Thunderbolt Battery Complaints + Tips/Tricks

[NormanGC]

This phone does NOT come stock out of the box optimized for battery life but you can make some adjustments to improve it for yourself. This is something that falls on the USER if you expected 8-10 hours of battery you let yourself down by not doing enough research on this phone so please stop blaming HTC or Verizon for something that will improve if you put forth some effort and hopefully more so with software update to tweak things we can't adjust that do need mild improvements.

<em>Stop putting the blame or task or what ever you want to call it on the User!</em> It's the manufacturer's fault for not supplying a proper battery and that is that!


I contacted HTC and provided them with list of complaints about the battery life and here is their response.


Thank you for contacting HTC Technical Assistance concerning the battery for the Verizon Thunderbolt. The Thunderbolt came with the 1400 mAh battery. HTC Technical Assistance is not aware of an extended life battery for this HTC Device. There is currently not an option to change the battery that came with the device. Please feel free to research information at the websites I have provided below to obtain information on a different battery that might be available for your device.

HTC Online Store (US) - Free Cell Phones & Cell Phone Service
Verizon.com
BoxWave Accessories - iPad accessories, iPad cases, iPhone, Kindle, Blackberry, Treo, HTC Cases, Batteries, Chargers & More
Smartphone, Netbook, Laptop and Accessory Store - eXpansys Inc
Amazon.com: Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more

To send a reply to this message or let me know I have successfully answered your question log in to our ContactUs site using your email address and your ticket number 11USCW1XXXXXXXXX.

Sincerely,

Dakota

HTC

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We are unable to receive replies to this email account. Please visit us at htc.com if you have any questions or need further assistance.

---------------

I've had Several phones and NEVER did I EVER had to shut down applications or reduce screen resolution or anything of that sort to get a decent battery life. Why should we start accepting subpart batteries from the manufacturers.

Here are all of the phone that I own or owned and their battery life.
BB 8330 2.5 to 3.5 days of battery life. BB Messenger, GPS Yes That is right GPS, Bluetooth are always ON.
VX8700 3 - 5 days of battery life Bluetooth ALWAYS on!
V505 3 - 5 Days Bluetooth ALWAYS on
V550 3 - 5 Days Bluetooth ALWAYS on
Nokia 6310i That was a Great phone! Bluetooth ALWAYS ON. 5-8 days
Nokia ???? cant remember the model number 6-10 days of battery life.
2 others but can't remember the model numbers.

 

[iLLusive]

<em>Stop putting the blame or task or what ever you want to call it on the User!</em> It's the manufacturer's fault for not supplying a proper battery and that is that!


I contacted HTC and provided them with list of complaints about the battery life and here is their response.


Thank you for contacting HTC Technical Assistance concerning the battery for the Verizon Thunderbolt. The Thunderbolt came with the 1400 mAh battery. HTC Technical Assistance is not aware of an extended life battery for this HTC Device. There is currently not an option to change the battery that came with the device. Please feel free to research information at the websites I have provided below to obtain information on a different battery that might be available for your device.

HTC Online Store (US) - Free Cell Phones & Cell Phone Service
Verizon.com
BoxWave Accessories - iPad accessories, iPad cases, iPhone, Kindle, Blackberry, Treo, HTC Cases, Batteries, Chargers & More
Smartphone, Netbook, Laptop and Accessory Store - eXpansys Inc
Amazon.com: Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more

To send a reply to this message or let me know I have successfully answered your question log in to our ContactUs site using your email address and your ticket number 11USCW1XXXXXXXXX.

Sincerely,

Dakota

HTC

Want to see what others are saying? Have a question to ask other HTC fans?

Become a fan of HTC facebook.com/htc
Follow us on Twitter twitter.com/htc
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel youtube.com/htc

Explore our development resources developer.htc.com

We are unable to receive replies to this email account. Please visit us at htc.com if you have any questions or need further assistance.

---------------

I've had Several phones and NEVER did I EVER had to shut down applications or reduce screen resolution or anything of that sort to get a decent battery life. Why should we start accepting subpart batteries from the manufacturers.

Here are all of the phone that I own or owned and their battery life.
BB 8330 2.5 to 3.5 days of battery life. BB Messenger, GPS Yes That is right GPS, Bluetooth are always ON.
VX8700 3 - 5 days of battery life Bluetooth ALWAYS on!
V505 3 - 5 Days Bluetooth ALWAYS on
V550 3 - 5 Days Bluetooth ALWAYS on
Nokia 6310i That was a Great phone! Bluetooth ALWAYS ON. 5-8 days
Nokia ???? cant remember the model number 6-10 days of battery life.
2 others but can't remember the model numbers.

If you actually read all my post I never claimed the battery life was perfect but really you think its valid to comparea a 4G smartphone to a what 1 inch Blackberry screen? People don't seem to realize this is a 4.3 inch screen and high end processor. You can't FAIRLY compare apples to oranges and I admited we need a software update to fix a few things that people can't adjust, but do I think the whole "my phone died in 1.5 hours" to be accurate when they claim they had nothing running? Nope sorry.

It is our responsiblity to understand the applications and settings on our phone. Yes a larger battery say 1600-1900 mAh would of been nice, but there is SO many settings you can adjust to improve battery life. So please don't take what I say out of context and twist it around and compare it to 5 year old phones that aren't even on the same technology.

There is room for improvement on HTC & Verizon in but by no means is this the end of the world horrible battery life people are claiming but when you spend this much money on a new phone and have huge expectations. There will always be some let down and it is easier to just place blame then take responsibility and adjust a few things yourself for improvement long term.

 

[quanb24]

Notice a HUGE improvement on the battery life after I stop that blockbuster app from checking updates thanks guys!

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk

 

[NormanGC]

My point, It least I thought, was clear.


Why should the consumer constantly accept sub part products! In this case the product is the battery. As years went by, the battery life has also gone by. The phones are good and I have never argued that in fact; the features cannot be compared. However, the battery provided by the manufactures, HTC, Motorola, Samsung and al... have continued to throw us the user, the garbage batteries.

HTC's response is for me to look for a new and better battery somewhere else.

Why don't they do their due diligence and provide us the consumer with a better product.

To me reducing the quality or turning off features just to save battery life so the phone could die in 8 hours instead of 6 hours defeats the purpose of buying the feature rich phone.

 

[Bigdaddy1207]

Does anyone know how to keep the weather set to your hometown instead of it switching, I have truer everything and I can't figure it out.

 

[johndabeast]

Does anyone know how to keep the weather set to your hometown instead of it switching, I have truer everything and I can't figure it out.

I noticed it changes by where you are, but if you go to the weather on the main clock, I'm pretty sure there is a little + symbol on the bottom right.

 

[Joelist]

Are you kidding me! Maybe you are having better battery life but plenty of us aren't. Who cares what phone is more powerful?! My point was simply if you make a powerful device provide a power source that can handle it! HTC placed 1230mah batteries in their previous smartphones (which led to their rep for poor battery performance) so you would think that they would be able to figure this device would need larger than a 1400mah battery. We have to do all this tweaking just to get to minimal battery performance when many other devices fared far better right out the box! If they had provided an 1800 or 1900mah battery this thread would not exist!

SOME not MANY. If some are having battery issues while some (likely a much higher number as people who have no issues typically do not post anything in the first place) are not then maybe users need to look at their individual situations.

Could they have put a bigger battery in the phone? Really not without removing functionality as they already have a lot jammed in there. Maybe they ditch the speaker? Or the camera?

As to power consumption, remember this phone has a lot of high end hardware. for one thing (and this is where the BB comparisons start to fail) it has a huge SLCD display that is very bright and very colorful. Also it has an LTE radio, SVDO (which is why you can use the phone and data at the same time), 2 cameras and so on.

There are a lot of good threads here regarding battery life extension. Also Seidio offers a hi-density battery that does not call for an extended case. So perhaps calm is called for along with looking at individual cases more closely.

 

[Mike_is_Mike]

Are folks all running in 4G areas and having many active apps running like Twitter / Facebook updating every 15 minutes? I feel asleep last night with my phone on 30 minute sleep window I woke up and got ready and haven't touched my phone for 12 hours later and had received 7 text and 1 missed call my phone went from 99 percent to 89 percent in 12 hours after me spending all day going through all settings possible and optimizing everything.

Is this possibly a much larger battery issue for 4G service because I'm only in 3G area and my battery life is pretty close to that of my Incredible about 1-1.5 hour less total overall per full charge due to obviously a bigger screen size and much more demanding processor.

I will gladly go through and list all apps and settings I adjusted if anyone wants some suggestions feel free to PM. Honestly can't imagine anyone only getting 2 hours unless you have your brightness set to full with 20-30+ apps actively pulling information with all 3 GPS on and 5+ emails / twitter / myspace / facebook pulling every 5-15 minutes non-stop and playing rockback or watching youtube non-stop.

This phone does NOT come stock out of the box optimized for battery life but you can make some adjustments to improve it for yourself. This is something that falls on the USER if you expected 8-10 hours of battery you let yourself down by not doing enough research on this phone so please stop blaming HTC or Verizon for something that will improve if you put forth some effort and hopefully more so with software update to tweak things we can't adjust that do need mild improvements.

How did you set your phone on a 30 minute sleep window? There is no such setting.

I am in a 4G area and I DO blame HTC and Verizon for hyping this phone AND it's power. And I blame HTC for KNOWINGLY under powering this phone.

At least NOW I understand the TB commercial - That guy way running all over the city with his industrial size cables and trying to hook them up to enough power to run his Thunderbolt for a few hours!!!!!!! :'(

 

[Mike_is_Mike]

If you actually read all my post I never claimed the battery life was perfect but really you think its valid to comparea a 4G smartphone to a what 1 inch Blackberry screen? People don't seem to realize this is a 4.3 inch screen and high end processor. You can't FAIRLY compare apples to oranges and I admited we need a software update to fix a few things that people can't adjust, but do I think the whole "my phone died in 1.5 hours" to be accurate when they claim they had nothing running? Nope sorry.

It is our responsiblity to understand the applications and settings on our phone. Yes a larger battery say 1600-1900 mAh would of been nice, but there is SO many settings you can adjust to improve battery life. So please don't take what I say out of context and twist it around and compare it to 5 year old phones that aren't even on the same technology.

There is room for improvement on HTC & Verizon in but by no means is this the end of the world horrible battery life people are claiming but when you spend this much money on a new phone and have huge expectations. There will always be some let down and it is easier to just place blame then take responsibility and adjust a few things yourself for improvement long term.

Some let down? HTC released a product they KNEW would have dismal battery results. One of the rumors was that they were fixing the poor battery performance. It makes me wonder how bad it was before they "fixed" it!!

Lucky for us it is something that was found out well within the return period. Thunderbolts maybe selling for $99 ($45 on contract) the week before the Bionic is released

 

[acmorris]

Yeah Mike I saw Thunderbolt commercial tonite and died laughing with the guy on the roof and said to myself no wonder they call it the Thunderbolt, needs a thunderbolt to keep it powered up for a long days' use!!!

 

[Mike_is_Mike]

ThunderBolt commercial now makes sence.

At least NOW I understand the TB commercial - That guy was running all over the city with his industrial size cables and trying to hook them up to enough power to run his Thunderbolt for a few hours!!!!!!!

Or maybe it takes a bolt of lighting to keep this phone charged? I wonder if there is an aftermarket lighting rod attachment for this phone?

 

[Cyber Warrior]

I'm finding that if I don't have 4G coverage which is basically only in my house, my phone will die within 6 hours. When I turn off 4G and use wifi my phone will last a good 13-14hrs with moderate-heavy use.
Once the app developers come out with a toggle widget like the Evo has for toggling 3G and 4G, the battery will be amazing.

 

[Mike_is_Mike]

Yeah Mike I saw Thunderbolt commercial tonite and died laughing with the guy on the roof and said to myself no wonder they call it the Thunderbolt, needs a thunderbolt to keep it powered up for a long days' use!!!

I never liked the commercial before the phone came out - NOW I view as a slap in the face from Verizon and HTC.

The battery was clearly an afterthought, they just didn't design enough room to put in an adequate battery. If aftermarket guys can make more powerful same size batteries then so can HTC (or they can BUY them if they don't make them.)

Then they should offer a choice to the customer, do you want the phone with the crappy standard battery or do you want to pay $30 more for a battery that will actually run the phone past lunch?

 

[Mike_is_Mike]

I'm finding that if I don't have 4G coverage which is basically only in my house, my phone will die within 6 hours. When I turn off 4G and use wifi my phone will last a good 13-14hrs with moderate-heavy use.
Once the app developers come out with a toggle widget like the Evo has for toggling 3G and 4G, the battery will be amazing.

I seriously doubt my phone will last 13-14 hours on my home WiFi.... even if I don't use it.

But what is the point of having this (or any) phone? Is it to use it as little as possible, shut off all of it's cool features, and just LOOK at it all day?

They will (maybe) admit they dropped the ball, if and when, they come up with a solution.

This is a very nice phone and I would be willing to pay a premium for a non-hump battery that lasted all day with heavy use. Who wouldn't?

 

[Bigdaddy1207]

I still can't add my town, when I try to type it in for the weather it doesn't show up, none of the towns around me do, but it does show up automatically. I just hate that it switches all the time. Sometimes it switches to towns I have never heard of. Any ideas.

 

[Joelist]

And so the hysteria continues....

 

[Cyber Warrior]

There are lots of people having good battery life with this phone. As soon as we have a way to screen capture, I will show the results I'm getting if you don't believe me. The point is if you're not using 4G there's no need for it to be on. When you need the speed to upload/download, browse, stream, etc... It can easily be toggled on with a widget.

 

[nate44]

Hello Mike. What specifically have you done to improve your phone's battery life? Are you in a well covered 4G market?

 

[Mike_is_Mike]

Is it the 4G? The big screen?

These big phones should have been made slightly bigger in order to house a power source to run them with heavy use for 12 hours.

I remember going to my Storm1 from a "regular" cell phone. I was put off that I had to charge it every night, instead of every 4-7 days with my old cell phone. But I got over it, after all I could get a full days work out of it and charging it over night was not a big deal.

Charging a phone 2-3 times a day does not work for me. I am not able to stop my work day to find a place to plug it in for 20 minutes.

Maybe I just have to come to terms that this is a play phone and not a work phone. Perhaps the 2nd or 3rd generation 4G's will have a power source equal to the abilities of the phones.

 

[P7M8]

After giving the "bump charging" a try last night I got a little over 11 hours out of my battery today with below average use. A few phone calls, light texting, light checking into facebook, twitter and foursquare. A normal weekday would have seen a lot more activity but the ability to plug in somewhere.

It was above 60% for a good part of the day, once it went below 50% it really dropped fast.

I have the 2750 battery, just haven't tried it yet.