Optimizing your phone?s battery life
Battery life. It’s one of the most discussed topics in the forums. Most members would agree that battery life on today's modern Smartphone's is not stellar. Is it result of defective hardware, the OS, network connectivity, bloatware, or other 3rd party apps? Instinctively (particularly if you’re new to the world of Smartphone’s) the rapid depletion in battery life - even with light to moderate usage - might lead you to believe the your phone has major problems in this area and your phone manufacturer had better do something to fix it.
I’m of the belief that there are always areas of improvements in how each of the above variables affects battery life. For example, there could be future ROM update that enhances OS efficiency, task management, or tweaks to the user interface. But truth be told the real culprit is that battery technology and capacity have not evolved as rapidly as the power and functionality in Smartphone’s.
That aside, in terms of energy usage, cars are very similar to our smartphones. For example, an Audi S4 has a powerful 352HP V8 engine. It’s a fun car to drive, and provides all the features you might be looking for in a car. However, the 352HP engine comes at a price. It sucks gas like nobody’s business), and like the powerful Inspire requires a source of energy to function. The S4’s source of energy is stored in a 14-gallon gas tank. If you push the car to it’s full potential – it will get approximately 10 miles per gallon. The S4's baby brother is the A4. It has a less powerful 4 cylinder engine, but averages twice the number of miles per gallon with the same size gas tank. Smartphone’s aren’t any different.
That said here are some of the most common items (based on my unscientific tests of various Smartphone’s) that are the highest consumers of battery life. Most are manageable from a user perspective, some are not. I’ve left out the most obvious one of all – extended voice call activity. Just remember there's a trade off between performance/features and the amount of power you’re willing to devote to each.
- 3G/4G connectivity/activity by streaming audio/video apps, web browsing, instant messaging apps, and apps that poll the network at regular intervals for updates (Facebook, RSS readers, Friendstream, etc).
See those little data arrows at the top of your screen? When they are light grey in color, network utilization is zero. Contrary, when they are solid white, network usage is occurring. If they are constantly white (as they would be when streaming radio for example) battery consumption is at it’s highest.
- Bright backlight settings: Regardless of backlight settings, the screen is still a major power consumer. Having said that, slight changes in backlight settings can make a dramatic difference in battery consumption. I would recommend avoiding the very brightest setting. My preferred setting is to let Android manage screen brightness, while others have manually enforced a constant low to medium brightness level. The latter will have the greatest positive affect on battery life.
- High CPU, backlight, and network usage by graphics intensive and/or poorly written applications: Graphics intensive programs often consume large amounts of CPU power and RAM, which translates into high battery consumption. Combine this with a network intensive streaming media application; the Incredible is sucking the life from the battery at an extremely high rate. Applications that were not designed for the Thunderbolt, or are buggy by nature, might causing the phone's CPU to be working excessively hard. If your phone is warm to the touch and running particularly slow, there’s a chance that a 3rd party app is to blame.
- Bluetooth: Bluetooth sucks down power. I’ve experienced this on every phone I’ve ever used. The Inspire is no exception. Turn it off when not in use.
- GPS: Like Bluetooth, it consume large amounts of energy while updating coordinates and communicating with satellites orbiting the earth. Combined with turn-by-turn directions and an always-on backlight, in order to see the maps guiding your way, you’re pushing battery consumption to the limits. I often read posts from people who are using the Thunderbolt as a full time GPS device in the car. One common complaint from these users is that USB chargers are only maintaining the current battery level – or worse – when GPS is in use. Since a phone limits USB host connections to 500mAh of power input, this is a good indicator of how much GPS consumes. In other words, 500mAh of continuous power to the phone is not enough to charge and take advantage of GPS/turn by turn directions at the same time.
- Signal Strength: Whether 3G/4G, or WiFi, week signal strength can affect battery life.
- CPU/Memory: I often read posts from members who have most of the above features disabled. Yet they still report warm to the touch phones and unusually poor battery life (3-4 hours per charge). In my experience, this is usually caused by 3rd party CPU intensive applications. Many people reach for the nearest task manager. Others can’t imagine which application they’ve installed that would cause such an issue. Regardless, if you reach to other forum members for assistance, please provide the following information that varies from the out of box configuration of the phone:
o Task managers in use (I believe these cause more harm than good – but there’s a totally different sticky devoted to that).
o A list of all 3rd party applications (including battery percentage widgets & instant messaging applications)
o Update frequency settings for each application in settings > accounts & sync.
o Detailed information from settings > about phone > battery use
o GTalk auto sign in settings
o 3G/4G data arrow activity (frequent solid white arrows?)
o Email configuration (update frequency for Exchange, IMAP, Gmail, POP)
o Type of charger being used (OEM vs. 3rd party) & input/output specs.
o Widgets in use.
The best but least practical solution to battery consumption is to disable every single feature possible that this phone has to offer. My recommendation is to find a balance that works best for you and come to the terms that the attributes that make the Inspire one of the best converged devices available requires increased energy & negatively impacts battery life. This amount of energy available in a fully charged OEM battery is 1230mAh. This is not a design flaw. Instead, it’s the reality of battery technology competing against consumers demand for bigger, faster, and more feature rich devices.
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