LOVE the phone... can't take the battery.

[RockmanZX]

What are the steps for correctly charging your EVO when you first get it out of the box?

Should I just fully charge it or do the fix where your turn it on charge to green then turn it off then charge untill green again etc..?

 

[jimnyo]

what worked for me...

ok, first, please don't flame me if someone already posted this. i survived reading thru 10 pages of this thread and nobody mentioned this and i don't have time to read the other 9 pgs before i post. i just wanna help and if this helps you, then great, otherwise, please just ignore it.

i got satisfactory battery life when i got my evo. usually got thru the day and i'd still have battery left. then yesterday morning, about 3-4 hours after i left home i looked and was shocked to see i had around 25% battery left. the only thing i think i did differently was i forgot to to turn off the sync settings. i put on my home page widgets to toggle bluetooth, gps, wi-fi and sync settings. i always sync my accounts either before i go to bed or first thing in the morning and then just as i need. the rest of the time, i go to sync settings and turn off "auto-sync" and the one above it, i think it's something like "background apps sync". when i turned them off again and my BT (i left it on from being in the car). so i turned the sync settings off again and it seems to be fine again.

my theory is that the android platform (i switched over from palm) is a little sync-happy. ok, more than a little. almost every app i have has some setting where it syncs up to the cloud. so it makes sense to me that my battery runs down if i just let it do whatever it wants. i think some people might find task killers work for them, not b/c the actual app is using their battery, but b/c the app's constant syncing is using their battery. if you don't like turning off the auto-sync, you can always go into each app individually, some of them have intervals of time that you can set for it to sync and you can increase these, but i am wayyyy too lazy and much prefer just turning off all the sync when i don't use it and turning it back on when i do. hope this helps.

 

[xorbe]

What are the steps for correctly charging your EVO when you first get it out of the box?

It's a lithium, it doesn't care. Lithiums don't like to run low though (it just shortens the battery's lifespan.) Lithiums are supposed to be stored 70-80% full. "Cycling" a lithium does nothing but use up the battery a little bit (both capacity and max current are slightly reduced with time.)

@jimnyo - 75% battery use in 3-4 hours means you have an app running which is preventing the phone from sleeping. Look at up-time / awake-time. Turn the phone screen off for 20 seconds, and back on. If awake-time marched forward 20 seconds, the offending app is still running. Go kill one likely app, and repeat until you find the offending app.

 

[RockmanZX]

It's a lithium, it doesn't care. Lithiums don't like to run low though (it just shortens the battery's lifespan.) Lithiums are supposed to be stored 70-80% full. "Cycling" a lithium does nothing but use up the battery a little bit (both capacity and max current are slightly reduced with time.)

So your saying fully charging the EVO on the first use is not necessary and to always keep the battery from completely draining?

 

[RayStinkle]

So your saying fully charging the EVO on the first use is not necessary and to always keep the battery from completely draining?

the battery itself does not need any full charge. but the OS still needs to learn the battery's full and empty level. so yes you should do a full charge the first time.

over time, the OS will populate a battery stats file that averages things to get your percentage meter accurate. so you do want to calibrate this with a full to empty charge.

rooted phones have access to wipe this battery file and re-calibrate.

 

[xorbe]

The lithium's full charge is always 4.20 volts, and empty should be 3.20 volts* -- there is nothing for the OS to learn about the full or empty point.

However, there are all the between points -- different lithiums do drop the voltage at different mAh capacity remaining.

That's very interesting, where is this battery file location?

(* I need to drain my phone and see what voltage the Evo cuts out ... but I don't really want to do that ...)

 

[Robbie317]

So your saying fully charging the EVO on the first use is not necessary and to always keep the battery from completely draining?

If you read the book or do a search on lithium batteries it does tell you to charge the battery to a full charge before ever turning the device on. Thing is NO cell phone store or company is going to just hand you a phone that has been charged all the way up first... They are going to turn it on and your probably going to have about 50% battery life. I picked up a spare lithium battery for my EVO and the information that came with the Seidio battery says to charge the battery and even after the device says the phone is fully charged to leave it on the charger for another hour or two it's said to be done. it also says to avoid extreme heat and if your storing your battery to charge it to 40% and then store it in the fridge but don't freeze it... It also says to run the battery flat dead once every 30 - 40 charge cycles and you won't get full battery life until after 5 - 6 charges and discharges.....

PERSONALLY...... I turned my EVO on the minute I got it at Best Buy and the battery was at about 50% and it lasted me 6 hours and then I charged it over night..... I switched to a slightly (or at least according to the package) higher capacity battery (1500 stock and I am using the 1750 mAh) and I use it until it either begs to be charged or I am done with it for the day/night and I plug it up.... Lithium does not need to be ran all the way dead.. you can use 20 or 30% and then charge it up again..... It won't affect the battery much....

Just power the baby up and get going..... If you have major issues with the battery you got a warranty......

 

[bnrbranding]

I got my Evo on release day and I was a little concerned about battery life. Having to recharge in the middle of the day would be unacceptable on many days not to mention I hate being tied to a charger. I was pleasantly surprised that out of the box I was getting 8-10 hours of battery. I read the maximizae your battery post and did a few of the suggested changes and I installed an app killer. I know it's not supposed to be needed, but it seems to work of for me. I will probably turn it off and test a couple of days to see how well it does without.

I typically get 14-15 hours with moderate to heavy use. Daily I will spend 60-120 minutes talking, 20-30 texts, some twitter, some FB, and an hour or 2 surfing the internet.

Yesterday was a light use day and I have been amazed. 26 hours since unplugged and still at 50%.

 

[the weasel]

What app are you guys using to show you the percentage of battery life? I use battery indicator pro, but I have also heard that battery indicators that show you a percentage can also drain your battery by constantly pulling to show the percent...

 

[bnrbranding]

I use battery alarm, and I am sure it does drain the battery a bit since it is always on. There's really no need for it, I am thinking of uninstalling it.

 

[schultepk]

Just fell under 15% for the day!

After 6 hours and 31 mins.

Usage as follows:

Android System 96%

Cell Standby 2%

Display 2%

Does that high of an Droid System percentage mean I am addicted?

 

[GGotti]

What is considered moderate use for all of you? Because my battery life SUCKS!! So before i say what i do i would like that answered first.

 

[Paladin]

Not to sound redundent, just trying to help. I just made a post here about battey life. Again it is just info from others.

http://forum.androidcentral.com/htc-evo-4g/18436-sprint-recommends-4.html#post174194

 

[bnrbranding]

What is considered moderate use for all of you? Because my battery life SUCKS!! So before i say what i do i would like that answered first.

A couple of days ago I had one of those days, I was on my phone all day. One conference call went just shy of 2 hours, the next was right at an hour. A dozen other 10-15 minute calls, 20+ text messages, email throughout the day, some twitter and FB, then 90-120 minutes messing around on the internet at the end of the day. I plugged in at about 14 hours with a bit over 20% left.

 

[SoBeRChiLD]

I use my phone basically for 3 hours HEAVILY across my work day, but 9 hours of it being on standby just drains my battery, i'm gonna take off the 3G on monday and see how that goes but the HTC HD2 is definetly better on battery life. My co-worker laughs at the Evo battery life, while he's streaming video via Skyfire i'm stuck in a corner charging my phone wishing Skyfire for android wasn't complete GARBAGE

 

[Cory Streater]

This thread is still open for posting but is no longer stickied. Please check out this one if you'd like explanations and tips regarding battery life on the EVO.

Thanks