Epic 4G Touch Battery Life is Terrible

[oskar1995]

Jazzman,

8-9 hours of battery life is completely unacceptable. I'm at 15 hours so far today with some widgets installed and a decent amount of playing with it. Played some of the Virtual Horse Racing Game (Amazon free app of the day) and probably 20-30 minutes of Sudoku throughout the day. On top of that I read a bunch of twitter stuff and listened to an hour podcast on my way home. I still have 39% left. I consider this an above average usage day and I'm pretty happy with what is left. I'll be on the charger in about an hour or so and I'll charge over night.

As many have noted earlier you probably have a faulty device. I think a lot of people go to Sprint stores and complain about every device regardless of whether its a problem or not. I don't defend what they did because it shows a lack of product knowledge. You are doing all the right things and they should be able to replace this phone for you.

 

[jazzmanx33]

Jazzman,

8-9 hours of battery life is completely unacceptable. I'm at 15 hours so far today with some widgets installed and a decent amount of playing with it. Played some of the Virtual Horse Racing Game (Amazon free app of the day) and probably 20-30 minutes of Sudoku throughout the day. On top of that I read a bunch of twitter stuff and listened to an hour podcast on my way home. I still have 39% left. I consider this an above average usage day and I'm pretty happy with what is left. I'll be on the charger in about an hour or so and I'll charge over night.

As many have noted earlier you probably have a faulty device. I think a lot of people go to Sprint stores and complain about every device regardless of whether its a problem or not. I don't defend what they did because it shows a lack of product knowledge. You are doing all the right things and they should be able to replace this phone for you.

I think tomorrow I'm just going to use the device the way I want with no more testing. I'll use 4G/WiFi, install my programs and widgets, and basically use it like I would any other android that I've owned. Then I will see where I'm at after some real use, and if it's any better than the 8-9 hours I got last week. If it's not, than I'm at a loss.

 

[JayWill]

That's BS man. If the phone is not performing in a way that meets your expectations and you're within your 14 day trial period go down there and demand an exchange. Do NOT settle!

I have over 10 hours of being off the charger today, with 2 hours of screen on time and I'm at 50%. Don't settle for "good enough" because the dumb store wants to avoid a return.

Edit - screenshots included for reference.

 

[jazzmanx33]

That's BS man. If the phone is not performing in a way that meets your expectations and you're within your 14 day trial period go down there and demand an exchange. Do NOT settle!

I have over 10 hours of being off the charger today, with 2 hours of screen on time and I'm at 50%. Don't settle for "good enough" because the dumb store wants to avoid a return.

Edit - screenshots included for reference.

Well, it really doesn't seem like it's up to me. If the store won't take back their stuff, then I'm at a loss.

As a comparison I'm at 24% after 10 hours and 2 hours of screen on time. Most of that was in the last 2 hours after I didn't really care, and that also includes about 30 minutes of USB charging from earlier, that charged it about 5% or so.

 

[Slingbox]

Well, it really doesn't seem like it's up to me. If the store won't take back their stuff, then I'm at a loss.

As a comparison I'm at 24% after 10 hours and 2 hours of screen on time. Most of that was in the last 2 hours after I didn't really care, and that also includes about 30 minutes of USB charging from earlier, that charged it about 5% or so.

Call sprint retentions explain issue you having with device ask them to call store to get swap moving.

 

[JayWill]

Well, it really doesn't seem like it's up to me. If the store won't take back their stuff, then I'm at a loss.

It is up to you. If they won't exchange it then simply return it and buy one from another store. But anyhoo, yeah you may want to try retentions and explain the situation. I think they can make notes on your account that they can see at a Sprint store.

Also, I had some technical difficulties with this site earlier, so attached are the reference shots I mentioned.

Good luck!

 

[jazzmanx33]

So, as a final update to this thread, I wanted to post my stats for what I consider to be "normal" use for a day. I downloaded more apps, connected my Facebook, Twitter and gtalk accounts, have 3 gmail addresses pushing (not alot of data though), 1 exchange account checking every 5 min, and the WeatherBug widget on the home screen. I also played a game for about 5 minutes earlier in the morning, and turned off WiFi to really tax the battery. After 7h3m of this, these are my findings (see attached pics).

Thank you all for your advice. I still have no idea how I'm going to remedy this, if there is a problem, since my local Sprint stores could care less, but I wanted to make sure you all knew that you were a huge help to me over the past few days. I hope to have some good news soon.

EDIT - I also have WatchDog running, as you may have noticed from the screens, and the only alert I got was from using the Amazon AppStore this morning.

 

[HollyDolly]

I charge my phone to 100% through the night, unplug it by 8:30 a.m. and by 3:00 p.m., I have to recharge it because it's at 15% - and the most I've used it for is 4-5 tweets, a single 30 minute call, and a couple of short emails - no web browsing. I want to blame the reception, which is crappy with this particular phone at my work...but even at home where I connect the phone to Wifi (and get full bars) and turn off the non-working 3G/4G, the battery still runs down fairly quickly (about 3-4 hours) with mild use (a couple of app downloads, a few tweets, reading a few news pieces on the web, etc.).

In comparison, my iPad can last me through a couple of movies, multi-tasking, listening to music, writing emails, tweeting, app-shopping etc. and it only gets down to 35% after 6+ hours.

It's frustrating.

Btw, what app are you guys using to get the measurements in the posts above mine?

 

[skyo12]

I charge my phone to 100% through the night, unplug it by 8:30 a.m. and by 3:00 p.m., I have to recharge it because it's at 15% - and the most I've used it for is 4-5 tweets, a single 30 minute call, and a couple of short emails - no web browsing. I want to blame the reception, which is crappy with this particular phone at my work...but even at home where I connect the phone to Wifi (and get full bars) and turn off the non-working 3G/4G, the battery still runs down fairly quickly (about 3-4 hours) with mild use (a couple of app downloads, a few tweets, reading a few news pieces on the web, etc.).

In comparison, my iPad can last me through a couple of movies, multi-tasking, listening to music, writing emails, tweeting, app-shopping etc. and it only gets down to 35% after 6+ hours.

It's frustrating.

Btw, what app are you guys using to get the measurements in the posts above mine?

It's in the Settings:

Home>Settings>About Phone>Battery Status

For those of you running watchdog, quick question:

I'm showing "Base System Linux Process" always eating up a lot of CPU. Any idea what that is? Sorry if this is a dumb question.

Thanks!

 

[JayWill]

Thank you all for your advice. I still have no idea how I'm going to remedy this, if there is a problem, since my local Sprint stores could care less, but I wanted to make sure you all knew that you were a huge help to me over the past few days. I hope to have some good news soon.

From look at your usage shots, I'd say you had about 1 to 2 hours of screen on time. Unless you have your brightness set to 25% or less, I can't see how your Android OS % can be equal to your Display %. As you can see from my shots above, my display is usually half my battery use, with Android OS somewhere between 10 - 20%.

The only real glaring difference between your and my usage pattern is the syncs. I only have Tango contacts and Google on sync, and only have 1 gmail account on push. Maybe it's possible that your multiple gmail and exchange email accounts you have set up that's resulting in the high Android OS %, but I don't know. It just looks fishy to me. Something with your OS is eating battery, moreso than mine anyways. Have you tried running without Exchange for a day?

I'm having my average minimal use day today. 7 hours 15 mins off the charger, 45 min of screen on time, 45 mins of bluetooth audio streaming, 15 min of Angry Birds, and you typical other odds and ends, and I'm at 76%, which is around my typical 3ish% per hour. My display use is 40% (at 50% brightness) and Android OS is at 18%.

 

[skyo12]

I'm having my average minimal use day today. 7 hours 15 mins off the charger, 45 min of screen on time, 45 mins of bluetooth audio streaming, 15 min of Angry Birds, and you typical other odds and ends, and I'm at 76%, which is around my typical 3ish% per hour. My display use is 40% (at 50% brightness) and Android OS is at 18%.

Ok, this part makes me a bit relieved lol. I guess I'm using it a bit more than I thought and wasn't getting the optimal battery life.

I have 3 email accounts on sync, 2 emails on push, had about 1 hr 45 min of screen time (browsing, reading, no games) and have background data enabled, and had about 60 minutes of bluetooth straming in the morning. I pulled the off the charger around 11:30 PM last night and battery is at 23% right now. Does that sound about right?

 

[JayWill]

Ok, this part makes me a bit relieved lol. I guess I'm using it a bit more than I thought and wasn't getting the optimal battery life.

I have 3 email accounts on sync, 2 emails on push, had about 1 hr 45 min of screen time (browsing, reading, no games) and have background data enabled, and had about 60 minutes of bluetooth straming in the morning. I pulled the off the charger around 11:30 PM last night and battery is at 23% right now. Does that sound about right?

That would put you at 16 hours off the charger with 23% left? Yeah I'd say that sounds just fine without seeing your battery usage screens. People that are burning out at 10 hours with minimal or even moderate use are the ones with problems.

 

[svx]

Well, I am falling into that category of loosing about 10% per 1- 1hr 15min and will toss in my two cents. One item I have noted: this only happens when I am traveling. When at home on WiFi, I loose about 2hr/10%, which while not great, is acceptable. This happens with Bluetooth off, WiFi on/off, GPS on. Android OS is at 30-40%. I have tried many of the settings in the 30+ hr battery life thread... Nothing seems to correct it.

I cover the entire state of WI and live out of my car. It is imperative that I achieve a sustainable full day out of my phone. At most, I can get 8-9hr before at 5% left with minimal usage. When I say minimal, it is to check email, news, etc rarely. And no, I am not actually using the a GPS program while driving. At most I may use the phone from time to time to tag a song while driving. I do have several widgets such as Drudge, AP, FB, Fancy Widgets, Android Central, NHL Gamescenter, and SportsTap running. However, I have tried killing them and it does not seem to change the results.

I would also like to note. I did a road bike ride 2 weeks ago and was using Endomondo with GPS on, a Bluetooth HR monitor, and Bluetooth headset (speaking cadence and streaming music). I got 4hr before hitting 10% left on the phone!! I get that GPS/Bluetooth drains battery, but that was fast! Not even my EPIC 4G went down that fast. I am strongly beginning to think this is a cellular radio issue. The 70mi route I took was out in the country and had poor signal reception with the radio bouncing back and forth between roaming and no signal. I also observed this same behavior this morning in a building with poor reception - > battery seemed to go faster. I read a few comments about reception in this thread. Are people generally seeing battery issues such as this (8-9hr) in poor reception areas or are you also seeing it in good reception areas?

I will reset to defaults and share my results.

 

[dguidry12]

Well, I am falling into that category of loosing about 10% per 1- 1hr 15min and will toss in my two cents. One item I have noted: this only happens when I am traveling. When at home on WiFi, I loose about 2hr/10%, which while not great, is acceptable. This happens with Bluetooth off, WiFi on/off, GPS on. Android OS is at 30-40%. I have tried many of the settings in the 30+ hr battery life thread... Nothing seems to correct it.

I cover the entire state of WI and live out of my car. It is imperative that I achieve a sustainable full day out of my phone. At most, I can get 8-9hr before at 5% left with minimal usage. When I say minimal, it is to check email, news, etc rarely. And no, I am not actually using the a GPS program while driving. At most I may use the phone from time to time to tag a song while driving. I do have several widgets such as Drudge, AP, FB, Fancy Widgets, Android Central, NHL Gamescenter, and SportsTap running. However, I have tried killing them and it does not seem to change the results.

I would also like to note. I did a road bike ride 2 weeks ago and was using Endomondo with GPS on, a Bluetooth HR monitor, and Bluetooth headset (speaking cadence and streaming music). I got 4hr before hitting 10% left on the phone!! I get that GPS/Bluetooth drains battery, but that was fast! Not even my EPIC 4G went down that fast. I am strongly beginning to think this is a cellular radio issue. The 70mi route I took was out in the country and had poor signal reception with the radio bouncing back and forth between roaming and no signal. I also observed this same behavior this morning in a building with poor reception - > battery seemed to go faster. I read a few comments about reception in this thread. Are people generally seeing battery issues such as this (8-9hr) in poor reception areas or are you also seeing it in good reception areas?

I will reset to defaults and share my results.

If the phone is in your pocket and it gets kind of warm that will tell you that you indeed have reception issues. Thats how my old phone was doing. Take it back to the store and demand a return

 

[svx]

If the phone is in your pocket and it gets kind of warm that will tell you that you indeed have reception issues. Thats how my old phone was doing. Take it back to the store and demand a return

Oh it gets warm, but is that normal under these poor reception conditions(roaming, etc)? I will reset first to see if that addresses the issue. If not, then back to the Sprint store.

 

[h4ldol]

I did a road bike ride 2 weeks ago and was using Endomondo with GPS on, a Bluetooth HR monitor, and Bluetooth headset (speaking cadence and streaming music). I got 4hr before hitting 10% left on the phone!!

This is supposed to be bad? Geez, if I used GPS in my old Evo and used Google Navigation without being plugged in, it would be dead in 1.5-2 hours from being fully charged. In addition to having radio roaming issues during your bike trip, it seems like you're doing quite a few things on your phone so going down to 10% doesn't strike me as being abnormally quick draining.

 

[jazzmanx33]

Well, folks. I finally returned my SGSIIE4GT to the store. Even when I returned it, the guy still said it was fine. I said sure, still wasn't happy with it. They re-activated my EVO, and I'm gonna wait for my upgrade eligibility to reset, which should be in a week or so (makes no sense, but whatever), and then decide which way to go.

Thanks again for all your advice.

As a side note, I was talking with my friend at the bar last night, and he mentioned that, being in NYC, the 3G radio in the phone may have to work harder to get those 6 bars of signal in Manhattan due to all the interference (he's an electrical engineer, so I'm not gonna argue with him), and that may have been why the phone was losing that much juice with only 3G on. I'm not sure, but I guess we'll see when I choose my new phone.

 

[svx]

This is supposed to be bad? Geez, if I used GPS in my old Evo and used Google Navigation without being plugged in, it would be dead in 1.5-2 hours from being fully charged. In addition to having radio roaming issues during your bike trip, it seems like you're doing quite a few things on your phone so going down to 10% doesn't strike me as being abnormally quick draining.

Compared to my Samsung EPIC 4G it certainly seems to be.

 

[Thedonkeyshow808]

Am I the only one that couldn't put this phone down the second it fell into my hands?
The first day I drained the battery to about 3%. And still messed with it as it was charging.
That's how its been the past 2 weeks. I've been on vacation, so I've spent alot of time with her

Would that have anything to do with terrible battery life?

 

[tweeker]

I have a question regarding the battery. If anyone has any input on this...
I may be experiencing poor battery life as well but this is happening as well...

I just got my phone 3 days ago. My battery takes about 6+ hours to charge via USB from around 10% or less. It also when plugged in via USB and I talk on it, it decreases in charge it does not gain.

It also gets EXTREMELY hot while I was talking on it and it was plugged in. This was after about 10 minutes of talk time. It was almost unbearable to keep next to my ear.

Are these things normal?

Thanks very much for anyones time.