Screen and Battery Life

[symplistik]

I switched from the Evo to the Epic and i'm having some issues. I'm hoping someone could give me some insight as to what the problem could be.

When I unplug my phone, it goes from 100% to 95% in a matter of minutes. I have the "Battery Status" app on my phone so I can see the actual percentage. Does anyone know why this happens?

But the biggest problem that i'm having is with my screen and battery life. I have the screen brightness set to automatic brightness and I also have power saving mode on. Yet, when I go into about phone > battery use, my screen is using 75%! I've even tried going to the lowest setting on brightness to see if that would help and still, i'm getting the same results. It's killing my battery and i'm not sure how to solve this problem.

As of right now, i've been unplugged for a total of 1 hour and 11 minutes and i'm already down to 80% with hardly any usage. I checked Twitter and my email but that's about it.

Any insight would be wonderful!

 

[bipoler#AC]

I concur

 

[madlaw1071]

Same issue here. Battery drops quicker than my Iphone which is kinda sad.

 

[caliskimmer]

*facepalm* Go through the usual techniques. Bump charging. One time it said my phone was done charging, but I didn't believe it, so I forced it to charge until it gave me the battery is full screen. Clocked a whole lotta battery life that day.

 

[AndroidOne]

I own an Evo and have used similar "bump" charging techniques with the Epic and so far my observation is that, contrary to the Evo, the Epic seems to quit charging at 95% - have never been able to get the battery level above 95% no matter how I charge. Despite this, I get similar performace to that of my Evo which actually wasn't too bad on my unit.

Regarding the screen, the latter will almost always be your major source of power drain. On an AMOLED screen, black is the color that consumes the least power to render so I did choose the first of the non-live wallpapers (a lighted tent with night sky) as my wallpaper to help with power management a bit - not sure this will make such a huge impact as I rarely turn on the phone just to stare at the wallpaper but I kind of like this one. One of my favorite live wallpapers is Thunderstorm (free on the Market), also kind of a dull gray color.

I have my screen set to a fixed 20% brightness indoors and only use the automatic brightness sensor while outdoors - I use Quick Settings (free on the Market) to help me make this switch quickly and easily.

 

[symplistik]

I really appreciate all of the responses. My battery status shows that my battery goes to 100% but i've turned the phone off, put the charger in, and it still shows it needs to be charged.

I changed my wallpaper color to black so i'm hoping that this will indeed help.

I'm praying that over time, battery life will improve. I really like my Epic but I don't know if I can deal with the battery dropping the way it does. It drains even when the phone has timed out and not in use.

 

[karn101]

How's your service? That can be quite a drain also.

Are you leaving 4G on? What services are running?

 

[caliskimmer]

I own an Evo and have used similar "bump" charging techniques with the Epic and so far my observation is that, contrary to the Evo, the Epic seems to quit charging at 95% - have never been able to get the battery level above 95% no matter how I charge. Despite this, I get similar performace to that of my Evo which actually wasn't too bad on my unit.

Regarding the screen, the latter will almost always be your major source of power drain. On an AMOLED screen, black is the color that consumes the least power to render so I did choose the first of the non-live wallpapers (a lighted tent with night sky) as my wallpaper to help with power management a bit - not sure this will make such a huge impact as I rarely turn on the phone just to stare at the wallpaper but I kind of like this one. One of my favorite live wallpapers is Thunderstorm (free on the Market), also kind of a dull gray color.

I have my screen set to a fixed 20% brightness indoors and only use the automatic brightness sensor while outdoors - I use Quick Settings (free on the Market) to help me make this switch quickly and easily.

I used a battery widget and it stopped charging at 96%.

 

[caliskimmer]

I really appreciate all of the responses. My battery status shows that my battery goes to 100% but i've turned the phone off, put the charger in, and it still shows it needs to be charged.

I changed my wallpaper color to black so i'm hoping that this will indeed help.

I'm praying that over time, battery life will improve. I really like my Epic but I don't know if I can deal with the battery dropping the way it does. It drains even when the phone has timed out and not in use.

The battery needs some cycling time, regardless of what others think about cycling (that it's not necessary). Battery life has shown to improve over time just like burning-in headphones improves sound over time.

 

[gabe2gg]

try to stay away from white or bright wallpapers but I have no solution for web browsing since most of them use white backgrounds which murders the battery...

 

[caliskimmer]

try to stay away from white or bright wallpapers but I have no solution for web browsing since most of them use white backgrounds which murders the battery...

This compares AMOLED, not Super AMOLED. Super AMOLED uses way less power than AMOLED according to something I read a month ago.

 

[nmoreman]

What about the live wallpapers, such as the black with shooting stars?

What about the live wallpapers in general??

 

[egeorge1]

I have no solution for web browsing since most of them use white backgrounds which murders the battery...

If you have Dophin HD browser, install the reader add-on. it reformats website articles removing ads etc. More importantly for our discussion, you can set it for night mode which uses a black background. It won't change the background for entire websites though, but it is something.

 

[coolqf]

Uninstall Apps that you really don't use. Qik, GoogleVoice, Frige, and a few others run in the background, log on, and use data even if you restart, never turn them on, and turn off auto log on. Other than needless apps. If you're constantly in areas with wifi, turn on your wifi and it will continually turn off 4G. This saves battery life.

 

[p-niiice]

use dolphin reader and use night mode?

 

[AndroidOne]

You may want to read through these and see if some of the issues discussed apply to your battery life:

http://forum.androidcentral.com/sprint-epic-4g/33143-cell-time-without-signal-50-a.html

http://forum.androidcentral.com/sprint-epic-4g/32275-how-long-has-your-battery-lasted-f-e.html