Interesting response from HTC regarding battery life

slinky317

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So recently, I emailed HTC from their website concerning the battery life on the Incredible. This was the email I wrote:

Hello, I currently have a Droid Incredible and I am experiencing horrible battery issues caused by the phone not properly going into "sleep" mode. When I try to put the phone to sleep, it stays awake and continues to eat battery life. I have deleted all third party apps, so the thing responsible must be one of the HTC programs added onto the phone.

Sometimes, I've noticed that when I Force Stop the Calendar application, this fixes the issue. However, sometimes it doesn't and I must then Force Stop another HTC app, like the Messages, before the phone will sleep correctly. However, I do not want to have to Force Stop my applications daily for the phone to work properly, so I'm sure there must be a fix available.

This is creating a massive problem and is starting to ruin an otherwise wonderful experience with this device. Any assistance you could provide would be greatly appreciated.

Today, I received this response:

Hi, I?m Katie, and I?ll be glad to assist you today. The reason for this is because of an issue with the antenna. The antenna does not pick up reception as well as it should. Therefore, the device is constantly searching for a stronger signal and draining the battery. We are currently aware of this issue and working to address this is in the next MR (ROM update). Like all ROM updates, we cannot provide the exact date for an expected release, as there may be delays that are out of HTC?s control. To fix the force close problem you will need to do a factory reset. I advise you to back up all personal information, as the factory reset will delete personal information stored on the device. To perform a factory reset follow the steps provided: 1. With the phone turned off, press and hold the VOLUME DOWN button, and then briefly press the POWER button. 2. Wait for the screen with the 3 Android images to appear, and then release the VOLUME DOWN button. 3. Press VOLUME DOWN to select CLEAR STORAGE, and then press POWER. 4. When asked to confirm, press VOLUME UP. Thank you for contacting HTC America Technical Support. Please feel free to contact us again if you have any future questions. Also, I would like to invite you to participate in a customer satisfaction survey located at HTC Online Survey.

So it looks like HTC is admitting there's a problem with reception? I thought reception was intentionally weak when not making a call so it WOULDN'T eat up battery?

In any case, the response is pretty interesting. However, if the low signal really is a cause of the battery drain, my response is to make sure you have Wifi enabled all the time if you're in an office or something that has a Wifi connection. You can change that in Wifi settings.
 

Mitch R.

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Hmmm, my battery issue seems to have disappeared. Here's what I did prior to my battery increase:

Uninstalled both IM apps, meebo and one other.
Uninstalled battery life
I kept ATM but no longer keep it running in the background. When it was running, it was not set to kill apps at a scheduled time.

So I ran with that for a day and noticed a huge increase in batt runtime. The next day, I re-enabled automatic sync and prevented the 3G service from turning off when the phone was asleep. I pulled it off the charger yesterday morning and this morning at 11AM I still had 50% battery life left and that was with using Internet apps throughout the day yesterday and today.

Not saying there's not a problem, just wanted to share my experience in this area.
 

kicko

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i'm not really surprised by this. I hope its not hot steam HTC is blowing off and there is an actual fix coming. For the most part the battery is no worse then my iphone so it doesnt bother me. In fact when i forst got my iphone there was a similar issue. I think this issue does not effect all users, depending on your signal strength. I'm sitting at work and i see full bars with a -38dBm. At my home i get about -68dBm.

At least HTC is going to fix what needs to be. Instead of ignoring the problems.
 

Kyle Gibb

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Hopefully this update comes soon, I know from experience of living in a bad reception area that having weak signal forces the phone to constantly try to connect which pwns the battery. Plus, I am kinda tired of seeing only 2 bars when I should have 5 ;)
 

moosc

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Well at least they didn't tell you to install a task killer like VZW has been doing. I figured it was the reception killing my battery and figured there would b a new Rom or update to help it.
 

slinky317

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The thing is, the reception I'm getting is on par to what my Tour was getting. Yeah, the bars don't match, but when you look at the decibals they're about the same.
 

kicko

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how would a factory reset fix the battery and syncing issue you have? that seems like a load of horse crap to me

Thats just to rule out anything else that could be responsible.

I have a Dell and their support answer was always factory reset and call back. WTF... ok lets see, i wipe out my entire pc then you can help me ???

The funny thing is that even with Apple on their "closed" environment of software the response is just the same. Restore the phone or restore the phone as new.

The bottom line is that 1300mh battery is just not sufficent for such a powerful device, but given the power and size it has to be a double edge sword. Everything has a trade off.
 

moosc

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But when u travel like I do I notice a difference between my Droid & inc
The thing is, the reception I'm getting is on par to what my Tour was getting. Yeah, the bars don't match, but when you look at the decibals they're about the same.
 

VZWBB

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What I am wondering now is what is the force close issue she is referring to? The op said he had to force stop some applications to get it work better, not that they were force closing...

As for the signal thing, that might hold some water. I believe my phone shipped with mobile data always on turned off. The last couple days my battery life has been shorter...so i tryed to think back to what I had done recently, and remember I turned on the mobile data always on. So I watched my phone and sure enough the 3G is constantly on, and the arrows flash quite often. Too often if you ask me.

So I turned off the mobile data part and my battery seems to be performing much better. However, when I wake the phone up the 3G isnt there but comes back immediately. It didn't do that before. So that part of it to me is grinding out a lot of battery, just like when I had scanner radio running, constantly streaming the whole time...tons of battery gone.

My emails still come through but things like notification for a chess app I have does not. The emails do seem a bit later than instant, even the gmail ones.

Now that I look at it though, its like something is keeping the 3G up. I just tested it out:

Wake phone up - no 3G for a sec, then 3G
Phone is up, 3G on Arrows back and forth on and off but no emails no notifications no nothing
Phone dims, 3G is still on, still nothing by the way of emails or data or anything.
Phone sleeps -can't tell because screen is dark again.

I don't recall this happening when I first got the phone. The 3G would stay grayed out most of the time but was still there. Now its there all the time, or the icon is completely gone. The only other thing I messed with is mobile broadband connect, but I never fully installed htc sync on my pc because i was worried it would try to pull in all my work email and stuff I didn't want. I've since turned broadband connect thing off and restarted the phone but that didn't seem to change much.

I almost want to do a factory reset now to see what changes...but i'm too lazy to do it now lol.
 

Adiliyo

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This is definitely software related right? What if it were not. Would those out of warranty be screwed?

you have a year from verizon to get a replacement, however it's one of the certified like new ones, so later on it could be a refurbished model if that kind of thing bothers you.
 

slinky317

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This is definitely software related right? What if it were not. Would those out of warranty be screwed?

If they identify that it's a hardware issue, when you get a replacement you'll get a "like new replacement" that is of a later batch that doesn't have the reception problem.

That being said, I really hope it's a software issue.
 

Nephilim_80

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Not calling anyone dumb or anything but remember folks, *228 updates any new towers in the area, I do this once every 2 weeks or so and my signal strength is usually full digital 3G (unless I'm in a walmart or something lol)


I just mentioned this because I forgot to do it when I got my Incredible last week and now that I have updated, my signal (and battery life) has improved quite alot.
 

drfundy

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I hope this is the problem and they can fix it. It would explain why the bars I have don't seem on par with the call quality I get. Or that could just be because I came from ATT and 1 bar with Verizon is like 10th bars on ATT :D in my area of course.

I did install a Seidio slim extended battery today hopefully it helps.
 

dmcman73

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how would a factory reset fix the battery and syncing issue you have? that seems like a load of horse crap to me

There are times when a application will freeze up and cause connection issues via cellular or even through the USB. There was an issue at one time with a few blackberries at work where a user would surf the web using the blackberry browser for a bit, then they would close the browser and try to make a call and it would not go through. The blackberry browser for some reason kept the cell connection open and would not let any voice connection. This would be different on a iPhone where you can do both voice and data at the same time but you would see the battery run dry within an hour.

Pulling the battery to reboot the phone would be enough but sometimes a good factory reset is needed to get rid of faulty apps since some start on startup.
 

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