Tips to Help Improve Battery Life on ThunderBolt

[meepstone]

I have my Thunderbolt brightness at 25%. which still sufficently shows the screen and it eats between 57 - 62% of the battery life of my phone. All other applications and whatnot were always under 9%.

Yesterday I had my phone at 70% battery life with 4 hours of use. I say i used it on average. txting a lot. one phone call for like 3-4 minutes and playing words with friends and angry birds.

 

[georgek]

What battery widget is everyone using?

Sent from my ADR6400L using DroidForums App

 

[MickyFicky]

What battery widget is everyone using?

Sent from my ADR6400L using DroidForums App

I'm using this one:
Battery Widget - Android app on AppBrain

 

[georgek]

What battery widget is everyone using?

Sent from my ADR6400L using DroidForums App

I'm using this one:
Battery Widget - Android app on AppBrain

Thanks, I'm going to try it out.

Sent from my ADR6400L using DroidForums App

 

[TriDwayne]

I also agree 100%. My daily driver Sunfire gets 450+ miles on a tank of 14 gallons of gas. A Ferrari 360 Modena averages 11 MPG and will only get about 200 miles on a tank of gas. Is that surprising? lol.

A 2011 Corvette Z06 puts 505HP to the ground with a 7 liter V8 and still gets 25mpg. My point is that comparing car performance to phone performance is meaningless, you might as well compare them to fruits, insects, power tools, or whatever else you'd like to fabricate an analogy out of.

Bad battery life should not be synonymous with performance. There's no excuse why the Thunderbolt should drain its battery that fast aside from poor design of one or more parts of the phone.

 

[BigMcGuire]

Bad battery life should not be synonymous with performance. There's no excuse why the Thunderbolt should drain its battery that fast aside from poor design of one or more parts of the phone.

You have a point, still, I'm seeing significant battery improvements when I turn off the syncing I don't need/use and keep the updates down a bit, more towards the OG Droid (instead of every 15 mins).

I think it's still somewhat of a correct analogy... The Thunderbolt came out of the box as a highly tuned gas guzzling supercar. Yeah, you can get great gas mileage on a supercar if you drive it conservatively but most don't. Out of the box the Thunderbolt is flooring it. I think that's the mistake that was made. Everything was set to sync 15 mins - 1 hour and brightness is higher than it really needs to be and the widgets are a huge drain on processing power.

Still, I agree with you, this thing should have been shipped with a bigger gas tank - at least a 1900mAh battery. At least.

 

[vzdroid13]

Im just waiting on a bigger battery without adding so much
bulk. Does anyone know whether the G2 or EVO shift batteries will fit?

sent from my Thunderbolt

 

[guitarchris123]

What battery widget is everyone using?

Sent from my ADR6400L using DroidForums App

I tested out a few yesterday, and finally settled on Battery Left as my top choice (highly customizable, lots of great info). BatteryTime Lite was in a close second, followed by Battery Widget (nice look to it, but not as much info).

 

[guitarchris123]

Im just waiting on a bigger battery without adding so much
bulk. Does anyone know whether the G2 or EVO shift batteries will fit?

sent from my Thunderbolt

No, those batteries will not fit. There is a 1600mAh extended battery made by Seidio that fits in the same battery door (so it does not add any bulk). But it only gives a 200 mAh boost over the stock battery (maybe 1-2 hours, if that). The HTC 2750 extended battery will add quite a bit of bulk, and that will be the case for any extended battery made for this phone well over 2000.

 

[Z06_Mir]

I also agree 100%. My daily driver Sunfire gets 450+ miles on a tank of 14 gallons of gas. A Ferrari 360 Modena averages 11 MPG and will only get about 200 miles on a tank of gas. Is that surprising? lol.

A 2011 Corvette Z06 puts 505HP to the ground with a 7 liter V8 and still gets 25mpg. My point is that comparing car performance to phone performance is meaningless, you might as well compare them to fruits, insects, power tools, or whatever else you'd like to fabricate an analogy out of.

Bad battery life should not be synonymous with performance. There's no excuse why the Thunderbolt should drain its battery that fast aside from poor design of one or more parts of the phone.

My 07z06 sees average of 20 even with driving it like I stole it. Over 25 on the freeway. It gets the best millage out of any vehicle in my home. It has 500hp to the tire right now too. But that doesn't mean my thunderbolt wins the race for phone. I think the boyfriends blackberry wins because he never charges it and even on red super low battery it lasts for several hours. All of our cars have charters in them and we have several throughout our home. It's not a big deal to plug in when you're low. I'm waiting to see what kind of results I get when I'm not downloading apps and playing games all the time to decide if I'm going to get a second battery.


Sent from my ADR6400L using DroidForums App

 

[BigMcGuire]

I always thought using a battery widget would be extra drain that I don't need. I came from a rooted OG Droid which had the % in the battery symbol. Now that I don't have that I'd like some way to track it. What do you guys/gals think about battery widgets causing extra drain? Apparently commentors think it does.

 

[guitarchris123]

There has not been any noticeable drain yet due to the one I'm using (if there is any, it is quite negligible, imo). I like having a more accurate gauge than the one in the upper right. Battery Left shows you a percentage in a gauge with custom colors and the estimated time remaining before it dies, among many other things. Its worth it to me to have that knowledge.

I'm sure it varies between the different apps and widgets out there, as well as what settings you have them set up for.

 

[Rotas]

I forced stopped the processes like City ID and all that, but they keep popping up still. =/

 

[lckyforme]

Dead Battery

Bad battery life should not be synonymous with performance. There's no excuse why the Thunderbolt should drain its battery that fast aside from poor design of one or more parts of the phone.

You have a point, still, I'm seeing significant battery improvements when I turn off the syncing I don't need/use and keep the updates down a bit, more towards the OG Droid (instead of every 15 mins).

I think it's still somewhat of a correct analogy... The Thunderbolt came out of the box as a highly tuned gas guzzling supercar. Yeah, you can get great gas mileage on a supercar if you drive it conservatively but most don't. Out of the box the Thunderbolt is flooring it. I think that's the mistake that was made. Everything was set to sync 15 mins - 1 hour and brightness is higher than it really needs to be and the widgets are a huge drain on processing power.

Still, I agree with you, this thing should have been shipped with a bigger gas tank - at least a 1900mAh battery. At least.

Right, because we bought a super phone, not a JitterBug!! I understand the "options" drain more power, but there has to be a happy medium.

I guess I took my phone off the charger around 1000 this monring and it was just giving that message "plug your phone in now". What have I done today you ask, 2 phone calls totaling about 5 minutes, took 2 pictures, emailed them, uploaded to FB, and sent maybe 10 text. GPS is off, bluetooth is off and I used the brightness icon to bring it to the lowest level. No browsing or anything. It just doesn't seem like this battery works with light to minimal use for 5 hours. Is that normal for android?

Lisa

 

[BigMcGuire]

I'm seeing 2 hours = 20% of battery life with light to moderate usage with WiFi on - testing with 4g now.