Smartphone battery life

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shoota

[H]ard|Gawd
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Feb 26, 2011
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Ok I'm calling on you smartphone gurus out there. Which of the current Verizon smartphones are known for good battery life. I've read that the iPhone 4 won't last all day with normal use but how about the Android phones? Any that last two without charging or is that asking too much?
 
iPhone 4 is probably the best, but only if you set it up to save battery, straight out of the box it's terrible.

Similarly, any smartphone, right out of the box is terrible, terrible, terrible, but tweaked, and particularly with Android phones, rooted, and you can double-triple battery life.
 
iPhone iwll do well...

any android with setCPU installed will do just fine


My HD2, cannot remember the verizon equivlant, will get at minimum 24 hours of decent/heavy use of everything on stock battery, and i've it up to 2.5/3 days with just call/text
 
So does "tweaking" the settings make it difficult to use the phone as intended? My wife will not only not remember to turn off/on settings but will throw a MAJOR fit about how everything is so hard to use and she'll hate it. So give me a couple examples of what tweaks you're referring to.
 
I personally have my phone set to be overclocked a little until it gets down to 30% bat life it will drop down to ~600 Mhz or so, good enough for Android to run on quite well, but not game and what not....then at 15 or 20% bat life i have it drop to 400 Mhz to give me tons of extra life, but it is slugish overall, again though that is due to my preference for battery life at the end of the battery over performance. All settings i have set to use the Smart Ass governor

shoota said:
So does "tweaking" the settings make it difficult to use the phone as intended? My wife will not only not remember to turn off/on settings but will throw a MAJOR fit about how everything is so hard to use and she'll hate it. So give me a couple examples of what tweaks you're referring to.
Click to expand...
 
shoota said:
Ok I'm calling on you smartphone gurus out there. Which of the current Verizon smartphones are known for good battery life. I've read that the iPhone 4 won't last all day with normal use but how about the Android phones? Any that last two without charging or is that asking too much?
Click to expand...

iPhone4 iOS4: 10.3 hrs
HTC MyTouch Android: 6.6 hrs
Moto Atrix Android: 7 hrs
Sammy Nexus S Android: 8.1 hrs

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20041273-1.html

Take your pick
 
Alright thanks guys. But what tweaks are available for the iPhone 4?
 
Well, w/o jailbreaking it

Change Push frequency, turn screen brightness down to 20-30%, turn off wifi and/or cell data depending on where you are at. I disable bluetooth since I never, ever use it.

Things like that.


**edited in**

Bit of a post-script. These are based on experiences with an ipod touch, and laptops. I haven't actually received my iphone 4 yet (tomorrow), so I'll be watching this as well. There's a good chance I'll find other tweaks once I get it. I'm a bit of a battery life nut. Once pushed an older BlackBook past 10 hours on a flight to New Zealand.
 
Last edited:
I'll be very interested to what you have to say once you get it.

my P.S.: We're going to NZ next May! I can't wait
 
Any phone can be made to get good battery life. My old Droid could get over 24 hours with pretty good usage. My current Thunderbolt is known for shitty battery life, but I can get about 10-12 hours out of it with moderate usage on 4G LTE.

My wife's Droid Incredible gets about 18 hours and I honestly haven't done a whole lot with that phone other then load SetCPU and the MIUI ROM which now is an old Android 2.2.1 version (due to upgrade her to latest MIUI probably tonight or tomorrow). My old iPhone 3G got between 8-10 hours. It probably could have been better, but I never bothered to jailbreak it.
 
Verizon iPhone won't last all day ? Nah I don't believe that. Lasts me two days easily with normal use. about a day if I use it heavily, especially on 3G and using the internet. I haven't encountered a phone that has better life .. I've heard the Xperia Play has really good battery life.
 
My HTC arrive (WP7) gets better battery life then any android phone i have used and then some.
 
Back when I got my droid X it was getting horrible battery life.. like 3 to 3.5 hours max just idle.. not even making calls or internet. I took it back and got several more with differing problems till I finally got a good one, factory stock it would hit around 4.5 hours battery life with a very light usage, I bought a extended battery and upped it to just over 6.5 hours. It was at that point that I found setcpu, it brought my battery life up to around 8.5 hours alone. after that I streamlined and cleaned out most of the crap off of it and got just north of 10 hours. I then found dx d2 overclocker. Most of the time I use the 1ghz LV setting and am getting around 18 hours heavy use or 24+ hours light usage. I've been experimenting with a 600mhz ulv setting off and on, it looks like I'll hit close to two days with light usage with it.

little update: tried a 1ghz ulv setting last night and as of 12pm today I'm still at 57% battery, time unplugged 13H 57M 51S. So just at 14 hours unplugged and still almost 60% battery life.. with a droid X.. still using the facebook + news + weather widgets


So yea the difference between stock and modded can be quiet different.. in my case 5 hours of light usage compared to 24+ hours I'm getting now, it all depends on how much you optimize on android..

PS: just installed setcpu to my rooted Coby Kyros 7" tablet, battery life has went up from around 6 hours to 14+ with 50% brightness
 
Thanks for the input guys. So new question..
I'm looking at getting a used Verizon iPhone 4 off Craigslist, what's the best way to make sure the phone is on the up and up? Is there any way to check the ESN outside of going to a Verizon Store? Or should I just meet the person there?
 
shoota said:
Ok I'm calling on you smartphone gurus out there. Which of the current Verizon smartphones are known for good battery life. I've read that the iPhone 4 won't last all day with normal use but how about the Android phones? Any that last two without charging or is that asking too much?
Click to expand...

Zumino Zufeilon said:
iPhone 4 is probably the best, but only if you set it up to save battery, straight out of the box it's terrible.

Similarly, any smartphone, right out of the box is terrible, terrible, terrible, but tweaked, and particularly with Android phones, rooted, and you can double-triple battery life.
Click to expand...

wut?

I had an iPhone with email push on for every 15 minutes and it would last 2 days with heavy use.

My HTC incredible won't last for 10 hours with no email push and very limited use.

EDIT: I unplugged my Android at 0530 this morning, it is now 1225(MST) and I'm already in yellow. I've done nothing but send 3 texts, play a little bit of words with friends, and download ONE email. Bluetooth and all that other bullshit is off too.

Android battery life sucks monkey nuts and I wish I would have never listened to everyone about how great these phones are. Not to mention the weather channel app runs like its a 100mhz phone.
 
OEM said:
wut?

I had an iPhone with email push on for every 15 minutes and it would last 2 days with heavy use.

My HTC incredible won't last for 10 hours with no email push and very limited use.

EDIT: I unplugged my Android at 0530 this morning, it is now 1225(MST) and I'm already in yellow. I've done nothing but send 3 texts, play a little bit of words with friends, and download ONE email. Bluetooth and all that other bullshit is off too.

Android battery life sucks monkey nuts and I wish I would have never listened to everyone about how great these phones are. Not to mention the weather channel app runs like its a 100mhz phone.
Click to expand...

Then something is wrong with your Incredible. My wife's Dinc gets 18 hours. Hell my battery eating Thunderbolt got 13 hours yesterday with heavy usage and I had 9% left at the end. :eek:
 
Vermillion said:
Then something is wrong with your Incredible. My wife's Dinc gets 18 hours. Hell my battery eating Thunderbolt got 13 hours yesterday with heavy usage and I had 9% left at the end. :eek:
Click to expand...

My GF has the exact same phone, and my two co workers have Droid 2's and theirs doesn't last much longer than mine. They get about 15 hours of battery life. One of them is rooted, too.
 
OEM said:
My GF has the exact same phone, and my two co workers have Droid 2's and theirs doesn't last much longer than mine. They get about 15 hours of battery life. One of them is rooted, too.
Click to expand...

And I repeat something is wrong. My old Droid could get 24+ hours of life. Even now my TBolt is on hour number 9 with 53% life left and I've been using the hell out of it again.

I would suggest grabbing Watchdog Lite from the market and monitoring what the phone is doing. Something is constantly sending data or doing something it shouldn't. My initial guess is something like Facebook, Twitter, or an e-mail account using the E-Mail app is checking for updates way too often. Heck, the battery could just need to be bump charged and then calibrated.
 
My Droid Incredible 2 gets about 9+ hours between charges. I run Pandora about 24/7 at work, navigate the interwebs constantly and have the screen on full brightness. Noticed a jump up in my battery life when I killed my task killer (ATK).
 
My experience is that an iPhone 4 will easily last all day and then some with moderate to heavy usage. This is without any extra tweaking other than keeping bluetooth off. All push and locaion services on and 50% auto-brightness.
To get this kind of battery life out of any Android phone I've used it took some heavy tweaking. I also had to disable a lot of features and kill a lot of apps.

Android needs native push support instead of fetch and tighter controls on apps running wild in the background before you can get decent battery life out of the box.
 
iPhone4 will certainly last all day. Even playing hours of battery hogging games I am lucky if I can drain it in a day. The only way I've really drained it is from using it as a GPS on a long drive with the screen on.
 
Vermillion said:
Heck, the battery could just need to be bump charged and then calibrated.
Click to expand...

Right there is why I'm sick of Android.

I shouldn't have to do that. Everyone talks about how great the Android experience is. If it's so great I shouldn't have to play games with charging the phone.
 
Look at that, low battery life!

OP, don't buy an Android.
 
OEM said:
Right there is why I'm sick of Android.

I shouldn't have to do that. Everyone talks about how great the Android experience is. If it's so great I shouldn't have to play games with charging the phone.
Click to expand...

Actually that's an HTC thing not Android. ;)

OEM said:
Look at that, low battery life!

OP, don't buy an Android.
Click to expand...

Look at that! Somebody who doesn't want to put forth the effort to figure out what's wrong! Go back to Apple and enjoy Steve-o telling you what you can and can't do.
 
Vermillion said:
Actually that's an HTC thing not Android. ;)
Click to expand...



At least the damn iPhone battery lasts long enough to actually let you do something.

And explain to me why I have to constantly uninstall and reinstall apps for them to work? That IS an Android issue and not an HTC issue. And I'm not the only one having these issues. Only one person in my office has an iPhone and he is the ONLY one who doesn't have to constantly uninstall apps to get them to work.
 
Ok I didn't start this thread to have you guys bicker about android/iOS.
I'm still looking for suggestions on how to make sure a Verizon phone's ESN is clean when I want to get one off CL Thanks.
 
After having between my wife and I 5 phones ranging from the iphone 4, iphone 3G, Droid Incredible, Droid X and a Droid the iphone 4 is leaps and bounds better in battery life. You would have to root a droid and set it up for max battery life before getting close to the iphone 4.

Right now she has the iphone 4 and I have the Droid X and her phone lasts a few hours longer.
 
shoota said:
Ok I didn't start this thread to have you guys bicker about android/iOS.
I'm still looking for suggestions on how to make sure a Verizon phone's ESN is clean when I want to get one off CL Thanks.
Click to expand...

I have friends that have done this before by sending an email to the seller and asking for the ESN so you can verify it is clean. Then just call up VZW and ask if that ESN is good. Also you can use http://www.checkesnfree.com/ but I hear that it isn't always accurate with with VZW ESN's.
 
shoota said:
Ok I didn't start this thread to have you guys bicker about android/iOS.
I'm still looking for suggestions on how to make sure a Verizon phone's ESN is clean when I want to get one off CL Thanks.
Click to expand...

You're right, my apologies.

However, I've owned both an iPhone and an Android and the iPhone is leaps and bounds better than an Android phone. The OS is buggy and bloated, and doesn't manage the battery good. It's like buying a computer from HP with all kinds of bullshit loaded on it.

Sure, the iPhone you can't have flashy backgrounds, but it's a better phone. If you base your decision for a phone on whether or not you want fancy backgrounds and can customize it to do worthless bullshit, well I can't help you.
 
Well if you jailbreak the iPhone you can have active backgrounds and such too heh.

The think I like about the iPhone is push notifications. I love being always signed into all my messengers. AIM, MSN, and Gtalk. With the iPhone I can always be signed in and it doesn't take any battery life at all because of push notifications.
 
Ok now we're getting somewhere :)
The iPhone is for my wife and believe me she couldn't give a rats behind about customizing. She needs easy, stable and long battery life.
I have the original Droid and she hates this phone while I've learned to get used to it.
Thanks for the suggestions guys.
 
Last time I sold a Verizon phone on Craig's List I met the guy at the Verizon store. The line was long so I just had him dial *228 to activate it over the air to confirm the ESN was clean.
 
Alright I just decided to use my wife's upgrade to lock in the unlimited data so thanks again to everyone for your advice and thoughts.
 
My Droid 2 depending on usage, lasts a couple days. Just checked it, and I charged sometime yesterday afternoon, and I've got a little over half battery left.
 
Right out of the box the iPhone 4 has great battery life. I don't know where anyone would get the idea that it needs tweaking to last all day. A few of the people I know using iPhone 4s right now are using them specifically because they all all day without a problem.

A lot of people with Android phones (including myself) seems to spend a lot of time screwing with things and rooting devices trying to get the phones to last all day :(
 
OEM said:
You're right, my apologies.

However, I've owned both an iPhone and an Android and the iPhone is leaps and bounds better than an Android phone. The OS is buggy and bloated, and doesn't manage the battery good. It's like buying a computer from HP with all kinds of bullshit loaded on it.

Sure, the iPhone you can't have flashy backgrounds, but it's a better phone. If you base your decision for a phone on whether or not you want fancy backgrounds and can customize it to do worthless bullshit, well I can't help you.
Click to expand...

I've also had both and I get far better battery life with my Android devices then iPhone ever did because I have control over my OS. Is stock Android as good as stock iOS when it comes to battery life? No, but then again it's not a locked down OS that you can't do anything with and can go on just about any hardware out there. So there are trade offs based on hardware and manufacturer.

I never turned this into an iOS vs. Android debate. I was simply giving you suggestions on how to try to figure out why your battery life sucks. Instead you start spouting shit like "that's why I'm sick of Android." That's fine but don't go around saying battery life sucks blah blah blah when you certainly don't want to put in a few minutes work to fix it. My wife's Droid Incredible is on 12.5 hours right now. 32% battery life left and she did some heavy usage today. What have I done to my wife's Dinc? Only three things:

1. Rooted it.
2. Installed MIUI ROM (she's still on version 1.3.5)
3. Installed SetCPU.

All in all it took 30 minutes total to do all of that. Small price to pay for better battery life then an iPhone 4 and all the freedom that comes with Android.

I'm done with this though before it does get turned into a full blown iOS vs. Android debate which I have no desire to be part of.

Good luck to the OP with whatever device he ends up going with. Bottom line is battery life can be great on any smartphone if you spend a little time making it that way.

PS: The whole have to uninstall and reinstall an app to get it function is news to me. I've never heard of the issue. I've never had the issue and neither has my wife or any of my friends with Android devices.
 
Vermillion said:
My wife's Droid Incredible gets about 18 hours and I honestly haven't done a whole lot with that phone other then load SetCPU and the MIUI ROM which now is an old Android 2.2.1 version (due to upgrade her to latest MIUI probably tonight or tomorrow). My old iPhone 3G got between 8-10 hours. It probably could have been better, but I never bothered to jailbreak it.
Click to expand...

I believe the droid incredible 2, which I have, is even better. I can easily go a day without charging, and if I am conservative with surfing and games (turning off 3g, bt, and wifi, when not in use), I have gotten almost 3 days out of it without a charge. Pretty damn impressing to me, plus when ever it gets the 2.3 ota android update, this should only go up.
 
OEM said:
At least the damn iPhone battery lasts long enough to actually let you do something.

And explain to me why I have to constantly uninstall and reinstall apps for them to work? That IS an Android issue and not an HTC issue. And I'm not the only one having these issues. Only one person in my office has an iPhone and he is the ONLY one who doesn't have to constantly uninstall apps to get them to work.
Click to expand...

I've got a Nexus S, battery life is good (2-3 days with light/moderate usage is easy, no tweaking), phone is rock solid, and it's fast. 99% of your issues are HTC's fault, not Androids. Vendors suck at customizing Android, and almost always break something along the way.

No idea what the "constantly uninstall and reinstall apps" thing you are talking about is. I've been using Android for 2 years now with a half dozen devices, I've never seen anything like that.

AudioCow said:
Android needs native push support instead of fetch and tighter controls on apps running wild in the background before you can get decent battery life out of the box.
Click to expand...

Android has native push support. Google apps have been using it for a long time, and it was made public in Froyo. Unfortunately, 3rd party devs don't seem to use it for whatever reason. Android also *DOES* provide controls. Go to settings->accounts & sync and uncheck/disable the sync adapters you don't use/want. Battery life will *skyrocket* as a result. My Nexus S with background data disabled will *easily* do a week+ of standby.

Also, people trying to manage "apps running wild in the background" are the biggest cause of problems. Task killers are bad for performance and bad for battery life.
 
OP, good luck with the iPhone...hope it serves you well.

With that out of the way, allow me just a few minutes of your time to tell you my Droid X, out of the box when new, with no modifications would last on average, 10-12 hours. Thats with all the pre-loaded widgets running, e-mail fetching every 15 minutes and me surfing the internet as much as possible since I was paying $30 a month for Unlimited Data.

Now, after figuring out that I didnt need RSS Feeds, News Feeds, Twitter/Facebook/E-mail every 15 minutes, I got my battery life to climb on over the 12 hour mark easily. Once I rooted the phone, slapped a new ROM(Liberty v1.0) on and tweaked it a bit more, I was steadily pushing 17+ hours on a charge with 20-40% remaining at bedtime. Now with the release of Gingerbread, I am exceeding 24-30 hours inbetween charges...and I still surf the net a fair amount daily, GPS occasionally, text/mms messages, phone calls, YouTube, Pandora, MP3 playback and selected app use...

I will gladly stack my Droid X running stock/rooted Gingerbread against any iPhone version to date as far as battery life goes. I still have full functionality of my phone, am not losing out on anything and I gain 10-20 hours of use over 90% of the phones on the market today...just sayin...Below is an older sreencap from Liberty v1.5 showing an "average" day for my phone.

38868367767767512668.png
 
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