Battery

**jaybro0813** · 01-16-2011, 09:41 AM

How do I get better battery life? What is the best thing to do with settings?

**soccerdon1981** · 01-16-2011, 09:57 AM

Keep GPS, WIFI and Bluetooth off until you need to use them.

Under sounds and display make sure you have 'automatically detect brightness' selected and power saving mode checked.

I follow these simple steps, and my battery lasts for a good 15 hours, and I'm always on it.

Good luck, I'm sure other people have little tips and tricks they use.

Sent from my Samsung Fascinate via Tapatalk

**RUSH** · 01-16-2011, 10:09 AM

I would suggest leaving most settings to default settings. Clear cache, history, and cookies. keep the phone charging while using as much as possible.

Battery life varies and depend on the individual usage.

**Kevin Gossett** · 01-16-2011, 10:12 AM

Having the GPS on won't hurt battery life, because it is only active when an app is using it. The best battery life you will get will come from rooting and debloating, or running a custom ROM. I get almost two days of battery running my setup

**voghan** · 01-16-2011, 10:24 AM

If you have WiFi at home you want to use that instead of 3G data. I use Auto Wifi Toggle to monitor my wifi connection and turn it on/off. I also suggest rooting your phone and removing the crap Verizon places on your phone. I run a custom rom and kernel that has already been optimized to save battery.

**jaybro0813** · 01-16-2011, 10:33 AM

Voghan
just have not been able to figure out the root deal- seems a bit scary to me

**Chris Kerrigan** · 01-16-2011, 10:57 AM

I understand rooting can be a bit scary and if you're not comfortable with it then by all means don't do it, but the forums are a great resource and we have tons of people here who can help you through the process if and/or when you're ready to root.

As for battery life, there's not TOO much you can do without being rooted other than tweak some settings. Don't listen to suggestions telling you to keep GPS and WiFi off when you're not using them -- we've discovered over time that it has essentially zero effect on battery life. Like Kevin said, GPS remains idle when it's not being used and has zero negligible effect on battery performance. If you don't have screen brightness set to auto, I would also recommend doing that as well.

**gunnermike53** · 01-16-2011, 01:00 PM

Originally Posted by Chris Kerrigan

I understand rooting can be a bit scary and if you're not comfortable with it then by all means don't do it, but the forums are a great resource and we have tons of people here who can help you through the process if and/or when you're ready to root.

As for battery life, there's not TOO much you can do without being rooted other than tweak some settings. Don't listen to suggestions telling you to keep GPS and WiFi off when you're not using them -- we've discovered over time that it has essentially zero effect on battery life. Like Kevin said, GPS remains idle when it's not being used and has zero negligible effect on battery performance. If you don't have screen brightness set to auto, I would also recommend doing that as well.

very true. i have also noticed that app killers do more harm than good. that stuff running in the back ground is gonna run. if you kill them, most of them will just start back up anyway, using processor and battery.

**voghan** · 01-16-2011, 03:45 PM

Originally Posted by jaybro0813

Voghan
just have not been able to figure out the root deal- seems a bit scary to me

Rooting on a pc is easy.. run the one click solution. You just need to try it two or three times for it to take.

Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk

**jaybro0813** · 01-17-2011, 07:45 AM

Come on folks besides rooting how do we get better battery life. The Droid Incredible uses a method called bump charging does that work with the Fascinate?

**NickA** · 01-17-2011, 07:52 AM

@jaybro, how do you use your phone on a normal day? A lot of texting or talking? Games? I do some texting, a lot of web browsing, a couple phone calls, and end up with 60+ % at bedtime. I have GPS and wi-fi on at all time. Screen brightness set to auto.

How is the coverage in your area? Do you get a strong signal in all parts of your house/work? I've seen batteries go dead in 2-3 hours with the phone just sitting there looking for a signal.

**Ytaay** · 01-17-2011, 07:56 AM

the biggest hogs of battery life since i've had my FASN8 have been the display, and i keep at the lowest manual setting which is plenty bright enough for indoors, and the radio itself. when i'm at home or work the vzw signal is poor so the phone sucks a lot of juice trying to find a better signal.

**jono119** · 01-17-2011, 05:14 PM

my battery lasts about 4 hours max... rooted, tons of texting and facebook.hardly make calls. gps on and brightness on auto. also i live in houston so i have pleanty signal. i did notice my signal jumps alot when im texting though. even when it switches back and forth between 1x and 3g after a text message.

also does noLED drain the battery?

**Xopher** · 01-17-2011, 06:40 PM

Yes, noLED will drain the battery, but only when it is displaying notifications (since it is keeping the screen turned on). You can change the settings so that the screen will turn off after a specified amount of time, which will help.

**skiddingus** · 01-17-2011, 08:17 PM

What are some typical drainage rates you are seeing? My phone drops about 20% in a 10 hour day without making calls. (2%/hour) That is with everything on except bluetooth. BT will drop it a couple percent more in a day. My phone is basically stock but rooted. I haven't noticed anything different in battery usage through all 3 software revisions. Occasionally I will notice an unusual drop in battery but I think I found that Shopsavy or or weatherbug was looking for a gps location while it was tucked in my desk. When this happens, I would see a sudden drop of 10-20% in an hour or so.

I also get about 25% time without a tower signal which probably hurts my battery.

**Chris Kerrigan** · 01-17-2011, 08:27 PM

Originally Posted by skiddingus

What are some typical drainage rates you are seeing? My phone drops about 20% in a 10 hour day without making calls. (2%/hour) That is with everything on except bluetooth. BT will drop it a couple percent more in a day. My phone is basically stock but rooted. I haven't noticed anything different in battery usage through all 3 software revisions. Occasionally I will notice an unusual drop in battery but I think I found that Shopsavy or or weatherbug was looking for a gps location while it was tucked in my desk. When this happens, I would see a sudden drop of 10-20% in an hour or so.

I also get about 25% time without a tower signal which probably hurts my battery.

I'm probably right around the same as you. If I'm not spending much time talking on the phone, but still doing a lot of texting and such, I can get through a fill 12 hours with still about 70% battery left.

**afbar1114** · 01-17-2011, 08:30 PM

i get about a day on it from the time i wake up to the time i goto bed so around 14-20 hours and i think i am a havey user i can never put it down and i always have my GPS on. always on the internet and have alot of services running in the background. does wifi really help the battery life tho

**Chris Kerrigan** · 01-17-2011, 08:35 PM

Originally Posted by afbar1114

i get about a day on it from the time i wake up to the time i goto bed so around 14-20 hours and i think i am a havey user i can never put it down and i always have my GPS on. always on the internet and have alot of services running in the background. does wifi really help the battery life tho

Absolutely. WiFi is less demanding on the battery than 3G is, so when you can use WiFi, I definitely recommend taking advantage of it.

**afbar1114** · 01-17-2011, 08:36 PM

ok thanks i have fios at home and i get about 14-18mps anyway so phone maybe alil faster anyway when browsing and all

**afbar1114** · 01-17-2011, 08:42 PM

Originally Posted by Chris Kerrigan

Absolutely. WiFi is less demanding on the battery than 3G is, so when you can use WiFi, I definitely recommend taking advantage of it.

does the auto wifi app help and does it slow done the phone at all running and should it be on even when sleeping and the phone is alseep or just using it

**Chris Kerrigan** · 01-17-2011, 08:44 PM

Originally Posted by afbar1114

does the auto wifi app help and does it slow done the phone at all running

I'm not sure as I don't use Auto Wifi. I can tell you though that I don't see much need for an app like that, though. I haven't found that having WiFi enabled when you're not using it has any negligible affect on battery life.

**jono119** · 01-18-2011, 03:09 PM

i must have a dud battery... i drop about 25% an hour.

**gunnermike53** · 01-18-2011, 04:09 PM

Originally Posted by jono119

i must have a dud battery... i drop about 25% an hour.

dang!!!! that sounds bad. flash back to stock, and see what happpens. make sure you clear data and cache first. if its still bad, well then its bad. warranty

**Chris3D** · 01-18-2011, 04:49 PM

Originally Posted by jono119

i must have a dud battery... i drop about 25% an hour.

If you're dropping that much in that amount of time, either your battery is bad, or something is majorly wrong with your phone. If it's not a dud battery and your phone is actually using the battery at that rate, your phone should be physically warm/hot to the touch.

**skiddingus** · 01-18-2011, 05:09 PM

Originally Posted by jono119

i must have a dud battery... i drop about 25% an hour.

I think my screen would have to be on continuously to drop my battery that fast. Or maybe running Pandora from 3g but I have a lot of stuff running and have never seen anything close to that. What does your battery monitor show is using all that power? Something should be a clear leader on the chart. I had trouble with a background app killing my battery but it was easy to find.

Try this:
Charge your phone for 5 minutes or so then take it off the charger.
Let it sit for an hour or two WITHOUT USING IT or waking the screen.
Go to settings>>about phone>>battery use and you will see the problem at the top of the list. It should most likely be "cell standby" if it is working correctly.