Thunderbolt Battery Complaints + Tips/Tricks

[Mike_is_Mike]

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

I can understand the fun/need to tinker thing, I just don't want to do it with a tool I rely on for my livelihood.

This is a very cool phone, but has proven to be too troublesome for me to use as an everyday work tool. And too much of an expense to keep as a toy.

It has too many strikes against it, in my book.

1. Verizon was never able to transfer my contacts from my blackberry.
2. I need to USE my phone, not worry about NOT using it just to keep the battery alive.
3. I have now been locked out of the gmail account - "account disabled" and there's no one in sight to help me reset it.

I will be first in line Monday to return it. :'(

 

[RestlessDroid]

I am not noticing much difference from my OG Droid. I think the biggest complaints are coming from people new to Android. My old Blackberry would last for days without a charge. I charge mine every night while I sleep. I use it all day with moderate use and it will last til about 3pm. Or about nine hours.

On a side note... I looked on Ebay and found a deal for the batteries and a battery charger for $16 with shipping. Even if the batteries have half the capacity as the stock one it's worth it to have an extra on me. My buddy did the same thing with his Evo and he says they are as good as the stock battery. Anyone else tried this?

Sent from my Thunderbolt using Tapatalk.

 

[Fhiz]

I'm honestly shocked to read people who say they go to sleep with the phone on and it's dead... at home I just turn wifi, which overrides the LTE connections and the idle battery life is perfect. I've had my phone off the charger for close to three hours now and have hardly touched it, with facebook, twitter, espn, mlb at bat, words with friends, and some other things all running and my battery has only gone down to 93%. So for everyone whose phone dies when they're not doing anything with it, try turning on wifi?

 

[Mike_is_Mike]

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 )

I'm starting to think we should duct tape the batteries - because there MUST be a leak in them somewhere.

 

[Shygar]

I can understand the fun/need to tinker thing, I just don't want to do it with a tool I rely on for my livelihood.

This is a very cool phone, but has proven to be too troublesome for me to use as an everyday work tool. And too much of an expense to keep as a toy.

It has too many strikes against it, in my book.

1. Verizon was never able to transfer my contacts from my blackberry.
2. I need to USE my phone, not worry about NOT using it just to keep the battery alive.
3. I have now been locked out of the gmail account - "account disabled" and there's no one in sight to help me reset it.

I will be first in line Monday to return it. :'(

Why not download Google Sync on your BlackBerry? This is what I did and it seamlessly synced all of my contacts to Google, then the Thunderbolt immediately picked them all up once I first activated the phone.

 

[quanb24]

16 hours and 49% battery life is good lol

 

[Cory Streater]

There is now a new post here with a comprehensive list of settings, apps, bump charging, 3rd party battery test results/comparisons, and other considerations. If I see anything unique in this thread that affects battery life, I'll get it added.

However, I've seen a few suggestions in various threads, that I do not believe affect battery life:

1. Setting apps to update automatically: this could actually introduce an update that makes things worse. I would actually advise turning this off for certain apps, and monitoring these updates manually.
2. WiFi & 4G notifications: turning this off doesn't stop the phone from scanning for networks and will and will have no affect on battery life.
3. Location settings: please see the post on this. Disabling these settings do not impact battery consumption. It's the apps that use them that impact battery consumption.
4. There was a suggestion made to uninstall AdBlocker. First of all, this app requires root in order to use it. If you have root, and are using AdBlocker, there's setting to update the host lists once per day. I suppose disabling this would help, but I doubt it would that much impact.
5. Deleting batterystats.bin is not something I would recommend doing.
6. Rebooting every few days (hmmmm)
7. Rooting: Does not impact battery consumption. It only changes access permissions to folders and files at the root level of the ROM.
8. Kill apps running in the background. Consider reading this article first.

 

[BullNole228]

I've done some moderate browsing, taken some pictures, customization of my home screens, and watched some YouTube videos so far today. After roughly 7 hours of play, I still have 74% left. I can't complain.

 

[Mike_is_Mike]

Why not download Google Sync on your BlackBerry? This is what I did and it seamlessly synced all of my contacts to Google, then the Thunderbolt immediately picked them all up once I first activated the phone.

That's a GREAT idea, in fact VERIZON SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME TO DO THAT BEFORE THEY TURNED ON MY THUNDERBOLT AND SHUT DOWN MY BLACKBERRY!

 

[Chrisy]

That's a GREAT idea, in fact VERIZON SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME TO DO THAT BEFORE THEY TURNED ON MY THUNDERBOLT AND SHUT DOWN MY BLACKBERRY!

I told you to! Where were you?! Really, did you research at all?

Switching from BlackBerry to Android Guide

 

[Mike_is_Mike]

I told you to! Where were you?!

http://forums.crackberry.com/f169/switching-blackberry-android-guide-576203/

I was standing in line at the Verizon store. :-[

I will hang on your every word from now on. :-D

So, do I have Verizon re-activate my BB and start over? THEY should have known, after all THEY were the ones that sold me BOTH phones! (BB was 2 and a half years ago, but same store.)

 

[PJnc284]

yeah, kind of hard after the fact unless it has wifi. Do you have desktop manager installed? you can connect the blackberry and export the contacts to a .csv file which can then be imported into google.

 

[Chrisy]

I was standing in line at the Verizon store. :-[

I will hang on your every word from now on. :-D

So, do I have Verizon re-activate my BB and start over? THEY should have known, after all THEY were the ones that sold me BOTH phones! (BB was 2 and a half years ago, but same store.)

Take it to VZW and have them transfer contacts for you. But it makes life easier when you research and learn before you jump into things!

Good luck dude!

 

[azdmelani]

My battery is doing much better today

Removed the facebook/twitter widgets
set twitter to update once every hour
screen brightness has been on 25%.

I'm in 4G area (steady 4G) and took the phone off the charger at 7AM. Just got the message that I was under 15%. Have texted, made calls, went on internet/facebook/twitter too.

May not need an extended battery after all.

 

[Mike_is_Mike]

Take it to VZW and have them transfer contacts for you. But it makes life easier when you research and learn before you jump into things!

Good luck dude!

I WAS at the VZW store, second in line on day one. They tried and couldn't transfer my contacts - I now know why - I wish THEY had known why.

I spent my time researching the phone I was looking to buy, in the past the store just transferred my contacts no problems. Lesson learned.

Thanks dudette!

I'm too old to be a dude, I think my "e" dropped off about 15 years ago, I'm just a dud now.

 

[naa904]

i bought a external portable general usb battery charger. my phone was at 70% and i wnated to see how much of a capacity could this thing charge my phone. i used it very little. at my house its constantly switching from 3g/4g. the battery although charging dropped to 40%.... does this make sense? i was using a blackberry cable to charge

 

[acmorris]

I WAS at the VZW store, second in line on day one. They tried and couldn't transfer my contacts - I now know why - I wish THEY had known why.

I spent my time researching the phone I was looking to buy, in the past the store just transferred my contacts no problems. Lesson learned.

Thanks dudette!

I'm too old to be a dude, I think my "e" dropped off about 15 years ago, I'm just a dud now.

Ha! Mike u said it not us, by the way is that milk dud or what?

 

[Mike_is_Mike]

Take it to VZW and have them transfer contacts for you. But it makes life easier when you research and learn before you jump into things!

Good luck dude!

Now that I have the ear of an expert, any word on video talking/conferencing?
Can it be done NOW?

I'd STILL like to TRY and make this (make me) work. I like the big screen, the 4G, the WiFi, the hotspot, I'm even willing to by a hump battery to get a FULL days work out of this thing.

 

[RestlessDroid]

I WAS at the VZW store, second in line on day one. They tried and couldn't transfer my contacts - I now know why - I wish THEY had known why.

I spent my time researching the phone I was looking to buy, in the past the store just transferred my contacts no problems. Lesson learned.

Thanks dudette!

I'm too old to be a dude, I think my "e" dropped off about 15 years ago, I'm just a dud now.

Aren't we all?

Call Verizon tech support. I had that problem last year and one of then walked me through downloading to the Blackberry manager on the computer. Changing them to a .csv (I think) and transferring them to Outlook and then to G mail. Worked great and saved a lot of time and typing.

Sent from my Thunderbolt using Tapatalk.

 

[PJnc284]

@Mike_is_Mike_is- desktop manager should be able to get your contacts

Call Verizon tech support. I had that problem last year and one of then walked me through downloading to the Blackberry manager on the computer. Changing them to a .csv (I think) and transferring them to Outlook and then to G mail. Worked great and saved a lot of time and typing.

Sent from my Thunderbolt using Tapatalk.

no need to use outlook. The .csv can be imported directly into gmail.