The Official Battery Life Thread

[anon(392870)]

I'm not having this same issue with light usage. I tested my phone today at work (meaning I hit about 2 hrs display time) running it on 4G OFF and Wifi on. I didn't end up recording the full numbers because it was so night-and-day, but the end results were this:

4G: ~9 Hours before I get a 15% warning. Again, light usage, any major power drainers will drop that down.
3G: At about 9 Hours I was at 70% with same usage pattern. I stopped paying attention at that point because it was so obvious that this was making a huge difference (after charging for 30 minutes with GPS + 4G running and flipping on 4G since about 5 pm I've now hit 16.5 Hrs on battery, again with only about 7.5 hours of 4G and light (2 hrs) of usage).

I'm still waiting for my extended battery to avoid this issue altogether. I've pretty much determined that for not a ton of usage you're going to hit about 9 - 9.5 Hrs max on LTE with the stock battery. Flip to 3G/Wifi and you'll extend it significantly (still waiting on a nice 4G toggle widget)

 

[kath00]

Another great battery day for me.

Reading these replies, I am really beginning to think that some of you have lemon phones! I have now switched batteries to the spare from the Costco bundle to see if one battery outdoes the other.

I got up at 7, unplugged the phone. Then talked for 2h with sister while getting kids ready for school, etc. Got in car to go to work at 9. Bluetooth, Wifi and 4G on all day. At work had phone sit from 9-noon, then played with phone for an hour. Again on standby till 2pm. Picked up kids, talked on phone some more, played Words with Friends, Twitter stuff, FB, etc, etc. Downloaded some Amazon apps and read kindle app in bathtub for an hour tonight.

It's now 10pm and my battery says 70%!

I have been thinking about switching 4G to 3G just to test out the difference but I am notally not motivated since my battery life is just unbelievable.

I am thinking those of you with super fast draining batteries should exchange your units!

Katherine

 

[sux2bu]

I'm not having this same issue with light usage. I tested my phone today at work (meaning I hit about 2 hrs display time) running it on 4G OFF and Wifi on. I didn't end up recording the full numbers because it was so night-and-day, but the end results were this:

4G: ~9 Hours before I get a 15% warning. Again, light usage, any major power drainers will drop that down.
3G: At about 9 Hours I was at 70% with same usage pattern. I stopped paying attention at that point because it was so obvious that this was making a huge difference (after charging for 30 minutes with GPS + 4G running and flipping on 4G since about 5 pm I've now hit 16.5 Hrs on battery, again with only about 7.5 hours of 4G and light (2 hrs) of usage).

I'm still waiting for my extended battery to avoid this issue altogether. I've pretty much determined that for not a ton of usage you're going to hit about 9 - 9.5 Hrs max on LTE with the stock battery. Flip to 3G/Wifi and you'll extend it significantly (still waiting on a nice 4G toggle widget)

Yeah, 4G is a killer! So far being on 4G all day with light usage my battery will last about 9 hours. That's with full performance mode everything on and pushing except blue tooth, display on auto, and probably only and hour and a half of the display being on. Today I've been home all day so I have been purely on wifi and have been using the HELL out of my phone. All the same setting as before except I'm on wifi instead of 4G. I'm currently at about 30% battery after 10 hours and 4 of those were screen on.

 

[alphanu22]

i been using the stock Task Manager app and the "Settings/ Apps / Running Services" to shut down anything the Bionic auto turned on- and been using the Max Battery Saver-

 

[originalcopy]

So far it looks like battery life is +-9 hours.

 

[nlowhor]

Another great battery day for me.

Reading these replies, I am really beginning to think that some of you have lemon phones! I have now switched batteries to the spare from the Costco bundle to see if one battery outdoes the other.

I got up at 7, unplugged the phone. Then talked for 2h with sister while getting kids ready for school, etc. Got in car to go to work at 9. Bluetooth, Wifi and 4G on all day. At work had phone sit from 9-noon, then played with phone for an hour. Again on standby till 2pm. Picked up kids, talked on phone some more, played Words with Friends, Twitter stuff, FB, etc, etc. Downloaded some Amazon apps and read kindle app in bathtub for an hour tonight.

It's now 10pm and my battery says 70%!

I have been thinking about switching 4G to 3G just to test out the difference but I am notally not motivated since my battery life is just unbelievable.

I am thinking those of you with super fast draining batteries should exchange your units!

Katherine

I've been seeing decent battery life....but nothing like this. Can you post your battery usage stats? Just curious how it compares to mine.

 

[kath00]

Yes but then I have to buy the screenshot software because I took up the 5 free screenshots to create shots of my startup pages for a friend who was curious...

BTW I am at 11:30pm and phone says 65%. Phone has been mostly on standby from 9:30pm till now with a few email checks here and there but no heavy usage. VERY pleased.

I am not recharging it tonight to see how long this charge lasts. I'll report back in am and will do screencapture of battery once I download the pay app.

Katherine

 

[Travisimo]

What I wish I could figure out is how the hell I can get my phone to stay in the middle portion of the graph - i.e. when the battery usage is more or less flat. It's clearly capable of doing it, but I don't know why it sometimes drains battery more quickly than others. Oh well...9 more days to make my decision

display on for 1hr 51 mins in case you were wondering, and game was on for 8m 27s. Screen on dimmest setting (except when I go out, when I change it to autobrightness).

I am experiencing similar "sillyness" because there are times when my phone still drains battery like crazy when it's just in my pocket idle. And then there are times when it seems to go totally level off and drain very slowly under the same conditions. I can't figure it out, but I think there's a direct correlation to when the phone is actually "sleeping" while idle rather than "awake", even though the screen is off.

Switching to Battery Saver mode does seem to let it sleep more often, but there's still a lot of inconsistency when I think it should be sleeping but it stays awake (I can even tell when it is staying awake because it'll be warm in my pocket, whereas when it is sleeping, there is very little heat).

There's also a correlation with signal strength. When signal strength is better, the battery drains more slowly. But then again, this too does not seem consistent and I'm quite certain there is another variable at play here other than signal and sleep/awake.

 

[anon(392870)]

Yes but then I have to buy the screenshot software because I took up the 5 free screenshots to create shots of my startup pages for a friend who was curious...

BTW I am at 11:30pm and phone says 65%. Phone has been mostly on standby from 9:30pm till now with a few email checks here and there but no heavy usage. VERY pleased.

I am not recharging it tonight to see how long this charge lasts. I'll report back in am and will do screencapture of battery once I download the pay app.

Katherine

Kath00 - would love to see your usage statistics. Those numbers on 4G seem almost unattainable. Are you running anything in particular (juice defender, etc.?) which is aiding it?

There's also a correlation with signal strength. When signal strength is better, the battery drains more slowly. But then again, this too does not seem consistent and I'm quite certain there is another variable at play here other than signal and sleep/awake.

That's pretty universal for phones. Lower bars leads to more searching and its harder to maintain a signal.

 

[shadowsjc]

Yes but then I have to buy the screenshot software because I took up the 5 free screenshots to create shots of my startup pages for a friend who was curious...

BTW I am at 11:30pm and phone says 65%. Phone has been mostly on standby from 9:30pm till now with a few email checks here and there but no heavy usage. VERY pleased.

I am not recharging it tonight to see how long this charge lasts. I'll report back in am and will do screencapture of battery once I download the pay app.

Katherine

You can get a free screenshot app from here:
http://forums.androidcentral.com/dr...creenshots-share-them-here-2.html#post1234117

It does not require your phone to be rooted. Takes about a minute to download/install - pretty easy

 

[carzaddict]

the best thing to do.....is just keep in 3G and switch to 4G when you need it

my personal experience, im at work most of the day (as most people are) and barely use the phone except for texts.......so its just sitting there chugging juice for no reason

 

[NYCBest]

This is what I'm thinking/hoping as well. I'm monitoring all of my usage and there is no one particular app or process that is draining the battery...at least not according to system panel, powertutor and the stock battery stats app. I really don't get what the issue is, but no matter whether the phone is completely idle or not, whether 4G is enabled or not, the phone will drain below 40% within 5-7 hours. Within 30 minutes it's under 80%.

Brandon

I'm having the same type of usage as bplewis24. Checking ASI battery stats shows no app usage, Cell Standby and Phone Idle are the top two uses at 52% and 32%. Followed by Display at 7% usage. So not understanding why my battery is dieing so fast when no apps are using it. Three hours of usage and battery is at 60%. I'll need to charge it again shortly after lunch.

 

[cgbrannen]

I'm not having this same issue with light usage. I tested my phone today at work (meaning I hit about 2 hrs display time) running it on 4G OFF and Wifi on. I didn't end up recording the full numbers because it was so night-and-day, but the end results were this:

4G: ~9 Hours before I get a 15% warning. Again, light usage, any major power drainers will drop that down.
3G: At about 9 Hours I was at 70% with same usage pattern. I stopped paying attention at that point because it was so obvious that this was making a huge difference (after charging for 30 minutes with GPS + 4G running and flipping on 4G since about 5 pm I've now hit 16.5 Hrs on battery, again with only about 7.5 hours of 4G and light (2 hrs) of usage).

I'm still waiting for my extended battery to avoid this issue altogether. I've pretty much determined that for not a ton of usage you're going to hit about 9 - 9.5 Hrs max on LTE with the stock battery. Flip to 3G/Wifi and you'll extend it significantly (still waiting on a nice 4G toggle widget)

there is a LTE switch on the android market that works

 

[hokiesteve]

I'm not having this same issue with light usage. I tested my phone today at work (meaning I hit about 2 hrs display time) running it on 4G OFF and Wifi on. I didn't end up recording the full numbers because it was so night-and-day, but the end results were this:

4G: ~9 Hours before I get a 15% warning. Again, light usage, any major power drainers will drop that down.
3G: At about 9 Hours I was at 70% with same usage pattern. I stopped paying attention at that point because it was so obvious that this was making a huge difference (after charging for 30 minutes with GPS + 4G running and flipping on 4G since about 5 pm I've now hit 16.5 Hrs on battery, again with only about 7.5 hours of 4G and light (2 hrs) of usage).

I'm still waiting for my extended battery to avoid this issue altogether. I've pretty much determined that for not a ton of usage you're going to hit about 9 - 9.5 Hrs max on LTE with the stock battery. Flip to 3G/Wifi and you'll extend it significantly (still waiting on a nice 4G toggle widget)

I've seen similar results to this. As a result, I'm switching to 3G pretty much full time unless I need the LTE service.

 

[anon(392870)]

there is a LTE switch on the android market that works

Is it a widget I can flip on and off?

If so (and not just a link to the network mode screen) please share the name! Thanks.

 

[cdf3]

Purchased extended battery yesterday.
Loving it so far. Does not add that much bulk. It also keeps the glass over my camera lense from getting scratched when lying on a solid surface.
After nearly 13 hours today, I'm at 50%
Emailed, texted, and tethered for an hour. Used 4G while tethering, and switched to 3G for texting and moderate stuff.


Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk

 

[dpw2atox]

I believe part of the bionic's battery issues are due to gingerbread not supporting multiple CPU cores. This mean when one core is maxed out both are. I think we'll see much better battery life in ice cream sandwich.

 

[mbentley3]

the best thing to do.....is just keep in 3G and switch to 4G when you need it

my personal experience, im at work most of the day (as most people are) and barely use the phone except for texts.......so its just sitting there chugging juice for no reason

This is exactly what I do as well. Have noticed a huge jump in battery life, i get 10-12 hours with light/moderate use.

 

[KillerG]

I've seen similar results to this. As a result, I'm switching to 3G pretty much full time unless I need the LTE service.

As soon as we can all find a good 4G switch, I'm sure this is what everyone will be doing. I personally don't think I need 4G to send some texts, but if I'm doing something that actually is data intensive, like browsing the web, yeah flip the 4G switch on. Otherwise you'll get a considerable amount less battery. But the point is having 4G when you need it.

 

[bigdanorama]

Why don't you guys just use the Maximum Battery mode? Im at 9hrs right now and 40% left. No need to turn off 4G. I did have WiFi on though. But what it does is disable data updates after 15min of inactivity.

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk