Might I have a bad battery?

[anotherfiz]

Droid maxx here, 1 week in. The day I got the phone, 50% out of the box , went right on my day with it and barely charged. Got somewhere in the neighborhood of 24 hours with 2ish hours onscreen time before I had to charge it the next day - About what I had expected. Cut to one week in and I feel like im getting less battery life every charge. Today I am at 8h 15 min off charger, 1:30 min on screen time, 66% battery. I was at school for part of the morning, and I get terrible signal in those buildings (1x - 4g , with 1 bar, bouncing around all the time)... But I am on wifi at shcool, so shouldnt the impact be less?

Considering trading Maxx in for either another Maxx, or a Moto X. What do you guys think? Am I being paranoid?

 

[alee]

At 8 hours and 66% remaining, you're on track to do 24 hours on a charge with 4.5 hrs of screen time. That'd be roughly what I get. Your phone is fine... you're just a heavy user.

 

[Busted51]

calibrate the battery, then if it doesn't help.. use GSam Battery Monitor and find the problem.. to calibrate the battery, Discharge until the "Plug Phone in" warning appears, roughly around 15%, Turn OFF the phone and charge until 100%, Turn phone ON and unplug. Then again Discharge to roughly 15% when you get the warning, Turn OFF the phone and charge to 100%.. Turn on the phone, unplug then... use normally. FoxKat recommends re calibration every 3-4 months depending on use. if that doesn't help. use GSam and find the problem, if everything looks "normal".. then its a bad battery. But yes being in a dead zone will kill the battery a lot faster.

 

[SteelGator]

At 8 hours and 66% remaining, you're on track to do 24 hours on a charge with 4.5 hrs of screen time. That'd be roughly what I get. Your phone is fine... you're just a heavy user.

I think most people are tracking better than this, more toward 8-10 hours of screen time. Reception will impact this drastically.

OP
If you are on WiFi at the school, then your bad reception should not impact battery. Make sure wifi is on and connected (it will be blue and your VZW bars will be grey).
Look at your battery stats. What are the top 5 users of the battery? Agree with the suggestion to look at a GSam Battery Monitor to get more detail.

I think you are right to investigate, you don't seem to be getting the life I would expect.

 

[YAYTech]

Even on wifi, if it's struggling trying to get cell reception, it's going to drain the battery more quickly, and 1.5hr screen on time isn't nothing. Frankly, that doesn't sound like bad battery life at all.

You relate that the day you got the phone, 50% battery got you: 24hr overall, 2hr screen on time.
Then you relate that a week later that you used 34% battery for: 8.25hr overall, 1.5hr screen time

That doesn't sound like vastly different results to me.

I would suggest seeing how it does in different conditions before swapping, assuming you have a few days left in your return grace period. Moto X is nearly all the same phone guts, but with a smaller battery, so it's not going to give you a better battery life experience.

 

[anotherfiz]

WiFi is definitely connected. I wonder if it makes a difference that I am using 5.8ghz WiFi vs 2.4? I heard that used to cause problems back in the day. I seem to be getting around 30 mins per 10% which seems below avg. Another weird thing happened today at 10:01 AM. I flipped my phone to see active display, and the numbers had got stuck between 10:01 and 10:02. I went to Verizon today and I still have 1 week go trade no questions asked. Do you know if I can only exchange a phone once? I am thinking of getting another maxx, testing it over the weekend, and swapping for x if I am not satisfied .



Edit. I know the x has a smaller battery, but if I end every day with 45% on a maxx and charge every night, may as well get an x right ?

 

[18t]

if you can, when your at school just put your phone on airplane mode and then turn on wifi. wont lose as much battery sitting in class

 

[davinci27]

more toward 8-10 hours

Just curious where you've been reading reports of 8-10 hours of screen time?

 

[SteelGator]

Edit. I know the x has a smaller battery, but if I end every day with 45% on a maxx and charge every night, may as well get an x right ?

Not in my mind. Ending the day at 45% means if they day kept going the phone could handle it. The X would have to be charged at that point, and maybe sooner. You seem to need as much battery as you can get IMHO.

 

[SteelGator]

Just curious where you've been reading reports of 8-10 hours of screen time?

Those were some of the original reports over the first couple of days. After looking back, I would revise that downward a bit. Should be trending towards >6 hrs though.

Here are a couple threads that show some of the screen time I was recalling.

http://forums.androidcentral.com/motorola-droid-maxx/307674-battery-results.html

http://forums.androidcentral.com/motorola-droid-maxx/308318-good-battery.html

Any of these times are going to vary with usage patterns and reception, that is why we really need to see what is driving the OPs usage to help make a call.

 

[davinci27]

Not in my mind. Ending the day at 45% means if they day kept going the phone could handle it. The X would have to be charged at that point, and maybe sooner. You seem to need as much battery as you can get IMHO.

I agree. If you are ending at 45% on your maxx, that means you've probably already burned through your X's battery. And say you decided to stay out an extra hour that X is going to be dead where your maxx still has plenty of juice.

Add to that the additional 16G of space and the maxx really starts to look pretty promising. If I had gotten an X or and Ultra, I would have already run out of storage space.

 

[alee]

I think most people are tracking better than this, more toward 8-10 hours of screen time. Reception will impact this drastically.

It really depends on what you have running. Your advice is good though to look at what the top 5 apps that use battery are.

For me, I will never get more than 24 hours, but that's because I have a fairly large volume of email, both accounts set to push, and a very non-wifi driven use profile. I will beat any battery into the ground, but 24 hrs is a new record for any device I've ever owned.

 

[anotherfiz]

It seems to have spruced up a bit. Current stats are : 28%, 3:22 on screen time, 1:30 voice call, 13h 17 mins off charger.

 

[anotherfiz]

Hokay - Here are some screenshots. I still feel the battery is under performing.

View attachment 78877

View attachment 78878