Thunderbolt Battery Complaints + Tips/Tricks

[FrankXS]

seems that HTC makes a good phone, good software, but seem to skimp on the batteries. I had to buy my wife an aftermarket one so she could get through the day. That seems to be how they save money, but seems to cost us more in the long run. Make sure you turn off all the extras like GPS, auto sync, blue tooth when not needed, make sure you use a program that has quick system links in it so you can turn on and off quickly

I have no real battery issues, but all I can say is: ISN'T IT WONDERFUL TO HAVE A PHONE THAT ALLOWS YOU TO DO ALL OF THAT!

-Frank

 

[Geegolly]

Official response from HTC RE: How to double battery Life (WORKS!) + 2nd Reply - xda-developers

 

[biff6789]

Official response from HTC RE: How to double battery Life (WORKS!) + 2nd Reply - xda-developers

This is called "bump charging". There were tons of articles about this since the Inc required this as well. I can confirm it works very well on the Inc; should work just as well for the Bolt

Read this. It explains absolutely EVERYTHING about bump charging and how/why it works for HTC phones:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=9777867&postcount=1

 

[Cyber Warrior]

Y'all realize these batteries don't reach their potential until about 4-6 full charge cycles in, right ? My Eris battery kinda sucked at first. Then like magically got WAY better after the 5th or 6th charge.

Exactly...you really can't comment on battery life right now. Give your phone at least two nights of charging for at least 9-10 hours each night.

Going off topic... If you're not happy with the keyboard, try a different one. I like using SmartKeyboard Pro.
I like the features of the stock keyboard but find myself typing a lot of errors... It's a little too small for me. I gave it a chance but it's not for me... switching it up.

 

[Cory Streater]

No **** thats whats supposed to happen
Do you actually know how a sim card works?

Do you have any idea what happens to a thread when you post something like this?

Everyone: Debates = good. Personal attacks = childish and wrong.

 

[anon(75289)]

Non 4g area?

I live in the greater Seattle area. We have 4G everywhere up here. I did like 10 speed tests, synced all my stuff, played with the google maps with the gps on etc etc. I was riding in the car while a friend was driving. So I got to test the 4G cell tower handover, and the 3G to 4G, and 4G to 3G handover. All is working great!!!

 

[Joelist]

Excellent XDA article! Thanks much for posting it.

All I do is remember to plug in when I come home and when in the car. No issues at all.

 

[anon(75289)]

Can you list your setting like:

wifi
GPS
Screen timeout
Haptic feedback

Wifi has been off, I never use wifi unless i'm doing hotspot.
-In my experience, wifi is always the biggest battery drain.
GPS is always on with my phones. I use it way too much.
Screen timeout is default haven't changed that
Haptic feedback is on for everything.

Yeah, IDK. I think the battery life is great. And when I order my slim-1600mah seidio battery it will be even better =)

Of course this is all sort of preliminary. As I haven't unplugged it at 7am and headed to work for a full day yet. We shall see.

 

[biff6789]

Excellent XDA article! Thanks much for posting it.

All I do is remember to plug in when I come home and when in the car. No issues at all.

Heh, happy to help.

But yea, that article is a MUST READ for anyone who wants to know why bump charging works and why their battery goes down 10% after 10 minutes first thing in the morning

(article link is just a few posts up for this one)

 

[BSG75]

I didn't read all 15 pages, I admit. Does it still appear to need bump charging? I love my Incredible but I'm not getting another hTC phone with battery issues.

 

[htowngator]

Sucks that bump charging is required for this thing.

Ugh

 

[biff6789]

Wifi has been off, I never use wifi unless i'm doing hotspot.
-In my experience, wifi is always the biggest battery drain...

I was under the impression that WiFi only drains the battery when it is sniffing and not connected to any network. But once it connects, I thought I remember reading that it uses LESS power since it only has to communicate a few hundred feet (as opposed to miles with the phone's radio).

I know that when I leave my Inc unplugged overnight with WiFi off it drains the battery around 15%, but if I leave WiFi connected it only drops 4-5%

Any others out there want to chime in on this one? WiFi is a key component in the battery life debate...

 

[Jaymil]

Exactly...you really can't comment on battery life right now. Give your phone at least two nights of charging for at least 9-10 hours each night.

Going off topic... If you're not happy with the keyboard, try a different one. I like using SmartKeyboard Pro.
I like the features of the stock keyboard but find myself typing a lot of errors... It's a little too small for me. I gave it a chance but it's not for me... switching it up.

Same here, using the glossy black skin I think it is. Downloaded it from their forums. The stock HTC one just seemed a bit small with the arrow keys and all, kept making alot of typo's.

 

[Jaymil]

Also I'm really saddened by the need for bump charging if that's true. I HATED doing that on my incredible. Wasn't a huge deal but it was the principle.

I tried to test the bump charging myself but I was a bit too impatient to try today. My phone charged up to 99% (on circle battery widget) and the light stayed orange for a good 30 minutes. Didn't seem to want to charge that last 1% so finally I powered it off and like 10 mins later the green light came on. Maybe it woulda came on in another 10 mins anyway so I'm not 100% sold on the need or benefit to bump charge the TB yet.

 

[Cory Streater]

Merged with Cyber's battery life sticky. If you haven't read his first post, you might want to do so.

P.S. - I've had an LTE USB modem since the day they went on sale. 4G sucks more battery life period. We have Ferrari's with 3-gallon gas tanks. Battery technology isn't keeping up with the equipment it's running.

 

[curney]

Ummmm Droid x is pretty damn good.

You'd better start heading back to Verizon then. No phone with a 4.3" display (I've played with them ALL) lasts more than a few hours if you don't turn the screen down. I work for HP. We play with EVERYTHING that gets released. (and copy the good ideas ) I don't know if Verizon promised you guys better battery life, but if they did, they lied. You need a bigger battery and a smaller processor if you want to keep the 4.3" screen. Also, some kind of rooted ROM works on a few of the phones.

Sent from my Galaxy Tab using Tapatalk

 

[amotter]

I have had it all day long....charged it up to full at 3:00....bar is have empty at 9:00. That is 6 hours...with a 50% drain.....

And it has been switching between 3g and 4g...has barely left my hand, uploading downloading running facebook, my e-mail, texting, surfing, phone calling, playing angry birds (i get it now).

Pretty confident that the battery life is going to improve...so far everyone's concerns is making me feel pretty darn good about the phone to be honest. I will let you guys know how things are going over the next few days....but I can tell you that some of the comments and predictions others are making has not been the case with me today. Thanks for the article on the bump. Very cool.

One other comment since it could be impacting battery usage...I go in my house (newer with paper walls...3g, go outside...4g).

 

[amotter]

Some more notes....when I bought the phone the "reps" were told to tell every customer that bought one that Verizon and HTC strongly reccomend a car charger...which I got at best buy (Thanks Steve)...

Also...I noticed that it was factory preset at 40% for the display...

Like I said...it is probably gonna need charged at some point during the day from a computer or my car...at least for a little bit. I am told this is more common than not with the non-rooted dIncs as well.

 

[rotorocker]

I hope Screebl will help like it does with my OG droid

 

[Mike_is_Mike]

Has anyone had it long enough to tell how the battery life is?

Got mine turned on and working in the store at 9:45 AM, by the time they activated it and walked me through the phone, the battery was down to less than 25% (YELLOW)

Charged it up in the car the rest of the morning. From noon I played with it off an on until the battery was showing YELLOW again around 4PM. Charged it in the car again to about 90%, have been playing with it off and on until now (10:16PM) battery is showing 40%.

I will charge it over night, but I doubt this thing will last a whole day, like my BB did. I ordered the 1600 battery from seidioonline.com today, should have it Monday. That may only give me another 45 minutes or so of talk time, but in sales, that could mean the difference of a good day or bad when calling in orders.

I have 15 days to return it. If I can't get a full day off one battery, it maybe going back.