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Battery Life
- Thread starter nhynes86
- Start date
TommyGrubz
New Member
Yesterday I got 21 hrs out of my battery with moderate use. This was with wifi and GPS on all day, and bluetooth on some of the time (while I was in the car - not THAT long). If you don't get anything near that you may consider taking it back and getting a new one. One thing I know is you should always allow it to fully charge, then charge all the way (cycle) a couple times when you first get it. After the first couple times, you should 'cycle' your battery maybe once a month.
Also, if you leave it plugged in for a very long time after its done charging it will "fry" your battery and wont last as long. If you think this happened put your battery in the freezer at home over night (not kidding), then let it come back to room temp - make sure there is no condensation and it isn't cold or cool, then charge it back up. This is a trick I learned about lithium ion batteries over at BlackberryOS.com that works for ALL lithium ion batteries - even worked for my xbox controller that wouldn't hold ANY charge!
Also, if you leave it plugged in for a very long time after its done charging it will "fry" your battery and wont last as long. If you think this happened put your battery in the freezer at home over night (not kidding), then let it come back to room temp - make sure there is no condensation and it isn't cold or cool, then charge it back up. This is a trick I learned about lithium ion batteries over at BlackberryOS.com that works for ALL lithium ion batteries - even worked for my xbox controller that wouldn't hold ANY charge!
Is the battery a "deal killer?"
I'm not a Droid owner yet, but have been going back and forth between wanting to buy one RIGHT NOW, and holding on to my LGnv2 because none of these battery issues come up. I use Bluetooth all day long, talk a LOT on my phone (I'm a truck driver, and our cell phones are the Long Distance CB's now). Sounds to me like the battery might be an issue. I take lots of videos and pass them along during the day, and talk a LOT all night long. As much as I love the sound of all this tech stuff, I'm wondering about battery life. If I have to remember to constantly shut off stuff I'm not using (GPS, WiFi, etc), I just know I'm going to blow it. Can you charge these things via ciggy plug while you're still using them?:blink:
I don't think leaving your phone plugged into the charge will fry your battery. It used to be that way but I think the chargers are 'smart' now and automatically shut down when the battery is completely charged.
I'm not a Droid owner yet, but have been going back and forth between wanting to buy one RIGHT NOW, and holding on to my LGnv2 because none of these battery issues come up. I use Bluetooth all day long, talk a LOT on my phone (I'm a truck driver, and our cell phones are the Long Distance CB's now). Sounds to me like the battery might be an issue. I take lots of videos and pass them along during the day, and talk a LOT all night long. As much as I love the sound of all this tech stuff, I'm wondering about battery life. If I have to remember to constantly shut off stuff I'm not using (GPS, WiFi, etc), I just know I'm going to blow it. Can you charge these things via ciggy plug while you're still using them?:blink:
I don't think leaving your phone plugged into the charge will fry your battery. It used to be that way but I think the chargers are 'smart' now and automatically shut down when the battery is completely charged.
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Uhm, I would re-check those reviews and also do inquiries on how they came to that conclusion.
As an actual BB Storm user, I can eek out maybe 4 to 5 days before I need to recharge the Storm, but then again, I have it at a much more minimal use and I also use the Auto On/Off feature on it to conserve battery power. The Droid, I can go through most of the day with semi-regular activity, but I charge it every night.
I have had my new Droid since Saturday 11/28. I have been reading everything I can and setting my options to the best possible while still being useful for saving the battery. I unplugged @ 6:32 am today and have my Bluetooth running, have made 36m worth of voice calls. Had my email being checked every 15m on a single account. Received 3 text messages and sent 2. No web browsing and no game playing. Goggle Talk, Android Keyboard, Corp. Calendar (which I have killed) and bluetooth updating service is all that is running per the app manager in the settings tab. GPS and WiFi are turned off. Screen brightness is at just under 25%. My battery is now @ 40%. Battery usage states that 56% of what has killed my battery so far is the paltry 36m worth of voice calls (this was only 2 different calls by the way). Correct me if I am wrong, but shouldn't I be getting better results then this? Someone did mention that they were able to get a new battery under warranty...is this something I should consider? Someone also stated that they simply returned the entire phone for a new one. Anyone think I should do that or just wait it out? I understand I will not get the 3-5 days that I got out of my regular phone, but, using almost 1/4 of the battery to talk for 36m is kinda ridiculous. Thanks for any help/suggestion ahead of time 
TommyGrubz
New Member
If you say so... just remember the freezer trick I mentioned when your battery stops holding its charge
Anyways, instead of leaving it plugged in all the time, why not just charge it when it gets low?
Battery Life, To drain or not to drain ?
Battery Life
Battery Life is a major problem for a lot of people. I think it comes in 4 different packages:
1: Battery : Do you drain the battery to zero or never let it drain down
completely ? I do not know the definitive answer. It depends
on who you believe and personal experience. I have not tried to
drain the battery yet.
2. Charger : Many people who have bought after market chargers have had
interesting experiences from auto phone calls and emails made in
sleep time to discharging while plugged in etc. I have several
after market chargers, some work and some do not.
3. Killer Apps : I believe they are helpful although they also drain battery.
Some people feel that the LINUX system auto shuts down
unused programs. I am not sure.
I think TasKiller and Adv Task Killer work but use more battery.
I personally use Adv Task Manager and find it works well for me
4. Usage : Of course the biggest drain is usage. Any battery no matter how
good will drain with heavy usage. i.e. game playing, listening to
music, gps, bluetooth, wifi etc. The main drain is how long is the
screen on.
Conclusions: 1. Battery: defective ? Replace. Drain or not drain ???
2. Charger: defective ? Dispose
3. Killer apps: Do you need them ? I like Adv Task Management
4. Usage: Review usage in Settings/ App - Spare Parts
Modify especially in areas of low coverage. A lot of
the programs kick in automatically and if your
coverage is not good it continues to search and
uses battery. That is what the Killer apps do.
Originally Posted by sooper_droid12
Lithium ion batteries should NEVER be allowed to discharge or reach a low level of charge and then fully charged (i.e. full cycle charges). A friend of mine has his mind set on the fact that you need to fully discharge a battery and charge it to full to maintain its longevity. The opposite though is true: 1) Each battery has a finite number of charge/discharge cycles so no matter what, every batterywill eventually decline and die (i.e. these batteries do not have memory); 2) Several partial discharges with frequent recharges are favorable over one deep one; 3) Since our batteries are being measured by a gauge, 1 full discharge in 30 will keep the battery's circuitry calibrated with the gauge.
These are just some tips. Again, no battery is going to last forever and typical life for Li-ion batteries are 2-3 years. And don't bother getting a spare battery, unless you're one of those users who just blasts through batteries.
Agreed, I always have people telling me to discharge fully, don't overcharge, etc... and I always have to go on with this story.
The batteries that benefit from this type of charging and discharging are NiCd and NiMH cells; which were once very popular until lithium-ion technology came along. Lithium-ion does not have this "memory" effect and does not benefit from fully discharging, conversely, it looses capacity in these discharges.
Lithium-ion (or lithium-ion polymer) degrades based on the amount of "charging cycles" that it undergoes; each full charge (0->100%) counts as one full cycle. So, as sooper said partial discharges are more favorable over full discharges as they only count as a fraction of a full charge cycle.
As for the charging overnight, modern charges, phones, and batteries all include circuitry to prevent thebattery from being overcharged. You should be fine leaving it plugged in overnight.
Battery Life
Battery Life is a major problem for a lot of people. I think it comes in 4 different packages:
1: Battery : Do you drain the battery to zero or never let it drain down
completely ? I do not know the definitive answer. It depends
on who you believe and personal experience. I have not tried to
drain the battery yet.
2. Charger : Many people who have bought after market chargers have had
interesting experiences from auto phone calls and emails made in
sleep time to discharging while plugged in etc. I have several
after market chargers, some work and some do not.
3. Killer Apps : I believe they are helpful although they also drain battery.
Some people feel that the LINUX system auto shuts down
unused programs. I am not sure.
I think TasKiller and Adv Task Killer work but use more battery.
I personally use Adv Task Manager and find it works well for me
4. Usage : Of course the biggest drain is usage. Any battery no matter how
good will drain with heavy usage. i.e. game playing, listening to
music, gps, bluetooth, wifi etc. The main drain is how long is the
screen on.
Conclusions: 1. Battery: defective ? Replace. Drain or not drain ???
2. Charger: defective ? Dispose
3. Killer apps: Do you need them ? I like Adv Task Management
4. Usage: Review usage in Settings/ App - Spare Parts
Modify especially in areas of low coverage. A lot of
the programs kick in automatically and if your
coverage is not good it continues to search and
uses battery. That is what the Killer apps do.
Originally Posted by sooper_droid12
Lithium ion batteries should NEVER be allowed to discharge or reach a low level of charge and then fully charged (i.e. full cycle charges). A friend of mine has his mind set on the fact that you need to fully discharge a battery and charge it to full to maintain its longevity. The opposite though is true: 1) Each battery has a finite number of charge/discharge cycles so no matter what, every batterywill eventually decline and die (i.e. these batteries do not have memory); 2) Several partial discharges with frequent recharges are favorable over one deep one; 3) Since our batteries are being measured by a gauge, 1 full discharge in 30 will keep the battery's circuitry calibrated with the gauge.
These are just some tips. Again, no battery is going to last forever and typical life for Li-ion batteries are 2-3 years. And don't bother getting a spare battery, unless you're one of those users who just blasts through batteries.
Agreed, I always have people telling me to discharge fully, don't overcharge, etc... and I always have to go on with this story.
The batteries that benefit from this type of charging and discharging are NiCd and NiMH cells; which were once very popular until lithium-ion technology came along. Lithium-ion does not have this "memory" effect and does not benefit from fully discharging, conversely, it looses capacity in these discharges.
Lithium-ion (or lithium-ion polymer) degrades based on the amount of "charging cycles" that it undergoes; each full charge (0->100%) counts as one full cycle. So, as sooper said partial discharges are more favorable over full discharges as they only count as a fraction of a full charge cycle.
As for the charging overnight, modern charges, phones, and batteries all include circuitry to prevent thebattery from being overcharged. You should be fine leaving it plugged in overnight.
depending on use i get any where from 6 hours which is good to whooping 10.25 hours that was my best but i wasnt using it a whole lot. my biggest pet peeve im tired of reading about is charging cable there is no difference in the charging cable they ALL are micro USB cables nothing fancy just plain simple micro usb. which by the way is going to be the norm over in Europe they have all ready signed a pack for a all new phones to be micro usb heck even the mighty apple iphone is going micro usb. so stop complaining about the dang cable. double check your droid when in you place it in the dock make sure its seated look at the dang icon for the bolt. i dont even use the stock bedside app that is on the droid i downloaded the bedside it does everything minus weather but shows the battery icon.
it's not the cable, it's the power supplied by said cable....
richelesro
New Member
Is there a way to find out how much power is being supplied to the phone? I have three car chargers and none of them seem to be the quick-charge type, although they all state 850mA.
passleft49
New Member
battery 
so, my battery doesn't last but for maybe 5 hours...today when i got to work i noticed that at the top there was a little satellite looking thing, i don't know what it was and i didn't know how to turn it off...i just now got the advanced task killer and turned a bunch of stuff off and it's gone, i looked at where my battery usage had gone and 80% of it was the browser...i'm not sure what happened but now i have to go all the way until 7:00 after basketball practice is over without my droid! someone please tell me what i'm doing wrong.
so, my battery doesn't last but for maybe 5 hours...today when i got to work i noticed that at the top there was a little satellite looking thing, i don't know what it was and i didn't know how to turn it off...i just now got the advanced task killer and turned a bunch of stuff off and it's gone, i looked at where my battery usage had gone and 80% of it was the browser...i'm not sure what happened but now i have to go all the way until 7:00 after basketball practice is over without my droid! someone please tell me what i'm doing wrong.
so, my battery doesn't last but for maybe 5 hours...today when i got to work i noticed that at the top there was a little satellite looking thing, i don't know what it was and i didn't know how to turn it off...i just now got the advanced task killer and turned a bunch of stuff off and it's gone, i looked at where my battery usage had gone and 80% of it was the browser...i'm not sure what happened but now i have to go all the way until 7:00 after basketball practice is over without my droid! someone please tell me what i'm doing wrong.
The little satellite icon is your GPS working on finding your location. I had the same problem with the browser draining my battery. All I did was make sure that after I am done with the phone I use Advanced task killer to kill all the apps and then put the phone to sleep. It has increased my battery life about double which while isn't much is better then nothing...
diverbelow
Member
I went back to 2.0.1 stock yesterday, and I installed Google Sky as it is a very interesting app. Well, I thought I exit out of GS, then I noticed couple hours later, my Droid was flashing the red light (it was already at 20%, and when I opened up GS, it was at 60%).