Unplanned battery test

[Colorado]

With all the conflicting reports, rumors, and trash talking about the Evo's battery life, I thought my experience might be helpful.

I've read enough about the "horrible, horrible" battery life to be worried, so when I got my shiny new Evo, I brought the charging cable to work with me. I unintentionally left the cable at work when I went home in the evening. I haven't bought any accessories so I had no way of charging the phone overnight.

Here's a summary then:

Wed Morning: Turned Evo on after full charge

Wed Day: Brought Evo to work, usage was moderate. I actually didn't have that much time to use the phone but ended up demoing it constantly to people at work. (Youtube over Wifi, SprintTV, Flashlite, etc.)

Wed Evening: Spent some time entering contacts and generally playing around, learning how to use Android/Sense.

Wed Night: Let the phone sit (turned on, no charger).

This morning: Uptime 25+ hours, Battery charge is about 40%.

The only "tips" I've bothered with so far is turning off WiFi when not using it and disabling "Always on" data connections. My screen brightness is still full. I still use live wallpapers.

Are you going to get a week of standby on this phone? No. But if you are having to charge it every 4 hours even when not using it as some reviews claim then something is drastically wrong. Either a bad battery or some rogue app eating charge.

 

[IQmatic]

I agree, i have almost identical experience. I forgot the cable at work, and then used it moderately throughout the day, the evening, and the next day, when after several hours i had to plug it in again. it lasted something like 28 hours. moderate use.

 

[Darth Mo]

I think the battery life in standby or limiting use to texting/phone calls/email is actually decent.

But if that's all I wanted to do, I'd get a Blackberry. It's using the advanced features, which is why we go the phone in the first place, that saps the battery in a few hours. That's the complaint people have.

 

[d3xn2o]

Same here...

I'm at work now... * Lunch is awesome today * and from 6 am this morning until now i've only dropped down to about 90%

The battery really isnt that bad people...

I think what happens is one person gets all crazy because they have all these live apps running and we get thousands of threads stating this battery sux...


Manage your Sync and such you'll be fine...

 

[JM22508]

I agree with Darth and am growing increasingly frustrated when I see posts about "good battery life." Why me????

My experience:
Monday through Wednesday, I've started each day with a full charge and with very light use (a few texts, checking fb periodically, a handful of google searches and very few phone calls), and my battery has died before leaving the office at 5 each day. This includes a about 20 minutes on the car charger going to and from lunch.

I've spent a ton of time reading "battery tips" and implemented each one (although I've uninstalled ATK). I also added Battery Status Pro yesterday to keep an eye on the percentage. Also, I realized today that I had Facebook for Sense set to never sync, but didn't realize Facebook for Android was still syncing every hour. We'll see if that has any impact.

So, today I get up, unplug the phone, get dressed and drive in to the office and am at 82% as I'm walking in. WTF? Now, I will say that battery loss has slowed down significantly after that first 15ish%, and I'm currently at 60% at noon. I've also got a charger at my desk now, but am not using it yet, just to see if the things I'm doing are helping/hurting. That said, and this is not a terrible exaggeration, the only time I'm messing with the phone is to check the battery, make sure I don't have excess apps running in the background, or trying something new I just read on one of these threads.

I don't mind charging the phone at my desk during the day, in the car, etc., but after what I consider "upgrading" from a blackberry, it's frustrating to carry around a great big phone with everything turned off (no wifi, no gps, no 4g even though I live in a good 4g area, 20% screen brightness, etc...).

 

[2CupsWithString]

I have a similar story, yesterday I took the phone off the charger around 7:30AM, worked the whole day, went out after work, had some drinks, came home, passed out. Woke up today cursing myself because the EVO wasn't on the charger but no big deal it was still green. It made the 1hr 20minute trip to work where I plugged it in to a USB cable to charge.

I used the phone for navigation last night and showed it off heavily, using Google translation, showing off the GPS, taking pictures and refreshing a web page obsessively (the hockey score). I received around 120 push emails (2 gmail accounts) and around 20 TXTs. A few short phone calls.

I don't have WiFi or 4G on, I'm not using any task applications for anything.

 

[MDteX]

So, today I get up, unplug the phone, get dressed and drive in to the office and am at 82% as I'm walking in. WTF? Now, I will say that battery loss has slowed down significantly after that first 15ish%, and I'm currently at 60% at noon. I've also got a charger at my desk now, but am not using it yet, just to see if the things I'm doing are helping/hurting.

I don't mind charging the phone at my desk during the day, in the car, etc., but after what I consider "upgrading" from a blackberry, it's frustrating to carry around a great big phone with everything turned off (no wifi, no gps, no 4g even though I live in a good 4g area, 20% screen brightness, etc...).

I have a spare charger at my desk. Just makes sense to use it while I'm sitting here.

From my experiences so far the first 20-30% of charge dissipate quickly while the last 20-30% last reasonably long.

I have turned off a few things and for me the biggest drain is 4G and GPS. I try to keep those off sitting here but turn them on when I leave.

With a charger at home, one at work and one in the car I will always be able to get a boost when I need it.

 

[Darth Mo]

I don't mind charging the phone at my desk during the day, in the car, etc., but after what I consider "upgrading" from a blackberry, it's frustrating to carry around a great big phone with everything turned off (no wifi, no gps, no 4g even though I live in a good 4g area, 20% screen brightness, etc...).

Yep. It's like saying you get great gas mileage with your car if you just push it where you're going instead of driving it. Not awesome...

 

[yourownfear]

Im almost at the 24 hr mark on my evo and im above 50% with some txts, calls, downloaded 2 songs and 5 videos. Watched them and listened to music in the shower yesterday and today. Wifi has been on 100% of the time and i think i fooled with a few apps. Oh and I also have a live wallpaper. There is no problem with this phones battery life. Its no worst then my pre or instinct (both batteries). Under heavy use every piece of electronic equipment drains fast....
Its most likely some app people have running or the fact there going crazy using apps and there not being killed properly.

 

[Edge767]

I just wrote about batteries this morning.

 

[MDteX]

Im almost at the 24 hr mark on my evo and im above 50% with some txts, calls, downloaded 2 songs and 5 videos. Watched them and listened to music in the shower yesterday and today. Wifi has been on 100% of the time and i think i fooled with a few apps. Oh and I also have a live wallpaper. There is no problem with this phones battery life. Its no worst then my pre or instinct (both batteries). Under heavy use every piece of electronic equipment drains fast....
Its most likely some app people have running or the fact there going crazy using apps and there not being killed properly.

24 hours with some usage and over 50%? Either you have the best battery ever made or something doesn't jive...

 

[d3xn2o]

2:00 PM Holding Steady at 82% Battery with Music playing for the Past hour...


Fix your Setting fellas this thing is awesome...

 

[akarol]

Im almost at the 24 hr mark on my evo and im above 50% with some txts, calls, downloaded 2 songs and 5 videos. Watched them and listened to music in the shower yesterday and today. Wifi has been on 100% of the time and i think i fooled with a few apps. Oh and I also have a live wallpaper. There is no problem with this phones battery life. Its no worst then my pre or instinct (both batteries). Under heavy use every piece of electronic equipment drains fast....
Its most likely some app people have running or the fact there going crazy using apps and there not being killed properly.

Can you detail what you have apps you have running, downloaded, and/or syncing and at what intervals?

 

[yourownfear]

Sorry for the late response. I was traveling but my evo made it to Pa before i had to throw it on the charger in the car. 27 hrs with light to moderate use. It would have lasted longer but i decided to play with the camera on the drive cause the scenery was quite nice.
Recap:
-I did about 1 hour of phone calls
-40+ txts
-Took 56 pictures
-Made 2 videos
-Surfed this forum from taptalk for about 30 mins on 3g
-downloaded the app musiconline and 6 songs with it
-downloaded the app tubedroid and 5 videos
-watched and listened to those a few times
-messed with google nav during our trip to find my prego a arbys
-did some balancing the check book from navy federal online on DolphinHD
-downloaded led desire app and played with the morse code for 10 min to see if my wife could guess what it said (she is an OS in the navy) and she failed.
-downloaded droidarmory, weather channel, accuweather apps and messed with them for about 10 mins each.
-Rest of the time was standby time for the most part

Settings
-Wifi is always enabled
-4g is always off
-gps is always on
-task killer is on and i always kill an app after i use it and have it set to aggressive
-I use a live wallpaper
-super caller id app
-Brightness is set to auto

The battery life is more than enough for my usage and in imo if the phone is managed right it could be enough for anyone.

 

[helfire#AC]

2:00 PM Holding Steady at 82% Battery with Music playing for the Past hour...


Fix your Setting fellas this thing is awesome...

Ya fix the settings so it never does anything, fun phone! I have mine set to reasonable settings in following the multitude of guides here and i drop ~10%/hour (25% if i surf or do anything with the phone). 8 hours a charge is a good day. (work + commute is more than that).

Glad you guys can get a days worth of time out of your phone, hope I never get stranded on my way home from work, couldn't call anyone!