Greetings,
As some of you know the Droid X is arguably the best smartphone on the market right now. Its features are nearly endless and it is one amazing device to behold. We all love to use our GPS, our Bluetooth headset and our ultra quick Wifi access, all the while watch movies and listen to musc and all on a single charge.
I've seen a lot of people complaining that this phone has bad battery life, and so they go to great lengths to raise that battery life beyond whats within reason. So after a month with my device and having gone through trial and error with finding the best way to maximize battery life, here's what I've got.
-Forget task killers and even Autostarts. Thats right, don't use either of them. If you've already used Autostarts to disable some apps, go ahead and load it up, tell it to show only changed apps and enable every single app in the list. All of them. Even if you don't remember turning it off. Why enable everything? Because all those apps will find a way to run anyways, only if they load when the phone wants to load them they will sit idle from the get-go saving your phone CPU cycles.
-Set your brightness to the lowest possible setting. If you absolutely positively will have your screen on for 3+ hours a day this is a must. I don't care how hard it is to see in the sun, this is the biggest killer right now. Time flies when this phone is on in your hands and you won't even realize how quickly having that screen on with full brightness can consume a full charge. No, auto brightness is not good enough and don't waste your time with it.
-Blur/LauncherPro/ADW Launcher it really doesn't matter. End of the day its really all the same on battery life. Fact of the matter is, Blur runs in the background no matter what. If you use a third party launcher it will just hide it and make it empty. This is entirely up to you although I can say from an IT standpoint that LauncherPro is notably faster and smoother than Blur.
-Radios: these are critical. If you're roaming around not really using your phone your radios should be off. No, that doesn't mean Airplane mode, that just means no Wifi, no GPS and if you aren't using a Bluetooth headset, no Bluetooth. Just having these radios on even if they're not in use will put extra drain on your battery that is unnecessary. However if you are in an area where you know you will have access to a Wifi connection, use Wifi. It is more energy efficient than 3G and is also in most cases significantly faster. I only advise disabling wifi if you're on the move and/or not using your phone much. -thanks Bond32 for reminding me about Wifi being more efficient than 3G!
-If you are in a location with poor signal, switch on Airplane mode until you leave the deadzone. When your phone is not receiving a clear enough signal it will attempt to boost power to the antenna to help receive and maintain that connection. This can and will consume a charge in a matter of hours. Especially if you're actively using your phone while it does this.
-Battery Profile mode should always be Smart Mode, unless you are desperate to save the juice in which case you switch to Battery Saver mode. I cannot under any circumstances see the need to use Performance mode. Not only does it not help your system run faster, it keeps it from managing battery life properly. Don't use it. If you really want to take it the extra 9 yards, set the Data Timeout (peek hours) to 15 minutes from 30 minutes. This will drastically help your battery life if you find yourself texting maybe once or twice an hour, and thats it.
-Don't use a live wallpaper. Period. I know they're pretty, but your battery will hate you for it.
If you follow all this your guaranteed to get between 12-16 hours MINIMUM. The only way you'd get less than that on a single charge is if you had your screen on for 7+ hours doing intense tasks such as watching movies, browsing the web while streaming music and playing games. My best record so far for battery life is 2 days 3 hours 24 minutes @ 70% battery life left. Screen was on for approx 1 hour 12 minutes, I made 23 minutes in voice calls, and sent approx 150 texts over the course of the 2 days. Did light web browsing over 3G and played some good old Super Mario Brothers on NESoid. It's all very possible if you use your phone in moderation! Good luck
As some of you know the Droid X is arguably the best smartphone on the market right now. Its features are nearly endless and it is one amazing device to behold. We all love to use our GPS, our Bluetooth headset and our ultra quick Wifi access, all the while watch movies and listen to musc and all on a single charge.
I've seen a lot of people complaining that this phone has bad battery life, and so they go to great lengths to raise that battery life beyond whats within reason. So after a month with my device and having gone through trial and error with finding the best way to maximize battery life, here's what I've got.
-Forget task killers and even Autostarts. Thats right, don't use either of them. If you've already used Autostarts to disable some apps, go ahead and load it up, tell it to show only changed apps and enable every single app in the list. All of them. Even if you don't remember turning it off. Why enable everything? Because all those apps will find a way to run anyways, only if they load when the phone wants to load them they will sit idle from the get-go saving your phone CPU cycles.
-Set your brightness to the lowest possible setting. If you absolutely positively will have your screen on for 3+ hours a day this is a must. I don't care how hard it is to see in the sun, this is the biggest killer right now. Time flies when this phone is on in your hands and you won't even realize how quickly having that screen on with full brightness can consume a full charge. No, auto brightness is not good enough and don't waste your time with it.
-Blur/LauncherPro/ADW Launcher it really doesn't matter. End of the day its really all the same on battery life. Fact of the matter is, Blur runs in the background no matter what. If you use a third party launcher it will just hide it and make it empty. This is entirely up to you although I can say from an IT standpoint that LauncherPro is notably faster and smoother than Blur.
-Radios: these are critical. If you're roaming around not really using your phone your radios should be off. No, that doesn't mean Airplane mode, that just means no Wifi, no GPS and if you aren't using a Bluetooth headset, no Bluetooth. Just having these radios on even if they're not in use will put extra drain on your battery that is unnecessary. However if you are in an area where you know you will have access to a Wifi connection, use Wifi. It is more energy efficient than 3G and is also in most cases significantly faster. I only advise disabling wifi if you're on the move and/or not using your phone much. -thanks Bond32 for reminding me about Wifi being more efficient than 3G!
-If you are in a location with poor signal, switch on Airplane mode until you leave the deadzone. When your phone is not receiving a clear enough signal it will attempt to boost power to the antenna to help receive and maintain that connection. This can and will consume a charge in a matter of hours. Especially if you're actively using your phone while it does this.
-Battery Profile mode should always be Smart Mode, unless you are desperate to save the juice in which case you switch to Battery Saver mode. I cannot under any circumstances see the need to use Performance mode. Not only does it not help your system run faster, it keeps it from managing battery life properly. Don't use it. If you really want to take it the extra 9 yards, set the Data Timeout (peek hours) to 15 minutes from 30 minutes. This will drastically help your battery life if you find yourself texting maybe once or twice an hour, and thats it.
-Don't use a live wallpaper. Period. I know they're pretty, but your battery will hate you for it.
If you follow all this your guaranteed to get between 12-16 hours MINIMUM. The only way you'd get less than that on a single charge is if you had your screen on for 7+ hours doing intense tasks such as watching movies, browsing the web while streaming music and playing games. My best record so far for battery life is 2 days 3 hours 24 minutes @ 70% battery life left. Screen was on for approx 1 hour 12 minutes, I made 23 minutes in voice calls, and sent approx 150 texts over the course of the 2 days. Did light web browsing over 3G and played some good old Super Mario Brothers on NESoid. It's all very possible if you use your phone in moderation! Good luck
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