thinking of getting hero: hows your battery life?

[mqguitar]

I recently had a htc hero when i joined sprint but went to a palm pre. i love the palm pre dont get me wrong the hero is really nice. I switched because well the battery life was just really bad on that phone and could not depend on it. I know when i got it one update came out that fixed the sms issue but it was still bad for me. I was wondering has there been anymore updates lately? and also how is your battery life. I am a pretty heavy phone user and would like to know. Cuz the pre is kind of bad with battery at times also. thanks in advance for any responses

 

[Andrew Ruffolo]

Came from pre, battery is much better on my hero, got 26 hours the other day. Seems pretty consistent too. My pre(s) had issues, only 5 hours. I thought about getting the 3500 innocent battery cause I miss the every 3 day charging I had with my LG Dare when I was with Verizon.

 

[kehanra99]

I've had both phones and the battery life is not that different between them for what I used. If I was using it on a heavy day I'd make it over 24 hours. If I didn't do much with the phone for a while I could sometimes make it 40+ hours.

 

[smccloud]

I can go two days with my phone (give or take), but I charge it every night since I have a 30 mile drive to work. Being that I live in MN, I'm not gonna chance it.

 

[josh_johnson11]

I can go two days with my phone (give or take), but I charge it every night since I have a 30 mile drive to work. Being that I live in MN, I'm not gonna chance it.

Ha! I wouldn't chance it either up here. I live in Fargo, ND - no way would I want to be stuck on winter roads with a dead cell battery!

The battery life on my Sprint Hero is pretty good, but not great. I came from a BlackBerry where I could literally go 3 days w/out a charge on a 2 year-old phone. I find that I could probably go 2 days with normal use, but I tend to charge every day on my laptop at work or overnight on the weekends.

Overall: not bad but not great for me.

 

[troypolla]

mine usually lasts about 24 hours but i also charge it every night. Pretty heavy use i might add.

 

[vbsoulpole]

From 100% to when my phone dies, I typically get anywhere from 26-32 hours, depending on how much I use the video/music players.

 

[Andrew Ruffolo]

From 100% to when my phone dies, I typically get anywhere from 26-32 hours, depending on how much I use the video/music players.

What format are you loading videos, or are you using SprintTV?

 

[markyflies]

Wow!!! I must be doing something wrong. You all can go at least 24 hours on 1 charge.
Me not even close. Take off charger at 9:00 by 7:00 battery life down to 30%
Typical use is about 20 mins of phone calls, a couple dozen texts, and maybe 30 to 45 mins of web browsing using the 3G network (no WIFI).

 

[Deleted member 5726]

Wow!!! I must be doing something wrong. You all can go at least 24 hours on 1 charge.
Me not even close. Take off charger at 9:00 by 7:00 battery life down to 30%
Typical use is about 20 mins of phone calls, a couple dozen texts, and maybe 30 to 45 mins of web browsing using the 3G network (no WIFI).

Sounds like your service could be the issue... do you have the full bars of service? or does your phone go into Roam often?

Or is it that you leave things like Bluetooth, GPS/Location Services, Wifi, Screen Brightness, and Vibrate on? Cuz those drain your battery too...

 

[Andrew Ruffolo]

Go through a typical day, restart the phone when you wake up and when you put it on the charger, check the "Awake Time" This is going to determine your battery life pretty well. I do a lot of web browsing as well. Settings--> Status-->scroll to bottom. My current awake time is 23% (not bad). You definitely want it below 30% for decent battery life. If you got something much higher, more than likely, something is eating away at your use time by keeping the phone on.

 

[voghan]

I barely get 16 hours with moderate use during the day. I charge my phone every night so it's not that big a deal. I've noticed the more widgets I have the worse the battery gets.

 

[wolf1989#AC]

I bought the extended battery and I can go days doing absolutly whatever I want. Best thing I ever bought for this phone.

 

[Andrew Ruffolo]

I bought the extended battery and I can go days doing absolutly whatever I want. Best thing I ever bought for this phone.

Which one did you get, the 1700 or the 3500 (I imagine the latter since you said days). Just for reference.

 

[kehanra99]

Go through a typical day, restart the phone when you wake up and when you put it on the charger, check the "Awake Time" This is going to determine your battery life pretty well. I do a lot of web browsing as well. Settings--> Status-->scroll to bottom. My current awake time is 23% (not bad). You definitely want it below 30% for decent battery life. If you got something much higher, more than likely, something is eating away at your use time by keeping the phone on.

Wow - My awake time is usually somewhere between 9 and 15%.

One thing that really dropped it was changing HandCent to not use pop-up bubbles on text messages. Those keep your phone awake until you respond to them.

 

[mqguitar]

wow thanks everyone for the posts so far. Its very interesting that so many of you are getting good battery life now. and maybe if i switch to the hero i should get that extended battery thanks everyone for responses.

One last question: is there an app that i can turn the hero into a wifi hotspot because i can do it with the pre and the process in hacking the pre is so much easier than rooting a hero. Becasue when i tried it on the hero i was just so lost. There needs to be a better way to get things done on their.

 

[Andrew Ruffolo]

wow thanks everyone for the posts so far. Its very interesting that so many of you are getting good battery life now. and maybe if i switch to the hero i should get that extended battery thanks everyone for responses.

One last question: is there an app that i can turn the hero into a wifi hotspot because i can do it with the pre and the process in hacking the pre is so much easier than rooting a hero. Becasue when i tried it on the hero i was just so lost. There needs to be a better way to get things done on their.

You can do it on a Hero... if its hacked (or rather, rooted with a rom installed that has it pre-loaded). Its much easier than you think (or probably tried to do in the past). Check out pre-kitchen (they could have come out with a better name since its Sprint Hero specific). Its seriously a 2-click process and you can customize what you want in and out. Geek For Me – Android CDMA Sprint Hero

 

[wolf1989#AC]

Which one did you get, the 1700 or the 3500 (I imagine the latter since you said days). Just for reference.

Yeah I got the 3500. People complain about the bulk but I don't even notice it.

 

[boomhower1820]

3G murders the battery life. In a typical day I have to charge at least once. I tend to stream a lot of podcasts and pump them through BT to my car stereo. GPS pretty much stays on due to work.

Yesterday I was getting my car worked on and started with a fully charged battery. With everything off(GPS, BT, and wifi) I killed 40% of the battery in 1.5 hours surfing the net. I am running stripped Gumbo with SetCPU.

 

[vbsoulpole]

^^ This. In addition to rooting and utilizing setcpu to help with battery life, I also have wifi at home and make damn sure I switch to it as soon as I walk in the door. 3G is a total battery murderer. When on vacation a few weeks back in Seattle I was on 3G nonstop for 4 days. I didn't hit 24 hours a single time while I was there. I just looked at my phone and I'm at 41% at the 25 hour mark.

Also in response to Rufflez from previous page, all my video is mpeg4. When I got the prekitchen I reinstalled Sprint TV but deleted it again because I very very rarely use it.