I am a first time android user after having a blackberry as my first smartphone.
I currently have the Galaxy Nexus (Verizon) with AOKP Milestone 5 rom and Franco's Milestone 3 kernel.
I have looked through these forums to see what improves battery life after having miserable experiences with what my phone. Currently I get 1-2hrs of screen on time and 6-8hrs of total battery life. I have the stock battery.
Is there something I am missing about expanding the capacity of my battery? I see people posting about how they are able to get battery life of double my numbers.
Should I underclock my CPU to 800? I already have my LTE to automatically turn off when the phone is locked.
Any help would be much appreciated.
There are alot of "tricks" and setup that can help improve your battery life. One of them as mentioned above is getting an extended 2100mah battery. This will help push you to the 3+ hour screen time that you see other people getting. If you watch for sales you should be able to get one of these 50% off. Just run that battery all the time if possible. These are other techniques i use for extended run times.
- Calibrate your battery! After every ROM install this needs to be done. It can be done through CWM (Clock work mod) under Advanced/Wipe battery stats, or you can download an app called "Battery Calibration". This is the way i do it because you dont need to reboot to recovery to do it. Charge to 100%, While on the charger open the app and click battery calibration and unplug. Discharge to 5% or less then recharge to 100%. Its recommended you do this once but i do it 3 times before i go back to charging all the time.
- Get on Wifi whenever possible. In the past having wifi on drained the battery more. Now wifi uses less energy then 3g/4g does. Being on wifi when possible will use less battery.
-Turn screen timeout to 15 seconds if possible, if this is too short for you then don't set it to more then 30.
-Limit your widgets! Dont have crazy widgets running at all times. I have 3 personally. (Facebook, weather, calendar) Also spread out the time they refresh. Do you need weather and facebook updated every hour? Probably not, so put it on every 4 hours and that will help.
-Screen brightness is a big one as well. I keep mine at 50%. You can opt to use auto brightness but for me personally it DIMs to much sometimes. So i keep mine at a constant 50%. If you can handle it lower then all it will do is help, but don't crank it up to 75% or 100%, its overkill and will run down the battery.
-NO live wallpapers! They kill batteries, If you can live with a static picture, do so.
-Syncing is big in some cases. I live on my email so its on immediate push in my case. Do you need emails immediately? If not turn it off push and set it to every hour or more. This will help. Go to Accounts and sync under settings and see whats syncing all the time. If theres something syncing thats not needed all the time, turn it off.
-Keeping LTE off most of the time will help, ALOT. You dont need LTE to check emails and update widgets. So if its not necessary have it off all the time. Need more data speed for a reason? Turn it on when needed. You can customize the power menu in the notification drape to show an LTE switch. Turn it off all the time and click it on when needed. (Big savings)
-Bluetooth can drain, but its not ridiculous. I leave it on all the time and its usually 2% of my usage. If you never use it, turn it off, if you do and its not a pain to turn on, leave it off when not in use.
These tips on a standard battery should get you over the 3 hour mark with a 10-12 hour standby. Maybe more, maybe less, everyones setup is different. It will be more on an extended battery.
Remember the extended battery adds little thickness to the phone, but more power. It will help. I have the same setup you do at the moment and i see 12-16 hours with 4+ hours of on screen time on an extended battery. 3+ on standard, but i rarely use it.
If all else fails and you are still having horrible life try a program called better battery stats. This will tell you whats killing your battery and you can adjust accordingly.
You have a good ROM/Kernel setup, its just a matter of tuning the phone to you specific needs.
Hope this helps, report back if you have any further issues.
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