thinking about getting a droid, how is the battery life?

[MBSMD]

ugh i have to find out whats killing my battery then... i take it off the charger at 8 and find myself at 20/30% by 1:30.... i even bought a spare battery and it does the same. I took off the auto updates for twitter, i do a fair decent amount of texting(about 20-30 both ways during that time period) and i recieve about 5 emails during that time period.

Check your apps that may download/fetch data in the background - the (non-Gmail) email client, Google Finance, news Widgets, Facebook auto updates, Locale, weather Widgets that use GPS for location detection, etc. Those can get out of hand if you don't set them up carefully and can kill your battery right quick - hence Apple's limiting the iPhone's background app ability.

For me, 25-30 emails, some light web browsing via 3G, 10 texts and a couple of short phone calls gets me from 7 am to 5 pm with 50-60% charge left. And that's with an overclocked processor (800MHz). Facebook refreshed evey two hours and Google Finance is set to never auto update. I use push Gmail and no POP email.

 

[kpageisgreat]

Ok i will check that out and report back any findings. its just been bugging me out a little. I have a friend that has the droid as well and she gets through the day just fine.

 

[MBSMD]

It is always possible you got a bad battgery, too. So if you can't get it sorted out, see if you can get VZW to swap your battery.

And don't forget that cell signal strength plays a huge part in maintaing good battery life. Being in a weak signal area will just make your phone work harder to stay in contact with the network, depleting your battery faster than it otherwise would.

 

[animlmed]

Hello All! First post. Recent BB transfer. Got my droid from ebay the other day and loving it. The battery is not playing nice though. I purchased beautiful widgets (which is great) but I have noticed that others have said they think that the most recent update was eating their battery (and since my display has been showing the highest percentage on my usage), but I also think my signal is a reason for the drain. The signal is not great where I live, so just siting here on my desk idle the battery has dropped 10%. There seem to be many factors that go into battery usage.

 

[mobilemedic20]

Yeah I'll agree that marginal signal seems to be the worst thing for battery life. I'm wondering if they can fix this with a software update?

One workaround for that is, if you're at home and have wifi, leave the wifi on. I've been doing that, and I've already noticed an improvement in battery life, I guess because the phone's not trying to access 1x or 3G, it just gets data from the wifi. This won't help in areas of marginal signal with no Wifi, of course.

 

[MBSMD]

Yeah I'll agree that marginal signal seems to be the worst thing for battery life. I'm wondering if they can fix this with a software update?

This is pretty much par for the course for any cellphone - smartphone or not.
Low signal strength will kill any cellphone battery since the phone has no choice but to boost power to communicate to the tower. If you're stuck in an area of very poor or no signal, Airport mode is your friend.

 

[androidluver]

i love my battery life. gets me through the day

 

[kpageisgreat]

after testing it today... so far im getting through the day. 10 hours off the charger and at 70 percent... will test again tomorrow when i get inside a thicker building.

 

[WarER4X]

In my new office building, they built it like a faraday cage to keep our wireless signals from getting out, but it also keeps cell signals from getting in. My BB 9530 - and now my Droid - both would not make it through the day without being on the charger. Verizon just installed some pico cells in the building last week and now I can go all day without losing hardly any battery (depending on how much I use it). Signal strength definitely makes all the difference in the world.

-SR-

 

[amperrymd]

I had the same problem. The palm pre battery life was abysmal and unacceptable. I turned it in for a Droid. THe salepeople tried to tell me that all the internet phones are the same, and another customer at the kiosk told me her Droid battery life is bad, but I read reviews and decided to chance it since I couldn't live with the Pre plus. What a pleasant surprise. I would say my use is average. I keep wi-fi off. I recharge every night and the battery is only minimally used. Also the phone is much quicker. The apps come up much faster than on the Pre.

 

[scodoublet]

amperrymd speaks the truth!

 

[MBSMD]

The battery life on my Droid is essentially the same as it was (is) on my iPhone 3GS.

 

[mscalero]

Signal Strength

While we are getting on the subject of signal strength. I've had my Droid for about 3 months now, and I have noticed that for some reason it is real flimsy with 3G to 1X signal strength. The "bars" on the top go from full to no bars, from 3G to 1X fairly often.

I had a BB Curve 8330 then briefly a Storm 2 (9550) [all on VZW] and I almost never went down to 1X on my signal strength. I pretty much had 3G at full signal in my office at work, my apartment, and other commonly traveled places.

Since having the Droid I had to find a "good spot" in my office where 3G and 1X doesn't fluctuate much and the battery doesn't drain quickly. At my apartment it seems okay but I do notice it drops to 1X way more ofthen then the previous Blackberry's I have owned. At often times when I am watching the home screen the 3G signal will oddly just drop to 1X randomly, and, with out me physically moving, it will jump back up to full signal on 3G.

I tried *228 and updating my roaming, but it never seemed to help.

Anyone have any ideas or experiences on this?

 

[kpageisgreat]

I feel more confident about my battery now. Im still tinkering with some of the apps and what drains the most but I think it was the constant searching of signals from last week that was the biggest drain. Just waiting on an OS update that will hopefully improve some battery life a little. Thanks guys for all of your suggestions and help.

 

[phkhmh42]

battery life on droid

There are a couple of things you can do to improve your battery life if it drains quickly. First use the power control widget. (Press and hold on the front screen under widgets select power control. you'll will get a bar that you can turn on/off wi-fi, bluetooth, gps, sync, and 3 levels of screen brightness. I normally have everything off except my sync. and my screen is at the most dim unless I'm reading something or playing a game. The other thing you can do is forward any email account through your gmail account. Gmail will push the email to you device instead of checking for email every 5, 10, 15 min. The more the device checks to see if there is mail the quicker the battery drains. Using the steps above I can normally get 2.5 days out of a battery charge. And I'm a power user.

 

[tkfox007]

The Droid's only failing point is the battery. It barely lasts 9 hours off the charger while it does barely anything. I have to take the charging cable with me to work just in case, there's been times where I've had to plug it in too so it wouldn't die on my way home.

The reason? 3G. When its on 3G, even on stand by, its sucking away the battery life and if it switches to 1X its even worse. I switch it to WiFi when I'm at work so that the battery will last the whole day and it does. I'll leave work with maybe 40% to 70% left depending on how much I've used my phone with WiFi. Much better than coming home with like 5%.

They said that 2.1 is going to improve battery life, whenever that comes out.

 

[ardoreal]

Droid's a battery warrior, I can't say I've had a longer lasting stock setup other than my 3GS.

In fact I so hated the Palm Pre's battery life that's one of the reasons I've sworn off WebOS.

 

[tkfox007]

In my new office building, they built it like a faraday cage to keep our wireless signals from getting out, but it also keeps cell signals from getting in. My BB 9530 - and now my Droid - both would not make it through the day without being on the charger. Verizon just installed some pico cells in the building last week and now I can go all day without losing hardly any battery (depending on how much I use it). Signal strength definitely makes all the difference in the world.

-SR-

I've heard that faraday cages are illegal for the purpose of blocking cell phones. But it might be dependent on where you live though.

 

[DroidUzerInAL]

Droid battery life

My two cents worth: From the time I first purchased my droid in mid December until now I have seen a major improvement in battery life. Some of the reasons for that are as follows: 1) it seems the battery performance improves after a few full charges 2) I used the droid when it was my "new toy" 3 times as much as I do now, having the high resolution display on for long periods of time will use battery 3) I have actually learned how to use the phone and that has helped. The phone has a built in battery usage meter that will point out where the battery is being used up..use this to identify and manage your battery use. Also, someone mentioned the power control widget earlier. I use this widget and would recommned it. Having the auto brightness turned on is a major help to battery life. Also, not leaving bluetooth on when not in use, and leaving wifi on when it's available will also help. I typically keep my phone off charge for around 16 hours and my battery drops to around 60% - 70%.

 

[kpageisgreat]

i also noticed when it dipped down to 40-50 percent i turned it off and turned it back on and it jumped to 60-70 percent....