*Wanted* The Best Battery life tips and reasons.

[ksfrogman]

The Verizon store associate said she was told by the HTC field rep that the Live Wallpapers eat up battery life. Any opinions about this?

 

[BzB]

The Verizon store associate said she was told by the HTC field rep that the Live Wallpapers eat up battery life. Any opinions about this?

It's true. Live walls are just battery hogging eye candy.

 

[joeymoose]

I refuse to turn off WiFi, Sync, FriendStream etc.... I read a lot of good reviews for the extended slim battery.....

So I ordered one today!

 

[HyBReD]

After tweaking the **** out of my phone's applications and services I've managed to get 15 hours out of my battery so far with 60% left roughly. The key is managing your awake time so that it's vastly different from your Up time.

 

[PeterCopper]

i ordered the 1750 battery too its gonna be sick, but it doesnt ship for like another 2 weeks. OK so i just turned off always on mobile data, what does this do as in adverse effects and good effects could somebody enlighten me. because im worried that im not getting my emails on time and i need to get them because my professors always use email ALL THE TIME.

 

[windstrings]

This was mentioned in post #4 but may be worthy of mentioning again..... turning off always on mobile data.
Menu---> settings----> wireless and networks---> mobile networks---> uncheck "Enable always on mobile data".

Several have tried it and it helps considerably.
I have had it turned off since yesterday and my phone works as normal for my uses.

Some have even reported double battery runtime from this single setting.

When turning it off it warns you that may cause connectivity problems in some applications, and to please use the manual refresh feature in those applications to update online data.

 

[windstrings]

I'm pretty darn familiar with Android I'm not really replying whether I support either side, just pointing out that its a grey area.

Since you know Android well.. I have a question....

I have not done a definitive test as I think the time span to kill a battery is so long it hard to control all the variables.

But how often do those social apps like friends etc try to come on?

I have them set to autokill anytime the screen is on with task killer by rhythm software, but whats haunting me is I dont know if they are trying to reactivate every 5 minutes "and immediately getting killed" or if they only try when the phone comes out of sleep?

If they are constantly trying to reactive and getting killed and trying to reactive again and getting killed, I can see how that would eat up lots of battery.

On the other hand if they only try to activate when they sense the phone is coming out of sleep or being used then I see the benefit of killing them when the phone is sat down and the screen goes blank.

I have turned off my "always mobile on data" setting and that alone has nearly doubled my battery life as I don't use those apps that need a constant data link anyway. Upon first trial I have gone from 12 - 18 hours of use to 28... and thats with playing with my video camera for about 20 min. My gmail and text seem to work perfectly.

Just asking because I don't know if I want to:
A. Continue to auto kill undesirable or unused apps
B. Merely kill them manually upon first reboots so they aren't running unless they reactivate themselves.
C. Not use task manager at all.

I would appreciate suggestions from someone who knows the innerworkings of Android rather than mere speculation and opinions from folks such as myself who don't really know.

I have used task manager and at times I swear it makes things run smoother, other times it seems to work better without it.... I can't tell if its placebo effect or if there are variables I can't monitor.

I guess a good question would be.. what do you do with your phone and why?
==============

Another thought:
After turning off the "mobile data always on" the battery life is as good if not better than the Droid moto.
That begs the question... Does the moto not even utilize that option in the first place?
Could be one reason why social apps work so well on the Inc verses the Moto and would also explain the battery descrepencies other than the 100mah difference in size.

 

[Guchi]

i just got my seidio anyone want to buy a stock 3 day old battery for $25 shipped?

 

[adrynalyne]

I'm pretty darn familiar with Android I'm not really replying whether I support either side, just pointing out that its a grey area.

Since you know Android well.. I have a question....

I have not done a definitive test as I think the time span to kill a battery is so long it hard to control all the variables.

But how often do those social apps like friends etc try to come on?

I have them set to autokill anytime the screen is on with task killer by rhythm software, but whats haunting me is I dont know if they are trying to reactivate every 5 minutes "and immediately getting killed" or if they only try when the phone comes out of sleep?

If they are constantly trying to reactive and getting killed and trying to reactive again and getting killed, I can see how that would eat up lots of battery.

On the other hand if they only try to activate when they sense the phone is coming out of sleep or being used then I see the benefit of killing them when the phone is sat down and the screen goes blank.

I have turned off my "always mobile on data" setting and that alone has nearly doubled my battery life as I don't use those apps that need a constant data link anyway. Upon first trial I have gone from 12 - 18 hours of use to 28... and thats with playing with my video camera for about 20 min. My gmail and text seem to work perfectly.

Just asking because I don't know if I want to:
A. Continue to auto kill undesirable or unused apps
B. Merely kill them manually upon first reboots so they aren't running unless they reactivate themselves.
C. Not use task manager at all.

I would appreciate suggestions from someone who knows the innerworkings of Android rather than mere speculation and opinions from folks such as myself who don't really know.

I have used task manager and at times I swear it makes things run smoother, other times it seems to work better without it.... I can't tell if its placebo effect or if there are variables I can't monitor.

I guess a good question would be.. what do you do with your phone and why?
==============

Another thought:
After turning off the "mobile data always on" the battery life is as good if not better than the Droid moto.
That begs the question... Does the moto not even utilize that option in the first place?
Could be one reason why social apps work so well on the Inc verses the Moto and would also explain the battery descrepencies other than the 100mah difference in size.

So...what I was referring to earlier is that its a grey area, and let me start with my reasoning on that.

First, closing an app down in the background in some cases will save a ton of battery life. By not closing down an app and instead making it a background process, you are assuming:

1. That the app is going to properly let go of memory and cpu cycles.
2. That the app will properly 'sleep' and not continue to poll certain features, such as the GPS. Point in case, I've had Beautiful Widgets be not so nice to me and kill my battery in 2 hours.

On the other hand, closing an app that will keep re-opening can:

1. Lower battery life due to increased cpu cycles.
2. Cause the phone slow down due to the cpu being bogged down re-opening apps all the time.

Clear as mud, I know.

So, which apps do I close? Well, the best way to find out is to spend some time getting to know your Android OS.

1. Kill all your tasks. All of them. Just do a blanket kill. There is a method to this madness.
2. Find out what re-opens. These are gonna be the ones you can't do much about. Add these to your task killer ignore list.
3. Find out what breaks on your phone. Nothing? Then tip 2 is the biggest thing to look for.
4. Something breaks? Don't close that app anymore, or if you are unsure what, do a process of elimination and kill a few apps at a time. Then test. Kill a few more, then test. Narrow it down!
5. If you are rooted, and obviously, on the DI thats not the case yet, then use something like MinFreeManager and go aggressive. This will minimize the number of apps running in the background by tweaking the internal task manager.
6. Don't use a task killer that runs in the background on startup. No point in getting an app to free memory and cpu cycles, only to take them up itself.
7. Don't just take advice, test the theory and amend or refute! Mine included.




It will take several days to get a true feel for it, but your phone and you will be happier for it in the end.

So, my theory as to why programs keep popping back up? Dependencies. Playing with the source code, programs have so many dependencies on each other that it isn't funny. So if you kill one of these dependent apps, whatever needs to use it will either pop it back up, or fail and give you problems.

 

[atthehop]

i just got my seidio anyone want to buy a stock 3 day old battery for $25 shipped?

Mine shipped today, I ordered their charger for 30 bucks so I can keep a backup in my wallet. The charger will also charge both the phone and extra battery at the same time.

 

[windstrings]

3. Find out what breaks on your phone.

Fascinating... thanks for your honest reply.... I know you realize your opening a can of worms for questions etc....

Can you explain what you mean by "what breaks on your phone?".

What you said makes alot of sense.... like most tools.. there are ways to make them work against you was well as work for you.... too bad someone doesn't figure that out and factor in an "auto" mode into the task manager to do it for you.... but I'm sure there are many opposing opinions so those settings could never be agreed upon.

Thanks for giving us some reasonable intelligence to work with.

 

[HyBReD]

windstrings from what I've seen from my Incredible and another one, the battery draining programs/services tend to be different. For me it was Facebook for HTC and the Calendar. For the other phone it was the MediaCenter Service keeping the phone awake. Basically you just need to figure out what's keeping your phone awake and you're golden. I'm getting normal battery life out of my phone now. ATM, 17h 30m up time with 6 hours of awake time with over 60% of battery left.

 

[adrynalyne]

3. Find out what breaks on your phone.

Fascinating... thanks for your honest reply.... I know you realize your opening a can of worms for questions etc....

Can you explain what you mean by "what breaks on your phone?".

What you said makes alot of sense.... like most tools.. there are ways to make them work against you was well as work for you.... too bad someone doesn't figure that out and factor in an "auto" mode into the task manager to do it for you.... but I'm sure there are many opposing opinions so those settings could never be agreed upon.

Thanks for giving us some reasonable intelligence to work with.

Heya.

By breaking, I am referring to programs that stop functioning, or force close. So for example, if you notice your nifty clock/weather widget says it is 3:30pm, and its now 1am...there might be an issue. Force closes are a dead giveaway. So it is a bit of as long and drawn out process, but in the end, it will reward you, imo.

 

[windstrings]

Mine was pretty easy... I just rebooted.. let the dust settle and then killed everything.

After about 10minutes went in and everything that restarted all on its own, I put to ignore.

Now the only time ATM shows anything in my sights its because I opened it at some point and it never closed gracefully on its own by exiting out with the back key... seems some programs do well and others don't...

So a manual kill is usually then in order.

Some programs such as "documents to go" etc I don't want to autokill because once I open them I"m often in and out of them frequently until I"m ready to put it away.. then I will do a manual kill if needed.

Any program that spratically tries to come on or won't turn off once exited "that I rarely use" I can put on autokill.

But initially ignoring all the stuff that comes right back, makes it quite easier to figure out the rest.

 

[PeterCopper]

You guys are going crazy with these managers on the incredible there is no difference to having a task killer and not . The phones battery is practically the same(if not better without) the need to kill compulsively is not rational. If u don't believe me just try it