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Need some tips
- Thread starter hdude00
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enlightened
Super Moderator
Welcome to DF! Are you using the battery that came with the phone or did you purchase another one?
Did you charge the phone fully before turning it on? Typically the phone takes about a week to fully adjust to the battery. Some things you can do to now maximize your run time are:
Update your roaming list (perhaps monthly). If your phone is not aware of the closest towers or their capabilities you could be using a tower with less strength. Naturally if the radio has to work harder to maintain a connection, it will use more power.
Using WiFi instead of 3G is not only faster but seems more battery efficient. I'm not sure if the efficiency is true with 4G but would guess so.
Leaving your WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth... on when their isn't anything for them to do will eat away at your battery at a higher rate since they are constantly searching for a signal.
What you use is almost more important than how you use it. Under Settings, Battery and Data Manager you see a nice picture of a battery that roughly shows its strength, along with a percentage. Note that the percentage is in tenths and rounds as it should. So 60% could be anywhere between 55% and 64%. Circle battery widget will give you a better representation of your battery strength.
If you touch the picture of the battery on that screen, you'll see a graph of your usage and a list of what used the battery. Each of these things will give you more detail if you touch them. Its easy to be driven mad by the list of what used the battery so you should scrutinize it if you are having problems, but remember, as soon as you turn on the phone, something will be using it. These percentages are the amount of the used battery that each item is responsible for. Probably the most useful data can be obtained by touching the graph at the top of the screen since it will give you a graphical representation of things like screen on and awake. This is useful as well for comparing use over a period of testing.
As I said, what you use is almost more important that how you use it. Consider the data an app is likely to use before loading it. You can load your phone up with data intensive apps and widgets and end-up one unhappy user, or you can load it up with widgets that use very little data and have lots of battery left at the end of your day.
- Pull your SIM card unless you travel outside the USA (may not be as true as it use to be though).
- Run the battery until your phone shuts down and then charge it completely before use.
- Reduce your data consumption as much as you can. Lots of apps get live data. Make sure you need what you have.
- Update your roaming.
- Turn off WiFi, bluetooth and GPS when there isn't anything for them to do.
- Get an extended battery (preferably from Verizon).
- You should fully charge the battery before you use it the first time. The batteries are shipped with some charge but since they are stressed at full charge or discharge, they are not fully charged.
- You don't condition the battery, you condition the phone. And you do that by running the battery down until your phone shuts down and then charge it fully without doing anything else. Your phone maintains a status file (batterystats.bin) and it must learn about your battery's capacity. It may take up to five days for it to get it completely right. I would resist doing this more than once a quarter or so since the battery is also stressed at low charge and discharge. It can only sustain a certain number of charge/discharge cycles. I expect that the phone and charging system might work to help protect it from full charges or full discharges, I just haven't seen any reliable information saying so. From my experience, leaving your phone in the charger will not do much damage to it and others I trust have said similar things about discharging the phone completely on a monthly basis. My Droid 1 (or OG for you urban types:biggrin
battery lasted for its entire life without any measurable difference in strength and I almost never discharged it completely and always kept it in the charger all night.
Update your roaming list (perhaps monthly). If your phone is not aware of the closest towers or their capabilities you could be using a tower with less strength. Naturally if the radio has to work harder to maintain a connection, it will use more power.
Using WiFi instead of 3G is not only faster but seems more battery efficient. I'm not sure if the efficiency is true with 4G but would guess so.
Leaving your WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth... on when their isn't anything for them to do will eat away at your battery at a higher rate since they are constantly searching for a signal.
What you use is almost more important than how you use it. Under Settings, Battery and Data Manager you see a nice picture of a battery that roughly shows its strength, along with a percentage. Note that the percentage is in tenths and rounds as it should. So 60% could be anywhere between 55% and 64%. Circle battery widget will give you a better representation of your battery strength.
If you touch the picture of the battery on that screen, you'll see a graph of your usage and a list of what used the battery. Each of these things will give you more detail if you touch them. Its easy to be driven mad by the list of what used the battery so you should scrutinize it if you are having problems, but remember, as soon as you turn on the phone, something will be using it. These percentages are the amount of the used battery that each item is responsible for. Probably the most useful data can be obtained by touching the graph at the top of the screen since it will give you a graphical representation of things like screen on and awake. This is useful as well for comparing use over a period of testing.
As I said, what you use is almost more important that how you use it. Consider the data an app is likely to use before loading it. You can load your phone up with data intensive apps and widgets and end-up one unhappy user, or you can load it up with widgets that use very little data and have lots of battery left at the end of your day.
Just in case you're using a non Moto cable, some have reported issues with non Moto cables. I know it seems stupid, but....
I'm betting it also did less, slower. That said, follow what I wrote above. Some have had satisfactory battery life with the standard battery so it stands to reason that you can as well.