Gingerbread chewing up my battery

[Ride]

My pro has been great on battery for nearly a year (have the extended battery), since the OTA update, this baby is tearing through my battery life. . . . anyone else seeing this?

I've set network to CDMA, etc., but the standard stuff doesn't seem to help. . . . .I'm thinking gingerbread is doing more background work somewhere.

 

[BayouFlyFisher]

Here's a list I grabbed a few weeks ago. A lot of this worked for me. It was written for the Bionic, but I imagine some of it will work on your phone:

Battery Life – BY: NoBloatware on DF

consider doing a factory reset. Do not sync apps, wifi connections, etc. with Google services as that may cause a problem. Install all apps and wifi connections from scratch. A bit of a pain, but not too bad.- install a home/launcher replacement. I use Go Launcher EX, which is free, and I love it. No reason not to try out an alternative launcher as you can always go back to how you had it.

- don't use an automatic task killer--not even the one that comes with the phone. Reboot your phone and look at what's running. If anything that you've installed is running and there's no reason for it, then uninstall it and find an alternative that behaves. Ignore any stock apps that run on boot as I've found them to be more or less benign.

- weather widgets, live wallpapers, news/social feeds, any app or service that you use that runs--do without it if you can.

- don't use antivirus

- the DLNA app pops up a dialog box that will set your WIFI sleep policy to never. The default is "turn off when screen turns off" and I personally think that this setting is the best thing for battery life. Under wifi settings view your connections then hit menu to see "Advanced options" where you can set the sleep policy

- if you have access to wifi, leave it toggled on as it is more efficient than 3G. This is different from the sleep policy.

- I leave GPS toggled on too by the way. Apps use it as needed. When I'm done with Maps or an app that uses it, I'm sure to return to the home screen so GPS can stop. Under wireless settings turn on "Google location services" so that an app is able to use network resources to get your location instead of GPS. I have "VZW location services" turned off--don't know why that option is even there. By the way, I increase the speed of voice output > text to speech > speech rate because I like the directions to get spit out faster. That saves a bit of battery. Turning off the display and just listening for directions help. Also, often I just get the directions and then exit back to the home screen: GPS uses so much battery I try to get it over with ASAP.

- when you get a new battery, do a factory reset, or an OS upgrade run your battery all the way down until the phone shuts off and then charge the battery all the way up. This will callibrate the phone's understanding of the battery's capacity. Do this once every month or two also, but don't do it too often if you can help it.

- I have my battery set to "Performance Mode" and data is on all the time because I am on call 24x7. If you don't mind, try out a more conservative battery profile to save more gobs of energy.

- set screen brightness to "Automatic"

- under Accounts, click on any account listed and turn off sync for any items that you're not interested in syncing. For example, Google Books if you don't use it. Don't use Backup Assistant--I prefer syncing my contacts with Google. You don't need both. Also go into your contacts > menu > display options > backup assistant > UNCHECK. Also do contacts > menu > more > settings > contact storage > and select your Google account and "remember this choice"

- if you never use bluetooth then toggle it off. If you do use it sometimes, it's fine to leave it toggled on all the time.

- consider turning off voice privacy. This may not be a big deal but it will save some processing (and therefore battery). It may also improve call quality.

- turn off haptic feedback, animations, and any un-needed sounds in Android settings and in your apps

- set your screen timeout to as low a time as you can stand (I use 1 minute) and manually turn the screen off when you're done using the phone. I use an app to lock the screen so I don't wear out my power button...as happened on my original droid.

- turn off in-pocket detection

- keyboard: turn off vibrate on keypress and sounds for any keyboards you use

- use a red screen background. On the original Droid screen--not sure about this Droid 3 screen--red was the most efficient color that could be displayed. Anyone know if this still holds true?

- camera app: i like keeping location on and flash on auto. Consider turning location off or at least returning to the home screen ASAP when using camera if location for camera is on.

- in stock browser the default home page is Google and it uses your location. This is a bad idea as it can waste your battery for no reason. Make something else your home page and make sure to close any web page that uses your location when you're done viewing it.

- charge your phone via the wall charger instead of computer USB as it is faster. Also, don't use long USB cords--use regular power extension cords instead. I stick with the charger that came with the phone.

 

[jpcalhoun]

I have experienced the opposite. I was running GB since the June non official update and experienced better battery life than with Froyo. I did the OTA update to GB yesterday and experiencing about the same battery life as before.

 

[google123]

GB battery life gets better after use. Trust me. Also if you are rooted, I recommend SetCPU. I have managed to get well over 24 hours on numerous occasions using the Motorola BP7X extended battery while on GB.

 

[Skates12]

You're not alone. After the update, I saw immediate degradation. Overnight, my battery used to lose only 10%. Now it loses 60% - and it's an extended battery.

During regular use, the charge is draining rapidly as well.

I tried recalibrating the battery by letting it fully drain & recharge and I added JuiceDefender app. This seems to have fixed the overnight drain, but nothing prevents the rapid drain during normal use.

 

[gdfather]

I turned off the window animations and it lengthened my battery time quite a bit. I noticed the animations were more involved after the update.

Sent from my DROID Pro using DroidForums

 

[hgrimberg]

Can somebody recommend the 3400 battery? Is it too bulky? Its not an official Motorola one though...

Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using Tapatalk

 

[jpcalhoun]

Can somebody recommend the 3400 battery? Is it too bulky? Its not an official Motorola one though...

Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using Tapatalk

I've seen a coupe of threads from people have used this battery (made by Mungen I think). It does improve time between charges but not as much as you would expect from such a large increase in mAh over the stock battery or the extended battery offered by Verizon. Some report that the battery charge indicator stop working correctly.

 

[badcat]

I use the Seido 1700 mA battery and have had good luck with them. You can get them cheaper at Amazon. The good thing about these is that they work with the stock back so the phone doesn't get any bigger. Of course it doesn't have the capacity of the Motorola battery. It does make a difference though.
seidioonline.com

 

[hgrimberg]

I use the Seido 1700 mA battery and have had good luck with them. You can get them cheaper at Amazon. The good thing about these is that they work with the stock back so the phone doesn't get any bigger. Of course it doesn't have the capacity of the Motorola battery. It does make a difference though.
seidioonline.com

That means that the original 1800 ma extended battery from Motorola doesn't need a special back for the Pro? I am thinking about changing my droid 2 global for the droid Pro and maybe it is possible to use my extended battery from the D2G on the pro without any special back. Is this possible?

Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using Tapatalk

 

[jpcalhoun]

That means that the original 1800 ma extended battery from Motorola doesn't need a special back for the Pro? I am thinking about changing my droid 2 global for the droid Pro and maybe it is possible to use my extended battery from the D2G on the pro without any special back. Is this possible?

Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using Tapatalk

The extended battery from Verizon does require a different back, which comes with the extended battery. The different back does not make that much difference...hardly noticeable...the most noticeable difference is the flatten hump where the camera is. I don't know if your D2G battery will work or not...I'd bet it won't...probably a different size battery altogether.

 

[asdfghjkl_em]

apparently the DROID 2 battery is the same size as the pro. at least that's what the girl in Verizon said and then proceeded to order a free one for me.

it doesn't hurt to try.

Sent from my DROID Pro using DroidForums

 

[jpcalhoun]

apparently the DROID 2 battery is the same size as the pro. at least that's what the girl in Verizon said and then proceeded to order a free one for me.

it doesn't hurt to try.

Sent from my DROID Pro using DroidForums

Never hurts to try.

 

[guidot]

May I suggest as a last resort, a factory reset.

Sometimes, this gets everything back in order.

Sent from my XT862, while on the move.

 

[bsweetness]

apparently the DROID 2 battery is the same size as the pro. at least that's what the girl in Verizon said and then proceeded to order a free one for me.

it doesn't hurt to try.

Sent from my DROID Pro using DroidForums

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's the same battery. The extended battery cover is different however.