Will ICS improve battery life?

[kb3421]

I remember on my BlackBerry Storm the battery life was just as horrible as my Droid Razr but after an OS update the battery got better. Will the same thing happen when we get ICS on the Razr?

 

[Premium1]

I remember on my BlackBerry Storm the battery life was just as horrible as my Droid Razr but after an OS update the battery got better. Will the same thing happen when we get ICS on the Razr?

LTE devices suck in the battery department plain and simple. If you think the razr battery is bad try using an htc thunderbolt that will die in 3 hours with little 4g use.

 

[jlo8720]

dont think it has improved much, if any on the wifi xoom.

 

[cola16]

LTE devices suck in the battery department plain and simple. If you think the razr battery is bad try using an htc incredible that will die in 3 hours with little 4g use.

HTC Incredible is not a 4g device

 

[jabonky]

I have the razr and I shut off the 4G and I can get a good 18 hours out of it with 3 G and moderate use.

 

[Premium1]

HTC Incredible is not a 4g device

Whoops meant thunderbolt.

 

[dmcman73]

I have the razr and I shut off the 4G and I can get a good 18 hours out of it with 3 G and moderate use.

Same here, I turned off 4G and I get a good 10-12 hours out of the phone with heavy use.

To me, I think the original Razr we have should have just been a 3G phone and the Razr MAXX with the bigger battery should have been a 4G phone. The battery is more than sufficient in the Razr for 3G use but it's not so sufficient for 4G use IMHO.

 

[dmcman73]

I remember on my BlackBerry Storm the battery life was just as horrible as my Droid Razr but after an OS update the battery got better. Will the same thing happen when we get ICS on the Razr?

And to answer you question, there could be a boost in battery life. The number one thing that causes the 4G radio to drain the battery so fast is it's inability to actually lock onto a signal and stay on 4G. The more the radio has to hunt, the more battery power it's going to use. Don't expect a huge boost though.

There is supposed to be another small update for the Razr coming out soon (not ICS) that is supposed to make the 4G connection more stable and according to people that are testing it, they stated that it's rock solid and that it makes the Razr one of the best 4G Android phones to keeping a reliable connection.

Don't forget, even though your phone may have the 4G symbol at the top showing a 4G connection does not mean is a clean data connection. When the 4G (or even 3G and 1X) symbol is white, it means it found a signal but it's not connected. When it's blue you have a data connection.

 

[sniffs]

If I'm not mistaken, there's 2 reasons why the 4G drains so fast, and it's not necessarily because of it hunting for a signal..

It has to do with a 2 part situation on VZ phones specifically.. LTE is not a natural upgrade path for CDMA, so in essense, Verizon is having to power both 3G and 4G chips at the same time, so you have 2 radios on and working simultanously.

The other is that the 4G chip isn't actually part of the SoC yet, so the system is having to make outbound API calls to a separate component. Once the 4G chip is incorporated into the SoC we should see significantly better battery life, however since 4GLTE isn't a natural path for CDMA, it wont be as good on battery life as an AT&T 4GLTE device.

 

[dmcman73]

If I'm not mistaken, there's 2 reasons why the 4G drains so fast, and it's not necessarily because of it hunting for a signal..

It has to do with a 2 part situation on VZ phones specifically.. LTE is not a natural upgrade path for CDMA, so in essense, Verizon is having to power both 3G and 4G chips at the same time, so you have 2 radios on and working simultanously.

The other is that the 4G chip isn't actually part of the SoC yet, so the system is having to make outbound API calls to a separate component. Once the 4G chip is incorporated into the SoC we should see significantly better battery life, however since 4GLTE isn't a natural path for CDMA, it wont be as good on battery life as an AT&T 4GLTE device.

Those factor in as well but if you look at users on message boards discussing this you'll see users in strong 4G areas that have great battery life VS users in weak 4G areas who have abysmal battery life and that's due to the constant hunting and switching.

 

[sniffs]

Those factor in as well but if you look at users on message boards discussing this you'll see users in strong 4G areas that have great battery life VS users in weak 4G areas who have abysmal battery life and that's due to the constant hunting and switching.

Yeah, I didn't mean to say that signal hunting wasn't a cause, because battery drain due to signal hunting has been an issue for as long as I can remember, way before 4G..

Still though, you put a RAZR and a Bionic next to each other right next to a 3G/4G tower and one is in 3G mode and the other in 4G mode, the 4G device will drain far quicker due to the issues I explained.

When I use my phone, I lose roughly 1% every few minutes. If you run Minimalistic Text and put up a battery widget, it'll show you your battery drain in 1% increments(no hacking involved).. you can easily get an estimate of your usage per minute this way..

 

[Stang68]

You should all demand an exchange for the Razr Maxx. Kind of ridiculous that they are releasing that so soon. If you don't mind the extra thickness (still under 9mm) then pickup the Maxx, it is like a 3200mah battery.