Thunderbolt Battery Complaints + Tips/Tricks

[retep]

do you guys notice significant battery drain when there is no reception or is it just me?

 

[Cyber Warrior]

What are the apps you use to:
1). Show battery percentage NUMBER in the top bar
2). Battery history (first pic)

Go to.. Menu>Settings>About phone>Battery>Battery Use.

Edit: As for the notification bar... That's either a different rom or one of the 30+ added Sense skins. There's also apps that will do that but they will display both the stock battery and the percentage battery. If Forgetful reads this maybe he could help you better... It looks like a custom rom.

 

[Cyber Warrior]

do you guys notice significant battery drain when there is no reception or is it just me?

Yep... That's with any phones connections, Network, wifi, bluetooth, gps signals..... If you have poor reception/connection in your area, the phone will constantly search for a signal.. draining battery.

 

[SCampbell27]

I got my Thunderbolt today, started playing with it around 3pm and it drained down to 10% by 11:14 pm. I didn't make any calls, sent one text message, but downloaded apps, and did other basic navigating of the phone.

 

[libraryclg]

Go to.. Menu>Settings>About phone>Battery>Battery Use.

Edit: As for the notification bar... That's either a different rom or one of the 30+ added Sense skins. There's also apps that will do that but they will display both the stock battery and the percentage battery. If Forgetful reads this maybe he could help you better... It looks like a custom rom.

Notification bar is from Das BAMF ROM, the remixed version of the rom which is what I'm using has a circle battery with the percentage inside of it.

 

[cguella]

I have installed utilities, read forums, checked and unchecked 4g, turned on and off features. Holy cow. I was so sick of being hostage to the 1400 undersized battery so I got an extended battery. 1400 slim vs 2750 bulge. My extended battery actually fit in the two part holster that I have from Verizon (sans the plastic cover that used to go on the phone part) so a pretty good solution so far. I am finally free of range anxiety and may stop checking this forum. Full day no problem, features turned on. I am FREE to use the phone as intended and anchor my boat with same device. Live with the bulge free yourself. At the same time complain to Verizon and HTC so they do something to fix this mess.

 

[Snowflakes]

I am having a lot of battery problems too when navigating online. I love th phone but I feel like when the battery gets older i m gonn have to take my charger everywhere. bummer

 

[Forgetful]

What are the apps you use to:
1). Show battery percentage NUMBER in the top bar
2). Battery history (first pic)

It's a custom ROM.

The battery history is from an app called spare parts, I highly recommend it, it's free and very useful to track your phone usage in more ways than one.

 

[Chrisy]

I am having a lot of battery problems too when navigating online. I love th phone but I feel like when the battery gets older i m gonn have to take my charger everywhere. bummer

If you like the device then get the 2750 extended battery. I'm at 13 hours and 65 percent. That's with phone calls, one was over an hour, browsing, messaging.

I'm so happy with the big battery! It looks good and feels great.

 

[colesl4w]

so I just got the phone today, and I can't get movies to play. They start, and go for about 15 seconds, and then stop, and say they can't be played. any idea what this is about?

 

[rebie]

I am a complete newbie to this forum & to Android. I have had several PDA's then smartphones (latest was BB Tour). I have read all 76 pages of this thread...

I got the TB 12 days ago & have been having a horrible time w/ my battery. I am in a 4G area & my service seems to be stable. The battery seemed ok at first out of the box then I started using the phone, but barely. My first big mistake was using the FB widget & my phone died before noon that day. I was told to use Juice Defender by the Verizon rep who sold me the phone but I uninstalled it after it seemed to be disabled every time I opened it. I tried Advanced Task killer then read about how that really doesn't help so uninstalled that. I have turned most everything off, screen down, sync's to least frequent that I can (upset that I can't turn all of them completely off), disabled Blockbuster app. Took a charger to work & charged whenever I could but then worried because what do I do when I'm travelling or just don't want to connect to charge all the time?

I decided to try out Juice Defender again but got the beta version this time & today I actually have battery left. I am at 39% left after being off the charger for 15 hours. I have Juice Defender set to aggressive & I did get the app recommended by JD called AutoKiller Memory too. I didn't change any settings & it looks like it's made more for rooted phones but I'm hoping the defaults are helping. I think JD turning everything off when the screen is off & for the first time I am actually getting an ok battery life & my phone is not hot all the time. I do worry about days that I actually use the phone more since today I only made 3 calls, 1 text, few checks of email & FB. I am really hoping that it gets better & hopefully an update is coming soon. My husband, brother, & sis-in-law all have the Sprint EVO & they LOVE them. I want to stay w/ Verizon & have been waiting for VZ's 4G phones & love the TB but I keep vacillating between returning & waiting for something better or just getting one once bugs are worked out or just hope for the best. I am considering getting an extended battery but don't really want a bigger & even heavier phone. Also, although I don't completely understand rooting, it is tempting to be able to get rid of the bloatware. I wish this phone would be better straight up w/o having to tweak everything!

So for me it seems Juice Defender is helping. Does anyone know if the paid app is better than just the beta free one?

This probably isn't the right place but does anyone sync w/ Outlook? I tried HTC Sync & it messed up my Outlook contacts & since I have some #'s under "other" now they don't even show up on my phone. Any suggestions on a better app to be able to sync to outlook?

TIA

 

[Forgetful]

So for me it seems Juice Defender is helping. Does anyone know if the paid app is better than just the beta free one?

This probably isn't the right place but does anyone sync w/ Outlook? I tried HTC Sync & it messed up my Outlook contacts & since I have some #'s under "other" now they don't even show up on my phone. Any suggestions on a better app to be able to sync to outlook?

TIA

Juice defender paid just gives you additional settings if you select the "advanced" profile. I had it but I don't use it anymore. For me the 4G/wifi radios don't eat that much battery during stand by (only 1/4 of a percent per hour). So over a 24 hour period battery drain due to only wifi/4G standby is only 6-8%. The only thing JD does is disables your radios when the display is off.
The app Green Power is similar to JD if you want to try.

As far as battery don't expect to get more than 4-5.5 hours of display on time. And the longer the phone is on standby (or running stuff when the screen is off) the lower that time is.

I get 16-22 hours of unplugged time with 4-5 hours of that display on time. The display on time consists of internet, tv stream, games, playing. Almost all on wifi

Biggest eaters of battery are behind the scenes syncing, keeping the display brightness high, Low/switching signal ares

 

[paulmike3]

I've found that if the Facebook at signs me into Facebook chat, it destroys my battery. Like 25-35% an hour destroys. *facepalm*

 

[Bwangster12]

I don't even have Facebook installed. I use Facebook for HTC Sense and the Friendstream app.

 

[nat72sherman]

A few questions

Been going through these threads in the last few days, want to make sure im clear on things.

Disabling background data, covers disabling that update thing for Blockbuster?

3g or 4g, that effects data right? not calls?

As far as just battery conservation, switching to 3g is a good idea. But just shutting of mobile trumps that?

 

[anon(220176)]

So I got the extended battery and it's not that big. It supposed to "double" my battery life, which I believe it does. But here's thing --> with the original battery, I got about 3.5 hours of battery life and with the extended battery, I got about 7.5 hours.

So it does double the battery life, but it still will not let me go through the day!

My typical use:
- 25% brightness (50% when I am outside, but not that often)
- ONE Exchange Push email and calendar account
- THREE Non-Push email accounts (1 hours check during peak time)
- Occassional browsing and application usage
- 4G LTE on

I still carry my AT&T iPhone 4 and comparing the 2 from day-to-day usage, by around 6:00 PM:
- HTC Thunderbolt with extended battery: less than 25% battery
- iPhone 4: 45% battery

 

[cguella]

Exchange

...
This probably isn't the right place but does anyone sync w/ Outlook? I tried HTC Sync & it messed up my Outlook contacts & since I have some #'s under "other" now they don't even show up on my phone. Any suggestions on a better app to be able to sync to outlook?

TIA

I can't answer your question regarding Juice Defender, but I can tell you that Touchdown for Exchange (~$20) is a MUST if you need to connect to an Exchange Server (I am a former long time Blackberry user). If you are simply popping and using Outlook desktop without Exchange then don't bother with Touchdown. I try to keep work contacts separate from personal contacts - and Touchdown facilitates that. Android will try and mash all of your contacts so that you can't tell where contacts come from or what to edit when trying to work with them. I know they are trying to make it easier but for me it does not work. I like Gmail contacts on the phone side and Work contacts in Touchdown linked to Exchange using Activesync. IMHO.

 

[anon(220176)]

So my original battery life has been dismal so far, just like many people here. I have tried everything and the battery life is still bad. Since my TB is brand new, I thought it maybe a defective battery. So I brought it to Verizon store and they give me a new battery for free (well, exchanged since they took the old one).

So far it seems better, but I"ll have to do more testing.

Moral of the story: it MAYBE the BATTERY ITSELF that is defective, so you guys can try exchanging it!

 

[dajogejr]

Moral of the story: it MAYBE the BATTERY ITSELF that is defective, so you guys can try exchanging it!

It's easier for people to complain about it thousands of times on the forums rather than try something like this....

 

[anon(247108)]

....My husband, brother, & sis-in-law all have the Sprint EVO & they LOVE them. I want to stay w/ Verizon & have been waiting for VZ's 4G phones & love the TB but I keep vacillating between returning & waiting for something better or just getting one once bugs are worked out or just hope for the best. I am considering getting an extended battery but don't really want a bigger & even heavier phone. Also, although I don't completely understand rooting, it is tempting to be able to get rid of the bloatware. I wish this phone would be better straight up w/o having to tweak everything!

Please note that the stock mail app on the thunderbolt will not provide you with HTML views unless your office is running exchange server 2007 pr later I believe. Touchdown does.

Call me crazy but I purchased both Touchdown and Moxier Mail. Because of my bad eyesight, I preferred the more contrasting interface Moxier provides and kept in on my TB and the wife's, but I think most will agree that Touchdown is just a smidge better.

You should not have to root your phone to get good battery life. That said, I did.

Removing the bloatware helped, as did bump charging. The real solution, however, was changing to a different kernel. I use Adrynalyne's 4.4.2 kernel which reduces the voltage used at set CPU frequencies and a host of other tweaks and I am leaving my phone unplugged all day with reasonable battery drain (>50% after 14hours --its probably longer but I have not been very detailed in checking at this point.)

There is a ton of rooting help on this Forum, including Corrier's great step by step instructions. He and others have also been very helpful responding to question. I would definitely try striders approach of exchanging the battery first. Then I would read every sticky in the rooting thread before trying it.