Droid Turbo: Battery Life

[jkcm725]

My battery life had phone for 4 months now and still loving it. Had motor x 1 gen and lucky if I get 7 hours out of it.



Sent from my Droid Turbo

 

[jmbrad]

Brand new smart phone user as of 4/15!

Installed Gsam battery monitor. Will report once I have data.

 

[gadsden]

I've had the Turbo for almost two weeks. I bought the Turbo for myself and an iPhone 6 for my wife on the same day. I have been noticing my battery drains really fast compared to her iPhone. At first, I thought it was just how I'm using it compared to her, but now I don't think so. She uses Facebook and Instagram, I don't have either. So, I started lowering my screen brightness to subzero with Lux, still no help. Finally, I disabled evertthing I'm not using, and I even turned off background data, and even turned sync off on my google accounts. My phone literally does just about nothing now unless I tell it to. Idle drain is almost nothing, it drained about 5% while I slept for 7 hours, and I did leave wifi on all night just to test it. But as soon as I turn on the screen, the battery just drops, even with the brightness at a ridiculously low level. She's sitting there on her iPhone, Facebooking, texting, writing notes and her phone has 99% after 2 hours standby and 40 min usage. I've dropped like 7% in an hour of light use from a few photos and texts. Honestly, I am leaning strongly towards returning the Turbo and actually getting an iPhone 6. I can't believe I'm saying it, but it's true. The only things keeping me hanging on are that I have a lot of apps for Android, I am extremely comfortable with setting things up on an Android phone, I love the control I get with things like Tasker and I know the Turbo will do everything I need it to. iPhones are, well..... iPhones! I really despise iPhones lack of control even after jailbreaking. But my main concern is that I have a phone that works when I need it to. The rest is just learning how to make the best with the limitations. I bought the Turbo because it's supposed to have an awesome battery, and so far I feel like the battery IS the limitation. I was thinking about just taking it back and holding out for the LG G4, but I am starting to think I either have a dud or Android is just too power hungry.

 

[MA2GA28]

You are within your 14 day window, exchange your lemon device and get a new replacement. Your battery is obviously not working properly.

 

[pdaniel219]

Yeah, definitely take it back and get a replacement. I consistently get 1 hour of screen on time for every 20% of my battery with heavy use. Way more than that if I don't have time to play with my phone. My record is 40 hours for a full charge. And I leave everything on. WiFi, location, Bluetooth, data, and my sync is on. You should be seeing way better battery life than you are right now.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[gadsden]

Yeah, I'm within my 14 day, but only have a couple days left. That's why I'm stressed trying to decide what to do. I came from a Razr Maxx HD and loved that phone. In fact it was my favorite phone I've ever had. The features of the Turbo easily beat everything I loved about the Razr Maxx HD.

I have been monitoring my phone and my wife's phone today. I noticed that while she is at 7 hours of standby, she logged about 2 hours 40 minutes of "usage" and is at 82%. I'm not sure if usage is screen on time or if it includes background activity when the phone is off. I started the day at 95%. After 9 hours standby and 2 hours 20 minutes screen on time, I am at 58%. So, with everything turned off today, it's definitely better than it's been the past 10 days, but I uninstalled and disabled all my apps to get that. So I would clearly be able to make it through a FULL day without a charger and get the 5 hours screen on time everyone seems to get, I just feel like I should get a little more than that with everything disabled.

I actually have to take the phone in anyway because it has a problem with the lens of the camera. I was waiting to swap it in case I decided I didn't want the phone at all. I'll go in tonight and have them swap it out and see if I get better results. I now regret not doing it sooner because it will take several days for the battery to break in now and then I will be past my 14 day return period. Oh well, like I said, I am so comfortable with Android, I will probably be better off. I'll report back and let you guys know how it goes. Maybe I'll take the opportunity to upgrade from 32GB to the 64GB.

Edit to add: I think I really have iPhone envy because we have a 2 month old baby and my wife's iPhone captures every photo so well. My Turbo camera is so slow that I either miss the smile or the moment altogether, or the photo is just a blur. Like I said, I do have a hardware problem with my lens, so maybe it's contributing to the already sluggish camera. I'm hoping the camera will be made faster with Lollipop, but I'm not holding my breath in case it turns out to be Lollipoop.

 

[KPMcClave]

Yeah, I'm within my 14 day, but only have a couple days left. That's why I'm stressed trying to decide what to do. I came from a Razr Maxx HD and loved that phone. In fact it was my favorite phone I've ever had. The features of the Turbo easily beat everything I loved about the Razr Maxx HD.

I have been monitoring my phone and my wife's phone today. I noticed that while she is at 7 hours of standby, she logged about 2 hours 40 minutes of "usage" and is at 82%. I'm not sure if usage is screen on time or if it includes background activity when the phone is off. I started the day at 95%. After 9 hours standby and 2 hours 20 minutes screen on time, I am at 58%. So, with everything turned off today, it's definitely better than it's been the past 10 days, but I uninstalled and disabled all my apps to get that. So I would clearly be able to make it through a FULL day without a charger and get the 5 hours screen on time everyone seems to get, I just feel like I should get a little more than that with everything disabled.

I actually have to take the phone in anyway because it has a problem with the lens of the camera. I was waiting to swap it in case I decided I didn't want the phone at all. I'll go in tonight and have them swap it out and see if I get better results. I now regret not doing it sooner because it will take several days for the battery to break in now and then I will be past my 14 day return period. Oh well, like I said, I am so comfortable with Android, I will probably be better off. I'll report back and let you guys know how it goes. Maybe I'll take the opportunity to upgrade from 32GB to the 64GB.

Edit to add: I think I really have iPhone envy because we have a 2 month old baby and my wife's iPhone captures every photo so well. My Turbo camera is so slow that I either miss the smile or the moment altogether, or the photo is just a blur. Like I said, I do have a hardware problem with my lens, so maybe it's contributing to the already sluggish camera. I'm hoping the camera will be made faster with Lollipop, but I'm not holding my breath in case it turns out to be Lollipoop.

It's been my experience that at least 5 hours of screen time is at least the norm for my Turbo, as well. I do disable some things I don't use, but I never feel I'm crippling my phone to squeeze out as much battery life as I can. Nor should you. Not with the Turbo anyway. If I had to bet, I'd say you have some sort of conflict going on (not a hardware issue). Either way, swapping out the phone will help you figure that out.

In my experiences you aren't likely to get an upgrade of your camera with a swap, though. Those of us who take certain types of pics have suffered the issues you describe. In ideal circumstances the Turbo takes excellent shots, but in lower (and I intentionally don't say low) light with even a bit of motion, it's less than a crapshoot. I share your hope that software can fix the issues, but it's been almost 7 monbths since release of the phone at this point. So, even if it does, the camera has been crippled in certain conditions for way too long.

Good luck! It's a great phone.

 

[gadsden]

I went into Verizon yesterday to talk with the store manager. They made me a deal so I can swap phones.....IF I decide to. I have until tomorrow to decide.

With the "crippled" settings yesterday, I had good results. I went 26 hours, with 4 hours of screen on time, and 1 hour 20 min of calls. At the end of that 26 hours, I still had 14% left. So, it seems it was something else draining the battery, not probably a faulty battery. I have a lot of power saving options that will help "uncripple" the phone with Tasker profiles, I just have to implement them. So, all in all, I think it's a lot better than I thought. However, looking at my wife's iPhone, she has 23 hours of standby with 5 hours of usage, and she's still got 47% left. iOS doesn't break down the usage like Android does, though. It could be that it seems like she used her phone as much as I did and had double the battery life, or maybe it's just misleading. She did literally type a whole several page document yesterday, it took awhile. That's on top of facebook time. I also spent about 45 minutes myself just proof reading for her. So I don't know how she could have squeezed 5 hours of screen time on 50% of the battery, it probably can't have really been 5 hours of screen time.

I did look at the Galaxy Note 4 and the Xperia Z3V yesterday. The Note 4 took really nice photos and has great battery life. Root has been acheived, so it's flexible with software and it isn't as big as I thought. I kind of liked it. Not sure about the whole stylus thing, but the rest of it seemed nice. I am considering it, but not sure I'm going to switch at all. With the battery issue partly solved with my phone, the only other issue is the camera. I am also a little more than a hobbyist DSLR photographer, so I know how to use a camera to it's fullest. That also means I know what's lacking in a camera. The turbo's lack of exposure adjustment and poor use of ISO is the problem. The iPhone has nailed it on those features, with the Note 4 as the runner up. However, with my skills, I am able to get what I think is a better image than the iPhone in most scenarios....except lower light with moving targets. Colors are a little odd in the Turbo's photos, but I can fix that if I need to in Photoshop. So, basically this has now become a camera issue more than a batery issue for me. I have fallen in love with the attentive display and shake for camera. Those two features alone are almost worth it to me. So, I have some thinking to do today, I'll let y'all know what I do.

 

[MA2GA28]

I may be wrong, but I believe your 14 day window resets with a return, especially if you have a defective device.

Also, Tasker and other 'efficiency' apps often cause more harm than they are worth. The OS is optimized to work properly. All those apps do is drain battery by running superfluous automated tasks.

 

[like2angle]

Hello all,
I just got my Turbo 2 weeks ago so I hope you dont mind me jumping to this discussion late.

I have only 2 bars of LTE at my house and sometimes 1x. I also keep the GPS and Bluetooth on all the time. Under heavy use I average about 4% of battery per hour and on standby about 1% per hour. I have never made it through 2 whole days without charging but have always made more than 1 day. My car charger is very lonely and I am very pleased.

Now that i have mt device "broken in" I only charge it to about 90% and charge it when it gets down no lower than 20% to extend the life of the battery.

 

[gadsden]

I left everything turned off on my phone yesterday. No google sync, no email polling, background data disabled....pretty much everything off and disabled. I got fantastic battery life with 16.5 hours on battery, 5.75 hours screen on, 1 hour voice calls and a couple hours of streaming audio and video on 4g and wifi. I'd say that's great results, but disappointing when I know all my apps and features are off. Still, I think it's pretty good. As a photography enthusiast, the camera is still really bugging me, though. I am seriously thinking about moving to the Note 4 or possibly waiting for to see if the LG G4 lives up to its expectations. I have completely talked myself out of iPhone. I still LOVE Motorola and really don't want to dump this phone, but I don't know yet. I'll be returning it to Verizon today no matter what, and I'll see if I decide to pick up a Note 4, swap for another Turbo or just go back to my Razr Maxx HD and wait to see how the G4 turns out. I'll update later.

Yeah, you could be right about the Tasker profiles. I have always used my own screen dimmer settings, but now have started using Lux. I also have profiles that toggle background data periodically throughout the day. But you're right, it may be more trouble that it's worth. I still have some profiles I am keeping, but I don't want to have to rely on them for battery.

 

[tlacour]

It's been my experience that whenever I really start thinking about my battery, my battery life starts sucking more and more. The more steps I take to conserve and tweaks to trick my phone in to lasting longer, the more I am forcing the phone to not function as designed.

True, you may have a defective battery, but I would bet you would get more use out of your phone if you just use it as designed and ignore your battery as much as possible.

Remove any and all apps that "tweak" your phone. Ones that turn on and off functions in the background, delete "junk" files automatically, auto adjust stuff, and for sure any battery monitoring apps and widgets. These tend to have your phone running in circles to get back to a state of balance.

Turn on the functions that you use, set the phone up so it meets your needs assuming you have plenty of battery reserves, set the screen brightness to a comfortable level, ignore claims of multi day battery life by others, charge your phone when it's convenient ( I charge at night as I sleep), eat more vegetables, exercise more, get more sleep, call your loved ones more, watch less TV, don't eat food handed to you thru a window, etc, etc,

Life is better when you ignore your battery.

 

[tlacour]

BTW, my wife has a Note4. She loves it. Way better camera, big giant beautiful screen, but... No where near as good battery life and I consistently have much stronger signal/better reception. Plus my Turbo feels snappier. Hard to quantify, but her note4 feels sluggish compared to my turbo.

 

[TurboHope]

http://www.phonearena.com/news/Battery-issues-affecting-your-Motorola-DROID-Turbo_id69375

If anyone is having these battery issues, check this out, it helped my friend.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[bpe4]

I went into Verizon yesterday to talk with the store manager. They made me a deal so I can swap phones.....IF I decide to. I have until tomorrow to decide.

With the "crippled" settings yesterday, I had good results. I went 26 hours, with 4 hours of screen on time, and 1 hour 20 min of calls. At the end of that 26 hours, I still had 14% left. So, it seems it was something else draining the battery, not probably a faulty battery. I have a lot of power saving options that will help "uncripple" the phone with Tasker profiles, I just have to implement them. So, all in all, I think it's a lot better than I thought. However, looking at my wife's iPhone, she has 23 hours of standby with 5 hours of usage, and she's still got 47% left. iOS doesn't break down the usage like Android does, though. It could be that it seems like she used her phone as much as I did and had double the battery life, or maybe it's just misleading. She did literally type a whole several page document yesterday, it took awhile. That's on top of facebook time. I also spent about 45 minutes myself just proof reading for her. So I don't know how she could have squeezed 5 hours of screen time on 50% of the battery, it probably can't have really been 5 hours of screen time.

I did look at the Galaxy Note 4 and the Xperia Z3V yesterday. The Note 4 took really nice photos and has great battery life. Root has been acheived, so it's flexible with software and it isn't as big as I thought. I kind of liked it. Not sure about the whole stylus thing, but the rest of it seemed nice. I am considering it, but not sure I'm going to switch at all. With the battery issue partly solved with my phone, the only other issue is the camera. I am also a little more than a hobbyist DSLR photographer, so I know how to use a camera to it's fullest. That also means I know what's lacking in a camera. The turbo's lack of exposure adjustment and poor use of ISO is the problem. The iPhone has nailed it on those features, with the Note 4 as the runner up. However, with my skills, I am able to get what I think is a better image than the iPhone in most scenarios....except lower light with moving targets. Colors are a little odd in the Turbo's photos, but I can fix that if I need to in Photoshop. So, basically this has now become a camera issue more than a batery issue for me. I have fallen in love with the attentive display and shake for camera. Those two features alone are almost worth it to me. So, I have some thinking to do today, I'll let y'all know what I do.

Gadsden,
If they are giving you a choice from their Android stock, I would personally choose the Z3v. I have a good friend who has one, and we've compared our usage and phone habits, and his phone always has better life and 'standby' drain than my Turbo. AND, the camera on the Z3v is amazing and has ZERO issues. Sony is well known for having great cameras. If you want to stick with Android, that would be the way to go if battery life is important to you. My wife also uses an iphone 6, and I witness the same things as you see with your wife's phone. Amazing battery life for such a small battery (1800 mah??) It's insane how Apple does it, or it simply points to how inefficient Android and it's dozens of hardware manufacturers are. Like you've seen, my wife can take it off a full charge, can sit there and iMessage, browse, and facebook for a few hours, and still be at 95-96%. If she puts it away, she can pick up the phone 3-4 hours later, and it's at EXACTLY the same battery level. And this is without having to cripple any data syncing of apps.

Although the Turbo's battery is very good... it sort of just bothers me that it isn't MUCH better than other flagships with smaller batteries like the Note4, Nexus6, LG3, etc... (I won't mention the tiny battery phones like the S6 and S6 edge, their battery woes are known). I mean seriously, we have a 3800mah battery!!! We shouldn't have to cripple everything to get slow standby drain, and 5-6 hours SoT. For one thing, have the Apple radios been reverse engineered?? How the heck can they constantly pull mail, text, etc... and drain soooo slowly when in standby? Why do Android radios suck so much power at standby? Oh well, someday Google and their mfg partners will figure it out.

 

[Sean Cogan]

I cripple nothing on my Turbo and consistently get between 6-7 hours SOT and 20-24 hours overall. I have Bluetooth and WiFi on all the time, which automatically connects in car and at home. I have location set to high accuracy, so it comes on automatically when I use maps or another location-based service or app. My screen is set to 35% brightness. I do a lot of email & texting (60-70 on a typical day, Corporate Exchange on 'push'), average an hour of phone calls and do a lot of browsing. No Facebook, though. Also, I use no battery management apps such as Tasker, which I agree may do more harm than good.

FWIW, I think you have a problem with your battery or settings. Possibly an app that is not closing properly and continuing to run in the background with frequent updates, i.e. WeatherBug, etc.

 

[gadsden]

Thanks for all the replies, folks. Sorry it took me so long to get back with an update. I ended up going in and swapping for a Note 4. At first, the huge size seemed like a negative; but I have to say, after a few days it doesn't seem so huge. Actually, it seems like a really nice size. Battery wise, I'm pushing it every day and monitoring my stats. I'm getting on average 4.5-5 hours SOT for an entire day. So, not quite as good as I got my last few days with the Turbo, but pretty darn close. When you figure that you can get an OEM spare battery and charger for $40, it makes it totally worth it. I can charge a battery and swap batteries instead of ever having to plug in my phone. I also love having an SD card slot because I have a DSLR that I can put a backup micro SD card in and I can take photos directly from my camera and send them with my phone if I am not near a computer. With the Turbo, I would have needed a USB on the go cable. I own a manufacturing business, so I tend to take a lot of photos of technical items that I need to send to clients. I have also already made good use of the S-Pen by using it to note some photos for a client. Being able to draw on the screen with a stylus instead of my finger was really nice.

The camera is also a lot faster. I've had more success shooting my little one since I got the Note. There are situations where I think the Turbo shot better photos, but every camera has its strengths and weaknesses. In this case, I think the former outweighs the latter.

Some things I will really miss are the shake to open camera, Moto Display and the durability of Motorola products. The Note is actually proven to be quite durable, but it lacks water resistance, which was a major selling point for me. Moto Display has alternatives. I found an app called DynamicNotifications that is pretty close to Moto Display, but it is quite glitchy. Shake to camera can be simulated in other ways, like Tasker, but I think the camera will open a lot when it's not supposed to. The final thing I won't have is root, at least not for awhile. Although, there seems to be a lot of hope that root might happen soon due to some very recent, positive developments. In fact, temp root was achieved the day I got it, which was part of the reason I got it.

There are a few other things I like, such as multi window support and one handed settings. I think these things can also be achieved with Xposed, but since I have these things with stock, it means I don't have to worry so much about root. I just have to deal with Helium instead of Titanium until root happens.

Overall, I will really miss Motorola and the Turbo. I think I might have found a new love in Samsung. Unfortunately, it seems the Note 5 will not have a removable battery or sd card slot. So, in a couple years, I may find a new Motorola to come back to. Until then, so long fellow Motorola users!

 

[KPMcClave]

Some things I will really miss are the shake to open camera, Moto Display and the durability of Motorola products. The Note is actually proven to be quite durable, but it lacks water resistance, which was a major selling point for me. Moto Display has alternatives. I found an app called DynamicNotifications that is pretty close to Moto Display, but it is quite glitchy.

I'm glad you found something that meets your needs and lessens the sacrifices we all have to make, on some level, when we choose our phones.

One thought to pass along. I used DynamicNotifications back when it first came out and I had my Razr Maxx HD (that handset was never updated to include Moto Display but that feature existed and I wanted it). I found it to be a resource hog (battery in particular). I'm sure it's undergone many updates since then, and we're two generations of phones past my experience, but just a heads up.

ACDisplay is another 3rd party app that does similar things, and is slightly more highly rated in the Play Store. I haven't ever used it myself (havn't had to with a Droid Maxx and Turbo), but something you may want to compare and contrast.

Finally, isn't there some sort of attempt to replicate Moto Display built in to Lollipop (if you're on that yet)? I understand it pales by comparison, but if I left Moto I'd try the built in stuff first.

Enjoy the new phone.

 

[TurboHope]

So why does my turbo shut down when there is 10% battery left, I assume it was to protect the battery from getting down to zero and being dead for good. Starting yesterday it now allows the battery to drain past the 10%????Why would this switch? The only thing that has changed is I turned developer options on. Thanks

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[doogald]

So why does my turbo shut down when there is 10% battery left, I assume it was to protect the battery from getting down to zero and being dead for good. Starting yesterday it now allows the battery to drain past the 10%????Why would this switch? The only thing that has changed is I turned developer options on. Thanks

The battery meter wasn't calibrated right before. Now it is. It could have been developer options, but it might just have been real usage re calibrated it.

It shouldn't shut down at 10%.