Battery Life/Meter Accuracy

[mattw]

I am new to the Android world after using a Pre for 18 months. With the Shift I am seeing a large initial drop in the reported percentage of battery left. Without turning on the display I can notice a 5-10% drop from a full charge in 15 minutes. However, when I've left the phone on overnight I've seen it only drop 15% through the entire night so I'm not convinced there is any real problem with the phone or an errant app. With my pre I'm used to holding at 100% for a while then starting a steady march down.

So, my question is, does my shift have a problem or is the reported battery percentage prone to a fast initial drop? BTW I'm using the HTC battery widget but it is just reporting the same values as are visible is spare parts so I assume these values are not dependant on the widget.

Thanks

 

[Dave Blake]

The way I understand it is that the shift charges to 100% then stops charging if you leave it plunged in forever it will start charging again but not till the battery has dropped some. That's why you see the quick drop then it levels off. You can get a backup charger that will charge to 100% and hold it there but then you have to swap the battery out to get that extra 10 to 15%

 

[mattw]

Thanks, makes me feel better about the battery life. The fast drop at the beginning was making me concerned something was not right. I've never had a phone which behaved this way.

That corresponds with what I observed while charging. I would watch it charge (nothing better to do at work) and it would go over 4200mv then hit 100%. Then the voltage would slowly drop to the low 4100mv range. Also, I did not notice the drop the couple of times I pulled it off the charger right after the light went green or when I ran out of time and pulled it at 98 or 99%.

Possibly, as an alternative to a second battery I could just pull the charger for a few minutes, let it drop then plug it back in to force the charger to top off the battery. I'll try that and see how it works. That may be the plan when I'm headed out for a long day and power will be hard to come by.

 

[jscher2000]

FWIW, I only notice a quick drop first thing in the AM off charger when I left the 4G on. No similar quick drop on 3G.

 

[davecttt]

I have a battery widget, hard to tell exactly what is going on looking at the little battery in the corner.

I too noticed an immediate drop in the minutes following unplugging the charger. Usually drops 8-10 percent.

 

[star444]

Thanks, makes me feel better about the battery life. The fast drop at the beginning was making me concerned something was not right. I've never had a phone which behaved this way.

That corresponds with what I observed while charging. I would watch it charge (nothing better to do at work) and it would go over 4200mv then hit 100%. Then the voltage would slowly drop to the low 4100mv range. Also, I did not notice the drop the couple of times I pulled it off the charger right after the light went green or when I ran out of time and pulled it at 98 or 99%.

Possibly, as an alternative to a second battery I could just pull the charger for a few minutes, let it drop then plug it back in to force the charger to top off the battery. I'll try that and see how it works. That may be the plan when I'm headed out for a long day and power will be hard to come by.

That is exactly what is recommended. Topping it off ensure you start with a full charge. Someone linked to a really good article about this (I can't remember where). But it said to protect the battery, it stops charging when it hits 100%, and does not start charging again for awhile. Depending on where it was in that cycle determines how far that initial drop appears to be.

 

[fifedogg]

From what I understand and correct me if I'm wrong but once the phone is done charging it stops and starts running the phone off battery again. Plus being that the phone is pluged in it actually has a small current draw on the battery from the charger itself because voltage is still there.

While I drive to work I use my car charger to get her back up to 100% and when I unplug it wait till it drops to 98% and plug her in again. This I dont do every day but when I do it will add quite a bit of extra time to my phones battery life.