New EVO Battery Life Sticky: Please Contribute

[whats77inaname]

I don't know that you have to do all of them.

I simply take the phone off the charger for 5 - 10 minutes in the morning. It will drop down to 95%, then I just plug it back in. It takes 15 - 20 minutes to charge back to 100%, then I take off the charger and go about my day.

I tried the same thing this a.m., but was @ 93% in about 1.5 hrs on standby w/about 10 mins online use and the rest of the time in standby.

 

[piggyman]

I don't know that you have to do all of them.

I simply take the phone off the charger for 5 - 10 minutes in the morning. It will drop down to 95%, then I just plug it back in. It takes 15 - 20 minutes to charge back to 100%, then I take off the charger and go about my day.

Less work than turning the phone off, etc, but seems to have pretty much the same effectiveness. ~30 minutes and the phone doesn't drop past 99%.

That makes sense.

I'm assuming a software update will not fix this issue. It's hardware based with the charger or battery?

 

[DirkBelig]

Well, it appears that the steps are a one-day only deal, cuz after charging it last night, it promptly returned to its form of shedding a few percent immediately after getting off the juice. Tried the morning one-time boost posted above and it didn't appear to have much effect. After about 3 hours of almost constant surfing and texting, I'm at 57% and wondering if I'll get thru the work day.

 

[DizWhiz]

I don't know that you have to do all of them.

I simply take the phone off the charger for 5 - 10 minutes in the morning. It will drop down to 95%, then I just plug it back in. It takes 15 - 20 minutes to charge back to 100%, then I take off the charger and go about my day.

Less work than turning the phone off, etc, but seems to have pretty much the same effectiveness. ~30 minutes and the phone doesn't drop past 99%.

This has been my mode of charging as of late and it works really well. With a combo of wifi/3G in and out of my home office plus a couple calls, browsing and IMs I'm averaging between 12-16hrs on a single charge which is amazing considering the early reviews stated 4-5hrs under normal use.

 

[Loc#AC]

Also need to calibrate the battery...
With the phone in the on position.
Fully charge the battery with the phone on... (until the led turns green.)
Once the led turns green, unplug the charger until the led goes off.
After the led goes off, plug the charger back in. When the led turns green , power off the phone.
now.... with the phone fully powered off...
1. Unplug the charger.
2. Wait until led goes off.
3. Plug charger back in until the led turns green. When it turns green, unplug the charger again and go to step 1.
4. repeat steps 1 and 3, 10 times. This may take anywhere from 30 seconds to 30 mins per cycle. Typically only about 1 minute. though.

I thought this was bull until I tried it myself. Got 23 hours with light usage!

 

[kcpowercat]

I've had awesome battery life....I can pull 24 hours pretty regularly with 15 hours of heavy usage a norm...

but today I saw where some might be coming from....I was in an office with bad coverage....I was hitting 50% no-service based on the Android battery usage meter....and my battery suffered big time and I wasn't using it nearly like I do in a normal day.

I think this phone might be worse than average at signal hunting killing battery. Which would suck for some, luckily I'm hardly ever in that situation.

 

[droidicon]

I've had awesome battery life....I can pull 24 hours pretty regularly with 15 hours of heavy usage a norm...

but today I saw where some might be coming from....I was in an office with bad coverage....I was hitting 50% no-service based on the Android battery usage meter....and my battery suffered big time and I wasn't using it nearly like I do in a normal day.

I think this phone might be worse than average at signal hunting killing battery. Which would suck for some, luckily I'm hardly ever in that situation.

I don't think thats a problem with the EVO in particular. All sprint phones have that same problem. The phone I had before this a samsung would die in our office because it would constantly search for a signal before I even left for a day of work.

I think many of the problems that is being attributed to the EVO could be in part with the sprint network. It does kill the battery.

Though the EVO admittedly does have short battery life, I don't think it's as bad as some make it out to be.

 

[codyunderblood]

so today was my first full day with the EVO and after a full night of charging, the battery app said that after 1hr and 25 minutes off the charger (its really been about 5 hours), and very very light use. just a bit of texting, a couple trips to the app store, and the usage of a few apps, almost no browsing, i'm down to 35% battery...that can't be good can it, or is that normal for just default factory settings?

since then i've tried taken off always on mobile, auto-sync and deleted all widgets but time and weather and now its back on the charger. i was just wondering if this battery life is normal for a first charge/default settings or if thats low even for that.

edit: the android system percentage was also at 50% which seems much much higher than everyone elses who has posted screen shots, any idea what the cause of that would be/if it is bad?

 

[pingpongboss]

Hey guys check out my guide to increasing battery life on a stock rooted phone using SetCPU + Perflock Disabler http://forum.androidcentral.com/htc...erflock-disabler-save-battery-underclock.html

 

[AndroidOne]

so today was my first full day with the EVO and after a full night of charging, the battery app said that after 1hr and 25 minutes off the charger (its really been about 5 hours), and very very light use. just a bit of texting, a couple trips to the app store, and the usage of a few apps, almost no browsing, i'm down to 35% battery...that can't be good can it, or is that normal for just default factory settings?

since then i've tried taken off always on mobile, auto-sync and deleted all widgets but time and weather and now its back on the charger. i was just wondering if this battery life is normal for a first charge/default settings or if thats low even for that.

edit: the android system percentage was also at 50% which seems much much higher than everyone elses who has posted screen shots, any idea what the cause of that would be/if it is bad?

It has been proposed on multiple battery threads that the Evo's charging circuit shuts off once the battery reports 100% - there is anecdotal evidence that the circuit does not trickle charge if left connected like other devices. So if you charge overnight, the battery may report 100% in a couple of hours but despite the LED being green, the charge circuit is no longer powering the device and the phone uses the battery for power instead. When you disconnect the charger in the morning, the battery will read 100% for a few minutes, if you check back afterwards it already "dropped" to the low 90's with no use at all.

So, here is how I resolved this problem on my Evo. I leave the phone charging overnight (radio always on as I need to be available 24/7). In the morning I remove the charger and after 10-15 minutes connect the charger again and let it get back to green while I get ready for work. When I disconnect the charger my battery reports 100% and stays like that for over an hour most days. My battery life is quite good with normal use (moderate texting, few calls, hourly weather/mail updates, lots database and web searches) since I've been doing this. And yes, I do this daily when I work.

FYI, turning off always-on mobile data setting has been reported to cause random resets on some phones. I leave this and sync settings always turned on.

 

[mcll]

I haven't got my Evo yet but I hope it's better than the Pre's battery life, worst battery ever

 

[akarol]

Lol, you're going to be amazed...

 

[hk-usp45]

Lol, you're going to be amazed...

Or not, depends on the location (signal), hardware, etc...

 

[droidicon]

so today was my first full day with the EVO and after a full night of charging, the battery app said that after 1hr and 25 minutes off the charger (its really been about 5 hours), and very very light use. just a bit of texting, a couple trips to the app store, and the usage of a few apps, almost no browsing, i'm down to 35% battery...that can't be good can it, or is that normal for just default factory settings?

since then i've tried taken off always on mobile, auto-sync and deleted all widgets but time and weather and now its back on the charger. i was just wondering if this battery life is normal for a first charge/default settings or if thats low even for that.

edit: the android system percentage was also at 50% which seems much much higher than everyone elses who has posted screen shots, any idea what the cause of that would be/if it is bad?

My battery last me about a day and a half under normal circumstances. There are a few things you need to be aware of if this is your first Android/sprint phone.

First of all if your in a building or area that has your phone constantly searching for signal, then your in for a rude awakening with Sprint, especially on certain phones. Turning off data roaming and selecting "sprint only" should help here, or turning off your 4g and wifi radios unless you need them.

The biggest battery saving tip of them all is to turn off background data and auto sync when your in those bad areas, or better yet whenever your not using them. Putting the Power widget on an area of your desktop helps.

There is a free program on the Android market that brings up sync settings in one click, which also enables you to turn off background data.

Another huge battery saver is to set the screen brightness one setting down from max, unless you need it bright. Turning off live wall papers helps too. And using a program like Astro to turn off alot of programs running in the background (you'll be suprised how many programs are running).

Why do you need to do all of this for Android phones?

Because of multi tasking. Its a double edged sword, that power users love, and novices don't understand.

One day Google will get this whole system running smoothly, until then there are still a few things that need to be done to get things running smoothly.

One of the biggest reasons that Apple sticks with AT&T and does not want to implement real mulittasking is because of battery life.

AT&T with their 2g network that cuts everybody off all the time, also has signal that penetrates buildings and thereby your phone is not left searching for signal forever (but you unfortunately get cut off alot because of that same fact). And their multi tasking is a large joke, having your IPHONE 4 crash because of true multitasking is not implemented.

 

[Kai83]

< a week owner here and I must say:

1. Reading all this just made me paranoid about battery life; its not really that bad

2. The life has improved drastically over the past week

3. It last longer than my pre

4. I actually use the phone/features/keep network on and get a FULL day of life easily

5. Extended battery isn't even here yet

I love this phone.

 

[Quacker87]

I was also very paranoid about the battery life. In fact after I quit worrying about it and constantly checking it every time I turned around I actually got better battery life. The battery life isnt all that bad really. I can easily go an entire day with normal use and be perfectly fine. Plus once the new wears off the battery will be much better to. Its just like when you buy a new vehicle you want to drive it everywhere but after a few weeks its just another ride. Same thing will happen with the EVO in my case. Once the new wears off it will just be another tool with some very nice features that will be available to use if needed.

 

[digink#AC]

my battery life has been good since I got the phone from day 1. I've never had the phone less than 30% at the end of the day around 10-11pm.

I do agree there is an issue with the charge and how it drops fast, but even with that I still make it through a day with ease. Only things I turn off are GPS, 4G and Wifi (GPS and Wifi only come on when im going to use them 4G is always off since none in Orlando).

 

[kenlperry]

I did the batter calibration that was posted earlier in this thread and have had a significant increase in battery life since. So I'm a believer. Here are the steps for anyone who wants to try it:

To calibrate the battery...
With the phone in the on position.
Fully charge the battery with the phone on... (until the led turns green.)
Once the led turns green, unplug the charger until the led goes off.
After the led goes off, plug the charger back in. When the led turns green , power off the phone.
now.... with the phone fully powered off...
1. Unplug the charger.
2. Wait until led goes off.
3. Plug charger back in until the led turns green. When it turns green, unplug the charger again and go to step 1.
4. repeat steps 1 and 3, 10 times. This may take anywhere from 30 seconds to 30 mins per cycle. Typically only about 1 minute. though.

 

[MDteX]

This may help in battery calibration as you say but it does not help the battery last longer.

 

[whats77inaname]

This may help in battery calibration as you say but it does not help the battery last longer.

Actually, it does. I noted a marked increase on my unit when the calibration was done. It just has to be done every morning, which sucks. HOWEVER, I got around to rooting my phone this weekend (so that I can tether for free again) using the method I read about here. Yesterday I decided to *not* calibrate the battery as this root mentions great battery life, so I took it off the charger @ 7 Wed. morning. Before, even when I completed the calibration, under normal usage, I was less than 20% by the time I went to bed. After this root, as of this morning, with my normal amount of usage yesterday, I'm @ 36%, and this is after I turned some of the features back on (wifi always on now, higher screen brightness setting, constantly on vibrate, haptic feedback on). Like I mentioned, I haven't charged it since yesterday a.m. I'm going to see how long it lasts today, and tomorrow, I'm going to turn on one of the features I really liked, the live wallpaper.