The so called Nexus 4 battery woes

badbrad17

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I really believe that data is the big thing as well as a poor signal. I have been using my phone pretty sparsely today as I do consider myself a power user but I am now sitting at over 12 hours with 2.5+ hours of screen time. Also streamed some music on data for about 30 minutes.

I'm using Juice defender on basic and have everything else off as much as possible including Google Now.

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SimonB15

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I had been getting quite good (read: acceptable) battery life out of my N4 - 16 hoursish off charge with 3+hrs screen on time, but the last couple of days have been disappointing. Today, for example, 13.5 hrs off charge, 1hr 15mins screen on time. Biggest users were Screen 26%, Andoird OS 20%, Phone Idle 13%, Mobile Standby 11%. Interesting thing in Mobile standby: Time on 13h 39m 47s, Time without signal 14%. That suggests that, over the course of the day, for close to 2 hours my phone was trying to pick up a signal.

I'm wondering if people think this might be a cause of my problem over the past couple of days?

I've not changed any of my sync settings, and today I even ran with WiFi turned off all day to see if there was an improvement. I use auto screen brightness and GPS turned off. I sent less than 20 texts today, Facebook had used 3% of my battery (so not much usage there with infrequent syncing), placed 2 very short (< 1 minute) phone calls, and played a couple of games (combined to about 3% battery as well).

Sorry, no fancy screenshots as I'm writing from my laptop :)
 

badbrad17

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I had been getting quite good (read: acceptable) battery life out of my N4 - 16 hoursish off charge with 3+hrs screen on time, but the last couple of days have been disappointing. Today, for example, 13.5 hrs off charge, 1hr 15mins screen on time. Biggest users were Screen 26%, Andoird OS 20%, Phone Idle 13%, Mobile Standby 11%. Interesting thing in Mobile standby: Time on 13h 39m 47s, Time without signal 14%. That suggests that, over the course of the day, for close to 2 hours my phone was trying to pick up a signal.

I'm wondering if people think this might be a cause of my problem over the past couple of days?

I've not changed any of my sync settings, and today I even ran with WiFi turned off all day to see if there was an improvement. I use auto screen brightness and GPS turned off. I sent less than 20 texts today, Facebook had used 3% of my battery (so not much usage there with infrequent syncing), placed 2 very short (< 1 minute) phone calls, and played a couple of games (combined to about 3% battery as well).

Sorry, no fancy screenshots as I'm writing from my laptop :)
So were you on data? I have found it makes a huge difference if I am getting a weak data signal vs wifi. I always turn data off and only flip it on when I need it.

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Doooshty

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Yesterday I had decided to do an RMA. I had been getting 8 hours of battery life with maybe 2hrs of screen time. I decided to give the battery a few days first. Yesterday I let the battery die, kept the phone off, and put it on the charger. I left it there for 4 hours. I then assumed it was charged. Booted into recovery and wiped battery stats. Restarted the phone and to my surprise it was only at 53%... after 4 hours. So I took it off and used it until it was about 4% then went to bed. I put it on my LG Qi charger on my nightstand. When I woke up it showed according to the charger that it was charged. Went downstairs, plugged it in and it showed 96%. I let it charge to 100 and rebooted to recovery and wiped stats again. We'll see if it makes any difference. Not sure how I was only at 53% after 4 hours of charging. This concerns me.
 

badbrad17

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Yesterday I had decided to do an RMA. I had been getting 8 hours of battery life with maybe 2hrs of screen time. I decided to give the battery a few days first. Yesterday I let the battery die, kept the phone off, and put it on the charger. I left it there for 4 hours. I then assumed it was charged. Booted into recovery and wiped battery stats. Restarted the phone and to my surprise it was only at 53%... after 4 hours. So I took it off and used it until it was about 4% then went to bed. I put it on my LG Qi charger on my nightstand. When I woke up it showed according to the charger that it was charged. Went downstairs, plugged it in and it showed 96%. I let it charge to 100 and rebooted to recovery and wiped stats again. We'll see if it makes any difference. Not sure how I was only at 53% after 4 hours of charging. This concerns me.
Doesn't sound good. I've heard that the wireless chargers don't always charge to 100 percent though.

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Doooshty

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Did you have alarms or other settings that would have forced the phone to wake? That's what drains the battery in such a scenario, in my experience.

I'm on vacation, so no alarms. My phone drops quickly with the phone off. Even with sync, location, GPS off and screen set at min setting I still get 8-10 hours with around 2hrs of screen time. Going to RMA it I think.
 

Bar81

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I'm on vacation, so no alarms. My phone drops quickly with the phone off. Even with sync, location, GPS off and screen set at min setting I still get 8-10 hours with around 2hrs of screen time. Going to RMA it I think.

That is horrible; something is definitely wrong.
 

badbrad17

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Yes, on data. Today I might try turning off data and doing the sneaky hookup to work wifi ;-)
Data usage makes a huge difference. You could also just toggle off your data if you aren't using your phone and switch it on when you need it. You can still get calls and texts.

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Evil_Munki

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I had data and wi-fi on - does that count? (Does data turn off whilst I'm on a wi-fi connection?) I'll try switching data on/off, especially when I'm commuting to and from work as I use wi-fi at home and work. Thanks for the tips!
 

SimonB15

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Data usage makes a huge difference. You could also just toggle off your data if you aren't using your phone and switch it on when you need it. You can still get calls and texts.

This is something I'm a little hesitant about. I use fb messenger, for example, which requires a data connection. I'd also rather not sacrifice push notifications. I've already set my sync of various apps to infrequent, but I'm a bit reluctant to switch data off altogether.

I've installed JD, but haven't actually turned it on. I was thinking of setting up a basic profile to automatically switch on wifi when I'm in range of my home network, switch it off otherwise, and turn off mobile data when I'm connected to a wifi network. I figure the same thing could probably be done with Tasker as well. I could do it manually, but I'm pretty forgetful.

EDIT: is there a point to switching off mobile data if you're connected to a wifi network? Wouldn't data just default to the wifi connection meaning mobile data battery usage should be nil...?
 

badbrad17

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This is something I'm a little hesitant about. I use fb messenger, for example, which requires a data connection. I'd also rather not sacrifice push notifications. I've already set my sync of various apps to infrequent, but I'm a bit reluctant to switch data off altogether.

I've installed JD, but haven't actually turned it on. I was thinking of setting up a basic profile to automatically switch on wifi when I'm in range of my home network, switch it off otherwise, and turn off mobile data when I'm connected to a wifi network. I figure the same thing could probably be done with Tasker as well. I could do it manually, but I'm pretty forgetful.

EDIT: is there a point to switching off mobile data if you're connected to a wifi network? Wouldn't data just default to the wifi connection meaning mobile data battery usage should be nil...?
if you are on wifi then data turns off.

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apu2009

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I switched from my iPhone 4 to my Nexus 4 last week. I think the battery life I'm getting with the N4 is comparable to the iPhone 4. While I do think that it could be longer, when I see the hardware and services that are running, I can understand why the drain is so much. Hopefully future optimizations will fix the drain problem. I attached my screenshots for anyone that's curious.

Forgot to add my usual usage: Unplugged it at around 10 am, it is now 11:48 pm. At home I keep wifi on and data on, sync off, bluetooth off. On the commute I have wifi off, data on, sync on, music (PowerAmp) playing and brightness on auto. Tonight I also had to drive a bit, so I had bluetooth on with streaming audio, along with wifi off, data on, bluetooth on, sync on and PowerAmp playing.
 

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badbrad17

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Dec 2, 2011
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I switched from my iPhone 4 to my Nexus 4 last week. I think the battery life I'm getting with the N4 is comparable to the iPhone 4. While I do think that it could be longer, when I see the hardware and services that are running, I can understand why the drain is so much. Hopefully future optimizations will fix the drain problem. I attached my screenshots for anyone that's curious.

Forgot to add my usual usage: Unplugged it at around 10 am, it is now 11:48 pm. At home I keep wifi on and data on, sync off, bluetooth off. On the commute I have wifi off, data on, sync on, music (PowerAmp) playing and brightness on auto. Tonight I also had to drive a bit, so I had bluetooth on with streaming audio, along with wifi off, data on, bluetooth on, sync on and PowerAmp playing.
That looks pretty normal. I agree that with some software tweaks we should see even better results.

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Doooshty

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That looks pretty normal. I agree that with some software tweaks we should see even better results.

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I wish that was normal for me. I get maybe 8 hours with 2.5 hours of screen time. That's with auto brightness, WiFi on and sync off. Don't think I can keep the phone of this doesn't get better. I am coming from sensation 4g where I got about 19+ hours with my 1900mah battery and all settings enabled. I understand the screen is larger and it's quad core...but its crazy to get half the battery life, at best. I could live with 13-14 hours with 3-4 hours of on screen time.
 

Bar81

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I wish that was normal for me. I get maybe 8 hours with 2.5 hours of screen time. That's with auto brightness, WiFi on and sync off. Don't think I can keep the phone of this doesn't get better. I am coming from sensation 4g where I got about 19+ hours with my 1900mah battery and all settings enabled. I understand the screen is larger and it's quad core...but its crazy to get half the battery life, at best. I could live with 13-14 hours with 3-4 hours of on screen time.

There is something wrong with your phone.
 

apu2009

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I wish that was normal for me. I get maybe 8 hours with 2.5 hours of screen time. That's with auto brightness, WiFi on and sync off. Don't think I can keep the phone of this doesn't get better. I am coming from sensation 4g where I got about 19+ hours with my 1900mah battery and all settings enabled. I understand the screen is larger and it's quad core...but its crazy to get half the battery life, at best. I could live with 13-14 hours with 3-4 hours of on screen time.

Did you try reinstalling Jelly Bean from a downloaded image?
 

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