Discuss Tips to Maximize Battery Life Here!

[dwhitman]

Is having GPS enabled really a big battery hog if you don't have an app open that's constantly polling for your location?

 

[akarol]

Definitely.

 

[slopokdave]

GMAIL push worked for me with Talk turned off. I just tested it a few times to be sure.

You mean when you remove it from running services the Gmail still works? or do you mean when you sign out of TALK?

I think what he said was pretty clear, no?

He signed out of Talk and GMAIL Push still works.

 

[hachsa]

Is having GPS enabled really a big battery hog if you don't have an app open that's constantly polling for your location?

yes, because there are some apps that you cant kill. For instance if you use google.com on your phone browser, it checks location. The HTC Sense Weather on your screen checks location. I moved from one are of a city to another and noticed the name change. Where I live in Jacksonville, Florida, it is 10 minutes away from Orange Park, 50 minutes away from St. Augustine, and 45 minutes away from Ponte Vedra.

So even if you dont have an app specifically for GPS open, its still looking for you... in better terms its like 3G, always looking for a signal.

 

[bballintom22]

I think what he said was pretty clear, no?

He signed out of Talk and GMAIL Push still works.

Okay, thanks for that clarification, but in my post I meant REMOVING it from Running Services and GMAIL wasn't pushing emails to me

 

[tobor]

Since these threads have been merged its sort of lost the focus. However, I posted yesterday that I would attempt the hard-reset to see if it had the reported positive impact on my battery life (mine was draining down to around 50% with minimal usage by noon each day.

I ended up doing 3 hard-resets on the phone last night. The reason for the multiple resets was that after the first one, the Google Navigation program disappeared. Sprint tech support was unhelpful. I finally found a vague reference to the problem on a google developers forum--basically I had to do some power-cycling and the app automagically came back.

BACK TO THE BATTERY LIFE REPORT: I've had the phone on for about 4 hours now and had *moderate* usage (web surfing, playing/installing apps) and I'm only down to 85%. This is remarkably better than I've had previously. Based on my (limited) experience, I'd say that doing a hard-reset probably does do something that increases the battery life (or at least how the phone reads the health of the battery). Based on my more extensive experience with other electronic devices, it is ALWAYS a good idea to hard-cycle stuff when flashing new firmware--both before the flash and after.

I'll try and post another update this evening. If I make it home from work with a battery that has above 20% juice then the experiment was a success.

 

[g_b_h]

This is totally anecdotal, just from today. Pulled the phone off the charger this morning at 100%. Dropped to 92% within 30 minutes (doing nothing, just getting ready to leave the house for work). Got in the car, plugged in the phone. Up to 97% by the time i get to work (about 20 minutes). Used the phone a bit at work (internet, texting). Four hours at work, no charging, the phone is currently sitting at 91%.

Wondering if the top off trickle charge in the car helps at all?

 

[Carioca_FL]

At this point, I'll try anything. I'm doing the hard reset right now and will try and remember to report back tomorrow. Thank god for AppBrain--it should simplify the re-install of all my Apps.

It's times like this that I miss webOS: all my apps, contacts, calendars, memos are saved, even when swapping phones.

I should also add that (and I'm sure most here have noticed) that while the phone seems to drain battery quite quickly at the beginning, towards the end it really holds a charge. I noticed last night it was still holding strong at the 30% mark, with the music player on and heavy browsing (wifi on, GPS on).

 

[tobor]

It's times like this that I miss webOS: all my apps, contacts, calendars, memos are saved, even when swapping phones.

I should also add that (and I'm sure most here have noticed) that while the phone seems to drain battery quite quickly at the beginning, towards the end it really holds a charge. I noticed last night it was still holding strong at the 30% mark, with the music player on and heavy browsing (wifi on, GPS on).

I'm unsure whether the battery is holding a charge better at the low-end, or if the application polling the battery is flawed.

AppBrain isn't perfect, but boy it sure saves some time if you have to re-install all your apps. Just be sure to save all your apps to a list (via the web)--if you use the default "apps on my phone" then the stuff you lost will disappear from AppBrain as well.

As of 2 p.m. my battery is down to 74%. I've done a little browsing since lunch. So far, much better than the past few days.

 

[Carioca_FL]

PS.
Also remove it from Running Applications in your Evo Phone Settings.

Can you clarify where this setting is? I checked under the menu of the phone app, but there's nothing similar to what you're mentioning.

 

[S4Rs]

It seems like the majority of these tips cripple the android experience. What is the point of owning one of these phones if it is not gonna be connected to your social networks, know where you are to better help you, and be a "smart" phone.

I have spent the last three days running my phone all day doing specific things. I cant have my phone at my desk so I only pick it up during bathroom breaks and at lunch which i do light browsing and listened to music for 20 minutes.

Day one. No settings touched. Nothing special happening. After my 9 hour work day, Wifi and bluetooth on but not in use, I was at 18 percent battery.

Day two, I used ATK to kill stuff frequently, and left wifi and bt off. I was at 30% battery at the end of the day. (improvements were from wifi being off).

Day three. 60%. Wifi and bluetooth were on all day, but not in use. Wifi sleep policy was changed to 15 minutes, as well as notify about open wifi networks (i feel like that will use the battery by constantly looking for open networks even though your driving somewhere or not looking for it, Always on data was turned off, and brightness was set to 15 percent. (Brightness Profiles app installed, to make an easy change in sunlight). Also my data sync for FB and Twitter were set to 2 hours, before they were at 4 hours. This is what I want. I have never have to turn wifi or bluetooth on or off, just like on a pre, or BB, or iphone. I still get the features of a "Smart" phone with battery to spare.

I am using HTC's battery meter app, and Google Voice Locations too, which would tend to use more battery than most users would. I am gonna test again with the wifi sleep policy set to never tomorrow as i think the look for open networks is the culprit of wifi eating my battery. But I just dont want to deal with turning it on and off, just like Bluetooth, cause thats what I am used to.

also Carioca_FL: I too have noticed that the last 30 percent of my battery does seem to hold up well. My Bro and parents kept playing with my phone for about 2 hours last night and 25% and didn't really dent the life.

 

[Eguy]

love it. and you?

i'm still trying to figure out all its little tricks and idiosyncrasies but it's a keeper.

I still like a lot of the features of webOS but I love the EVO's hardware. Time for me to root to get rid of those damn ads.

 

[bruddy1973]

I get terrible signal indoors at work and normally I have to turn the airplane mode on because it's constantly trying to get a signal. I went into wirless & networks>mobile network settings and turned data roaming off and changed roaming to sprint only and my battery is night and day.

 

[Gekko]

not sure if it helps battery life at all but i went into the "Sprint Zone" App and unchecked all updates and moved the frequency from daily to monthly.

i imagine this is like the news and stocks service but Sprint promotional news updates. no thanks.

every little bit helps!

thoughts?

 

[tobor]

Regarding the hard-reset experiment to improve battery life: it worked. I'm 100% convinced it significantly improved my battery usage. I normally get home and the battery is below 20% with MINIMAL usage (checking email for maybe 10 minutes daily--the rest of the time all radios were OFF).

After doing the hard-reset trick, I got home (late) with 37% battery life. What is more significant is I spent well over an hour really giving the phone a workout before I got home--watching 2 10+ minute YouTube videos, IM'ing, surfing, shooting video, and installing apps. I also used the navigation feature multiple times as well.

So if you are having really poor battery performance I do recommend you perform the hard-reset (after saving your app list in AppBrain). Thanks to the OP who posted this tip.

 

[Bearcatrp]

Just got my EVO yesterday. Been reading the horror stories about battery life before I bought it. So I shut down pretty much everything and manually synced periodically throughout the day. Unplugged at 5am, it's 940pm and I have around 40 percent battery life. Also got rid of the live wallpaper. I prefer to turn things on when needed. Yeah, the eye candy is nice but if you don't need stuff running shut if off. I do think if you have a weak signal, the battery will suffer as it's searching. It's an awesome phone (so far). Just need a good belt case. This sucker is the biggest cell phone I have ever owned. BTW, I switched from a blackberry. Had enough of their lame OS and lack of innovation creating touch phones.

 

[Gekko]

i'll bet on user error before i bet on a bad batch of batteries.

 

[chrisho]

so i followed through majority of all the tips. esp from this link 20-tips to improve htc evo 4g unplugged since basically 9ish... did some hard texting, facebook,twitter and left with 27% still. thats almost 11hrs. i'm sorry, this is with the seidio 1750mah extended battery.

 

[richcracker#AC]

Regarding the hard-reset experiment to improve battery life: it worked. I'm 100% convinced it significantly improved my battery usage. I normally get home and the battery is below 20% with MINIMAL usage (checking email for maybe 10 minutes daily--the rest of the time all radios were OFF).

After doing the hard-reset trick, I got home (late) with 37% battery life. What is more significant is I spent well over an hour really giving the phone a workout before I got home--watching 2 10+ minute YouTube videos, IM'ing, surfing, shooting video, and installing apps. I also used the navigation feature multiple times as well.

So if you are having really poor battery performance I do recommend you perform the hard-reset (after saving your app list in AppBrain). Thanks to the OP who posted this tip.

you're welcome.

the only reason i even tried the hard reset is because i just happened to remember that my old htc touch pro was suffering from the same problem a few years ago and after a hard reset it dramatically improved. wondering if this is a htc design flaw??

my uncle is a test engineer for sprint in kc...i told him about my findings and he said he'd ask around.

edit: btw, i don't think they should have merged my original thread because this is a VERY specific fix and not software "tweaks". i'm afraid it will get lost in the shuffle...oh well, at least i know the answer.

 

[MDteX]

I had better battery life yesterday after some tuning and turning off 4G and GPS while at work.

I did observe as someone else did, that the last 25-30% seem to last a long time. I was at about 30% last night and used it constantly for about 3 hours and still had about 20% when I plugged it on for the night. I think we just get scared when it gets low and turns orange but it lasted longer than I expected.