Photon Battery Life

[milominderbinde]

[NOTE]

Here are Getting Started tips from the Extend Your Battery - Speed Up Your Phone
that have worked with other Androids.
Once you get your new Android, please post your results.​

[/NOTE]
Android is a fire-breathing beast. Big bright screens and a dozen radios take a lot of power. Apps and widgets can also slow you down and steal your power. Still most Android devices can get at least 10 hours of steady use if you know the tricks.

Batteries and Chargers
Androids do everything but that takes power, a lot of power. Get chargers for home, work, and car.
• Get a good car charger or car kit. Navigation,GPS, and streaming music can drain your battery fast.
• A cheap car charger may not keep up.
• Charging off your PC is slow because the current is cut in half. Use good wall chargers.
• Extended Batteries that may even double battery life.

Put Battery % in Your Status Bar
•

Battery Status (free, Upgraded $1) - Puts real battery % in status bar & draws little power.

100% is not really 100%
When your phone charges to 100%, it stops charging. Hours later it may be down to 90% or less.
• Charge to 100%. Remove from charger for 10 sec. Plug back in. The charge light will go back on!

Turn down the display
That huge bright screen takes a lot of power.
• See where you power is going: Tap Home > Menu > About phone > Battery > Battery use.
• Set Brightness to Automatic or low: Tap Home > Settings > Display > Brightness
• Set Screen timeout to 1 minute or less: Tap Home > Settings > Display > Screen Timeout
• Turn animation off: Tap Home > Settings > Display > Animation > No animation

Turn off the motor
Haptic feedback (vibration) powers a motor in the phone to make it shake.
• Turn off key vibration: Tap Home > Settings > Sound > Vibrate Feedback OFF
• Turn off keyboard vibration: Tap Home > Settings > Language & keyboard > {keyboard settings}

Wallpaper
Live wallpaper is an app that is constantly running. Also, bright colored wallpaper makes it harder to read icon labels so you tend to turn up brightness. Part of the secret to the iPhone's long battery life is the black background.
• Tap Home > Menu > Personalize > Home wallpaper
• Don't use live wallpaper: Tap Menu > Settings > Personalize > Home wallpaper..
• Try this black wallpaper.

Widgets
A widget is a live app that is always running. How many are you using?
• First save your current layout: Tap Menu > Settings > Personalize > Scene > Menu > Save.
• Remove widgets you don't use: Long-press and drag to Remove.
• Certain Streaming Music, Email, News, and Social Networking widgets are especially bad.

Avoid 4G
4G takes a lot of power and is really only helpful for streaming HD or a big download
• Turn off 4G :.Tap Menu > Settings > Wireless > 4G OFF

Limit Syncing
Even apps you rarely use may be constantly syncing. Gmail and other apps may control their own syncing in their own settings.
• Tap Menu > Menu > Accounts & Sync and tap on an app to change sync settings.

Turn off "Enable Always on mobile data"
See if you still get notifications after turning off mobile data: Tap Menu > Settings > Wireless > Mobile networks.

Turn off GPS
Navigation programs need a car charger. Active GPS can take a lot of power.
• Exit from navigation apps when not in use. GPS drains the battery.
• Turn off GPS when not in use: Tap Menu > Settings > Location > GPS satellites OFF.

Use WiFi When You Can
WiFi uses less power than 2G or 3G.If you have no WIFI, turn WiFi OFF.
• Turn WiFi On/Off: Tap Menu > Settings > Wireless & Networks > WiFi ON/OFF.

Turn on Airplane Mode
Airplane mode ON turns OFF your 1x, 3G, 4G and WiFi radios. You turn WiFi back on if you have WiFi service. Note that you will not be get calls or texts. If you are roaming or are in a poor reception area, you phone may endlessly search for a better signal, draining your battery.
• To turn off phone, WiFi, and messaging: Tap Menu > Settings > Wireless > Airplane Mode ON .

Hoarding is Bad
Storing too many texts or emails may slow down your phone and drain power. To automatically delete old messages: Tap Menu > Settings > Delete Old Message ON and set your Text Message Limit to 100 messages per conversation or less. Some set this to 0 so that there are no old messages to be found. Also keep old emails deleted out.

Your phone needs "Cache memory" space
Your phone swaps data in and out of cache memory. If your have too little RAM available it struggles to keep swapping. Keep at least 80 MB of Available Space
• Check your Available Space: Tap Menu > Settings > SD & Phone Storage > Available Space
• Find the big apps: Tap Menu > Settings > Applications > Manage Apps > Menu > Sort By Size.
- • Move apps to the SD card: Tap the App then tap Move to SD card (unless it's a widget you use)
- • Apps 2 SD and Advanced SD Card Manager let you move a list of apps to or from your microSD.

Reboot Your Phone
If you are getting only a few hours of battery life or your phone is running slow, it is probably not your phone. An app or widget is killing you. Start with a reboot to flush things out:
• Press and hold the power button > Tap Power off. Then turn the phone back on.
• Daily reboots can help keep rogue apps from taking battery life.

Battery Suckers
Certain streaming Music, Music Players, Talk, Video Chat, Navigation, Weather, and Map apps. widgets and live wallpapers, are notorious battery suckers. In addition certain Facebook, Twitter, Gmail and other apps that constantly sync over the internet can steal your bandwidth, speed, and battery life. The TrafficStats app will show if unexpected apps are using the Internet. You will be amazed what you might find. Apps taking internal resources can be found by tapping Tap Menu > Settings > Applications > Manage Applications > Running. To close a running app, tap it then Force Stop. Only close apps you installed.

Power Widgets
See Setup Tips and Tricks.
Your phone may have Power Widgets to easily turn features off when not in use. There are many in the market as well:
• Curvefish: • WiFi On-Off • Bluetooth On-Off • GPS On-Off • Brightness Level (See image below)
• Free Power Widgets - A dozen to choose from
• Volume Button Controller - Control them all in one place. (See below)
• Battery Status Bar - Puts real battery % in status bar (it's 76% in the screenshot below).

Find the Battery Suckers
If your battery drains fast or your phone now runs slow, turn everything off and then start turning things on until you find the problem.
1. Reboot the phone: Long press the power button > Tap Power off. Then turn the phone back on.
2. Save your current Homescreen Scene: Tap Menu > Settings > Personalize > Scene > Menu > Save.
3. Turn off radios: Tap Menu > Settings > Wireless & Networks. Set WiFi, Bluetooth, Hotspot, 4G, etc. OFF and Airplane Mode ON.
4. Don't use live wallpaper: Tap Menu > Settings > Personalize > Home wallpaper. Chose a non-live wallpaper.
5. Remove widgets. Long-press them and drag them down off the screen. Use App Icons for now.
6. Dim the brightness to 25% or less: Tap Menu > Settings > Brightness
7. Reduce auto-sync: Tap Menu > Settings > Accounts & sync. Turn off ones you don't use. Slow down the rest.
8. Use TrafficStats to see what is taking your bandwidth, speed, and battery life.
9. Charge to 100%. Remove from charger for 10 seconds. Plug back in to make sure that it does not need more charge.
11. Tap Menu > Settings > About phone > Battery to verify a full charge. Take the phone off the charger.
12. Turn off the display and check the Battery in an hour. It should drop by no more than 2%.
- If drop was over 2%, check for rogue apps: Tap Menu > Settings > Applications > Manage applications > Running.
- - Are apps you installed running without you turning them on? Tap apps you installed then tap Force close.
- If drop is under 2%: Tap Menu > Settings > Personalize > Wireless & Networks. Set WiFi & Bluetooth ON, Airplane Mode OFF.
- - Check the battery % again after another hour. The drop should be no more than 2-3%.
- - Keep turning on apps and widgets on until you find the problems.

Try JuiceDefender
The free JuiceDefender app saves your battery by letting you automatically:
• Turn off WiFi when you are not near you WiFi hotspots, like your home
• Turn off 1x/3G//4G when WiFi is available.
• Turn off 1x/3G/4G/WiFi and set to silent mode overnight while you sleep.
Add JuicePlotter for history and UltimateJuice for full features.

See Also
• Keep your charge on -- how to improve battery life

 

[fred1955]

I understand the battery in the Motorola Photon is 1700?
So, how long will this type of battery last with normal use?
For example, when I get my Photon I plan to manage my office and personal email accounts (Yahoo, Outlook), check my Outlook calendar, read a few text messages on my Yahoo and GMail accounts, browse a few URLs, listen to Pandora music at lunchtime, listen to sports radio on the bus ride home, etc. Thanks everyone.

 

[Shawheim]

since i have received my Photon i have noticed a few things with the battery. for one when the battery charges or dissipates it shows in increments of 10. thats different than what i am used to with my Evo 4g and 3D. i dont know if its because i have a dev unit, i guess you would call it, or what but i did notice that. battery life has been ok, yesterday when i first got it the battery was at 100%. i used it from about 6 until after 11 constantly, dont think i ever turned it off. so it drained to 15%. there is a sleep mode in the settings (when you long press the power button) that basically puts the phone in a sleep state. i didnt have my charger so i opted for sleep mode. when i woke up at 7 and turned it on it was still at 15%. so slep mode is a good thing. cant really report much more cause i havent put it through heavy heavy use yet to give a good battery review. plus i dont know how used the battery is so i dont know if the capacity is right or not. hope this helps some. ill report back later!

 

[thatguitarguy]

There's a bunch of features built into it that allows you to save battery life based on performance mode, nighttime mode or max battery saver. It's defaulted to nighttime mode and I'll use it as well (it stops syncing stuff at night if it is not connected to a charger.)

Battery is 1650 not 1700

 

[MacBook]

There's a bunch of features built into it that allows you to save battery life based on performance mode, nighttime mode or max battery saver. It's defaulted to nighttime mode and I'll use it as well (it stops syncing stuff at night if it is not connected to a charger.)

Battery is 1650 not 1700

Actually it does have a 1700.

 

[Septiformus]

Actually the battery says right on it 1650

 

[MacBook]

thats very strange! every tech site and review says 1700

 

[VDub2174]

For battery life: I'm on my 13th hour off the charger with 20% battery life. That's all on 4G, using Google+ to chat, Twitter, Facebook, downloading a game (want to see the Tegra 2 processor in action), texting, emails, and market browsing.

My EVO wouldn't have lasted that long.

 

[rdrmr17]

I've seen in a few video reviews of the Photon that a lot of tech reviews mention 1700, but really it's only 1650.

 

[Cubfan]

I've been unimpressed with battery life so far, but I understand how it takes some time for devices to get the hang of how you work.

 

[whatsitsname]

I am a little disappointed by the battery life I got so far. I test the battery life by taxing the phone continuously. I stream netflix and other tv streaming service to the phone until it dies. My result.

Photon:
Wifi- 4 hrs 20 minutes
4g - 3 hrs 20 minutes

Evo 4g:
Wifi - 3 hrs 25 minutes
4g - 2 hrs 30 minutes

Did not test 3g as i didn't get a great 3g signal. Screen was on 100% of the time.

As expected the Photon wins as it comes with a higher capacity battery. I was expecting much more battery life than shown.

 

[thatguitarguy]

I got 13 hours on a full charge in real life usage when I was visiting a big city. I utilized the internet, yelp, maps, speed test, facebook, twitter, etc throughout the day.

Coming from the epic 4g, I'm really impressed.

 

[peoplegetpeople]

Wow... That's worse than the Tbolt!

 

[MacBook]

I've been unimpressed with battery life so far, but I understand how it takes some time for devices to get the hang of how you work.

Ive had mine for a day now and I am also not very impressed with the battery so far.. I put it through the same tests I put my Evo 3D through and I find that the Evo 3D lasted longer. but Its not a deal breaker for me because theres always extended battery options.

 

[VDub2174]

I'm currently at 50% battery life after 17+ hours of "normal" usage. I have twitter running in the background, gmail syncing almost instantly, using tapatalk, sending texts, and even having a weather widget running on one of my home screens.

 

[Puzzlegal]

I'm at 70% after 3 hours of use. I am coming from a Pre with the extended battery (2600) which lasted a full day of heavy use, and I am reminded how frustrating it is to always worry about charging.

 

[milominderbinde]

I'm at 70% after 3 hours of use. I am coming from a Pre with the extended battery (2600) which lasted a full day of heavy use, and I am reminded how frustrating it is to always worry about charging.

That Photon is in fact a fire-breathing dragon with 10 radios going all at once and a big bright screen.

10% per hour is really not bad

Follow the Extending Battery Life tips and see if that helps. Keep your 4G radio off unless you are streaming HD, etc. These tips may get you up another couple of hours if you are not already using them.

If you want to go longer, check out this section:

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JuiceDefender
The free JuiceDefender app saves your battery by automatically turning off radios when not in use but it is limited. Juice Defender Ultimate is well worth the $7 adding many key features as explained by Android Central:
? Turn off WiFi when you are not near your WiFi hotspots, like your home
? Turn off 1x/3G//4G when WiFi is available.
? Turn off 1x/3G/4G/WiFi and set to silent mode overnight so you (and everyone else) can sleep.
? Use the "Balanced" presets if you are enw to this or "Customize" if you are an expert.
? JuicePlotter is a free add-on that charts battery usage.

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Let Juice defender turn off your WiFi when youa re out of range and turn off other radios when not in use. Juice Defender Ultimate can add at least another hour or two.

 

[Puzzlegal]

Most of the advice to save power boils down to "don't use it". The point is to have email handy, etc. And I don't need to save power at night since it will be plugged in.

I've been jotting down notes today, with heavy use it's been dropping 11%/hour

Probably I won't be happy until/unless someone sells a much larger battery. The fat battery for the pre is awesome, despite the size.

 

[whatsitsname]

That's better than mine. 3 hrs of heavy usage and I am at 50% already

 

[Puzzlegal]

I think today is better than yesterday. I plugged it in when it dropped to 15%, and it is charging slowly.