Updated to Gingerbread yesterday. What's different?
- Thread starter brody8898
- Start date
Not good to hear.. Well its coming that time now a day or two into things to truly see the battery life.... Especially if you can't shut down extra processes running as Keith Vetter stated... Bummer 
I guess like in the past it will continue in the future.... Best battery will always be achieved by rooting and installing a nice battery sipping kernel..
Phone manufactures figure if your getting an average of 6, 8, 10 hrs on battery life you have successfully made it through a normal day of life or work day. ( Ya right...)
I guess like in the past it will continue in the future.... Best battery will always be achieved by rooting and installing a nice battery sipping kernel..
Phone manufactures figure if your getting an average of 6, 8, 10 hrs on battery life you have successfully made it through a normal day of life or work day. ( Ya right...)
gyoung345
Well-known member
So far I've updated two phones. Both updates went smooth. Only one app that put the date on the status bar doesn't work which frankly doesn't matter now as Gingerbread has a nicer display on the unlock screen anyway.
I've noticed the phone is definitely more responsive. Before updating I was comparing the two Epic's we have and it's just a bunch of little things like how fast if goes from portrait to landscape, or how fast an app opens, or how fast Bluetooth connects or how fast google voice search responds or the fact that Skype is actually useable on Gingerbread where is was very poor/useless on Froyo.
I have also noticed the battery life is better now. I haven't had a chance to do a proper test, but as I have a 3500 extended battery, the change is probably more noticeable. Even with the extended battery if I turned on Wifi and Bluetooth I would see a few % drop after a phone call or checking/reading mail. Normally as of this writing I would be down to 80-85% by this time in the day WITHOUT wifi on. Today WITH wifi I'm only down to 90%.
I am a power user, but not a super user. I use the phone, bluetooth, wifi, email, texts and internet and get over 200 emails per day. I don't play games except for the occasional Solitaire or Angry Birds.
Other users may have different results, but so far for me... the phone is finally acting as it probably should have been acting, when it was new. No complaints.
I'll keep testing and do a good battery test as well. I'll do some testing on the stock battery as well. For us the stock battery was pretty much useless. We had to keep the phone on a charge, especially using the GPS. It think it may be different now, but that's speculation.
I've noticed the phone is definitely more responsive. Before updating I was comparing the two Epic's we have and it's just a bunch of little things like how fast if goes from portrait to landscape, or how fast an app opens, or how fast Bluetooth connects or how fast google voice search responds or the fact that Skype is actually useable on Gingerbread where is was very poor/useless on Froyo.
I have also noticed the battery life is better now. I haven't had a chance to do a proper test, but as I have a 3500 extended battery, the change is probably more noticeable. Even with the extended battery if I turned on Wifi and Bluetooth I would see a few % drop after a phone call or checking/reading mail. Normally as of this writing I would be down to 80-85% by this time in the day WITHOUT wifi on. Today WITH wifi I'm only down to 90%.
I am a power user, but not a super user. I use the phone, bluetooth, wifi, email, texts and internet and get over 200 emails per day. I don't play games except for the occasional Solitaire or Angry Birds.
Other users may have different results, but so far for me... the phone is finally acting as it probably should have been acting, when it was new. No complaints.
I'll keep testing and do a good battery test as well. I'll do some testing on the stock battery as well. For us the stock battery was pretty much useless. We had to keep the phone on a charge, especially using the GPS. It think it may be different now, but that's speculation.
kmarx
Well-known member
In case anyone is actually reading this....
I will try to do a more "scientific" test of the battery use under Gingerbread but I can sway easily that it's significantly better than it was with Froyo.
It's been a little over 11 hours since it's been charged, with stock battery, and I still have 10% left, and this is WITH Wifi and Bluetooth ON. I know this is a dramatic increase from Froyo but unsure how much because I was never able to leave Wifi ON with Froyo and not just watch the % battery wither away. On days of least amount of use, it would barely make it through an 8 hour day without a charge and if I used the GPS at all, it had to be on a charger.
Tomorrow will be a somewhat normal day so I will try to leave Wifi OFF so I have a apples-to-apples comparison of what the improvement is since the update.
Other things I have noticed..
- Bluetooth connection is more aggressive. If I walk away and my headset disconnects, it almost instantly connects when I'm back in range of the phone and speaking of range, that seems to have increased as well. Today when I went to get the mail outside I left the phone inside, in the same spot I always do, and today for the first time I was connected outside.
- Vlingo and Google search seem to kick in and detect my speech with much more clarity now.
- The general audio (voice and announcements) seem to be clearer under Gingerbread. I use handcent for messaging so all my texts are spoken to me.
So far I'm impressed with this update.
I will try to do a more "scientific" test of the battery use under Gingerbread but I can sway easily that it's significantly better than it was with Froyo.
It's been a little over 11 hours since it's been charged, with stock battery, and I still have 10% left, and this is WITH Wifi and Bluetooth ON. I know this is a dramatic increase from Froyo but unsure how much because I was never able to leave Wifi ON with Froyo and not just watch the % battery wither away. On days of least amount of use, it would barely make it through an 8 hour day without a charge and if I used the GPS at all, it had to be on a charger.
Tomorrow will be a somewhat normal day so I will try to leave Wifi OFF so I have a apples-to-apples comparison of what the improvement is since the update.
Other things I have noticed..
- Bluetooth connection is more aggressive. If I walk away and my headset disconnects, it almost instantly connects when I'm back in range of the phone and speaking of range, that seems to have increased as well. Today when I went to get the mail outside I left the phone inside, in the same spot I always do, and today for the first time I was connected outside.
- Vlingo and Google search seem to kick in and detect my speech with much more clarity now.
- The general audio (voice and announcements) seem to be clearer under Gingerbread. I use handcent for messaging so all my texts are spoken to me.
So far I'm impressed with this update.
One item I didn't see in the changes I've read about (haven't looked for a changelog that includes *everything*) is fixing the horizontal calibration.
I did the calibration on mine and it *did not* screw things up for GPS Status after updating to GB. With FroYo, doing the calibration with the phone face up would cause the compass to work improperly, it also made screen rotation work poorly and may have had an effect on GPS. The cure was to do the calibration upside down. That fixed all those issues unless someone did the calibration again face up.
Another change you'll find is GB changed some of the default wallpaper images. The sandstone arch is replaced with a big sand dune. If you liked that arch one, there's a download on another forum of the wallpapers from Eclair with that one and some others that FroYo did away with.
Doing the update manually by placing update.zip in the root of the SD card then using the stock recovery will get you several of the factory apps listed as not installed in My Apps, then a bit later they'll move up to Update. TeleNav will move up to Manual update.
If you're planning to root it and use SDX Stock App Remover, don't update the ones you're going to get rid of.
After replacing the kernel* with one that has some keyboard fix, installing the latest ACS recovery, then rooting and installing Superuser, then a zip that gets rid of CIQ, my Epic is much much much more responsive and I can type as fast as I can without the keyboard missing letters.
*Required to kill the bootup script that automatically replaces the stock recovery if it's been altered.
I did the calibration on mine and it *did not* screw things up for GPS Status after updating to GB. With FroYo, doing the calibration with the phone face up would cause the compass to work improperly, it also made screen rotation work poorly and may have had an effect on GPS. The cure was to do the calibration upside down. That fixed all those issues unless someone did the calibration again face up.
Another change you'll find is GB changed some of the default wallpaper images. The sandstone arch is replaced with a big sand dune. If you liked that arch one, there's a download on another forum of the wallpapers from Eclair with that one and some others that FroYo did away with.
Doing the update manually by placing update.zip in the root of the SD card then using the stock recovery will get you several of the factory apps listed as not installed in My Apps, then a bit later they'll move up to Update. TeleNav will move up to Manual update.
If you're planning to root it and use SDX Stock App Remover, don't update the ones you're going to get rid of.
After replacing the kernel* with one that has some keyboard fix, installing the latest ACS recovery, then rooting and installing Superuser, then a zip that gets rid of CIQ, my Epic is much much much more responsive and I can type as fast as I can without the keyboard missing letters.
*Required to kill the bootup script that automatically replaces the stock recovery if it's been altered.
Ok so today is a bit more typical day for me. Of the 6 hours of time that the phone has been on the stock battery, starting from full charge, a couple of hours have been spent on phone calls, mostly using bluetooth. The routine emails and texts of course throughout the day, and I still have 40% battery left. That's about a 20% improvement over Froyo for me.
I also see people mentioning keyboard lag. Frankly I never did see any lag in Froyo and have tried typing as fast as possible, including running my fingers across the keys, and do not see any lag.
What I'm getting at is that I wonder if there is a difference in hardware from when this phone was initially released to the versions that are sold now.
I also see people mentioning keyboard lag. Frankly I never did see any lag in Froyo and have tried typing as fast as possible, including running my fingers across the keys, and do not see any lag.
What I'm getting at is that I wonder if there is a difference in hardware from when this phone was initially released to the versions that are sold now.
Yeah, it's a slightly weaker signal. I used to get a decent signal almost anywhere in my yard. Now I lose the signal as soon as I walk out the door.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk
Yeah, a weaker signal... I used to get a decent signal anywhere in my yard. Now I lose the signal as soon as I walk out the door.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk
I had my first "normal" day on GB and my observation re battery life is that it is much better on standby (basically screen off) but not much different in active use. Makes sense to me since screen is the major power drain. BTW, never got OTA; did manual update on the phone via WiFi. Completely painless, a breeze.
I get better signal. There's places in my house where I couldn't pick up my own WiFi but now can. What's crazy is I can get a stronger WiFi signal in my shop - in the office on the far side of the shop, from the router in the house.
A friend of mine lives in a metal covered single-wide mobile home. With FroYo the place was a total Sprint dead zone. Now I get one or two bars in there. Curiously, his *cough*Verizon*cough* phone works fine in his house.
Another difference, when you plug in to USB to access the SD card, the icons for apps on the card, which you can't access from the phone while your computer has the card, are a grey MicroSD shape instead of the generic green Android file icon.
A friend of mine lives in a metal covered single-wide mobile home. With FroYo the place was a total Sprint dead zone. Now I get one or two bars in there. Curiously, his *cough*Verizon*cough* phone works fine in his house.
Another difference, when you plug in to USB to access the SD card, the icons for apps on the card, which you can't access from the phone while your computer has the card, are a grey MicroSD shape instead of the generic green Android file icon.
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Personally my battery lasts about 50% longer if I am at home connected to my wifi but as I leave and manually turn off wifi and connect to 3g my battery is about the same if not maybe worse....
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk
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