What kind of upgrade would improve battery life?

[mjp81]

If the Motorola/Google people are working on improving the Droid's battery life, which I hope they are, I'm curious as to how they would go about it. Would it be developing better firmware, making a more powerful battery, or would you have to change the hardware i.e. make a new phone?

 

[mjp81]

*BUMP* No one has any idea? Should be easy enough for someone who knows cell phone technology.

 

[JayMonster]

Since I am getting 15+ hours of battery life on my Droid, any improvement in battery life would be welcomed, but not all that dramatic to me.

They could certainly tweak some setting along the way and improve the battery life slightly... but that would be about is as far as I can see.

Anything more would require a larger battery. Thus a hardware change.

 

[JhankG]

For a smartphone, the battery is pretty good. I know that doesn't answer your question, but don't expect an update to add hours and hours. It is a phone/GPS/computer that is constantly pulling data from every which way. The best way to increase battery life is to turn off auto sync, GPS, wifi, and turn on auto brightness and a short time out for the screen. Even with everything turned on other than wifi, I always get a full days use out of one charge.

 

[Topsy]

Ya I have to agree. Biggest power drain i've found is the brightness , at the lowest setting my battery life is drastically improved to a point i'm happy with.

 

[mjp81]

The main reason I ask is according to the BatteryTime app, a full charge will only give me 4hrs and 16min of audio playback, where I've heard that the iPhone can play audio for up to 30 hours. What's up with that?

 

[JayMonster]

Not sure how the BatteryTime does its calculations, but I listen to 3 hrs of Podcasts/Music every day. On top of that i do a lot of web surfing, e-mail, texting and 10 or so calls on an average day. With that I still get 15 hours... so I don't think 4 hours of playback is accurate.

 

[JhankG]

The main reason I ask is according to the BatteryTime app, a full charge will only give me 4hrs and 16min of audio playback, where I've heard that the iPhone can play audio for up to 30 hours. What's up with that?

Those things take a looong time to calibrate themselves correctly.

 

[mjp81]

The main reason I ask is according to the BatteryTime app, a full charge will only give me 4hrs and 16min of audio playback, where I've heard that the iPhone can play audio for up to 30 hours. What's up with that?

Those things take a looong time to calibrate themselves correctly.

Do you mean it takes a lot of recharges before it becomes more efficient, and would an app like BatteryTime reflect that?

 

[brochaos]

well the new webos update for the pre comes with "longer battery life" so software methods definitely exist.

 

[JayMonster]

The main reason I ask is according to the BatteryTime app, a full charge will only give me 4hrs and 16min of audio playback, where I've heard that the iPhone can play audio for up to 30 hours. What's up with that?

Those things take a looong time to calibrate themselves correctly.

Do you mean it takes a lot of recharges before it becomes more efficient, and would an app like BatteryTime reflect that?

What it means, is the app needs multiple battery cycles before the estimates are correct.