Even extended battery is awful

[clarinethero214]

I just bought the Verizon 1820mAh extended battery for the Droid Pro, and it still sucks. I'm running the GB OS, have no GPS or Wifi on. I'm running Juice Defender to help preserve my battery by turning off the data when my screen is off. I haven't been browsing or loading any applications. I took two 10 minute calls or so, and have been texting pretty much non stop though. The display setting is on auto-brightness. I'm not sure if this is normal, but from 10 AM to now 3:35 PM the battery has drained all the way to 50%! I got rid of Advanced Task Killer the other day, and the only apps that run in the background are the regular Task Manager installed on the phone, Startup cleaner, Antivirus Free, Where's My Droid, Auto Ring (so it rings for a certain contact when she calls even on vibrate), and Watchdog Task Manager. All my other downloaded apps are set to auto-kill after they're idle for 2 minutes. I checked my CPU usage and it's very low, as expected. I have my Gmail emails pushed, but I don't have any other emails or social networking programs. I have a few widgets, but they're nothing fancy. It's the calendar widget, a cache cleaner widget, a battery widget, a memory cleaner widget, and two contact widgets. I check the battery settings and it says 65% for display, 16% for voice calls, 8% cell standby, 8% phone idle, and 3% droid OS. I'm not sure if this is normal. It's my second day with the new battery. The directions said to charge it up all the way before using it (I didn't read this... oops), and I drained it from the initial 60% down to around 5% before charging it all the way back up to 100% again. I'm sure that's not a problem though. Any suggestions or ideas? I don't know if this is normal or not. I seem to be running a pretty clean system. I didn't know frequently texting would run it down this much, especially if I turn off the display in between texts as well.

 

[jdragione]

Get rid of all task killers (widgets or apps), get rid of the anti virus, turn auto brightness off and set the brightness to the lowest you can stand (I set mine to the lowest setting and can see it all the time just fine). Use WiFi when possible because data over WiFi uses much less battery.

Make sure you are not using an animated background and turn off animations.

 

[clarinethero214]

Thanks for the information. I got rid of all task killers and followed your other suggestions. The only one left is the stock task killer. I also do not have an animated background. I wasn't aware that WiFi data uses less battery. If, for instance, I'm on a college campus that has WiFi everywhere on campus, should I enable WiFi on my device? I thought this would do the opposite and drain my battery, but perhaps it does not.

 

[Ravage790]

i think it only drains when its looking for one

 

[trmoney24]

do you have any other exchange email accounts on your phone? i have the same phone and had the same issue when i upgraded to GB. I found out my exchange email doesn't work right with this version. So this time i limited it to just Emails and no calendar or contact sync. now my battery is working good again. i also have the extended battery as well. overall i don't like the OS on this phone. I wish it was a more popular device so that we can get an aftermarket OS like cyanogenmod.

 

[anon(123856)]

My phone has been up 11.5 hrs and has 80% battery left. This is admittedly light use, a couple of texts, a few emails and one 10 min phone call. I have it set to Maximum battery saver in Battery Mode. The only drawback to this that I've encountered is that sometimes mail won"t get delivered because the radio is shut off. As soon as you wake the phone, the mail comes in. Not a big deal for me because my phone sits on my desk all day due to the crap cell signal in most of the building I work in. I don't use any social networking apps so there is very little background syncing going on. I think I'll pass on GB for now because of all the battery related issues.

 

[clarinethero214]

I turned on WiFi in place of 3G for data, got rid of my antivirus (doubt that did anything), and changed my background to something slightly less bright/white, and something with that changed it DRASTICALLY. I have had the same use, and after 9 hours it's still at 60%. Very respectable. I only removed two widgets as well, and I doubt either did much of anything. As for exchange, I'm not quite sure what refers to. I have my mail coming in through the Gmail app. I have the Facebook app, but it doesn't run in the background or sync. Backup assistant syncs daily, but I have it set to do that between 12AM and 6AM, so that's not a problem either. I have Google Calendar on my phone (the stock one), but I don't use the widget. I don't know if that is Exchange or anything. That's all that syncs to anything on my phone. Nothing else runs in the background except Juice Defender, Startup Cleaner, Where's my Droid, and Auto Ring. So far, I'm thinking the WiFi change has been a great improvement. It will be good because my college campus I go to in two weeks has WiFi across all the campus, so I can do the same thing I'm doing right now to preserve precious battery life. I'm glad I updated to GB, but it's really not all that different. I find annoying how, when you link your Pro to the computer, all the apps installed on your SD card move away from your home screens and you have to put them back. Battery's more respectable today though, so that's what matters.
I had only 5 minutes of calling as opposed to 20 or so yesterday, but I doubt that made around a 40% difference anyway.

 

[bojowaggie]

So my wife's phone is having this damn battery issue, I have complained to VZW about this and they have even sent me a replacement brand new phone same problem. So I have *****ed enough that they are sending me a extended battery for free..
I will see how that does and report back as well to my findings..

 

[clarinethero214]

I think the Droid Pro is naturally a battery hog. Just make sure you have done what others have suggested to try to preserve the battery as much as possible. It's a great phone, but the battery life is definitely not one of its high points. Best of luck with the extended battery. As of today, I'm very pleased.

 

[google123]

That's strange. I get well over 20 hours depending on how heavily I use my Pro. I have to admit, I don't spend all day talking on it but I do leave the wifi on all the time. Sometimes, I turn the wifi off while I'm sleeping if I remember too but it usually stays on. I have some apps in the standard task killer set to auto-kill at 2 minutes after screen timeout, I keep the curvefish brightness widget on auto on my homescreen and I use SetCPU to set a profile of 800/600 during screen on, and 300/300 during screen off. I had over 2 days battery life a couple of days ago on my phone cuz I didn't use it quite as much but even when I use it quite a bit for games, music, browsing, and constantly texting I still get at least 16-20 hours. Not sure what's up with others' crappy battery life on extended battery. Mine has been worth the money for reals.

 

[clarinethero214]

You have the 1820 mAh one from Verizon? That's the one I have, but I'd imagine even if you had the 1700 mAh that the 1820 mAh would naturally last about the same if not longer...

 

[google123]

Yes, I have the extended battery from Verizon. I posted a screenshot of my usage here: post 4

http://forums.androidcentral.com/motorola-droid-pro/93766-1700mah-battery.html

And here is another....

 

[jdragione]

I have the Droid Pro and it has the best battery life of any droid I have ever had and I am using the stock battery.

Now I am NOT on Gingerbread and I did root the phone and freeze out all the bloatware ... skype, vz navigator, my verizon, backup assistant, etc

But besides that I have brightness on log, wifi is always connected at home and work, put battery saver on MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE so the phone always has full data capabilities.

GO into advanced wifi settings and make sure WIFi sleep is set to NEVER.

DOnt use an antivirus those things KILL your battery. Dont use a task killer, let the OS kill tasks the way it was designed to do. Limit your social networking widgets and feeds and use the actual apps instead. Under data delivery make it so social media apps sync over WiFi only.

 

[google123]

I have the Droid Pro and it has the best battery life of any droid I have ever had and I am using the stock battery.

Now I am NOT on Gingerbread and I did root the phone and freeze out all the bloatware ... skype, vz navigator, my verizon, backup assistant, etc

But besides that I have brightness on log, wifi is always connected at home and work, put battery saver on MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE so the phone always has full data capabilities.

GO into advanced wifi settings and make sure WIFi sleep is set to NEVER.

DOnt use an antivirus those things KILL your battery. Dont use a task killer, let the OS kill tasks the way it was designed to do. Limit your social networking widgets and feeds and use the actual apps instead. Under data delivery make it so social media apps sync over WiFi only.

jdragione speaks truths.

 

[clarinethero214]

WOAH! That's a LOT of battery life. I'm currently at 30% after 13 hours, which I'll take. I didn't root the phone since I'm on GB, but I doubt the bloatware makes all that much of a difference to be honest.
I made sure WiFi sleep is set to never (have for a while), and my brightness is on auto. Should I change that?
I got rid of my antivirus program. There's really no need for it. The only task killer I have is the one one provided with the phone. I have my apps that I downloaded and don't run in the background set to auto-kill after 2 minutes. I got rid of my social networking widget a while ago. I have 2 weather widgets, a bookmarks widget, the power widget, and 2 contact widgets. Thanks for all the tips everyone! My phone's slowly getting better and better.

 

[google123]

I really recommend rooting and getting SetCPU. I don't know how often or how well Android on its own scales back the processor or if it even does. I think that running 800/300 profile and 300/300 screen off profile has been the biggest contributor to my excellent battery life. Only problem of course is there is still no way to root Gingerbread unless you went the TBH route, which is sad really, as I think anyone else would have provided the info to the general Android community instead of charging for it. Meh.