Photon Battery Life

[ScandaLeX]

When I 1St got the Photon I felt my battery life was incredible. But now, I can almost count the time it takes to godead- and this is with minimal use. I find myself constantly making sure it's on the charger when not in use.

 

[ToddK]

When the phone was new - and totally stock - I was getting 18 - 24 hours between charges. This was with 5 email accounts syncing and all radios blazing... (GPS, Bluetooth and WiFi on and Performance Mode on.)

After going app crazy (and I do mean app crazy: over 100! these things are like candy to me ;-) ), the phone would be dead in 4-6 hours unless I shut everything down (GPS. Bluetooth, WiFi, Off, and full battery saver on.)

Long story short, after a factory reset, and slowly adding just the apps I really need/want , (about 50 now), I'm getting a solid 12-14 hours with all radios on and performance mode on, and moderate use i.e. 10-15 short phone calls, 20-30 texts, checking Facebook, Twitter etc. Coming from a Pre that had to be dropped on a touchstone every 6 to 8 hours, I'm pretty happy.

The moral of this story... some apps will kill the battery even when not running, hard to figure out which ones, though.

 

[no1tech]

my battery seems to be a little loose on my Photon4G (i can hear it if i shake my phone) ....is this normal?

 

[MacBook]

my battery seems to be a little loose on my Photon4G (i can hear it if i shake my phone) ....is this normal?

Thats not your battery its the camera mechanism... shake your phone while your camera is activated and I bet you won't hear it anymore.

here is a link to the thread regarding that.

http://forums.androidcentral.com/sprint-photon/111081-poll-camera-rattle.html

 

[bullitt5094]

I've had mine three weeks now. Went house hunting in another city this week. Everyday we were using it as a wireless hub for 6-8 hours a day with LOTS of map/data transmissions. It never required charging all day even with that use plus phone calls, email, GPS etc. Heavy usage while looking for the right place to live. Would charge it each night with that usage but on normal days at home/work it will last two days without a charge. I don't know why mine seems to last longer than others. It's not been rooted or modified (yet). I was using the paid hub service from Sprint during the search. I LOVE this phone. It just works. I have zero complaints and I'm normally one that can find something wrong with an ice cube. :-[

 

[Photon4glover]

I managed 13 with a lot of use while using juice defender

Sent from my MB855 using Tapatalk

 

[popologuy]

My first few days were abysmal for battery life. But it seems that after charging/discharging several times, I have broken in the battery and routinely get 12 hours with 4g turned on all the time. I was really disliking this phone, but now it's meeting my needs!

 

[heymista]

I've only had it 4 days, and it was hard to judge battery life the first couple of days because I was setting it up and downloading apps. I was playing with it all day so it only lasted around 7 hours. The past two days have been more normal usage, and I can estimate the battery will last between 12-16 hours with moderate to heavy usage. I use the internet quite a bit so I am obviously very pleased. I had an Epic prior to this and there are several noticeable areas of battery improvement. Since web pages and emails load so much faster, I end up using much less battery while being able to load more pages. There is also less bleeding with zero usage. so far so good

Forgot to mention that it takes half the time to charge as my Epic did. It will fully charge in 2 hours.

 

[jhasty]

I presume the battery statistics behave like those of my EVO 4G. It takes several days for the statistics to calibrate. Also, it is recommended to let the battery go down as far as possible in the first couple of days to help with the calibration.

I received the latest update early this morning. Within 1 hour after taking it off of the charger, I was down to 50%. It's on the charger now and then I am going to leave it off charge the rest of the day and see how the battery stats look.

 

[ToddK]

My battery life has recently plummeted again - no new apps - just dead in 8-10 hours... was getting a solid 14-18 prior. I've tried all common solutions including resets and battery pulls and deleting many apps - I'm resorting to killing all radios and turing off backround data - and now I might as well be baby-sitting an infant will all this "care and feeding" (and with all the radios and data off I might as well have a old school dumb phone.)

Factory resets seem to be the only answer - but losing all texts and call logs every time, as well as having to "re-build" my email accounts and prefrences, and redownload apps is too time consuming and annoying to consider.

The android operating system is proving to be powerful and full featured, but too "clunky" and fragile - as this "ghost in the machine" battery life issue, shows.

I think it's time to take a close look at the new iPhone 5 today.

 

[bonanzabucks]

My battery life has recently plummeted again - no new apps - just dead in 8-10 hours... was getting a solid 14-18 prior. I've tried all common solutions including resets and battery pulls and deleting many apps - I'm resorting to killing all radios and turing off backround data - and now I might as well be baby-sitting an infant will all this "care and feeding" (and with all the radios and data off I might as well have a old school dumb phone.)

Factory resets seem to be the only answer - but losing all texts and call logs every time, as well as having to "re-build" my email accounts and prefrences, and redownload apps is too time consuming and annoying to consider.

The android operating system is proving to be powerful and full featured, but too "clunky" and fragile - as this "ghost in the machine" battery life issue, shows.

I think it's time to take a close look at the new iPhone 5 today.

I notice my battery life has taken a hit too. I could go a solid two days with moderate usage and now it seems to last about 11 hours with the same usage. Could be reception, which has gotten a lot worse the last week. Haven't really downloaded that many new apps either.

 

[bmoody33]

I bought some after market 1950mAh (same physical size as stock) batteries for my Photon off of ebay that so far I'm very happy with. Here are the details:

There were 3 batteries and a charger that also has a USB port.
The batteries are each 1950mAh and 3.7VDC
The original battery that came with my droid is 1650mAh and 3.8VDC
The batteries are the same exact size as the original but a just a very slighly snugger fit so it took a bit more pressure to get one of the batteries inserted all the way and the stock case back fits the same as with the stock battery!
The listing was : "3x 1950mAh BF6X Battery+Charger For MOTOROLA PHOTON 4G"
The seller was: "hk_plaza"
The cost was $12.95 USD including shipping. (Not sure how they can sell for so low? but nice for me! and I thought worth the try even to have 3 spare batteries and a charger!)

TEST RESULTS:
I turned on the following on the phone as I wanted it to drain as fast as possible for the test:
ON=4G, Bluetooth, GPS, Wireless, iheart radio (tuned to a station) volume 0%, screen brighness=100% with autobrightness=OFF, screen time out sleep=NEVER.

1650mAh Stock battery from drained 100% to 10% = 3 hours & 33 minutes or (213 minutes)
1950mAh ebay battery from drained 100% to 10% = 4 hours & 25 minutes. or (265 minutes)

This is a gain of 52 minutes at the above settings.

For $12.95 I'm a very happy camper so far! I'll keep testing over the next month or so and post updates to this post to see how the battery life holds up with daily use since I've only used them for about 1 week now.

 

[hokuSai101]

I find consistently valuable information here in these forums. Thanks a bunch you guys (and gals). These battery threads are so apropo.

 

[Moegitto]

I tried using the search tool and I didn't find what I'm about to say in this thread, so here goes. I just got my Photon yesterday (I know, newbie). It is my first Motorola experience since the razor, and also it was my other Motorola choice of phone at the time (I was with Virgin Mobile, so I was contemplating the triumph, Glad I chose otherwise). After getting home, I used my phone from around 5:30 to 11:30, texting, web-browsing, WiFi, syncing spotify, and using widgets. My battery dropped only 20%. But one thing I noticed is that if my phone went to sleep too long, it would auto disconnect from the WiFi AND 3G. It happened 3 times, messing up my sync so after the third dream, I went into setting to see if there was a data disconnect settings. After tinkering around a little, I found the Battery and Data Manager setting (above HDMI, below Display). Now I found my so called answer to my so called problem. In this setting it literally allows you to change how your phone acts, mines was set to "Nighttime saver" mode. Theres 3 settings, "Maximum battery saver-severely restricts auto updates", "Nighttime saver-Norm throughout the day, battery saving at night", and "Performance mode-allows all data and syncing without any restrictions". This phone has a power manager like our PC has power settings. There's also a Data saver option, it changes how all the main programs that use data act, so you can save even more power. This phone just keeps getting better and better. By the way, before I found out about this, my phone lasted all night off charger and lost 0%.

 

[VDub2174]

I tried using the search tool and I didn't find what I'm about to say in this thread, so here goes. I just got my Photon yesterday (I know, newbie). It is my first Motorola experience since the razor, and also it was my other Motorola choice of phone at the time (I was with Virgin Mobile, so I was contemplating the triumph, Glad I chose otherwise). After getting home, I used my phone from around 5:30 to 11:30, texting, web-browsing, WiFi, syncing spotify, and using widgets. My battery dropped only 20%. But one thing I noticed is that if my phone went to sleep too long, it would auto disconnect from the WiFi AND 3G. It happened 3 times, messing up my sync so after the third dream, I went into setting to see if there was a data disconnect settings. After tinkering around a little, I found the Battery and Data Manager setting (above HDMI, below Display). Now I found my so called answer to my so called problem. In this setting it literally allows you to change how your phone acts, mines was set to "Nighttime saver" mode. Theres 3 settings, "Maximum battery saver-severely restricts auto updates", "Nighttime saver-Norm throughout the day, battery saving at night", and "Performance mode-allows all data and syncing without any restrictions". This phone has a power manager like our PC has power settings. There's also a Data saver option, it changes how all the main programs that use data act, so you can save even more power. This phone just keeps getting better and better. By the way, before I found out about this, my phone lasted all night off charger and lost 0%.

Yup, a good amount of us experienced that when we got our MoPhos. Some knew to check the battery settings to correct it and some (including me) didn't understand why it was happening until someone posted about it. I have mine set to "normal" so data remains the same throughout the day and I haven't had any battery drain issues at all.

Just this past weekend I went on a 4.5 hour roadtrip and used my MoPho as my MP3 player the whole time. In that time, I still had an impressive amount of battery life left and didn't have to charge it until the next afternoon.

 

[Puzzlegal]

I bought some after market 1950mAh (same physical size as stock) batteries for my Photon off of ebay that so far I'm very happy with. Here are the details:

There were 3 batteries and a charger that also has a USB port.
The batteries are each 1950mAh and 3.7VDC
The original battery that came with my droid is 1650mAh and 3.8VDC
The batteries are the same exact size as the original but a just a very slighly snugger fit so it took a bit more pressure to get one of the batteries inserted all the way and the stock case back fits the same as with the stock battery!
The listing was : "3x 1950mAh BF6X Battery+Charger For MOTOROLA PHOTON 4G"
The seller was: "hk_plaza"
The cost was $12.95 USD including shipping. (Not sure how they can sell for so low? but nice for me! and I thought worth the try even to have 3 spare batteries and a charger!)

TEST RESULTS:
I turned on the following on the phone as I wanted it to drain as fast as possible for the test:
ON=4G, Bluetooth, GPS, Wireless, iheart radio (tuned to a station) volume 0%, screen brighness=100% with autobrightness=OFF, screen time out sleep=NEVER.

1650mAh Stock battery from drained 100% to 10% = 3 hours & 33 minutes or (213 minutes)
1950mAh ebay battery from drained 100% to 10% = 4 hours & 25 minutes. or (265 minutes)

This is a gain of 52 minutes at the above settings.

For $12.95 I'm a very happy camper so far! I'll keep testing over the next month or so and post updates to this post to see how the battery life holds up with daily use since I've only used them for about 1 week now.

I bought something similar. $15 dollars for 2 batteries and a charger. They just arrived today. Boy, they look like cheap knock-offs!

They say
For moto XT882/BF6X
LI-ion 3.7v
3.7VDC = 1950mAh

The charger glows pink when it charges, and has a USB port.

Now I have to decide if I dare to put one in my Photon! Right now I'm just charging one of the batteries.

 

[n1philli]

You guys that are getting 15+ hours of "use" time must have some miraculous battery. I make phone calls, a little texting, and might read a little news. After about 13 hours everyday I'm down to about 20%-30%. That is with GPS off, Wifi off, and several really 0 extra apps running. Social media sites are logged out of also. Power save options are on. I honestly feel like this phone spends more time in it's holster (Otterbox) than it does in my hand. Not so sure it was a good switch from the BB Torch.

 

[Puzzlegal]

Here goes. Anything I schools watch for in a cheap knock-off battery?

 

[VDub2174]

You guys that are getting 15+ hours of "use" time must have some miraculous battery. I make phone calls, a little texting, and might read a little news. After about 13 hours everyday I'm down to about 20%-30%. That is with GPS off, Wifi off, and several really 0 extra apps running. Social media sites are logged out of also. Power save options are on. I honestly feel like this phone spends more time in it's holster (Otterbox) than it does in my hand. Not so sure it was a good switch from the BB Torch.

I don't use my phone as much as others do during the work day. I do have twitter updating every half hour, read some message boards using tapatalk, and send/receive some texts. With all that, plus using the music player for about 2 hours a day, I don't have to charge my phone until night time.

 

[seanoj]

My experience, weak in comparison to many on this forum, has me settled on the following framework for battery thoughts...

#1 battery killer is poor reception. CDMA phones (in my experience) have better life than GSM when they have a good signal. Much worse when the signal is poor. I think this is still the most important factor when chosing your carrier. You might be able to boost battery life (and have cleaner calls) with something like this: AIRAVE by Sprint Support

#2 battery killer is rogue applications. Have an application that is in conflict, gone into a do loop, or just poorly written and your battery life shortens dramatically. This forum is great for finding bad or conflicting apps i.e. WidgetLocker... I have never been able to find a good way (like via task manager) to detect rogue apps. Anyone have a good tutorial for finding juice hogging apps?

#3 battery killer is usage. Hammering away at the browser while running music player in the background will tax your battery. Netflix via 4G is another good one. I have found the juice defender app to be helpful here. Also thinking of carrying a back up battery (not to replace, but one that you plug into the usb port to re-charge the stock battery). Pulling the back off the photon is a b*tch.

#4 battery killer is design flaw. I have had batteries with internal shorts (more than one blackberry OEM battery), phones that were flawed (first Palm Pre) and ones with batteries that were just too small (Motorola StarTac).

I think I have had all but #4 on my photon, although I suspect that there may be a better battery available via third parties...

-Sean