Two hour battery life? Really?

[CrunchyWizard]

I picked my Thunderbolt up about a week ago and, while I knew that people were experiencing poor battery life, I didn't expect to see what my phone is doing.

If I take it off of the charger, the back of the case gets hot (around the battery) and it dies two or two-and-a-half hours later. This when I'm not doing anything with the phone. If I look at the battery usage stats, it will put around 80% on the display - even though the display has been off.

I've read that 4G seems to drain the battery, so I DL'd an app to turn it off to see if that helps. I've also gone through the recalibration steps to no avail.

I did notice when using the Kindle app, the screen's brightness seems to change from dimmer to brighter and back - not obnoxiously like a hallway in Doom, but it is noticeable. I did turn on auto-brightness because I read in another thread that that might help with battery life. I wonder if it's the auto-brightness doing it, or if I have a bad phone.

I'm considering taking it back to Verizon to exchange it for another Thunderbolt to see if that solves the problem.

Anyone else with similar experience have any hints?

 

[RUSH]

Battery life has been a vexatious problem for all phones - including the Thunderbolt. My battery level will drop from full (100%) to 80 percent in just 1min. (These batteries are no good)

Calibration seem to work for awhile, then it goes right back to how it was. Now, if you're experiencing excessive heat (hot to the touch) - than normal (slightly warm from prolonged use), then you should consider taking the phone to your local store for repairs, or a replacement.

 

[Bitstreambiker]

Got mine about a week ago and got the extended battery. At first I was churning through the battery in like 4 hours. But after some tweaks, with the extended battery, I end the day with moderate use with 60-70 percent left on the battery.

Look at the battery sticky at the top of the forum. The LTE On/Off app set to CDMA Auto PRL made a huge difference in my area. Next to that, in location settings, I just left the Google one checked and disabled the other two. After that, make sure you adjust the screen brightness and go through your apps and tune the frequency they check.

Difference is night and day. Also, Extended Battery is really nice. It really does not add much bulk and the phone feels great in hand.

Good luck!

 

[Joe378]

I've read that 4G seems to drain the battery, so I DL'd an app to turn it off to see if that helps. I've also gone through the recalibration steps to no avail.

I just don't understand why someone would purchase a 4G phone and then disable 4G. Just stick with a 3G.

 

[Bitstreambiker]

Oh, also forgot to mention ... Bump charging really helps. Search the forum if you dunno what it is.

 

[JRZLocal]

It may just be the area you're in because I consistently get 9 to 12 hrs off a single charge with the standard battery, and I use my phone a lot. If I use gps or stream pandora it's more like 6 but never less than that and I live in a 4g area.

 

[Buzzy42]

I just don't understand why someone would purchase a 4G phone and then disable 4G. Just stick with a 3G.

Because you can turn 4G back on when you need it. Try that on a 3G phone.

For my usage, it's really not a big deal to have it on 3G most of the day but spend the 10 seconds to flip over to 4G if I'm going to do something more data intensive.

To the original poster-- it sounds like something is VERY wrong with your phone. I'm probably a much lighter user than most here but I've never felt mine get anything above "a bit warm" during a charge, and definitely not in normal use unless I'm REALLY pushing it (i.e., streaming video over 4G). Read up on some of the stickies, make sure you're disabling the Blockbuster app and anything else that you don't want/need to be syncing in the background. 2 hours is definitely not right, but you may need to do some digging to figure out the culprit. (are you right on the edge of a 4G area much of the day? The current TBs definitely drain fast searching out 4G but it sounds like the "coming really soon now" update will help this a lot.)

I can easily get 12-15 hours most days on this phone with my usage patterns.. there have been a few odd anomaly days where it drained faster but in general it's fine. (Today I was off the phone most of the day, it's been unplugged for about 10 hours and still at 81% battery)

I'd think yours should go back to Verizon, though...

 

[VideoEngineerAJS]

Not to be mean, but REALLY??? One of these posts again? There are other posts like this on the board already. Now they are few and far between... which should tell you something. The majority aren't having this issue.

So don't freak out about it just because you had a bad battery day or because of a possible defect or user error. The battery gets better the longer you use it. Also constantly checking the battery level just makes it drain faster because you are lighting up the screen. The fact that your screen was at 80 percent tells me that it was lit up quite a bit.

Sent from my Thunderbolt

 

[bugg77]

I just don't understand why someone would purchase a 4G phone and then disable 4G. Just stick with a 3G.

Because you don't live in a 4G area and you wanted the features of this phone. There are lots of good reasons.

I hope that VZW releases a s/w update that includes a 4G toggle like the EVO has.

 

[FrankXS]

I picked my Thunderbolt up about a week ago

Have you done the Blockbuster app fix? Search for the Blockbuster thread. Essentially, what you need to do is to start the Blockbuster app, let it update itself when it prompts you, and afterward make sure you disable any and all auto-updating in the app. Then, restart.

Since your phone is only a week old I'm guessing you've not done this. Most of us early adopters found this out the first week. The Blockbuster app can really draw down your battery. I think because of a bug in the included app.

-Frank

 

[nate44]

I picked my Thunderbolt up about a week ago and, while I knew that people were experiencing poor battery life, I didn't expect to see what my phone is doing.

If I take it off of the charger, the back of the case gets hot (around the battery) and it dies two or two-and-a-half hours later. This when I'm not doing anything with the phone. If I look at the battery usage stats, it will put around 80% on the display - even though the display has been off.

I've read that 4G seems to drain the battery, so I DL'd an app to turn it off to see if that helps. I've also gone through the recalibration steps to no avail.

I did notice when using the Kindle app, the screen's brightness seems to change from dimmer to brighter and back - not obnoxiously like a hallway in Doom, but it is noticeable. I did turn on auto-brightness because I read in another thread that that might help with battery life. I wonder if it's the auto-brightness doing it, or if I have a bad phone.

I'm considering taking it back to Verizon to exchange it for another Thunderbolt to see if that solves the problem.

Anyone else with similar experience have any hints?

Have you applied the tweaks from the sticky thread? When was the last time you've rebooted the phone? What have you installed on the phone since you've got it?

This phone was not optimized out of the box. Sadly, it comes preloaded with programs that will drain your phones resources like crazy, and thus kill battery life. It's up to you to make the necessary effort into improving the experience that you will have with your phone. Some people do not wish to put forth that effort, and believe that a new phone shouldn't need countless tweaks and settings to squeeze every bit of juice that you can out of it. I agree, but unfortunately that's not the case.

There have been many, many threads concerning issues with battery life here. Try a few searches and spend hours upon hours trying to fix this and that, and tweak and tinker with your phone again and again to try and make it run properly.

Or if you're like me, spend some time figuring out how things like root, roms, and kernels work, and let the genius developers do all the hard work for you. Ever since then, battery concerns were the least of my worries, and it has been a fun and educating experience as well.

I wouldn't count out that you may have a defective device, but if all else fails get an iphone!

 

[CrunchyWizard]

LOL

No way I'll be getting an iPhone...

I've tried some of the tips in the stickers but still have issues. Guess I'll try rooting it and playing with the kernels.

Thanks to those who gave constructive advice

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk

 

[Chrisy]

Try the extended battery, 2750. It works great. I was getting 26 hours of moderates and heavy use.

I just downloaded Kindle and my battery hasn't been as good. Maybe it's a drainer.

 

[realitydigg]

If you are really only getting 2 1/2 hours and it is hot without your doing something then there is something wrong. Either the device is doing something or it is defective. There isnt enough information here to help you, but clearly re-boot do the blockbuster fix. follow all of the great tips and advice here in the forum, especially the sticky, and you should be able to get many many more hours of doing nothing with the phone out of your battery. I haven't tried doing nothing with it, but in using it i tend to get 12 to 18 hrs fairly consistently depending on usage pattern. That is with 4g on all the time and 4 email accounts FB Twitter Trillian and sms messaging. With the stock battery.

IMHO on 4G if you are in a marginal area where the hadset is searching and switching a lot maybe the toggle is worth it. Otherwise i don't know how much it nets you, especially if you have something else going on that is draining you that quickly

 

[Chrisy]

I just checked Blockbuster and saw the updates were enabled again! What the heck!

 

[daveyhimself]

Words with friends kills my battery and overheats my thundercat. Do you have that installed?

 

[DJBeanPole]

I just checked Blockbuster and saw the updates were enabled again! What the heck!

Kill it with ROOT!

 

[Forgetful]

Kill it with ROOT!

Or kill it with fire!!

 

[Chrisy]

I just disabled it again.

 

[DJBeanPole]

I just disabled it again.

It will haunt your dreams