Android 4.0.4 on Nexus S massive battery usage

[Trevski]

My phone updated to 4.0.4 a few days ago. I now have terrible battery life. Going into the battery usage the Android OS is taking up anywhere from 30-55%. I know this is outrageous. What is going on? How do I fix it? Do I have to wipe it and re install the new os? As of right now I wont get in 8hrs of life with very low usage. Anyone else get a similar issue?

Thanks

 

[Speedygi]

Are you sure your battery life is terrible? I have been getting 12 hours on heavy use for my Nexus S on 4.0.4 before I traded it. From my own experience 4.0.3 got far worse battery life.

 

[shaneontherocks]

Same here. 4 hours max and my phone is dead after fully charged. Stock as well Nexus S 4g ICS 4.0.4.

But here is the kicker, the phone does NOT have consistency in regards with the battery drain. I am usually not using it as much because it just dies all the time but its weird one day it will go from fully charged (90-96%) to 30% in 2 hours. Some days will take 4 hours to get to 30% some days dies within 2 hours.

It needs to be fixed. This is BULL.

 

[Trevski]

I can get about 15hrs of light use with this new 4.0.4. Before I would get at least 36hrs on light use before it would die. Does anyone else have their android OS taking up 50% of their battery life? There has to be something up. I cant remember exactly what the OS was taking before but i doubt it was close to that.

Thanks for the replies above.

 

[m3zito]

I am having the same issues on my Nexus S 4G. I am lucky to get 5 hours out of the battery. I am noticing that the OS is consuming a heavy portion of the battery but so is exchange services. I changed my exchange e-mail account from push to every hour and it still gets terrible battery. I've also noticed that the phone runs very hot, as if something is constantly running in overdrive.

I'm about ready to chuck the phone and get an iPhone. What good is a phone with a 4 hour battery.

 

[Trevski]

Well at least I know I am not alone now... I was hoping lots were experiencing this same issue and someone would know the fix. I am going to wait it out for another week.

 

[KevinDaleDavis]

I agree. When I upgraded to 4.0.4 a couple of weeks ago, my battery life became terrible. Maybe I could get 2-3 hours. My phone was constantly hot. I tried a few of the suggestions; extend Exchange refresh to 1 hour, change Facebook refresh to never, turned off most of the google refreshes, turn off google+ upload of new pictures. None of this seemed to help yesterday. In fact, none of my chargers could re-charge the battery if the phone was turned on!

Android OS was consistently over 10% of the battery life and it was item #2 in the list.

Rather than trying to debug the issue, I reset my phone to factory this morning. In a few hours of testing, it seems to have helped. Of course, that's not really enough testing.

Now Android OS is 4% and it is the 8th item in the list.

Most of my apps were automatically reloaded, but I still had to go change most of the settings, like which exchange server and hotmail accounts. It's possible that it will get worse in a few days as everything is setup to work again.

At least I feel comfortable that my phone will work next week while I'm traveling.

 

[KevinDaleDavis]

I'm about ready to chuck the phone and get an iPhone.

I bought a T-Mobile Nexus One in the first week that it was released (I was out of the country on the first day, or it would have been on Day One).

I bought an AT&T Nexus One on Day One that it was available and sold my T-Mobile Nexus One.

I lost my AT&T Nexus One in the airport and bought an AT&T Nexus S last summer.

I've had random problems with all of them, but have enjoyed playing with Android.

I bought an iPhone 4S for my wife during the first couple of weeks that it was available. It has been a lot less trouble. She uses her phone a lot more than I do. She's constantly texting, talking, looking at Pinterest, and playing games. AND she gets much better battery life.

I really don't understand why battery life is always such an issue with Android. Is it because there are cell towers in Google's parking lot in Mountain View? Heck, there are cell towers in Apple's parking lot in Cupertino also.

 

[Speedygi]

I think most likely it's because of Android's multitasking that's causing this: every app runs in the background for Android, and IOS doesn't do that, it merely suspends an app to go to another, producing a much better battery life as a result.

 

[robertnealdavis]

I too had this problem when I first upgraded my Nexus S to 4.0.4 and it was quite frustrating, if I forgot to plug my phone in at night it was dead by morning.
While I cannot see why this would make a difference, since, as everyone else has indicated, the battery meter was showing the OS as the #1 use of battery, I started turning off my Wi-Fi when I was not in range of any Wi-Fi hot spots. Now I generally have Wi-Fi disabled when I am not using my phone actively (because I generally forget to turn it off) and the OS has gone down to #4 at 8% usage, with the screen and cell standby being the greatest users of battery (which is valid for a phone). I have also found I can get two days or more without recharging. Still not ideal, but much better and the phone is usable again. When I am in range of Wi-Fi hotspots, I turn the Wi-Fi back on, do what I need to do, then turn it off again.