Battery life of 4.5 hours?!

[sushifor5]

I posted at phandroid forum as well... I think i really need some good advice...

I have the 3g nexus 7 and live in an area with not the greatest reception, but it is pretty stable. I'm not rooted. I'm only getting 4.5 hours of use on my battery (that's me using the tablet, not sleep) and that seems bad. Is it?

I have everything turned off that i know how...No auto syncs on, no wifi, no latitude on, no gps, just my att 3g mobile connection and i put it in airplane mode when not using. I mostly surf the web with chrome and rarely stream video with xscope, i use a weather widget with manual updating, eBay app, pure grid calendar. I don't play games.

When i look at the nexus battery stats, it says screen is using 75%. I keep my screen brightness as low as it can go at all times. When i check gsasm battery monitor, it shows that the app "mobile data" has performed 1168 wakelocks. Of course, i don't even know what that means... Techno dummy here.

I have read a bit online and can't find anything applicable that i can understand. I've read about deep sleep. Is that a potential problem... Lack of deep sleep? How do i check my tablet's deep sleep pattern?

I would be very grateful for any advice on how to figure out what is causing my battery problems and how to fix them! TIA!

 

[zkSharks]

I posted at phandroid forum as well... I think i really need some good advice...

I have the 3g nexus 7 and live in an area with not the greatest reception, but it is pretty stable. I'm not rooted. I'm only getting 4.5 hours of use on my battery (that's me using the tablet, not sleep) and that seems bad. Is it?

I have everything turned off that i know how...No auto syncs on, no wifi, no latitude on, no gps, just my att 3g mobile connection and i put it in airplane mode when not using. I mostly surf the web with chrome and rarely stream video with xscope, i use a weather widget with manual updating, eBay app, pure grid calendar. I don't play games.

When i look at the nexus battery stats, it says screen is using 75%. I keep my screen brightness as low as it can go at all times. When i check gsasm battery monitor, it shows that the app "mobile data" has performed 1168 wakelocks. Of course, i don't even know what that means... Techno dummy here.

I have read a bit online and can't find anything applicable that i can understand. I've read about deep sleep. Is that a potential problem... Lack of deep sleep? How do i check my tablet's deep sleep pattern?

I would be very grateful for any advice on how to figure out what is causing my battery problems and how to fix them! TIA!

Four and a half hours of screen time is fairly good. I've certainly had worse, but I have also had better.

A wakelock is something that an Android application or background service can register with Android. When one has been registered, it prevents the device from going to sleep. The highest-level wakelock keeps the screen on without dimming, for example while watching a YouTube video. These keep the device from going to sleep at all, and therefore are a significant battery drain. There are also lower-level wakelocks, such as ones that allow the screen and network connectivity to be turned off but keep the CPU on to do processing. They usually require significantly less power than the screen-on wakelocks, but still much more than the device uses while in deep sleep. These lower-level ones are obviously harder to detect, because to the end user it appears almost the same as if the device is in its normal deep sleep state.

I don't often keep track of the battery time on my Nexus 7, as it's on and off chargers all the time. I'll let others jump in and discuss screen and battery experiences.

 

[anon(5719825)]

I have the same 32GB 3G Nexus 7. Mine is activated on T-Mobile. I do get about 4.5 to 5 hrs screen time alon with additional time spent using other apps such as XM and Facebook. It's not possible to get the rated 9.5 hrs of nothing but screen time, not even an iPad can do that. You can get 9.5 hrs by listening to music and a combination of having the screen on doing other things off and on.

I was using HD widgets but it seemed to decrease my battery life enough to where I would only get about 2 hrs screen time so I removed that app. I would rather have more usage time then a pretty clock and sun at the top of the screen.

I honestly don't think you have a battery problem.

 

[sushifor5]

Thanks for the replies! So when you say screen time, does that mean the device is constantly being used and the screen active? I'm not techno savvy, lol. I did install the apps cpu spy and watchdog lite. I noticed today that all last night, when tablet was not in use, in airplane mode, not plugged in, i was sleeping... The battery drained from 100% to 50%. And cpu spy says it was in deep sleep for only one hour all that time. Can you explain deep sleep to me? Is the situation i just described problematic? Thanks much!

 

[anon(5719825)]

Thanks for the replies! So when you say screen time, does that mean the device is constantly being used and the screen active? I'm not techno savvy, lol. I did install the apps cpu spy and watchdog lite. I noticed today that all last night, when tablet was not in use, in airplane mode, not plugged in, i was sleeping... The battery drained from 100% to 50%. And cpu spy says it was in deep sleep for only one hour all that time. Can you explain deep sleep to me? Is the situation i just described problematic? Thanks much!

The 4.5 hrs I mentioned above is only screen time, the time when I had the screen on. It doesn't include the rest of the time I was using the Nexus 7 to listen to music or the time it was not being used. I've been able to get just under two days between charges but that was with less screen time, probably about two hrs.

 

[YAYTech]

Yeah, it completely depends on what you're doing. I took a long (8+ hr) road trip a few months back, and used my wifi N7 to stream bluetooth music (locally stored) through my stereo most of the trip, and it had no problem making it the whole way. The screen was off most of the time, just streaming music. However, if it's on, it doesn't last that long, and if I'm playing games, it REALLY doesn't last anywhere near that long (couple hours, maybe a tad more?). So there's a huge variation depending on what apps are running, etc.

 

[anon(924308)]

4.5 hours sounds fine, esp if you're using mobile data. if you want to squeeze as much battery life out of your device as possible, download a screen dimmer app. I've found that the default "minimum" isn't nearly as low as it could be.

 

[sushifor5]

Screen dimmer sounds good.

So i thought i read the nexus 7 was advertised to allow 9 hours of web surfing, which would be screen time, right? Is that length of time possible or did i misread?

 

[anon(5719825)]

Screen dimmer sounds good.

So i thought i read the nexus 7 was advertised to allow 9 hours of web surfing, which would be screen time, right? Is that length of time possible or did i misread?

I doubt that getting 9 hours of screen time is possible. Manufacturers tend to post these specs under very strict conditions that the average user would never be able to achieve.

I've been able to get 5 hours screen time and I consider that excellent. I probably git about 8 hours usage all together on one charge.

 

[Channan]

It's not possible to get the rated 9.5 hrs of nothing but screen time, not even an iPad can do that.

I can easily get 10 hours of screen on time with my iPad 3. Same went for my iPad 1 and 2 when I had them. I get about 5.5-6 hours on my Nexus 7. I'm not complaining though. As long as I charge it every night, it'll last me all day and that's all I can ask for.

 

[sushifor5]

Thanks, all! This tablet is a new thing for me and I'm glad to hear my performance is within normal parameters.

 

[THHT]

A test I conducted when I first bought my N7 was to browse the internet on it non-stop. 4hrs 45mins at 30% brightness.

Watching just videos on MX Player with wifi off and at 30% brightness, I wouldn't be surprised to get about 10 hours (1 hour of watching every 10% of battery).

Wifi/3G and games will kill your battery the most. 8 to 9.5 hours is the suggested battery life if you're doing different things on it. Normal use would probably get you 6-7 hours.

 

[anon(924308)]

Screen dimmer sounds good. So i thought i read the nexus 7 was advertised to allow 9 hours of web surfing, which would be screen time, right? Is that length of time possible or did i misread?

You could probably squeeze out close to 9 hours if you had the screen ungodly dim lol. When you're not in direct sunlight, I find that even 40% below min brightness is totally fine. (e.g. inside a library or your house).

Just a head's up--the screen dimmer does quirky things to your device when active. E..g, you can't install new apps when the screen is dim, for whatever reason. No biggie though. I would recommend downloading "Power Toggles" and creating a shortcut for the screen dimmer--it's an app that stays permanently in your notifications bar, so you don't need to exit an app to activate the screen dimmer or whatever else.

 

[Jared Wilkinson]

I posted at phandroid forum as well... I think i really need some good advice...

I have the 3g nexus 7 and live in an area with not the greatest reception, but it is pretty stable. I'm not rooted. I'm only getting 4.5 hours of use on my battery (that's me using the tablet, not sleep) and that seems bad. Is it?

I have everything turned off that i know how...No auto syncs on, no wifi, no latitude on, no gps, just my att 3g mobile connection and i put it in airplane mode when not using. I mostly surf the web with chrome and rarely stream video with xscope, i use a weather widget with manual updating, eBay app, pure grid calendar. I don't play games.

When i look at the nexus battery stats, it says screen is using 75%. I keep my screen brightness as low as it can go at all times. When i check gsasm battery monitor, it shows that the app "mobile data" has performed 1168 wakelocks. Of course, i don't even know what that means... Techno dummy here.

I have read a bit online and can't find anything applicable that i can understand. I've read about deep sleep. Is that a potential problem... Lack of deep sleep? How do i check my tablet's deep sleep pattern?

I would be very grateful for any advice on how to figure out what is causing my battery problems and how to fix them! TIA!

I get about the same no matter what. 4 hours of games and maybe five of anything else