Faulty Battery?

[scost23]

I have been noticing my battery life is not very good. Not very good at all. I googled "Droid X Battery" and 90% of results were praising the battery of the new Droid X. So, in order to test my battery I unplugged my phone right before I went to bed (battery at 100%) and made sure to kill every running application. I woke up and my phone was at 0% and I could not even turn it on without plugging it in. Any ideas? or does anyone else have this issue?

Thanks in advance,

Scott

 

[terpitude71]

flip through this thread for some helpful tips

 

[scost23]

Ok thanks, but those are all issues that go along with usage. My phone was completely idle for 8 hours starting at a full charge and died. My question is if there are faulty batteries out there and if anyone has gotten their batteries replaced by Verizon.

 

[terpitude71]

its not "sitting idle" if you have the social networking enabled, and no smart mode on. without tweaking the settings, the phone is set up to constantly pull 3g data which runs your battery down. also, were wifi and bluetooth both toggled on (even if they werent connected to anything)? i know you stated that you killed every app before letting it sit, but many apps on the phone will auto restart, even if killed.

 

[rion_j]

^^ so, is there an actual setting to disable 3G data? or are you referring to the battery modes?

 

[terpitude71]

^^ so, is there an actual setting to disable 3G data? or are you referring to the battery modes?

the battery modes.

 

[rion_j]

cool, thank you....which setting are u using? and how is your battery life? i'm getting thru the day for the most part on smart mode.

 

[scost23]

I understand. I've been using smartphones for over 4 years now so I know the ins and outs of most devices like this although this is my first android phone. I've never had to turn off GPS, wifi, or bluetooth for the reason of saving battery life. Either its a flaw in the way the device is made or I have a faulty battery. I'm hoping its the latter because a battery can be replaced. If it is how the phone is set up and cannot hold a charge with these options on I will be leaving the droid very quickly. It will be very annoying to have to turn on and off bluetooth gps wifi etc every time i need to use it. I've never had issues like this with blackberries I've previously had. It's a smartphone, I should be able to use its features without having to tediously and periodically crippling it.

 

[terpitude71]

cool, thank you....which setting are u using? and how is your battery life? i'm getting thru the day for the most part on smart mode.

i leave my phone in performance mode; key is, i have my social networking set to only update on wifi, which ive found to be the biggest battery drainer. with regular use, i can usually get through about 14-15 hours before it gets down to 15%

I understand. I've been using smartphones for over 4 years now so I know the ins and outs of most devices like this although this is my first android phone. I've never had to turn off GPS, wifi, or bluetooth for the reason of saving battery life. Either its a flaw in the way the device is made or I have a faulty battery. I'm hoping its the latter because a battery can be replaced. If it is how the phone is set up and cannot hold a charge with these options on I will be leaving the droid very quickly. It will be very annoying to have to turn on and off bluetooth gps wifi etc every time i need to use it. I've never had issues like this with blackberries I've previously had. It's a smartphone, I should be able to use its features without having to tediously and periodically crippling it.

i too could leave my wireless stuff on all the time with my old BB, because they didnt have 3g, which will drain battery super quick if in constant use. a lot of android phones have apps that pull data on a regular basis, or check location on a regular basis, and unfortunately, these features to not lend themselves to great battery life. this is why there are tweaks you can use to customize how you use your device. it may be a little annoying to have to toggle gps/wifi/bluetooth, but this is why android comes with toggle widgets you can stick on one of your homescreens and turn on/off these features with one touch. android certainly has a learning curve to it, and it takes time to understand how to maximize your phones efficiency. some people dont dig that about android, and thats ok. but i would give it a shot before deciding to go back to BB

 

[scost23]

My old Blackberry pearl and curves were not 3G but my Storm2 was 3G and so was my Tour that I just replaced with the Droid X. And I am only running 2 widgets, weather and facebook. My weather app doesnt even use gps to update my location so I dont understand the issue. On my blackberry I had a weather app that would show the temperature on the homescreen that updated every 30 min. I'm still not grasping what is killing my battery with ZERO use. Everyone I see in the forums is saying that 95% of what is killing there battery is when the display was on. I said my phone was not in use when it died. You can imagine what my lbattery life is like if i actually decide to write a text message. Unnacceptable.

 

[terpitude71]

My old Blackberry pearl and curves were not 3G but my Storm2 was 3G and so was my Tour that I just replaced with the Droid X. And I am only running 2 widgets, weather and facebook. My weather app doesnt even use gps to update my location so I dont understand the issue. On my blackberry I had a weather app that would show the temperature on the homescreen that updated every 30 min. I'm still not grasping what is killing my battery with ZERO use. Everyone I see in the forums is saying that 95% of what is killing there battery is when the display was on. I said my phone was not in use when it died. You can imagine what my lbattery life is like if i actually decide to write a text message. Unnacceptable.

have you also checked the status menu to see what has been using your battery? that would be the first step to see what is going on. you can replace the battery if you think thats the problem, but i really think you just need to customize your usage settings. and if you want to keep everything on all of the time because you think you should be able to, thats fine, but the trade-off you have to accept for that is poor battery life

 

[RoRClubSave]

TEST 110 LoL

Full Charge before bed, take out the battery

In the morning put the battery back in

Did the battery stay up ?

 

[berny26]

I've had my phone on for 16 hours now and my battery is at 50% (though its probably close to 40% now). I keep the phone on power saver mode because i'm indoors most of the day so I don't need a high brightness setting. I have data sync running in the background but I shut off WiFi when I dont use it and I dont use GPS or Bluetooth. I keep 3 widgets running in the Weather Channel, which I set to only update one location instead of following me. I also use Twitter and Facebook and have them update every 2 hours. According to my Battery Use, about 50% of my battery has been used through voice calls totaling over 30 minutes.

I have been moderately active with my phone today. I probably have spent about 30 minutes surfing the Internet, and another half hour in the Market downloading about 10 applications or so. I also had about two straight sessions of texting, one for about 45 minutes and the other for about 3 hours. I have ATK installed but only to kill the non-essential applications which eat up memory such as Pandora or ESPN ScoreCenter.

I know my usage maybe light in comparison to others, but I find the phone is just as enjoyable even without the constant updating through the widgets. Widgets are nice, but this phone is fast enough to justify not having widgets and just opening an application when you actually want to use it and not have constant updating. The peace of mind of having a battery that lasts all day is worth it to me to not go overboard with applications and constant data streaming.

When I first got the phone I was new to Android, and this was my first smartphone so I naturally overloaded my home-screens with all types of widgets and had them constantly updating me with whats going on, but after 6 hours my battery was down to 20 or 30 percent. After taking it down a notch (or three) I have found that the battery lasts much much longer, and not having the constant updates was worth the peace of mind of not having to locate a charger. Try removing all the flashy widgets and updates for a day and see how the phone runs and how your experience is without them. If you prefer having the constant data streaming for instant updates, then i suggest buying another battery to keep handy. Also, I found that Auto-brightness killed my battery a lot faster too, so I set my brightness to 20% and that does the trick for me.

Note: This post wasn't really directed at the OP, but to anybody who desires to maximize their battery life.