Battery Life: coming from a blackberry, what to expect?

dictoresno

Well-known member
Sep 4, 2010
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now i know these things are battery hogs in general. ive set up my atrix and have been fumbling around with it. now all of my friends with their droids (rooted and new ROMS installed, verizon guys) swear their battery life is upwards of a day and a half. i was doing some simple browsing and installing an app over wifi and in under an hour, the battery life went from 100% fresh off the charger to 90%. i thought my blackberry was a battery hog at 3-4% discharge per hour under medium usage. is this really what i can expect out of this thing? now ive got mine rooted, and running SetCPU (my friends also swear it helps battery life) and ive also got the screen dimmed down pretty low. im used to on blackberry, being able to shut down all non essential apps in order to save on battery life. they tell me all i need to do is just "back out" repeatedly of an app to shut it down. am i missing something or if there another way i should be closing things out. dropping 10% an hour just seems a little steep.

im sure this is a newbie type of question, but im 7000 posts strong on crackberry.com, so bear with me as im still trying to learn the android OS in my "transitional phase". if 10% an hour under light load is what ive gotta look forward to, i might just stick with my BB.
 
all devices with touch screens consume more energy than blackberries with nontouch small displays. I had two BB Torch devices and ended up returning them and getting the Atrix cuz battery life on both torches was abysmal. both of them would discharge by 15% every hour if left idle! that was crazy... My Atrix usualy lasts me for good 19 hours with moderate use, that is with display being used for about 2 and a half hours. if I use it for more than 3 hours the battery drains significantly faster. So it all really depends on everyday usage scenario. It's been discussed here in many other posts and threads..... Some suggest cycling the battery a few times and claim that it improves its life. I didnt sycle my battery i just charge it typically when it hits like 30 or 20% and like I said I can go good 19 hours with it... I also purchased a spare battery and have it with me in the small etymotic bag along with the earphones, just to have a peice of mind... but I got to use it only like three of four times since march so far..... Again, touchscreen displays consume much more energy than nontouch ones..... your battery will get better in about two weeks and in a mean time you can get a spare one,]

Edit:
i'm not running any optimisation apps and keep my screen on auto. I also have GPS and Location aiding turned on all the time (its being used only when some apps activated like google maps) and I have my phone set to "performance battery mode" all the time..... Also I have no social apps or feeds updating on a background except gmail syncing and weather bug updating every 30 minutes...
 
I keep mine set at "Maximum Battery Saver", I only use my Live Wallpapers(like 3D Fireflies) when I'm showing my Atrix off, GPS is turned off, and the screen brightness is set to "Automatic".

I can get a full day on an overnight charge.

YMMV
 
The Atrix displays battery life at 10% increments. If you want a more accurate figure, you'll have to download one of the various battery apps.

There are several things that you can do to increase your battery life. Screen brightness, background notifications, GPS, wi-fi, etc., can be adjusted or turned off. Configure your device accordingly to strike the balance between performance and battery life that works for you.
 
The Atrix displays battery life at 10% increments. If you want a more accurate figure, you'll have to download one of the various battery apps.

There are several things that you can do to increase your battery life. Screen brightness, background notifications, GPS, wi-fi, etc., can be adjusted or turned off. Configure your device accordingly to strike the balance between performance and battery life that works for you.

with my BB i can leave wifi turned on all the time, with or without a signal, and it wont effect battery life that much. my friends tell me the droids are the opposite and to definitely turn it off when not in use.

i use MeterBerry for my BB which gives me a % per hour discharge rate and a pretty good idea of consumption overall. any battery apps like it for the atrix, paid or free?
 
gps doesnt affect the battery when not used dial *#*#4636#*#* then go to battery history tap "other usage" and selet "GPS usage" if you havent used it since the last time you unplugged or rebooted your phone it won't show you anything..... my phone shows 40% battery life right now and its been off charger for almost 18 hours and i have GPS always on... its the same priciple as in your blackberry, GPS is consuming energy only when accessed with certain apps like maps....
I'm on WIFI all the time either at work or at home otherwise my 2gb data plan wouldn't last me even for two weeks... all smartphones consume less battery power when on WIFI rather than data network cuz they dont have to constantly search for a steady signal

on a side note, what's the point of having a powerful high-end device and cut all available features to the minimum for the sake of battery life... just makes no sence... at least to me anyway.......
 
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40% on 18 hours? My battery seems to go down about 8% per hour and I am hardly even on it...
 
40% on 18 hours? My battery seems to go down about 8% per hour and I am hardly even on it...

the phone shows battery power by 10% decrements only unless you running a different ROM or some app that shows exact percentage.. the battery life issues have been discussed here many times before and i myself posted a few screenshots from my own phone, here is the thread http://forum.androidcentral.com/t-atrix/82468-wtf-battery-life-has-gotten-so-bad-5.html#post916836
as you can see on one of the picture it shows 2 hours 23 minutes of display time and this is actually an average use. if you want to go more than that like from 3 to 4 hours be prepeared to charge it soon or have a spare battery. but 3 hours of display time is already a lot....
if your battery goes down 10% per hour while the phone is idle than you probably have something else updating on a background... facebook? any other app idk.... it all depends on usage scenario...
you can get a spare battery for around $30 and have a piece of mind.... i browse internet a lot on my phone and occasionally play games. I dont use any social apps.
and last but not least, the battery on just about any phone takes time until it will adjust itself to hold charge for longer times. its also been discussed many times.
good luck

btw. you can call moto or AT&T and complain about bad battery life. they might be able to send you a free battery.... They did send me a free back cover a few weeks ago... (motorola i mean)
 
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Also, lots of apps do stuff in the background and thus have the potential to drain your battery, as well as affect overall performance.
 
Well I left it off the charger, at home idling with wifi on and connected. I want apps like my emails and facebook to get updates. Are there processes I should be manually killing in order to gain battery life?
 
Android version from 2.2 and up use different application management structure. if you used lets say a web browser or played a game and you minimized it it may show in the activated apps list but you will see that processor being used is actually 0% which means apps are being cached to the memory and once activated again will immediatly come up rather than starting all over again. but its not using any battery resources. there are some services such as motorola ones which are quietly running on a background but they consume very little amount of resources and you should not worry about them. some apps like weather and social feeds and some widgets may quitely update on the background as well so you want to make sure to set update time intervals or use nighttime saver mode... also dont install any task killers from the market they do more harm than help. you can search google about applicaion management of Android to get more info and understand how it works.
good luck!
 
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since i have my sim card in my blackberry still, i see that 77% of the battery use on my atrix is on the cell network standby since i need to have that on to use wifi. thats what was creating the most drain i think....having no service. cant i just have the cell radio off and still use wifi without having it drain? blackberrys allow the cell radio off, wifi on only.
 
when you turn on wifi you'll notice there are no up and down arrows under the H+ indicator. it means that data is not being used and wifi always takes priority while you still can recieve calls. However, if you wish to completely deactivate cellular network use airplane mode widget and then activate wifi. but you wont recieve any calls either.
 
when you turn on wifi you'll notice there are no up and down arrows under the H+ indicator. it means that data is not being used and wifi always takes priority while you still can recieve calls. However, if you wish to completely deactivate cellular network use airplane mode widget and then activate wifi. but you wont recieve any calls either.

ive only been using the phone on and off. now my sim card is in my blackberry. i want to turn off all cellular data on the atrix since thats eating my battery life up while im using it on wifi. ill put it into airplane mode. but i thought i cant use wifi during airplane mode.
 
ive only been using the phone on and off. now my sim card is in my blackberry. i want to turn off all cellular data on the atrix since thats eating my battery life up while im using it on wifi. ill put it into airplane mode. but i thought i cant use wifi during airplane mode.

well you can.....
 

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