New to Droid Maxx, battery life questions and other helpful tips needed

[Moo Cow]

I am new to the Droid Maxx, as in not even 24 hours yet. Now, the first thing I have done post-purchase is to come here and do some searching and try to tweak here, there, everywhere. I try to seek out answers before I ask. But I'll be honest, sometimes it's information overload, and I have other things on my mind today, so maybe it's easiest for me to ask rather than search and get eleventy billion answers.

The battery life is 48 hours advertised. I've read it's not quite that high but still close to 40. I'm fine with that. But, my next question is, how long does it take to truly get the phone to where the battery is seeded, broken in, and ready to hit those numbers? Because the vibe I get here is you have to condition the battery with full charge to empty and do that 2-3 times to get into the groove, sweet spot, etc.

But also, how much is true usage going to be? I mean anything is a step up from my Droid 4's battery, but I don't want to be expecting 40-48 hours when the true literal usage averages are, say, 30-35 or something. Because obviously 48 hours probably means you barely do anything on the phone, and we don't buy smartphones to do nothing. We'll surf the web. We'll play Candy Crush. We'll watch a video here or there. We'll Facebook and send tweets.

The biggest thing with me, however, is I have Wi-Fi apps so when I'm near a Wi-Fi spot, it will turn on/off as needed. When I am at home, it is on all the time. I know this can be a drain, and I'm fine with that. In fact at 11h47m39s, I am at 62% battery life. Of the usage, 61% is my screen, 14% is Candy Crush, and then 7% is Wi-Fi. Rest of it is phone idle 7%, Android OS 6%, Android System 2%, Cell Standby 2%. (Yes, quicker to type than screen shot it. I'm being lazy today.) I think screen can be tweaked with brightness settings, but Candy Crush is... well, it is what it is. What can I say, I'm addicted, lol.

Elsewhere, one thing I have done is found a thread in this forum of what apps should be disabled as they're worthless, don't impact usage, and it prevents risk of unwanted battery drain from them. I am also religious of regularly closing recently-used apps I am not using at the moment so they're not "on" in the background. And with KitKat around the corner as soon as I can get my hands on it, there may be tweaks there, too. But is there anything else I should keep in mind to help performance all the way around?

Thanks in advance for any helpful advice or pointings in the right direction that can be had.

 

[dtbarabus]

The battery is amazing. Heavy use streaming and a great deal of screen time 36 hours. Without streaming and lighter usage I got 60+ hours.

Sent from my XT1080 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[skatergirl]

I am new to the Droid Maxx, as in not even 24 hours yet. Now, the first thing I have done post-purchase is to come here and do some searching and try to tweak here, there, everywhere. I try to seek out answers before I ask. But I'll be honest, sometimes it's information overload, and I have other things on my mind today, so maybe it's easiest for me to ask rather than search and get eleventy billion answers.

The battery life is 48 hours advertised. I've read it's not quite that high but still close to 40. I'm fine with that. But, my next question is, how long does it take to truly get the phone to where the battery is seeded, broken in, and ready to hit those numbers? Because the vibe I get here is you have to condition the battery with full charge to empty and do that 2-3 times to get into the groove, sweet spot, etc.

But also, how much is true usage going to be? I mean anything is a step up from my Droid 4's battery, but I don't want to be expecting 40-48 hours when the true literal usage averages are, say, 30-35 or something. Because obviously 48 hours probably means you barely do anything on the phone, and we don't buy smartphones to do nothing. We'll surf the web. We'll play Candy Crush. We'll watch a video here or there. We'll Facebook and send tweets.

The biggest thing with me, however, is I have Wi-Fi apps so when I'm near a Wi-Fi spot, it will turn on/off as needed. When I am at home, it is on all the time. I know this can be a drain, and I'm fine with that. In fact at 11h47m39s, I am at 62% battery life. Of the usage, 61% is my screen, 14% is Candy Crush, and then 7% is Wi-Fi. Rest of it is phone idle 7%, Android OS 6%, Android System 2%, Cell Standby 2%. (Yes, quicker to type than screen shot it. I'm being lazy today.) I think screen can be tweaked with brightness settings, but Candy Crush is... well, it is what it is. What can I say, I'm addicted, lol.

Elsewhere, one thing I have done is found a thread in this forum of what apps should be disabled as they're worthless, don't impact usage, and it prevents risk of unwanted battery drain from them. I am also religious of regularly closing recently-used apps I am not using at the moment so they're not "on" in the background. And with KitKat around the corner as soon as I can get my hands on it, there may be tweaks there, too. But is there anything else I should keep in mind to help performance all the way around?

Thanks in advance for any helpful advice or pointings in the right direction that can be had.

Put it this way, I don't turn anything off at any time and I had a Rezound that sucked chargers like an intravenous drip. I get an entire day out of my Maxx without going near the charger. I have gotten a day and a half on minimal use.

 

[p08757]

I am new to the Droid Maxx, as in not even 24 hours yet. Now, the first thing I have done post-purchase is to come here and do some searching and try to tweak here, there, everywhere. I try to seek out answers before I ask. But I'll be honest, sometimes it's information overload, and I have other things on my mind today, so maybe it's easiest for me to ask rather than search and get eleventy billion answers.

The battery life is 48 hours advertised. I've read it's not quite that high but still close to 40. I'm fine with that. But, my next question is, how long does it take to truly get the phone to where the battery is seeded, broken in, and ready to hit those numbers? Because the vibe I get here is you have to condition the battery with full charge to empty and do that 2-3 times to get into the groove, sweet spot, etc.

But also, how much is true usage going to be? I mean anything is a step up from my Droid 4's battery, but I don't want to be expecting 40-48 hours when the true literal usage averages are, say, 30-35 or something. Because obviously 48 hours probably means you barely do anything on the phone, and we don't buy smartphones to do nothing. We'll surf the web. We'll play Candy Crush. We'll watch a video here or there. We'll Facebook and send tweets.

The biggest thing with me, however, is I have Wi-Fi apps so when I'm near a Wi-Fi spot, it will turn on/off as needed. When I am at home, it is on all the time. I know this can be a drain, and I'm fine with that. In fact at 11h47m39s, I am at 62% battery life. Of the usage, 61% is my screen, 14% is Candy Crush, and then 7% is Wi-Fi. Rest of it is phone idle 7%, Android OS 6%, Android System 2%, Cell Standby 2%. (Yes, quicker to type than screen shot it. I'm being lazy today.) I think screen can be tweaked with brightness settings, but Candy Crush is... well, it is what it is. What can I say, I'm addicted, lol.

Elsewhere, one thing I have done is found a thread in this forum of what apps should be disabled as they're worthless, don't impact usage, and it prevents risk of unwanted battery drain from them. I am also religious of regularly closing recently-used apps I am not using at the moment so they're not "on" in the background. And with KitKat around the corner as soon as I can get my hands on it, there may be tweaks there, too. But is there anything else I should keep in mind to help performance all the way around?

Thanks in advance for any helpful advice or pointings in the right direction that can be had.

I would say under moderate to light use with a good signal one should get an average of 48 hours of battery life. I really don't think you need to "burn in" your battery. However, the first week you get your new phone you may tend to use it more, and that may make it seem like the battery goes down faster.

I leave everything (blue tooth, WiFi, GPS, NFS) turned on and don't worry about it.

My average charging cycle goes something like this:

Off the charger at 6:00am -- Battery Level 100%
In bed and back in the charger by 11:30pm -- Battery Level 50% to 60%

There has been a few days where I forget to charge my phone over night and I can easily make it to the end of my second day without going dead. (about 40 hours of up time)

As far as what programs to disable, that is a personal thing. If I don't use a program, I un-install it or disable it. Here is the list of my disabled programs:

Amazon Kindle
Audible
Caller Name ID
MMDB
Ingress
NFL Mobile
Verizon Support & Protection
Verizon Tones
VZ Navigator

Good luck with your new phone, and now you don't have to worry about battery life. This is the first smart phone I couldn't kill a battery in a day unless I tried really hard.

 

[doogald]

The battery life is 48 hours advertised. I've read it's not quite that high but still close to 40. I'm fine with that. But, my next question is, how long does it take to truly get the phone to where the battery is seeded, broken in, and ready to hit those numbers? Because the vibe I get here is you have to condition the battery with full charge to empty and do that 2-3 times to get into the groove, sweet spot, etc.

Yeah, that battery conditioning stuff is voodoo. Charge it fully when you get it, use it all day, plug it in at night while you sleep. If you are somehow able to plug the phone in for a few hours and pull it from the charger when it's fully charged, that's probably better. The battery will be fine.

I trend to about 40 hours battery life when I'm in a WiFi area. That's with about 2.5 hours screen on time a day and about 1-2 hours of listening to media with the screen off, and I have a Pebble watch that is always BT connected. My cell signal is generally terrible, so you may get better life. When I'm mostly on mobile data and little WiFi, I tend to trend to about 36 hours battery life with the same use.

 

[skatergirl]

So today I have been off the battery for about nine hours. On a day of minimal use, my battery would be down about 27 or so percent, but my phone has been w-o-r-k-e-d today and I am down to 40 percent.

That being said, my phone had a major update today which sucks down the battery. I have been listening to music through my Bluetooth for the past six hours. I have had about five or six hours of screen time as well. When I leave work in 30 minutes I won't be using my phone much for the rest of the day, but even if I kept playing I would not have to plug in until I go sleep, which is when I usually plug in. This battery is simply amazing!

 

[Zorro1]

My experience is nearly 4 days, will post proof tomorrow. That said, I don't use it for music or Youtubes. I'm usually on a wifi connection, had one day out quite a bit this week on 4g. Everything is on. Oh, and I airplane at night. So I've discovered that it will usually drop 20% during the day, and under 5% at night now. The biggest culprit seems to be the Command Center which are those cool circle widgets with temp, time, and battery on your home screen. DUMP IT! Get the far better One More Clock which you can customize! and doesn't suck power overnight for nothing.

Now showing 3 days 13 hours on battery and I'm still at 19%! I used to get concerned when under 20%, but realized under 20 on this is more like under 5-10 on the other phones. So I'm not afraid to run it down to 10%...

 

[SteelGator]

A few thoughts,

Everybody's battery use is different because we all use the phone differently. I burn down to 30 percent on heavy days and 50 percent on low use days. These batteries do best if you never run too low, so I charge nightly.

You don't need to close apps that are not being used. Android actually works best when you let it manage your memory.

I have not disabled any apps. I still don't understand the value of doing so.

Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk

 

[Jdalton1111]

I'm a heavy user and have never killed the battery in one day! On average I have between 35-55% battery left at the end of day. I charge every night unless I'm busy and have around 65% remaining. So it can easily be a 48 hour battery with normal use. I keep everything on all the time... GPS, wifi, blue tooth, etc....

Posted via Android Central App

 

[Moo Cow]

Thank you to those who have replied. I have been reading and absorbing, and will continue to do so as more replies come in.

 

[conan1071]

I'm normally a heavy user, except weekends. During the week, I'll use about 3.5 hours Bluetooth calling and about 4 hours screen time and by 11 pm still have around 55% battery.

Weekends? I usually off charger on Friday morning and not back on again until Sunday night.

Best ever was almost 8 hours screen time, 2 hours talk and 1 day, 11 hours.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[Zorro1]

 

[Moo Cow]

I'm normally a heavy user, except weekends. During the week, I'll use about 3.5 hours Bluetooth calling and about 4 hours screen time and by 11 pm still have around 55% battery.

Weekends? I usually off charger on Friday morning and not back on again until Sunday night.

Best ever was almost 8 hours screen time, 2 hours talk and 1 day, 11 hours.

Posted via Android Central App

Took the phone off the charger late Friday morning before going to work (I work afternoon/evening shifts). I have not charged it since. I have done nothing different than what I did with my old Droid 4 phone. Maybe a bit more cause it's a new phone, but really, it's the usual. Nothing like the first 36 hours of me having it.

Right now, I am approaching 2d4h on the battery and have 20 percent left to go. So this is the battery life I have been expecting. With the Droid 4, at the end of my work shift Friday I'd have been plugging it into my car charger to help make it home. So that comparison really tells me how strong this battery is.

 

[Zorro1]

My post above about 4 days is rare...just the way the week went. Now, I took mine off charger Fri. a.m., but used Waze for two hours to/from airport ride to pick up our daughter, was out a good part of Fri. on 4g only, but don't need to charge until tonight even at 20+% right now...So still 3 days after a heavy Friday. Unless that KitKat thing comes, then I'll have to throw it on the charger probably.

 

[conan1071]

How are you guys getting 2-3 days, do you not use the phone? This is with the phone being fully charged and off the charged Saturday morning and not turned off at night.

This is my best so far; probably could have gotten another hour of screen time.

 

[HES]

I found the thread around here detailing what apps to disable. I followed the list for the most part (some things like Amazon I use) and my battery life took off like a rocket. Why it isnt stickied in this forum is beyond me.