My 2nd trip with the Droid. Battery life an issue.

[LifeIsABeach]

If you use your phone lightly, it WILL last a while, at least 8-10 hours. If you use it heavy, it WILL drain pretty quickly.

I use my phone lightly and it lasts two days, not 8-10 hours. I agree with others that the battery may be bad. Do you have the brightness turned down? What does the battery usage say is using most of your battery life.

 

[BostonBill]

There definitely are big differences in opinion on the Droid's battery life. Like the op, I can run my down quite quickly. I compare it to more like using a laptop than just as a phone. Turn by turn nav is a killler. Without A car charger, I would never use it. The Zagg Sparq has been on sale a couple of times for $50 -$60. They claim 4 full charges on an iphone. My experience has been I can get three charges after my phone gets down to 30%. They have had some problems with quality control. It says out of stock if you go to the order page. They are coming out with a new version next month. I look forward to it. I use a body glove with mine and would rather use a device like the Zagg then fumbling around with the case etc. That's just me though.

 

[ldimick]

Well, lets start with the good. The Droid is a beast when travelling. You can find resturaunts, GPS is a godsend, and the email and all that good stuff is just great to have while not being in your hometown. Between "Where" and "Aloqa", I can find pretty much every good resturaunt/place to hang out in the area of whereever you are. My whole group pretty much started relying on my phone. "look for a good place with your phone, Wil". Reading the yelp reviews and all that was very handy, and wound up making our decisions.

Now, the bad. There really isnt' much bad, except for battery life. It was constantly an issue under heavy usage. I had it at 100% at 8am, and by 10:30am with heavy usage (Internet, email, constant texting) for 2.5 hours straight, the phone pretty much died.

It was a constant battle to keep battery life going. You can drain the battery in 2-3 hours, but it takes 2-3 to charge it back to full. Its not easy to keep some juice in the phone under HEAVY usage. I know, I know, some of you say the battery life is fine, some even say its good. Its not. If you use your phone lightly, it WILL last a while, at least 8-10 hours. If you use it heavy, it WILL drain pretty quickly. Remember, I was texting, emailing, and on Nimbuzz all at the same time and very constant.

The solution has to be to carry an extra battery. I ordered two more and a stand alone charger so I should be fine in the future, but I just wanted to throw that out there so that when people are on business trips they realize they should keep the backup on them. They will need it.

Also, when charging, it seems that if you are using it while charging, its pretty much staying where its at. So, if you really want to make some progress on the charging portion, plug it in, turn off the screen and let it charge up. If you use it while charging it will take quite a while to get a full charge.

But, like I've said before, the phone really is a godsend. Music through the TV in my hotel room with an AUX cable. Music in the car with the AUX cable. GPS. Resturaunt reviews. Everything you need in your pocket. Just keep an eye on the juice, and you're good. Hopefully something will come out that will help with the battery issue (which isn't an issue to everyone, I know).


-Wil

I took a 2500 mile trip 3 weeks ago with mine and my experience was almost exactly like yours. Althought I did find that if I kept it plugged into the car adapter I always had more than enought power to keep it fully charged. The worst was in New Mexico. I doubt that a single tower in that entire state is owned by Verizon.

I used it for calls, texting, GPS, Google Locate, palying MP3s, tethering, etc. I worked it hard. I know my iPhone could not have kept up with what I did to my Droid.

And I had a Sparq. It died the second day of the trip and I have been waiting for a replacement. So far I have been run around in more circles than a Nascar driver. I will give them one more week to fix (replace) this issue before I take it public.

 

[Stormwing]

I think spare batteries are kind of a bad idea, especially at 40 bucks a pop. External usb charger/batteries seem like a better bet.

http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-accessories/25796-iwalk-5400-portable-battery-charger.html#post260034

You've got lots of options (mostly made for iPhones but work with any usb device anyway), just shop around places like Amazon for a price/capacity/size combo that fits you.

 

[BostonBill]

And I had a Sparq. It died the second day of the trip and I have been waiting for a replacement. So far I have been run around in more circles than a Nascar driver. I will give them one more week to fix (replace) this issue before I take it public.[/QUOTE]

They told me they took the current model off sale and that the the one wouldn't be ready until the end of next month.

 

[Champers]

I agree, the Droid can be quite a power hungry little beast. I was just testing how much battery it drained to play a video and I was honestly shocked.

BT: Off
GPS: Off
Wifi: Off
Brightness: 50%
Sound: 100% (Speaker)
Keyboard backlight on

and it drained from 70%-->20% in 1:48

 

[CorvetteAustin24]

I played the whole first matrix with audio maxed with headphones, drained from 100% to 60%. Auto brightness enabled. Sounds like you guys either have bad phones, bad battery, or something else going on.

 

[ldimick]

I played the whole first matrix with audio maxed with headphones, drained from 100% to 60%. Auto brightness enabled. Sounds like you guys either have bad phones, bad battery, or something else going on.

No, there is nothing wrong with our batteries. When you are not within a 3G cell tower your battery WILL drain faster as it searches for service. It will drain faster as you use the GPS, etc.

I have mine optimized to where I can play games and do normal things every day. After 11 hours my battery is only drained 50%

In fact, you can extend your battery life even more by rooting your droid and reducing your CPU speed when you are playing MP3s.

 

[CorvetteAustin24]

I played the whole first matrix with audio maxed with headphones, drained from 100% to 60%. Auto brightness enabled. Sounds like you guys either have bad phones, bad battery, or something else going on.

No, there is nothing wrong with our batteries. When you are not within a 3G cell tower your battery WILL drain faster as it searches for service. It will drain faster as you use the GPS, etc.

I have mine optimized to where I can play games and do normal things every day. After 11 hours my battery is only drained 50%

In fact, you can extend your battery life even more by rooting your droid and reducing your CPU speed when you are playing MP3s.

The ones complaining in this thread don't mention being outside tower range. I get that logical fact, same with GPS.

 

[ldimick]

OK.

An interesting story for those concerned with battery life. I bought HomeRun battle for my iPhone.I could go through the entire battery in less than 2 hours because it is graphically intense. So I was VERY curious to see how it would behave on the Droid.

I bought it and tried it. I found that it drains the battery much less than it did on my iPhone. Then I rooted my Droid and loaded some other software that someone here was praising for managing the kill process to improve battery life. I am amazed at how much better my droid battery lasts now. I would say that between rooting and this sofware I have easily increased my battery life 60%

Anyone having problems with battery life needs to remember that these are miniature computers. If you want a long life device get a dumb phone or a Blackberry.