge improvement over previous where it was at 70% after 5 hours unplugged and almost no use. I think I would see an even larger increase if I didn't have the weather channel set to automatically locate my gps signal and give the weather for my current location (because any time I walk 5ft in my own home with the phone I see the satellite popping up and running) but I like the feature too much not to use it.

So with that said, maybe this will help someone. I think the Facebook widget ate more battery than anything else I was doing. The Task Killer wasn't helping anything either, but I also downloaded it only because things were already going pretty bad. I like my home screen setups a lot more now than I did previously and they have substantially less, but yet offer so much more.