[Official] Battery Life Thread

[kinster02]

Have the carrier check it out, maybe its the battery or the phone. Check the MT4G forum and see if terrible battery life is the norm for that phone which I doubt. Try installing watch dog, it will monitor your phone activity and let you know whats using the cpu and it will notify you and you will have the option to kill, ignor or white list. I also recommend juice defender which worked for me. Read the reviews for both and good luck.

 

[GrumpyAeroGuy#AC]

Just keep a power cord at your desk and in your car.

Bingo.... for work, I bought a second USB connection cable, and just plug in there as a matter of habbit.

At home, I have the wall charger.

Got an iGO charging cable for the car with the appropriate tip (those things are awesome BTW). I have several tips, one for the phone, one for the TomTom and one for another device that I use in the car on occasion.

I too an experiencing the battery life withdrawl from RIM. Tried a Bold 9780 prior to going with a myTouch. The 9780 could EASILY get you 2-3 days under light use.

But, as stated above (very eleoquently IMO), you're not going to smoke anew set of tires down to racing slicks at a stop light with an Accord...... LOL

One thing, not sure if it is even possible with a myTouch, RIMs have some kind of sesnor, that, when paired with an appropraite carrying case, puts the phone in a *sleep mode* when it is in the holster. I am sure that's HUGE in terms of battery life extension. Wouldn't be a bad feature for these phones, e.g. in holster, tasks killed but the minimum to receive notifications, and sleep mode.

I dunno. But, as said, can't do near the stuff with a RIM that you can do with a myTouch/Android.

 

[enthusiast#AC]

For those of you experiencing severe battery drain, there is a known issue with Android 2.2.1 (Froyo) on multiple devices with no solution to date that I'm aware of. It is caused when part of the Linux/Android code (I'm not a developer so feel free to correct my language if not accurate!), gets hung up for some reason. After reading through multiple threads (I'll post below) and seeing my battery drain almost right before my eyes, I was able to discover what was happening by installing Watchdog and setting it to see phone processess too. Every time I browse the web, the "suspend" code of the Android OS starts to consume massive amounts of the cpu, especially when the phone is in idle/standby mode. The only way to kill this process is to reboot the phone! Note that this happens to different people after they do various things such as using wifi, bluetooth, airplane mode, automatic sync . . . point being, there is no consistent reason people have found to be causing this issue, even happening to people using custom ROM's. It is believed to be an issue with Android 2.2.1, as best I can tell and it is random as to who it hits! My wife has a MT4g and never has this issue. Mine . . . forget about it. These other suggestions are legitimate, so don't ignore them. But, if your're experiencing a horrible battery, until this gets fixed (PLEASE Google do something!), install some sort of cpu monitor like Watchdog and set it to see the phone, cpu settings, not just apps. When it crops up, reboot the phone immediately. If I don't do this, my battery is dead in just three to four hours of no use. If I do this to kill the process, then it lasts well through the day. I hope this helps, and if anyone has any wisdom as to how to get Google to look in to the problem, please post! I would hate to think that I have to reboot my phone everytime I browse the web, at least until we get upgraded to 2.3!! Other posts on the issue are below:

Issue 11126 - android - "suspend" process runs continually in background at ~40% CPU on HTC EVO 4G - Project Hosting on Google Code

[Q] Is the 'suspend process' issue truly a mystery? - xda-developers

System Process gone crazy! Depleted battery - xda-developers

Battery drain - cpu always in use. - Android Forums

"suspend" linux process - T-Mobile Community

 

[enthusiast#AC]

One more thing, if you haven't installed a cpu monitor, you can also do something more basic to see if it is this issue. If you go into settings, about phone, battery, battery use, the "Android OS" will be among the highest draining your battery. Display might be first, but if the OS is working properly, it should be very low in use (around 2% or 3%). If you click on Android OS, its use will be just a few seconds to maybe a couple of minutes. If the Android OS is using a lot of the battery and is close to the top, you'll see its use is more like 7 - 13 minutes! If you see this, REBOOT! I hope this helps those suffering with the same problem I am!! Otherwise, I love this phone! I just want to be able to use it!!!

 

[Jason Black]

I get AMAZING battery life. I was almost shocked by this. I took the phone off the charger at 6AM and during my 9AM break at work I was still at 100%, my friend has an Evo and was like what the heck lol. Around 13 hours later I'm at 55%.

As I'm writing this it's about 18 hours later and I'm at 32%. Very, very good battery life. My phone is overclocked to 1.7Ghz and I have SetCPU profiles set up. I don't let my phone go above 1.4Ghz though, I don't need that much power.

I used to get that too until I got mad and started installing all the apps that I wanted. If you want great battery life. Turn off all those things that sync or give that hours difference in sync time. Then don't install apps that run in the background. You will get a good 20 hours with moderate use. I did it for about a couple of days. Logged out of everything. But its not worth it. I rather just charge the phone and enjoy it.

Sent From Tapatalk.

 

[milominderbinde]

I have been adding the tips from all the battery life threads into the Getting Started with Android section on Extending Battery Life. In particular, Juicedefender and UltimateJuice seem to be the key because it turns things on and off automatically as you need them.

 

[skidooman93]

Battery life will improve when you get the OTA and then as the phone "breaks in" I tried a few tricks conditioning the battery and crap like that. But in the end nothing worked except just use and charging. The only thing I do it turn my phone to CDMA only. We dont have 3G here and nobody even knows what 4G is.

A get very good battery life. A couple of days ago, I took the phone off the charger at 6am made 24 phone calls for a total of 1hour 20 minutes , sent 3 txt messages 3 emails, about 10minutes of web use, 10-15 minutes of angry birds, 40 minutes of blue tooth music streaming to my S9 head phones. And by 11pm still had 43% remaining. I use wifi primarly when home, but 10 hours of the day were spent driving and on network towers.

My 9700 did better but was not used as hard, no angry birds, very little web use. I cant complain about battery life. I suggest doing a battery pull at least every couple of days. This totally resets that phone, more than a restart and power down and on will do.

 

[jtk27]

One more thing, if you haven't installed a cpu monitor, you can also do something more basic to see if it is this issue. If you go into settings, about phone, battery, battery use, the "Android OS" will be among the highest draining your battery. Display might be first, but if the OS is working properly, it should be very low in use (around 2% or 3%). If you click on Android OS, its use will be just a few seconds to maybe a couple of minutes. If the Android OS is using a lot of the battery and is close to the top, you'll see its use is more like 7 - 13 minutes! If you see this, REBOOT! I hope this helps those suffering with the same problem I am!! Otherwise, I love this phone! I just want to be able to use it!!!

So, is it bad that on my MT4G, the Android OS uses up 28% of the battery life and my phone generally goes dead after about 8 hours of light use?

Hopefully a fix is included in 2.3...

 

[Kevin OQuinn]

Here are some screen shots of my battery life with wifi and wifi calling enabled.

For the record, this phone is capable of amazing battery life.

EDIT: Yes that says I've gotten over a day of use, and the lowest percentage I've EVER had is 39%, so imagine how much life I would've gotten if I let that other 39% go too.

 

[fredmr85]

Battery life will improve when you get the OTA and then as the phone "breaks in" I tried a few tricks conditioning the battery and crap like that. But in the end nothing worked except just use and charging.

Agreed. Well, you can't really condition a Li-ion battery like older NiMH, etc.. that only worked on older batteries. Li-ion batteries prefer to be topped off since there is no "memory" effect. Once in a while it's good to run it down low if your battery meter seems inaccurate though...other than that full discharges are more harmful than anything.

But use of the battery has definitely had a dramatic affect on my battery life. I can actually go a full day now without charging. It's not near as amazing as others have posted...but I'm at 14 hours, 25% charge remaining where when I first bought it I was lucky to get 6 hours with the same moderate use.

 

[BlackPrince310]

Also, overclocking actually improves battery life tremendously. Set up a profile that underclocks the phone to 386Mhz while the screen is off, and the processor is practically not even spinning. You can go 5 hours on standby and not even a single percent will drain.

 

[MattMJB0188]

Also, overclocking actually improves battery life tremendously. Set up a profile that underclocks the phone to 386Mhz while the screen is off, and the processor is practically not even spinning. You can go 5 hours on standby and not even a single percent will drain.

How do you underclock the phone? Does this require rooting?

 

[Kevin OQuinn]

How do you underclock the phone? Does this require rooting?

Yes. You need setCPU to do this, and that app requires super user permission, which requires root.

 

[MattMJB0188]

^ Thanks. I am shocked with battery life. I charged my phone today then used for a little while. I worked 2:30-10:30 and used it on my breaks and just before I left I was still at 100%. Made one phone call and now I'm at 99%. I did turn off the data by un-checking the mobile network. I guess this really drains battery life when its always searching for a solid 2G, 3G, or 4G connection.

Note: I do have USB debugging turned on if that helps?

 

[nightmorph]

I'm still at 30% power after unplugging my phone 70 hours ago. Some mobile internet usage, a good chunk of WiFi, installing/uninstalling/running apps, taking pictures, you name it. All that and I still have 30% charge.

The MT4G has to have the best battery life of any Android phone, period.

 

[MattMJB0188]

I'm still at 30% power after unplugging my phone 70 hours ago. Some mobile internet usage, a good chunk of WiFi, installing/uninstalling/running apps, taking pictures, you name it. All that and I still have 30% charge.

The MT4G has to have the best battery life of any Android phone, period.

Mines definitely better after the firmware update.

 

[Kevin OQuinn]

This phone definitely has great battery life.



Sent from my myTouch 4G

 

[MattMJB0188]

This phone definitely has great battery life.



Sent from my myTouch 4G

It does. Definitely much better after the firmware update.

 

[dragon106]

wow... I am extremely surprised to hear a bunch of you having battery life over 14+ hours. I'm new to the android community so any help would be greatly appreciated. Here's the break down:

I just recently purchased the MT4G and loved it. Last night before I went to bed, I fully charged my phone, killed all third party running apps, had my blue-tooth, wi-fi, gps, etc off, and when I woke up this morning, my battery depleted by 40%. I gave it a quick 20 min charge and left for work with the battery being 85%. By 1pm, I had 15% left and I barely used my phone at work today. Went to couple websites, played imobster, and had a couple phone calls.

I called t-mobile customer care and they said that since I'm in the 14 day period, I should just simply go back to the store where I purchased the phone and get a new replacement because it was evident that I had a defected phone and/or battery.

A side note - my O.S. was running only at under 5% and my display was at the top of the list.
_____

After reading MANY forums, I deleted my advance task killer and will "condition" the battery tonight. And it seems that people get better battery life just by simply using the battery and charging it (doesn't really make sense to me). Shouldn't the battery be shipped and packaged ready to go? why do we have to "break in" the battery?

How does this watchdog app work?

It would be greatly appreciated if anyone can guide me in the right direction. I love this phone but can not deal with the short battery life.

Much thanks!!

 

[Kevin OQuinn]

I don't use a task killer at all. I just use my phone the way I want. I don't hold back.

I don't know much about watchdog.

If you aren't getting good battery life you probably have a rogue app that's sucking up CPU cycles.