Thunderbolt Battery Complaints + Tips/Tricks

[Cory Streater]

I see a lot of posts in this thread about 3rd party extended batteries. Before anyone starts buying these batteries, I always recommend they take a look at this page for some interesting test results.

 

[bthomp21]

thanks cory, ebay has a bunch of batteries on there. like 3 for cheap, i knew it wasnt a good idea.

 

[Droid800]

Alright, everybody needs to go into their blockbuster app and disable auto-updating.

I did that, and tweaked some other settings (no auto sync while I'm at work), and today my battery lasted me from 1 pm until now, and right now its at 38%. At 9 pm, it was still at 80%, which means that it only dropped 20% after 8 hours with a 30 minute window of moderate use.

Its still not iPhone 4 levels, but its way better than yesterday.

 

[bthomp21]

i didnt even realize the bb app would be running since i havent opened it. thanks droid

 

[Droid800]

i didnt even realize the bb app would be running since i havent opened it. thanks droid

Verizon apparently didn't feel the need to inform its customers that a preinstalled app would be initiating a data connection constantly without the user's knowledge.

 

[xcalibur1011]

I wonder if BGR or Engadget will be reporting on TB returns next week?

It's a crying shame they didn't get the battery thing right. They knew what kind of power this thing was going to use, and they knew this little 1400 butter pat wasn't up for the task. They knew.

My guess it was some higher up corporate BS decision that rammed it through, thinking we wouldn't notice and or maybe we can fix it later.

I'd like to see a tear down of this phone to get a peek of wasted space.

lol and "later" will be way past the 14 day return period. Monday morning goodbye thunderbolt, such a disappointment a great phone did not deserve such a bad battery, Guess I will see what's what with the Bionic the atrix has good battery life from what I've heard and the Bionic will have the same one 1930 mah.

 

[SQurel23]

First full day of usage and got about 10 hours of moderate use. Couple phone calls, handful of texts, browsing and even a half hour or so of tethering. Not too bad but still hope it gets a little better.

 

[BoSu]

It doesn't die when not in use...

Today my phone idled for 12 hours, I ****ed around with apps/browsing web for 2 hours, listened to podcasts for 45 minutes. 30% battery left after 15 hours unplugged.

Pretty sure 30% after 15 hours unplugged isn't a phone that dies when not in use. The battery could certainly be better, but after tweaking a few things like the BB app and screen brightness it is perfectly fine.

 

[acmorris]

Guys when your posting results could you please state how your coverage is at that time ie; running on 3G full bars, or running 4G on 1 bar, or wifi! This signal strength does play a huge part in battery consumption as well.

Thank You, AC

 

[Mustang7303]

Left the phone unplugged last night at 70% battery life to monitor battery drain while idle, and in 9 hours it lost 8%. That is pretty promising for idle use. Sync was turned off, wifi turned on, and bluetooth off.

 

[IDroidThere4Iam]

Few days on battery now...

So after a 2 days on the stock Thunderbolt battery I'm thinking the battery life is pretty much like the Incredible.

My setup:
I have the stock battery
I don't use the Sense widgets, I found on the Incredible they use a lot of battery.
I use Beautiful Widgets for weather, clock
I use LauncherPro instead of Sense too.
I have my screen at about 25% brightness, still easy to see
Run on wi-fi at home
I live in a 3G area, work in a 4G area. Yesterday I was at home all day and I had 3G, 2 bars most of the time.

With that said, day 1 my battery was awful. I let it charge all the way but I got about 6-7 hours out of it before it was pretty low. I didn't check the percent, but it was low enough to turn the battery indicator orange. I think the first day will be bad be cause 1) We're all gonna play with this thing, and 2) It will automatically download all your apps from the Market that you had on your old phone if you came from Android. At least it did for me. Who knows how much other data is being sync'd when you first set it up. Also, I transferred over 16GB of music to the phone and was using iSyncr wifi-sync. I'm sure that will kill the battery.

Side note, anytime I flashed a new ROM on my Incredible, battery life always seemed a crap shoot in the first 24-48 hours. After that though, things always got better. Could be the same on first time use of any phone like the Thunderbolt?

Day 2, I went over 15 hours and I was at 41% battery. I have a separate cell phone for work, so my personal phone is purely for personal use. This means I am on the phone about 5 times a day, not often, for about 20 minutes on average. I send/receive somewhere around 50 txt's a day. I check/send about 15 e-mails a day. I do spend a lot of time on Google Reader. Every couple hours I end up with about 200 new things to read. I surf the web on it a good amount too, watch Youtube videos, etc.

So, I gotta admit, after the Incredible, the Thunderbolt does not seem any worse and may be better. In fact, 41% after 15 hours would have been real tough on my Incredible until I flashed ROM's on it like CM7.

 

[Mike_is_Mike]

What is: flashed a new ROM?

Edit: Never mind, I Googled it - which is what I should have done in the first place, sorry.

 

[IDroidThere4Iam]

What is: flashed a new ROM?

If you flash a new ROM it means you have wiped out the current version of Android on your phone and you have installed a new, modified version on your phone. You need to have root access to do this.

You can check out the ROM's and Hacks forums for any phone here and you might get an idea of what a ROM generally gives you.

 

[Mike_is_Mike]

I see a lot of posts in this thread about 3rd party extended batteries. Before anyone starts buying these batteries, I always recommend they take a look at this page for some interesting test results.

That's just GREAT.

The Seido 1600 battery I ordered is really 1305 - THAT'S WORSE THAN WHAT I'VE GOT NOW!!!

Thanks for the heads up Cory, I won't even open the box when it gets here - it's going back.

 

[Mike_is_Mike]

If you flash a new ROM it means you have wiped out the current version of Android on your phone and you have installed a new, modified version on your phone. You need to have root access to do this.

You can check out the ROM's and Hacks forums for any phone here and you might get an idea of what a ROM generally gives you.

Thanks for the info.

I'm not one to tinker with my phones, I need it for work and can't afford to mess it up.

I'm also from an era that thinks products you buy should work - especially products that lock you into two year contracts. I'm just funny that way.

 

[Mike_is_Mike]

73% thats still kinda of high. I have it set to auto and range from 51% to 54% and I use my phone a lot.

Can you set the screen to 50% AND auto? Does auto cap the percent to what you set it at?

 

[StayFly]

my phone died overnight after having it fully charged. I will check that block buster app out and i order another standard battery but need the dock to charge the other battery. I have my screen down to 25%, i listen to sirius on my bluetooth headset, surf the web, twitter, facebook and download music. I get about 3 hour of use and then its charge time.

 

[brodrick]

I ran a test last night since my battery is running down quickly.
I fully charged the phone, turned off bluetooth, syncing, wifi etc.
Rebooted the phone (prior to unplugging it) and put it on the nightstand unused for the night.
Just sitting there as a dumbphone, with no screen use, it dropped from 100% to 71% in less than 9 hours.

The two main uses were Android system 41% and cell stand-by 40%.

I don't live in a 4G area.

Seems excessive since Phone Arena lists the official capacity as 330 hours of stand-by time. ( HTC ThunderBolt specs - Phone Arena )

 

[IDroidThere4Iam]

Thanks for the info.

I'm not one to tinker with my phones, I need it for work and can't afford to mess it up.

I'm also from an era that thinks products you buy should work - especially products that lock you into two year contracts. I'm just funny that way.

You're welcome, I didn't see that you Googled before my last reply either! If you do need this for work, I'd agree with you and not tinker too much.

I hear what you're saying about it 'just working' when you buy it and I'd just say I never flashed a ROM because my phone didn't work or there was something in the stock phone that didn't work. Its more about preference to me, and I imagine, others. There are some UI features (preferences) that make the biggest difference to me, such as having toggle widgets in your pull down instead of recent apps. Just one example, but its one difference I liked a lot better!

Its kind of like tinkering with cars. Your stock car will work fine, but some people just want to modify it, even if it doesn't add much other than looks like a fancy paint job. Although its more fun to add horsepower

 

[Spaniard85]

I'm at roughly 20% battery left and coming up to 7 hours right now, and it's been syncing music over wifi with AirSync (doubletwist) for a good 4 or 5 of that. What I think is real impressive is that the screen is on while AirSync runs. Not only that, but I was playing on it quite a bit before I started the sync, and I did some surfing and reading while the sync was taking place.

Battery life, to me, seems like it'll just fine with this beast.