Thunderbolt Battery Complaints + Tips/Tricks

[shaddix]

I'd call myself semi-technical. Much more technical than the average Joe, but not nearly as technical as some.

My thinking here is that forcing your battery/phone to take charge when the OS/phone/battery/circuits say that it is done charging, can't be good. Now, it may seem good in the short term, but I can't imagine it being good in the long term. Even without reading some articles I've seen on XDA about bump charging, I'd guess that it wasn't good.

QFT.

 

[Mike_is_Mike]

I wanted to report my first day with the seidio 1600 battery...

I had my phone on since 7:30am, its now 10pm and the phone just completely lost power. For the past hour I have been playing videos trying to kill the battery so I can go to sleep. I also started using a bunch of apps for the past hour and set the brightness to full. For the rest of the day I had GPS, Bluetooth on, and brightness at like 25% which is plenty bright to me. Other tasks during the day included taking about 20 photos, multiple web searches, odd facebook checks, and a number of calls. Tried to keep it as normal use as possible for me. I think this life is fine, and I had to really work the phone at the end to get it to lose power.

Being this is the first day and first full drain I see the life getting better from what I have ready about these batteries. Seidio even states on the card that comes with it that it takes a few cycles before the battery life is optimized.

Just wanted to report my experience, and that I am happy with this battery life.

I thought these batteries were NOT to be completely drained - did I hear wrong?

 

[PJnc284]

The phone will cut off before it's completely drained just as it starts a trickle charge once it reaches full. It's generally not a good idea to repeatedly drain the batteries since it's harder on the battery so rather than waiting til the phone goes dead to charge it, it's better to just stick in on the charger every night. Granted most of us don't keep the phones long enough to notice any side effect though. lol

 

[mlf80]

Ok, this may be a silly question but I find it IMPOSSIBLE to get the back door off of the phone to actually get the battery out. Does anyone have any tips on how to get it off without breaking the door?

 

[Mike_is_Mike]

Ok, this may be a silly question but I find it IMPOSSIBLE to get the back door off of the phone to actually get the battery out. Does anyone have any tips on how to get it off without breaking the door?

That is one of my biggest gripes with this phone. There is no really easy way to pop it off, you just have to pry open the best you can. I use (what's left of) my thumb nail. I would try a small screw driver, but that would probably mess up the plastic.

They really do need to rethink the way this (doesn't) work. And they won't redo it for this phone - maybe TBII?

 

[mlf80]

That is one of my biggest gripes with this phone. There is no really easy way to pop it off, you just have to pry open the best you can. I use (what's left of) my thumb nail. I would try a small screw driver, but that would probably mess up the plastic.

They really do need to rethink the way this (doesn't) work. And they won't redo it for this phone - maybe TBII?

Thanks! I thought maybe I was just not smart enough to figure it out. I used a plastic putty knife the other day. Too bad I don't carry one of those around with me all the time. I just tried a paper clip but that didn't work either. I'll keep trying things that are not going to ruin the plastic and hopefully come across something.

 

[trusteelfan]

My thunderbolt has been off the charger for over 4 hours now and im still around 90% battery. Here is what I have changed to make my battery last.
First I turned off the LTE service through the dialer instructions in this link.
how to: turn off LTE

Also under location in the settings I turned off the VZW location service. There are 3 location settings there. VZW, standalone GPS, and Google location.
That was all. It seems like the VZW location runs constantly.

I changed these setting yesterday afternoon and my battery lasted the rest of the day. I unplugged in again this morning around 4 hours ago and its still going strong. Someone try this and verify that it works.

I have left the display to auto brightness, and I am using several widgets including friendstream.

 

[NotJustAPhone]

I'm not getting my gmail emails immediately sent to my phone...I tested by emailing my gmail account from hotmail, and checking my gmail on my laptop. Email came straight though on my laptop like it should, but I was watching my TB and it took 5 minutes to get there.

I did do what you said...went under mail acct settings->send and recieve->update schedule. But as far as I can see, there's no option to immediately receive emails-the top of the scroll down menu has manual, then 5 minutes, 10minutes, etc...

is there another setting somewhere else that i need to change in order to get my email immediately on my TB?

I'm coming to Android from BB so this is new to me...I feel stupid for not being able to figure this out! ha

Are you using the Gmail or the Mail app for your Gmail account? The Gmail app is "push" so you will get your emails almost instantly. The Mail app does not support push and will sync with your email service at the interval you select. Try using the Gmail account instead.

 

[potatolover1102]

On the blockbuster app updates is that only happening once you open the app or does it happen from day one? I have never opened the app, so should I open it to update and then say do not sync or is it fine since I have never used it?

 

[jtl]

I have two questions:
1. If I do a factory reset, how do I get all of my paid apps back without repaying for them?

2. Is it just my phone or does everybody's phone show that the browser is constantly running at about 18MB? I go to Settings > Applications > Runnings services and see it here...no matter what I do!

3. Does the Google Voice app cause much battery drain?

Please help! Even on Wi-Fi, after disabling all syncing, disabling Blockbuster, going through every single app, my battery lasts MAYBE 6 hours of moderate use.

 

[alfieferenzo84]

You all need to look at the awake time not up time. I can make my uptime read 5 days but my awake time will be 30 min

 

[breakerfall]

I have two questions:
1. If I do a factory reset, how do I get all of my paid apps back without repaying for them?

The apps you've paid for will show up as Purchased in the Market after the reset. The word "purchased" will be in place of the price of the app, and you can just redownload/install. (App purchases are tied to your Google account)

 

[66dude]

Would turning off "Enable always-on mobile data" affect battery life? Any idea what exactly it does?

 

[SMD]

My TBolt battery that came with the phone lasted usually around 5 hours before dying. Got the extended battery yesterday and immediately charged it up. It does add weight but its not as bulky or ugly as I thought it would be after seeing pictures and reading about it IMO. I actually kind of like the extra size and the way it contours to your hand. Took it off the charger last night at about 7pm. Used it on and off all last night, then went to sleep, woke up used it more including web surfing and even 20 mins of Slingbox streaming over 4G. Its finally in the yellow now with about 24% battery remaining. But its been over 16 hours. Granted I did sleep and not use it for a good 8 hours there, but still, without a charge I'm happy with my first run on this extended battery. I'll run it until it dies and then charge it again to see if I can get another 12 or 16 or more hours out of it. So far so good!

 

[Lizbrei]

I've had my TB since March 17 (first day available). I charge it overnight and it's 2:30pm....I've downloaded six applications, checked email, messages, moved things around (on screens) and I'm at about 80% battery still available.

Remember, the battery needs to be used (charged and recharged) for at least a week to get to where they will function best. After one week's time, the battery is doing much better.

I don't use the "live screens" or "Friend Stream" widget and I have my phone syncing FB only once daily (I manually sync when I want updates) so I preserve my battery as much as possible. So far this is working out well for me. Hope this helps!

 

[EvanGMan]

Cell standby on my Thunderbolt is responsible for 16% of battery usage today, and the display is responsible for 44%. My display is already dimmed to 25%. I'm not sure what else I can be doing to conserve battery.

I am always logged into GTalk, and I do get GMail emails a lot, but I've turned off the vibrate to save battery that way.

I also heard about the Blockbuster app thing, but I've never opened it, and I don't see it running on my phone.

Thoughts?

 

[rmciver]

I checked my battery and it says I have been able to go over 18 hrs from last full charge. (which was yesterday) And today, I have txt, made calls, downloaded 2 large pdf files ( books ) talked on phone, surfed web. And the TB just went to yellow for charge which I believe is down to 30% or less battery life. I am OK with the battery life. I think my exp is better than some complaints... I wonder, will HTC upgrade to a BETTER longer lasting battery later on for the TB? Is that possible?

 

[rmciver]

How do you do the sync of FB once or when you want it too? I am new to this Droid stuff... TB is tough to navigate thru sometimes for me.... Thanks for any help you can give ! (smile)

 

[hannsoft]

Awesome, AWESOME, well-written article. Thank you SO much!

 

[jeffnucci]

I'd like to add that I've been using Launcher Pro instead of Sense and while I realize Sense is still running, I've noticed a big difference in battery life. I really think that Sense just isn't as efficient of a Launcher. I had the same thing on my Droid X. When I used LPP vs stock Blur I got better battery life there as well.