Why is my battery life so bad?

[anon(6017535)]

Hey guys, first post on Android Central (although I've read a lot of posts before getting my turbo) and I wanted to ask you guys if the battery life I'm getting is normal. Sorry I don't have many pictures of battery stats, I'll be sure to take some more, but here are some anecdotes of my situation:

About a month ago, my dad got a galaxy s5, his first real smartphone, and was gloating around the house about his battery life. With the thought in mind that I was getting my turbo, and the fact that he was still excited about his phone, I didn't want to rain on his parade like a jerk so I just waited till I got my phone. Fast forward to today, and I have to say that even after looking at all the posts about battery life, the turbo is quite disappointing (and this is coming from a previous galaxy nexus owner...). Yesterday for example, he wanted to compare his battery life to mine. I accepted his challenged rather confidently. We were both at 63%; I had just about 2 hours of SoT with 8hrs unplugged, and he had a "measly" 1.5hrs of SoT after being unplugged for... 25hrs. Um... WHAT? Before you say it's because he doesn't use his phone, he actually uses it for conference calls for several hours in a day, as well as streaming music from LTE for about an equal time. If you'd ask me, I'd say he actually used his phone more than I did for that period. Today, wanting to rub it in my face some more, he asked my brother what kind of battery life he gets with his s4. He reported 25-29 hours, and he's on his phone just as much if not more than I am.

Personally, I haven't seen my phone even reach 24 hours yet, but that's definitely because, shameful as it is, all I've been doing recently has been messing around with it, I've barely done anything else in my life since I got my phone lol. I think the highest unplug time I've gotten was about 15 hours with about 5 hours of SoT, but it just doesn't seem to compare to people getting 30+ hours with similar or even higher SoT. If I let my phone Idle but check the battery every now and then, it seems to drop pretty quickly while doing nothing.

I do love everything about this phone, ESPECIALLY coming from the galaxy nexus, it just seems like my battery isn't doing nearly as well as other turbos, or other phones with smaller batteries for that matter.

Like I said earlier, I'd give more battery stats but I haven't saved more. Here's the most current one.

 

[PowrDroid]

What is your screen brightness set at? What's your Dad's set at?

What kind of signal strength are you getting? (Is your phone struggling to connect to a cell tower?)

 

[anon(6017535)]

For the screen shots it was about 50%, but normally I have it set to around 20% or lower. I don't know what my dad's was set at, but his looked ever so slightly brighter, but not by much. I don't know his exact signal strength, but we usually have the same bars. Right now my 1x is -90dBm and my 4G is -99dBm. I honestly don't know how those compare in terms of struggling to maintain a connection lol.

 

[PowrDroid]

Based on those signal strength numbers you are not in a location where your phone would be struggling for signal.

How long have you had your phone?

Anyway, I would run the phone down to 20% battery or so, do a hard power down, so phone is completely off, then charge to 100%, preferably overnight. Sometimes the battery meter and actual state of battery is out of sync, and this technique will calibrate them.

 

[anon(6017535)]

I got it on the 1st, so 5 days. I think I'll actually try that! I haven't charged it overnight with the phone off, although I did recently do a factory reset and the cell standby went WAY down on my battery usage percent after that, for some reason. Thanks, man!

 

[mobrules]

Look at the thread - apps OK to disable. Start there and look at the app greenery or Tasker. The biggest battery drain for me besides the screen was background apps. I was able to double battery life by disabling some apps and controlling the background data.

 

[anon(6017535)]

That was one of the first things I did when I got the phone haha I've disabled nearly every app that won't cause the phone to malfunction, except for google and moto services. I do have tasker, and I love it, even though I'm not very proficient with logic or the variables. By chance instead of greenery did you mean greenify?

 

[PowrDroid]

Look at the thread - apps OK to disable. Start there and look at the app greenery or Tasker. The biggest battery drain for me besides the screen was background apps. I was able to double battery life by disabling some apps and controlling the background data.

If you look at his battery usage there isn't much going on. Lots of screen time, presumably from Bloons and You Tube. The screen time doesn't jibe with the phone's activity making me believe the battery and battery meter are not synced up.

 

[anon(6017535)]

I forgot to mention that I took the screenshot when the phone was charging at 32%, but the screen on time is really from when the phone was at 20%

 

[mobrules]

That was one of the first things I did when I got the phone haha I've disabled nearly every app that won't cause the phone to malfunction, except for google and moto services. I do have tasker, and I love it, even though I'm not very proficient with logic or the variables. By chance instead of greenery did you mean greenify?

Yes I did mean greenify. Thanks for catching that.

 

[bfranker]

Don't feel bad... mine doesn't seem to be that great either. After about 15 hours with 3 hours of screen on time (auto mode) and no phone calls my phone is usually in the 30% range. I don't go to great extremes though to try and extend battery life either so who knows. I do turn off WiFi when I'm at work for 13 of those 15 hours but that's about it and am in a building where no GPS can get through (I have high accuracy on) but I can't imagine it affecting it this badly but maybe so? I had previously a Droid Razr Maxx and I think the battery life on that phone was much better than what I'm seeing so far on the Turbo.

Not a huge deal to me to be to be able to get every last hour out of it... I just want it to last a day under my normal use until I charge it overnight

 

[emock81]

I was having a pretty big battery drain during the week. After being at work from 6:30 or so until 4 the battery would be down to 50-60% and I at first just chalked it up to bad signal area, which is true for the building I work in. After Friday though I took another look and saw that Gmail was taking up about 45% of the battery. I had set it up to retrieve mail from a Yahoo account as well. Looks like the app was hanging on a lot on that connection and just draining the device. I disabled that and downloaded the old Yahoo email app instead and this weekend my battery life has been amazing. The true test will be when I am back at work tomorrow so I can see how far it drops there.

 

[John Fiorello]

i dont understand either my battery doesnt seem to as long as half the people on this forum, down to 6 percent with 3 hours and 2 minuets of screen on time, with the backlight set pretty low.... -85dbm for 1x and -102 dbm for 4g. Are those bad numbers that could be draining my battery, cause idk how people pull off 5, 6 or even 7 hours screen time

 

[vzwuser76]

I personally think the biggest issue for battery life is the screen resolution. You're comparing a phone that has a screen resolution of 1440 x 2560 vs a phone with a screen resolution of 1080 x 1920. That's a pretty big difference. I imagine if they had shipped the Turbo with 1080p the battery life would be better. The only real phones you can compare it to screen wise are the G3 and the Nexus 6.

Anymore I charge my screen every night. It usually sees around 15-16 hours off the charger, around 3-5 hours of screen on time, and usually left with anywhere from 35-50%. In other words, if I have 5 hours of SOT, I'll have around 35% left after 15-16 hours, if I have 3 hours of SOT, I'll have around 50% left after 15-16 hours off the charger. Coming from a Droid Maxx I got much better battery life, bit that had a 720p screen, and only 400mAh less battery. They made it out like this was going to have the longest battery life around, but considering all the spec upgrades and then adding 400mAh to the capacity, I knew it was either going to break even, or be less than the Droid Maxx.

Another difference for mine is that with our Network Extender, my phone gets around -65 to -80dBm of signal strength.

 

[anon(6017535)]

I personally think the biggest issue for battery life is the screen resolution. You're comparing a phone that has a screen resolution of 1440 x 2560 vs a phone with a screen resolution of 1080 x 1920. That's a pretty big difference. I imagine if they had shipped the Turbo with 1080p the battery life would be better. The only real phones you can compare it to screen wise are the G3 and the Nexus 6.

While that is true, and the screen on time is pretty respectable given the screen resolution, it's more of the screen off time that doesn't seem right. Also, it seems like the g3 is getting just as good battery life with a much smaller battery, bigger screen, and no amoled power saving tactics. Maybe I'm just being paranoid about it, considering how much I've been using my phone in it's first week. I've been on it more than off it lol. I'm sure that after my excitement dies down and I stop bombarding it with so many tasks I ought to be seeing more battery time off the charger.

 

[spydersilk]

My G3 was lucky to get 10 hours with 2 hours of screen on time. That was 3 different G3's as well.
My turbo has been a great improvement, not like some are reporting, but considering what I came from, I am happy with 18 hours and 4 hours of screen on time with 20%battery left.

 

[Mike-Mike]

I have both the Droid Turbo and the S5. I must say the S5 gets pretty great battery life. However mine is still pretty new.

On the first couple of days my Turbo battery didn't seem great. It actually drained the whole battery overnight and killed it. But after charging it back to 100% it has been pretty good since.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[anon(6017535)]

I have both the Droid Turbo and the S5. I must say the S5 gets pretty great battery life. However mine is still pretty new.

On the first couple of days my Turbo battery didn't seem great. It actually drained the whole battery overnight and killed it. But after charging it back to 100% it has been pretty good since.

How would you say they compare to each other?

 

[Mike-Mike]

How would you say they compare to each other?

I actually like Samsung products a lot. I really love the Samsung keyboard. I also like the physical home button. But I like Active Display much better than the LED notification. The Turbo is faster for sure. The earpiece is much louder on the S5. My wife hated the earpiece on the Turbo, said she couldn't hear anything. I do notice the S5 is louder, but I think the Turbo is perfectly fine. I think both camera's are pretty good, they can be blurry if you aren't steady, but i dont see any issues with lag or whatever these reviews complain about.

I like the front facing speaker of the Turbo when watching You Tube, etc. However it ultimately comes down to the battery. I use my personal phone much more than my work phone. I have no complaints about the Turbo. If I had a wish list, it would be for it to be the size of the Note 3. As much as people complain about no sd card, I don't think that will be an issue with the 64GB and all the options for cloud storage. I could care less about a removable battery as long as the battery as good. I think the Turbo much like the Droid Maxx and the Droid Razr Maxx HD will be just fine.

 

[mobrules]

If I had a wish list, it would be for it to be the size of the Note 3.

I have read on the bgr site that motorola is working on a nexus 6 size phone with 4000mah battery. Supposed to be a droid line addition and released in 2015.