How much battery are you losing an hour when NOT using your Prime

[SpikeJones]

When I first got my prime, I had what I thought to be, pretty excellent battery life. I left it sitting on my desk with wifi on, for 4 days, and when I came looked at it, it had only lost 40% of it's battery. That's just about .41% lost an hour. That was back in December ish.

Now, only a few weeks later, it seems to be losing battery really fast, even when I am barely using it. Yesterday, I had it unplugged for about 10 hours, and used it "mediumly" for about 5 of those hours. (I used it with the keyboard dock much of the time, but when I wasn't using it, I undocked it) When I was done, it was down to 68%. This means it lost 3.2% an hour.

Now today, I left it unplugged, just as I had done for the four day test, and it dropped down to 85% in 16 hours and 15 minutes. That means it lost .93% and hour.

An increase from .41% to .93% loss an hour seems a bit too high for me, but I may be overreacting. Am I over reacting? Are these actually "good" or "okay" battery lives? Or is something wrong with my battery? I do charge it to full every night, but then I usually unplug it right when I wake up, because I don't like leaving my electronics charging when they are full. I say usually because I have left it charging maybe three times for about 9 hours each time by accident. Could this have damaged my battery?

 

[TekNinja81]

Re: How much battery are you losing an hour when NOT using your P

Have you fully discharged & recharged (aka cycled) the battery a few times yet? If not, you should, as even with newer batteries supposedly not having a "memory effect", they still need to be cycled/conditioned fairly regularly.

Despite what most product manufacturers say, I try to completely drain my battery at least every few weeks (if that's how long it'd take under normal usage) and completely recharge it, and so far this has served very well for maintaining healthy battery capacity. Doing the opposite (keeping it fully charged all the time/as frequently as possible) has prematurely killed a few devices' batteries.

Also, are you running any kind of background apps? In particular, I've found Skype to drain my battery quickly on my Android devices, and there are some others that cause this too. I try to avoid leaving anything running while away from my phone or tablets for any extended period of time.

Hope this helps.

 

[malicefox]

Re: How much battery are you losing an hour when NOT using your P

I turn mine off for extended off times. So my batteries have had minimal drain, though i couldn't say what percentage of drain, as i haven't monitored it.

 

[SpikeJones]

Re: How much battery are you losing an hour when NOT using your P

Here's an update of sorts I guess.

I left it on for about 17 hours, idle, not doing anything. When I looked at it again, it had dropped about 17 percent, which means it lost one percent an hour, just sitting there. Well, not JUST sitting there. When I looked back at it, it had updated a bunch of apps, so that probably hurt the battery some, but I didn't think it would hurt it that much.

@Tekninja81, before I left it alone for this 17 hours test, I cleared and exited out of all my background apps, but still, my battery dropped one percent an hour. I am going to try letting it go down to around 0%, then fully charging it again, and doing the 16-17 hour test once more.

Once these tests are done, I will also try heavily using it, to see how much I can get out of the tablet. Then I will decide whether or not I should be worried.

@malicefox, I think once this all blows over, I will try turning mine off when I am not using it for longer periods of time.

Thanks for all your help!

 

[zedorda]

Re: How much battery are you losing an hour when NOT using your P

I wouldn't suggest letting it get all the way down to 0%. It is a very bad habit with Lithium-ion batteries. Lithium-ion batteries are best kept above 15% when ever possible.

Another tidbit for those who like longevity in their batteries. To get as much as 5 times the charge cycles from a Lithium-ion battery recharge at 50% when possible.

 

[SpikeJones]

Re: How much battery are you losing an hour when NOT using your P

I wouldn't suggest letting it get all the way down to 0%. It is a very bad habit with Lithium-ion batteries. Lithium-ion batteries are best kept above 15% when ever possible.

Another tidbit for those who like longevity in their batteries. To get as much as 5 times the charge cycles from a Lithium-ion battery recharge at 50% when possible.

oh wow! Thank you so much for this information! Very helpful!

 

[frellingfrakker]

Re: How much battery are you losing an hour when NOT using your P

Also, if you are rooted you can calibrate the battery by deleting the batterystats.bin file when your device is charged to 100%; then do a full drain and recharge to 100% again.

 

[Cobravision]

Re: How much battery are you losing an hour when NOT using your P

If I leave the TP in airplane mode, it loses barley any charge, like 1% in 8 hours. But with wifi on? That's a crapshoot. Depending on what background programs you have running and how strong your wifi signal is, drain rate will fluctuate. This is the same exact behavior on my OG Galaxy Tab.

I suspect that in the interim where the TP was sipping battery to draining at a much faster rate, you installed an app that likes to work in the background.

 

[pesto242]

You have your wifi set to "always on" from your explanation. This will not allow you to compare your battery results to others. Depending on what apps and how you have configured you background sync settings will have a huge difference on battery. In addition depending on what power savings mode you are using will effect the battery.

What I have seen with my settings is one of the best batteries and/or system configurations on the market. Even compared to the coveted iPad 2.

 

[pceasar]

Re: How much battery are you losing an hour when NOT using your P

Also, if you are rooted you can calibrate the battery by deleting the batterystats.bin file when your device is charged to 100%; then do a full drain and recharge to 100% again.

This was debunked by Google engineer right here on an android central article