"Official"? Bionic battery life thread

[mastervader]

I had my bionic and ext battery swapped out yesterday due to a draining battery issue. I charged the new phone to 100% overnight cleared the battery stats (rooted) and after 3hr 40 min hours i am down to 50%. It shows Media 36%, cell standby 29%, phone idle 23%, display 9% voice calls 3%. I am having the same battery issues with the new phone and battery. I am in 3g area so I have 4g off, the wifi and bluetooth are off. I am not playing games or have google sync running at all. I cant figure what is draining the battery. The is the second phone and 3rd ext battery i have. I do not have any task killers downloaded. Also, do you think i just need to drain and fully charge the battery 5-7 times to get its full potentital since I am am starting from scratch with a new phone/battery??? From what i read on the forum people are getting aroung 15-20 hours on the ext battery with moderate usage. Since i had the bionic on Day 1 with the ext battery i am getting 7-8 hours with light usage and cant figure out why?

On a side not since I am grasping at straws rooting will not affect battery life correct? I have had the orignal droid since day one and that was rooted. It would last me 14-15 hours with ext battery.

what setting should I have the phone too? I have it on "full performance" I want it to sync data only becuase i have beautiful widgets clock/weather on my homescreen i believe if i set it to somthing else and the data sync stops then the temp and time will stop. Is this correct?

I had the same problem and I finally figure out what was killing my battery. I was able to get about 5 hours out of the standard battery with almost no usage at all.

The problem is the process MEDIA killing your battery, and it also makes your phone hot

What I discovered is that when I got my Bionic, I took out the memory card from my Thunderbolt and put it in.
My memory card had tons of picutres, videos and some music files (ringtones and notifications).

The process MEDIA was always taking up CPU cycles due to DRM processes looking into the memory card at all the files, and for some reason, it does not stop. That is why you see MEDIA showing a higher % than cell standy and phone idle.

This is what I did to fix it.


First, backup your entire OLD memory card to a folder on your PC.
You can format your memory card at this point, or plug in the sd card that came with your Bionic. Either way, you want to format the external sd card after installing.
After formatting, reboot the phone.

DO NOT ADD ANY FILES TO THE MEMORY CARD.

Use the phone for a few hours and check your battery usage. MEDIA % should be minimal (about 2-7%)
If MEDIA still taking a big percent, over 15% per say, go to SETTING on your phone, APPLICATIIONS, MANAGE APPLICATIONS, select ALL from the TOP, select MEDIA STORAGE and select CLEAR DATA
reboot the phone

Tried to use the phone for an hour or two again

If you still have a problem with MEDIA taking up high % of your battery, REMOVE YOUR MEMORY CARD and reboot the phone

Once I was able to stop MEDIA from starting up, I added all my pictures back to the external SD card.
I tested for a day to make sure that MEDIA did not start up

I am now able to go a full day with no problem.

I have not try to add music or videos to the memory card as I dont want to trigger the MEDIA service to start up again.

Hopefully this will help you

 

[Jaycea22]

Obviously there are WAAY too many variables for us all to get together on what's working and what's not.

Personally, with what I consider moderate usage (2+ hours of calls, ~30 texts, at least an hour with multiple apps with the screen on, etc.) - I'm getting 30 hours VERY consistently.
I downloaded and installed JuicePlotter so I could track my battery discharge more effectively, and I've held a license of UltimateJuice/JuiceDefender since it's inception, but have yet to actually install it on the Bionic.

After 4 complete discharges and recharge cycles, I'm consistently hitting the 30-hour mark on a single charge with my current usage.

Now, the next step is to install JuiceDefender and using JuicePlotter, I'll be able to see what the differences are in battery life and why.
This will help TREMENDOUSLY in being able to post up specific settings that I've used, along with a fairly detailed log of my usage and phone settings.


If ANYONE would like to help create a standardized list of our Bionic settings (literally everything on our phones that may have anything to do with our battery life) so that everyone posting in this thread is comparing oranges to oranges instead of the random way it's going now. Then, I'll add to it with one for JuiceDefender and all of it's options. (providing that JD actually helps the battery life)


The way I see it, we just need to standardize our posts in this thread so everyone can see the information in an easy way, and everyone just copy/paste the same stuff with their own numbers or settings in it.

i.e.

_________________________________________________________
BIONIC SETTINGS >

..Wireless Networks >
...Airplane Mode....[OFF]
...WiFi..................[ON]
...Bluetooth..........[OFF]
...Mobile Networks >
.....Network Mode.....[CDMA Only]
.....System Select.....[Home Only]

..Display >
...Brightness [MIN] (meaning the slider is set to minimum)
...Animation.........[OFF]
...Screen Timeout.[30 Sec]

..Battery & Data Manager >
...Battery Mode.....[CUSTOM]
....[CUSTOM SETTINGS]
......Off-peak hours [10:00pm] to [8:00am]
......Turn off data after [15 minutes]
......Peak hours data off after [Always On]
......Display brightness [MIN] (meaning the slider is set to minimum)
...Data Saver [OFF]
...Data Delivery >
.......Background Data.[ ]
.......Data Roaming.....[ ]
.......Data Enabled......[x]
.......Social Applications
..........Sync over Wi-Fi Only....[x]
..........Data deliver frequency.[60 minutes]


_________________________________________________________
^That's literally half of the work already done right there. If someone would be kind enough to pick this up and finish just the rest of the standard Bionic settings, then we could ALL just copy the template and paste it into our posts, then change the values to what OUR settings are. Follow that up with a caption at the bottom of how many phone calls (in minutes/hours), how many texts (inc. pix/vid), how much browsing (minutes/hours), etc. ...and we'll have a standardized template that we ALL can use to compare correctly.


Psychlone

Thank you for this. I'm going to have to try out your settings and see if it helps my battery life. Then I'll try and Download JD/UJ and see if I can extend my battery life.

I was just weary of downloading JD/UJ since some people are saying it does more harm than good. I would say it's 50/50 reviews that I was reading with JD. Thanks Again for the help Psy

 

[fucco]

I had the same problem and I finally figure out what was killing my battery. I was able to get about 5 hours out of the standard battery with almost no usage at all.

The problem is the process MEDIA killing your battery, and it also makes your phone hot

What I discovered is that when I got my Bionic, I took out the memory card from my Thunderbolt and put it in.
My memory card had tons of picutres, videos and some music files (ringtones and notifications).

The process MEDIA was always taking up CPU cycles due to DRM processes looking into the memory card at all the files, and for some reason, it does not stop. That is why you see MEDIA showing a higher % than cell standy and phone idle.

This is what I did to fix it.


First, backup your entire OLD memory card to a folder on your PC.
You can format your memory card at this point, or plug in the sd card that came with your Bionic. Either way, you want to format the external sd card after installing.
After formatting, reboot the phone.

DO NOT ADD ANY FILES TO THE MEMORY CARD.

Use the phone for a few hours and check your battery usage. MEDIA % should be minimal (about 2-7%)
If MEDIA still taking a big percent, over 15% per say, go to SETTING on your phone, APPLICATIIONS, MANAGE APPLICATIONS, select ALL from the TOP, select MEDIA STORAGE and select CLEAR DATA
reboot the phone

Tried to use the phone for an hour or two again

If you still have a problem with MEDIA taking up high % of your battery, REMOVE YOUR MEMORY CARD and reboot the phone

Once I was able to stop MEDIA from starting up, I added all my pictures back to the external SD card.
I tested for a day to make sure that MEDIA did not start up

I am now able to go a full day with no problem.

I have not try to add music or videos to the memory card as I dont want to trigger the MEDIA service to start up again.

Hopefully this will help you

thanks for the info i will try it. I charged the phone off overnight again took it off at 100% and idling at 2hrs it was at 80%. Ithen saw your post when i went online just now. I am charging the phone back to 100% and going to try this. I really hope this fixes is because i cant figure this one out for 2 weeks now!!!

 

[zoli10]

I don't have 4G in my area. Will be a while til I get it. But I leave my Bionic on CDMA (or 3G) only. I have have Battery settings at Max saver. Disables ALL data when phone display is off. I've yet to see the battery get to lower than 30% from a full charge. For people in 4G/LTE areas. Just enable 4G ONLY as you need it. No need to have it on all the time wasting battery if you are just checking e-mail or browsing the web.
Even music/radio streaming can be done well on 3G. Then your battery should last a long time.

I hear ya, but I'm not willing to do that. In my opinion, I bought a 4G phone and I shouldn't have to toggle the signal between 3G and 4G so my battery lasts longer than a few hours.

I did a full drain yesterday and full charge over night. Also downloaded and am running Juice Defender. Right now I'm at 70% after 51/2 hours of light-moderate use, bluetooth off, wireless off, 4G on....we'll see how it holds up.

 

[kurumatt]

I had my bionic and ext battery swapped out yesterday due to a draining battery issue. I charged the new phone to 100% overnight cleared the battery stats (rooted) and after 3hr 40 min hours i am down to 50%. It shows Media 36%, cell standby 29%, phone idle 23%, display 9% voice calls 3%. I am having the same battery issues with the new phone and battery. I am in 3g area so I have 4g off, the wifi and bluetooth are off. I am not playing games or have google sync running at all. I cant figure what is draining the battery. The is the second phone and 3rd ext battery i have. I do not have any task killers downloaded. Also, do you think i just need to drain and fully charge the battery 5-7 times to get its full potentital since I am am starting from scratch with a new phone/battery??? From what i read on the forum people are getting aroung 15-20 hours on the ext battery with moderate usage. Since i had the bionic on Day 1 with the ext battery i am getting 7-8 hours with light usage and cant figure out why?

On a side not since I am grasping at straws rooting will not affect battery life correct? I have had the orignal droid since day one and that was rooted. It would last me 14-15 hours with ext battery.

what setting should I have the phone too? I have it on "full performance" I want it to sync data only becuase i have beautiful widgets clock/weather on my homescreen i believe if i set it to somthing else and the data sync stops then the temp and time will stop. Is this correct?

I'm not sure how your battery is not lasting at all. I was at 40% yesterday at the end of a 15hr day. I sent about 100txts. browsed for an hour, played mario 64 for well over 2 hours, and 4g was on the entire time. cell standby was the highest consumer.

 

[fucco]

I'm not sure how your battery is not lasting at all. I was at 40% yesterday at the end of a 15hr day. I sent about 100txts. browsed for an hour, played mario 64 for well over 2 hours, and 4g was on the entire time. cell standby was the highest consumer.

I think the suggestion my Mastervader solved my problem. I formated my sd card and fully charged my phone. After 2.5 hours my phone was at 90% still. normally i would be down to at least 80% or probaby 70%. Most of the time my main battery usage was "media". I am hoping this solved the problem. I had the phone swapped 3 times times now and no one at verizon or tech support can give me any answers. I even went to 2 differentt stores. my phone was basically just draining idling on my table. I was losing 10% battery a hour with nothing on no 4g no bluetooth no wifi just idling.

 

[jlwardn]

I am happy with the battery life over my original droid. Using it a little more than my previous phone I am still able to get 2 days on 1 battery charge. My original droid would only make it 1 day. I did the costco deal to get the extra battery and find I don't even use it.

 

[GadgetRick]

Took the phone off the charger at about 8:30 this morning. It's 4:10 in the afternoon and I'm at 34% left on the battery. Using the phone for about an hour total of talk time, 4G on, Wifi on, GPS on, moderate 4G use (downloaded some apps, push email, etc). I can't complain too much about having 34% left at (almost) 7 hours of normal (for me) use.

 

[FuturePrimitive]

I'm another one that's not getting great battery life. I've had my phone for a little over a week now. Today, after 8 hours, 43 minutes and 21 seconds I'm at 15%. I made one 10 minute call, went running (~40 minutes with GPS, BT, 4G, streaming Google Music). Probably about 20 minutes total of web today. That's about it. Bluetooth seems to be a killer for some reason, I have it on but only connected when I'm actually using it. It's at 26%, equal to cell standby! I guess I'm gonna have to start turning it off and on all the time. I do seem to bounce between 3G and 4G a bit for some reason. Never have wi-fi turned on. Some services (I'm looking at you Zumocast!) can't handle the auto-switch between wi-fi and 3/4G.

Extended battery should arrive today!

 

[blickley]

I had mine charged to 100% last night before bed at 11, 3G only (no LTE, no WiFi, no bluetooth). Around 8 this morning, it was at 90%. That is pretty good for 10 hours. Now, 8 hours later, I am at 15%. I periodically used the device today, but when I look in battery stats, the only thing taking up battery is the following. My use of the device was pretty much just checking email, sending 2 texts and not much else (no games, no music, no video, etc).

* Cell Standy 48% (Time on 18h 6m - Time w/o signal 3%)
* Phone Idle 42% (Time on 16h 24m)
* Display 6% (1 hr 40 mins)
* Android OS (CPU total 40m 1s)

I'm fine with getting the 18 hours, but I still find it strange that cell standby and phone idle eat up so much....I still think something is being misreported.

I look at it this way....if I had left the phone just sitting idle like it was overnight, at the rate it discharged (only 10%), I would get something like 70-80 hours. That may be overestimating, but since it only lost 10% in 10 hours, it sounds logical. SO, if that is the case, how come the device is now at 15%, but cell standby and phone idle make up 90% of the battery drain? The math doesn't work here....

Again, I'm not complaining about the 18 hours so much as I am about not being able to understand what is really using up the battery....it just doesn't make sense.

-Chris

 

[grrouchie]

my phone has been on slightly less than 7 hours.

1 hour 20 minutes of phone calls
3 hours 10 minutes of bluetooth being on
4g on the whole time
wifi off the whole time.
Display running about 45 minutes.

My phone is still at 64% and I'm pleased with that.
My OG Droid would probably be close to dead at this point.

 

[zoli10]

my phone has been on slightly less than 7 hours.

1 hour 20 minutes of phone calls
3 hours 10 minutes of bluetooth being on
4g on the whole time
wifi off the whole time.
Display running about 45 minutes.

My phone is still at 64% and I'm pleased with that.
My OG Droid would probably be close to dead at this point.

It seems so subjective.

Right now I'm ay 20% after 15 hrs., but no where near the usage time you have. I'm at those numbers with 32% standby time, 28% phone idle, 21% phone calls....would that make you happy?

 

[zoli10]

So after running a bit of video to finish it off my battery cashed out a shade under 17 hrs after I pulled it off the charger this morning. That's with minimal use (i.e. 1 hour on the phone, no web surfing). 4G on all the time, no wireless, no bluetooth.....how would you feel about that?

 

[ConqSoft]

Here are my stats from today. Standard battery. Can't complain.

 

[sharkattack99]

Well I went and got my replacement phone to day and decided to buy the extended battery for my bionic its not as bulky as the thunderbolt's that bulkyness stopped me from getting it for the TB, but anyway the best part I got it for 24.99 I couldn't resist it at that price. Other then its takes awhile to charge its good hope I will get more run time with it. The only down side so far is there is no casea for the extended battery so I'm running her nude I just know im going to drop it Now lol.

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