Official Battery Life Thread

[Eric Kane]

Phase Beam, the live wallpaper, is a huge culprit. If you like the background, screen shot it.

 

[byrds8]

Something I just noticed that was weird was I ran the phone down this morning til it cut off and left it off while charging. After it was done charging and I booted it up it said only 98%. I know it didnt take 2% battery life to boot this phone up. Are the batteries Samsung made just that crappy or the charging system in the phone just really doesnt have a clue on when its full?

 

[Andrew Ruffolo]

I know this isnt about the battery but when I was poking around why is the gallery showing up under data used for the phone?

It probably updated... or its counting data used to search for apps.

 

[holysnikey]

I'm pretty impressed with the battery life honestly. I got 12 hours with extremely heavy use. My "test" app is Tiny Tower because on my Droid X if I played that my battery went down exponentially. I would have 100% and if I played it for an hour or 2 it would be down to 30% but I played it for 2 hours on my GNex and I was only at 70% then I watched Netflix for an hour or 2 and it was at 60%. That is all with the stock battery. I also actually have standby time now, with the DX if I didn't charge it overnight and it was at 100% I would either be dead or low battery when I woke up. The other night I had my GNex at 100% and I was tapatalk a bit, texting and facebook for a bit. Then 5 hours later I went to sleep and I woke up and it still had 50% battery after being on for 20 hours albeit not as much usage though. I still bought the extended battery though because it barely even makes a difference and it was only $25 due to 50% off. I am pretty impressed with the battery life but that's coming from a Droid X which I found appalling compared to the Droid Incredible that it replaced as an insurance phone.
EDIT: I should note I have GPS off mostly, BT off mostly, WiFi on if I'm at a house otherwise off, Autobrightness, I get 4G around my area mostly, I calibrated it the day I got it by bump charging and then using battery calibration.

 

[Newport Viper]

It went 14hours and 41 min on my first full charge day. It was at 4% when I plugged it back in. I'm happy with that. Normal phone, email, texting, browsing, no gaming.

 

[byrds8]

Is it normal to drop 4% in 15min not doing anything? Thats after charging it to 100%

 

[thescreensavers]

Ive narrowed it down to an app. I uninstalled all my apps and battery is spectacular.... havent found the culprit yet.

Better battery stats will tell you

 

[yosteve]

btw, I use a belkin charging plug with a timer so it doesn't 1) keep your phone charging when it's done while plugged 2) keep drawing power from the outlet when you take take your phone with you.

 

[thescreensavers]

btw, I use a belkin charging plug with a timer so it doesn't 1) keep your phone charging when it's done while plugged 2) keep drawing power from the outlet when you take take your phone with you.

1. Stock charger does this
2. Not sure if its 100%, but stock charger does this too, is it ever warm when its just sitting there unplugged? Nope, though someone with a kill a watt could see

 

[Mathmatikus]

My first 4g phone and i know what a battery drain it is, I downloaded bf2 update 1.5 (2gb) over 4g while on the charger. The battery continued to drain, tho very slowly. It still suprised me, so I must ask, is that normal for a 4g phone?

Only thing running was the browser/downloader and screen was off nearly the whole time.

 

[Andrew Ruffolo]

My first 4g phone and i know what a battery drain it is, I downloaded bf2 update 1.5 (2gb) over 4g while on the charger. The battery continued to drain, tho very slowly. It still suprised me, so I must ask, is that normal for a 4g phone?

Only thing running was the browser/downloader and screen was off nearly the whole time.

Wall charger or via usb port on a computer?

 

[damstr]

Well I had my phone off the charger for 2 hours was on 3G for a while then it switched to 4G for like 45 mins no browsing though phone went from 100% to 57%.... I will be returning the phone if this doesn't get a LOT better.

 

[oxymoron]

I live on the edge of an expanded 4G area, so two bars is the best I get. If I have the radio set to CDMA/LTE, the battery life is compromised considerably. If set to CDMA only, it's on par with my DX.

*customized tapatalk signature*

 

[Rennat]

Something I just noticed that was weird was I ran the phone down this morning til it cut off and left it off while charging. After it was done charging and I booted it up it said only 98%. I know it didnt take 2% battery life to boot this phone up. Are the batteries Samsung made just that crappy or the charging system in the phone just really doesnt have a clue on when its full?

No this is the natural nature of lithium ion batteries. Not "Samsung's" batteries. The World standard. When you charge a lithium ion battery up to 100% it stops. Otherwise it will seriously damage your battery and maybe explode, but don't worry about it because the FCC won't let anything pass that will have a danger of .1% of this happening. After it stops it trickle charges the battery, meaning once it gets down to 95% it charges back to 100% then stops. You just pulled it off in between the trickle charging.

Another thing to know about lithium ion batteries is that all %'s are not created equal. Meaning watching you battery go from 95% to 85% will be faster than watching 75% to 65%. The top 15% of the battery does not preform as well as the rest. This is why all phones seems to burn through the 90's faster than you can get to work. I believe the optimal performance is within 85%-35%. Also, it takes around 5 full battery cycles for a lithium ion battery to be broken in. It isn't just the fact that you are using it a lot that is drains faster when you just get it. So considering that it was released the 15th, I'm going to start taking interest in those opinions that are posted closer to Christmas than launch.

This is why I don't take posts saying they went through X amount of percent in only Y amount of time. The factors there are messed up. I only take full day options on battery life. Yes, I am getting a Galaxy Nexus, and I am not going to expect it to have incredible battery life. I'm not going to leave 4G on for long and will still expect it to drain. If I can wake up at 5:30 am and it will last me to 3:00pm, its golden.

Also in reply of:

Is it normal to drop 4% in 15min not doing anything? Thats after charging it to 100%

 

[damstr]

I live on the edge of an expanded 4G area, so two bars is the best I get. If I have the radio set to CDMA/LTE, the battery life is compromised considerably. If set to CDMA only, it's on par with my DX.

*customized tapatalk signature*

I can definitely live with DX battery life. I switched mine to CDMA only.

 

[soogriff]

Day 1: Unplugged from charger at 5:15am, dead by 10:35am. Very moderate use. Not that many apps running. Played a few moves on WWF and texted.
Day 2: unplugged same time. Turned off LTE. Adjusted brightness to about 50%. at 11 am, it had about 10% battery left. Slightly more use today. calls, more surfing, reading news apps, etc.

I hope the battery life improves over time. I'm sure it will. Gotta put the phone thru it's paces.

The phone sure does get warm during a phone call though. Definitely noticed that today.

 

[Mathmatikus]

Wall charger or via usb port on a computer?

Ahh forgot to mention that, it was the wall charger.

 

[Rennat]

Day 1: Unplugged from charger at 5:15am, dead by 10:35am. Very moderate use. Not that many apps running. Played a few moves on WWF and texted.
Day 2: unplugged same time. Turned off LTE. Adjusted brightness to about 50%. at 11 am, it had about 10% battery left. Slightly more use today. calls, more surfing, reading news apps, etc.

I hope the battery life improves over time. I'm sure it will. Gotta put the phone thru it's paces.

The phone sure does get warm during a phone call though. Definitely noticed that today.

Sounds like you have the GPS running or something. There is something draining the battery somewhere. And keep in mind that just because you have no apps running doesn't mean much. You can have 15 apps downloading 2 MB packets every 5 seconds.

Take a look at your battery stats and see what is using it up. Try removing all you apps to see if its an app problem. Change the syncing intervals. Turn off GPS and Bluetooth when not using them.

EDIT: and the 'app switcher' in ICS does not show running apps. It is recent apps. So if you swipe an app away it is still running. ICS shuts it down and covers all the hard work behind the scenes.

 

[byrds8]

No this is the natural nature of lithium ion batteries. Not "Samsung's" batteries. The World standard. When you charge a lithium ion battery up to 100% it stops. Otherwise it will seriously damage your battery and maybe explode, but don't worry about it because the FCC won't let anything pass that will have a danger of .1% of this happening. After it stops it trickle charges the battery, meaning once it gets down to 95% it charges back to 100% then stops. You just pulled it off in between the trickle charging.

Another thing to know about lithium ion batteries is that all %'s are not created equal. Meaning watching you battery go from 95% to 85% will be faster than watching 75% to 65%. The top 15% of the battery does not preform as well as the rest. This is why all phones seems to burn through the 90's faster than you can get to work. I believe the optimal performance is within 85%-35%. Also, it takes around 5 full battery cycles for a lithium ion battery to be broken in. It isn't just the fact that you are using it a lot that is drains faster when you just get it. So considering that it was released the 15th, I'm going to start taking interest in those opinions that are posted closer to Christmas than launch.

This is why I don't take posts saying they went through X amount of percent in only Y amount of time. The factors there are messed up. I only take full day options on battery life. Yes, I am getting a Galaxy Nexus, and I am not going to expect it to have incredible battery life. I'm not going to leave 4G on for long and will still expect it to drain. If I can wake up at 5:30 am and it will last me to 3:00pm, its golden.

Also in reply of:

I didnt pull it off in the middle of a trickle charge, I know that takes place. I pulled it off right after it hit 100% and then turned it on.This will be the third time Ive recharged this battery. I also know conditioning takes place. We have had to do that with the LMRs in our shop.

 

[Andrew Ruffolo]

I'm thinking its WWF. I had that hunch, and I really think thats it.