20% drain in an hour? Really?

[Ironarm]

Hi everyone. I love my Nexus, but I am just wondering - is the battery life on this phone pretty bad?

Sleep is fine. I don't see any drain. But the minute I turn it on, the battery drain is enormous. I've done the reading, I've lowered brightness to 20%, disabled location services, disabled tap sounds, and even flashed Franco's kernel.

Currently as of this writing, my battery usage is at 17%, at 58 minutes. This includes me opening up a few webpages, going through the phone's settings, taking 4 screenshots and uploading them. That is all - I didn't open up any other programs. At this rate, I will go through the phone in under 4 hours, and this is considered low-moderate usage, right?

I am wondering if anyone thinks this is bad battery drain, or if its pretty normal. I would really like to be able to use my phone without having to constantly watch and monitor the battery drain, because this is ridiculous. I know people are telling to shut off all of the sync, the location services - but if I do, then whats the point of having an android in the first place if you cant use these amazing services? :-\

Remember, this is with Franco's kernel, which is supposed to give better battery life.

Will there be updates that improve battery life? Noticeably? At least 30+ minutes of extra screen time?

Screens -

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[greydarrah]

Tell us what your screen time is after a full day (or whenever it gets near dead). If you're getting 3 to 5 hours (screen time), that's about all any android phone is going to get.

 

[N4Newbie]

Remember, this is with Franco's kernel, which is supposed to give better battery life.

Ummm.... (need I say more?)

 

[joelisenat]

Unless I am missing something your screen shots show the battery at 89% with 31 minutes screen on time. 11% drain doesn't seem bad at all.

 

[Ironarm]

Unless I am missing something your screen shots show the battery at 89% with 31 minutes screen on time. 11% drain doesn't seem bad at all.

The screens were taken before I wrote my post. The post took another 20-25 minutes to write and after that, the battery drained another ~8-9% after I finished it. During that time, I had the phone on doing absolutely nothing. I put sleep on a 30 minute interval to test the drain while on.

 

[N4Newbie]

...
During that time, I had the phone on doing absolutely nothing. I put sleep on a 30 minute interval to test the drain while on.

The above is a totally erroneous statement. If the phone was on for 30 minutes, it was very much "doing something" - on all smartphones and - back in the day - PDA's (personal digital assistants, PalmOS devices mostly), the screen uses more battery power than just about any other device sub-system. Even at 20% brightness level, a large screen such as the Nexus 4 has will consume a substantial amount of battery life in 30 minutes.

 

[Ironarm]

The above is a totally erroneous statement. If the phone was on for 30 minutes, it was very much "doing something" - on all smartphones and - back in the day - PDA's (personal digital assistants, PalmOS devices mostly), the screen uses more battery power than just about any other device sub-system. Even at 20% brightness level, a large screen such as the Nexus 4 has will consume a substantial amount of battery life in 30 minutes.

Yes, the phone is running programs during idle, I know that. I was referring to my actions with the phone, I did not touch it *at all* during that time when I was posting and it drained an additional 8 or 9%, I was pretty shocked.

 

[N4Newbie]

No, I am referring to the screen itself. It takes a huge amount of power to keep the screen alive.

 

[6tr6tr]

I'm on stock and if I leave the phone to idle, it loses between 0.7-1% per hour. So leaving it alone overnight for 8 hours, it would lose between 5-8%. In actual use, I get between 3hr45m and 4hr screen-on time.

 

[DeadpoolJunior]

Yeah from 100% to 89% in 39 minutes, with 31 of those minutes you having the screen on...that sounds about right to me. Also, Chrome seems to suck no the battery. Try a different browser maybe?

 

[Doooshty]

Yeah from 100% to 89% in 39 minutes, with 31 of those minutes you having the screen on...that sounds about right to me. Also, Chrome seems to suck no the battery. Try a different browser maybe?

Chrome sucks battery because it's constantly syncing with your desktop browser. Disable sync on it for an improvement.

 

[Hubertsng]

Chrome sucks battery because it's constantly syncing with your desktop browser. Disable sync on it for an improvement.

45 of chrome drained 32% and 16% overall battery.

Sent from my Nexus 4

 

[Ironarm]

Okay, I will disable Chrome sync. Thanks for the replies.

 

[sidamos]

AW: 20% drain in an hour? Really?

Mine drains 6.5% per hour with screen on at about 10% brightness and not interacting with the device. This is on Wi-Fi with stock kernel.

Under the same circumstances, the GNex GSM drains 8.5% per hour with darker screen.