blackjoker4215
Member
Mine runes warm and Verizon said it was normal...but heating up the your pocket is another issue. Take it back.
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gets warm
- Thread starter cLovis_ll
- Start date
Mine runes warm and Verizon said it was normal...but heating up the your pocket is another issue. Take it back.
Computers and radios do get warm....
Ok... keep in mind, some people say "phone", but what you really have here is a pocket computer with radio network.
The power of today's ARMs, why few other CPUs are in this niche, is do to low power per MIPS, but also very good power management. When the CPU isn't working hard, it's not sucking much power. But when it does work hard, yeah, you'll get a little heat.
Radio is likewise... cell towers tell the phone how good they're getting the phone's signal, and whether to boost it or not. At peak, most phones can put out 1/2-1W when transmitting... that's pretty serious, and will also yield heat, if you're doing enough transmitting. I don't know if EDGE/x1 is necessarily more power hungry than EvDO, but it's likely in most places, if you're not getting EvDO, you're just too far... it needs that high power output just to get the 1x link working.
I'm sure it'll be repeated constantly, but do be careful about the stuff that's running. Android keeps the last six apps running, unless it needs the resources. Well behaved ones sit on the idle queue, waiting for input, and don't consumer power. Bad ones keep sucking power. If you ever find your DROID is warm in your pocket after not being used interactively for awhile, you can bet you have one or more of these still active.
Ok... keep in mind, some people say "phone", but what you really have here is a pocket computer with radio network.
The power of today's ARMs, why few other CPUs are in this niche, is do to low power per MIPS, but also very good power management. When the CPU isn't working hard, it's not sucking much power. But when it does work hard, yeah, you'll get a little heat.
Radio is likewise... cell towers tell the phone how good they're getting the phone's signal, and whether to boost it or not. At peak, most phones can put out 1/2-1W when transmitting... that's pretty serious, and will also yield heat, if you're doing enough transmitting. I don't know if EDGE/x1 is necessarily more power hungry than EvDO, but it's likely in most places, if you're not getting EvDO, you're just too far... it needs that high power output just to get the 1x link working.
I'm sure it'll be repeated constantly, but do be careful about the stuff that's running. Android keeps the last six apps running, unless it needs the resources. Well behaved ones sit on the idle queue, waiting for input, and don't consumer power. Bad ones keep sucking power. If you ever find your DROID is warm in your pocket after not being used interactively for awhile, you can bet you have one or more of these still active.
i guess i have to check it again before putting it on my pocket.. but i was so sure the last time, i killed all the running apps using ASTRO before putting it on my pocket..
thats the first thing i did when i got it.. i turned the brightness down to the lowest level.
We have two Droids in our house and they both get fairly warm when talking on calls. At first I thought it was just because I was holding it near my ear. But then realized it was a lot warmer than it should be normally. We live in a spot where our signal is usually weak. So what Hazydave says about the cell tower telling your phone to boost the signal makes sense. However, I have never had a cell phone warm up like this; and they have all received weak signals. Usually, the battery runs down quicker trying to stay in touch with a tower.
So I wonder if anyone else's Droid heats up because of a weak signal and also while talking. Almost every one else on this thread says their's heats up when using the browser.
So I wonder if anyone else's Droid heats up because of a weak signal and also while talking. Almost every one else on this thread says their's heats up when using the browser.
A couple of possibilities...
On any call, you're using more power in the "phone" part of the phone than you ordinarily would. Any time the phone is in standby mode (eg, awaiting a call), it "pings" the cell tower every so often, just to stay active... if the tower doesn't get a regular ping, it assumes you've moved on to a different tower. But this is not sustained transmission.
When you're talking, of course, you are transmitting any time you talk, up to at least 1/2 Watt's worth of power (most handsets peak between 1/2W and 1W of output power, the legal limit on most phone transmissions is 3W, but that's not usually something a handheld would do).
I think part of the heating is simply that it's made noticable.. the DROID case design assures that the heat sinks to the external case, rather than perhaps being buried in the phone. This is probably necessary to prevent overheating, because the DROID has so many different ways to get hot. The other radios, not likely... Wifi is probably limited to 100mW or less, Bluetooth more like 1mW (most phones are "class 3" Bluetooth devices, good for only about 10m range, so they don't need higher power).
But the applications processor is another story. This contains the 550MHz ARM Cortex CPU, the PowerVR 3D GPU, a 16-bit digital signal processor, additional dedicated processors for video and image processing. When this part is working hard, there's going to be lots of heat, too. Regular phones have very basic application processors, not much need for heat management.
The other aspect this the thin body... all that stuff is in the keyboard/battery half of the phone, which really make the works of this phone crazy-thin. As I recall, my old RAZR could rise a bit in temperature while talking, too... and it was both thin and metal-cased. Ok, and Motorola, but I don't think "hot" phones are particular to Motorola (in fact, they've been looking for a "hot" phone since the RAZR... by all accounts, the DROID is that phone -- over a million sold by years' end, they estimate).
On any call, you're using more power in the "phone" part of the phone than you ordinarily would. Any time the phone is in standby mode (eg, awaiting a call), it "pings" the cell tower every so often, just to stay active... if the tower doesn't get a regular ping, it assumes you've moved on to a different tower. But this is not sustained transmission.
When you're talking, of course, you are transmitting any time you talk, up to at least 1/2 Watt's worth of power (most handsets peak between 1/2W and 1W of output power, the legal limit on most phone transmissions is 3W, but that's not usually something a handheld would do).
I think part of the heating is simply that it's made noticable.. the DROID case design assures that the heat sinks to the external case, rather than perhaps being buried in the phone. This is probably necessary to prevent overheating, because the DROID has so many different ways to get hot. The other radios, not likely... Wifi is probably limited to 100mW or less, Bluetooth more like 1mW (most phones are "class 3" Bluetooth devices, good for only about 10m range, so they don't need higher power).
But the applications processor is another story. This contains the 550MHz ARM Cortex CPU, the PowerVR 3D GPU, a 16-bit digital signal processor, additional dedicated processors for video and image processing. When this part is working hard, there's going to be lots of heat, too. Regular phones have very basic application processors, not much need for heat management.
The other aspect this the thin body... all that stuff is in the keyboard/battery half of the phone, which really make the works of this phone crazy-thin. As I recall, my old RAZR could rise a bit in temperature while talking, too... and it was both thin and metal-cased. Ok, and Motorola, but I don't think "hot" phones are particular to Motorola (in fact, they've been looking for a "hot" phone since the RAZR... by all accounts, the DROID is that phone -- over a million sold by years' end, they estimate).
Thanks for your reply. What you say here makes a lot of sense. Especially why the case has to be made out of metal. I don't know if you have seen this thread, but Motorola definately packs a lot in a tight space http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-hacks/5137-complete-disassembled-droid.html
I didn't even realize mine was having a heating problem until today when I was using Google Maps to navigate to a place out of town. It only took 20 minutes, but when I picked the phone up afterward I could really tell it was warm, in the exact same area the OP talked about.
I was about to take it back to Verizon, but now I see it's normal. Of course, I still might take it back.
I was about to take it back to Verizon, but now I see it's normal. Of course, I still might take it back.
anyone know the actual temperatures of their droid when they say warm. Mine seems to always get warm if using for 15 or 20 minutes straight and it gets as hot as 111 degrees according to the battery widget i have.....at that point i locked the screen and let it sit in the dark for a while and it cooled back down like usual. When it gets to that point of being that hot i try to not turn the screen on for 10 or 15 minutes to let it cool down.
Haven't really seen any temps in this thread curious what other people have.
Haven't really seen any temps in this thread curious what other people have.
I don't wanna bump a dead thread too much but it's a problem for me. I'm on a Milestone (GSM variant) and when I made a call (20 min long today), I noticed it getting pretty toasty.
Really 10 min into the call it starts getting warm, but any shorter it should be ok.
15 min in, I fired up my battery widget and it said I was at 41C (which is just over 100F). Then at the end of the call I checked again. 41C still. Fired up TempMonitor and it said I was at 45C according to the AK sensor (116F). It quickly dropped with the call ended.
It's definitely warm under the camera lens area. I know a lot of people are saying how a warm phone is normal and stuff, but I guess part of this is exacerbated by teh fact the camera lens is right behidn the earpiece. Feels like a handwarmer to my ear while I'm talking.
My Nokia N82 and other phones haven't gotten this warm while talking. I know it's typical when phones are USED that they get warm, but this is warmer than I remember. While I didn't get to use my 3GS for more than a week, but this was never an issue, and I'm only on day 3 with the Milestone and this is already an issue that stands out. So yes, I completely understand a phone getting warm, but it seems to me the Droid gets excessively warm, and when compared to other phones its sitting on the warm/hot side. Maybe it's just my Milestone and the GSM radio, but still, not a good sign to me.
Anyone else have any numbers/feedback?
Really 10 min into the call it starts getting warm, but any shorter it should be ok.
15 min in, I fired up my battery widget and it said I was at 41C (which is just over 100F). Then at the end of the call I checked again. 41C still. Fired up TempMonitor and it said I was at 45C according to the AK sensor (116F). It quickly dropped with the call ended.
It's definitely warm under the camera lens area. I know a lot of people are saying how a warm phone is normal and stuff, but I guess part of this is exacerbated by teh fact the camera lens is right behidn the earpiece. Feels like a handwarmer to my ear while I'm talking.
My Nokia N82 and other phones haven't gotten this warm while talking. I know it's typical when phones are USED that they get warm, but this is warmer than I remember. While I didn't get to use my 3GS for more than a week, but this was never an issue, and I'm only on day 3 with the Milestone and this is already an issue that stands out. So yes, I completely understand a phone getting warm, but it seems to me the Droid gets excessively warm, and when compared to other phones its sitting on the warm/hot side. Maybe it's just my Milestone and the GSM radio, but still, not a good sign to me.
Anyone else have any numbers/feedback?
DessoThumbs
Member
Mine gets warm viewing limited costume budget indies.