How long your battery last when your phone is idle?

P

Paperclip

n00b
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Jan 30, 2012
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Hi, I just bought my first smartphone ever and it's an Xperia Ray. Since then I've trimmed unnecessary apps, both that come with the phone itself and the ones that I've installed myself, and managed to eke out about 35hrs of battery life (idle). Several battery-draining applications that stay are:
- GO keyboard
- GO weather
- pulse (it only has zeit, bbc, and engadget)
- Skype (8 contacts)
- ZD Box
and the Juice Defender itself, but it's supposed to save battery life instead. GPS is off unless needed.

Is 35hrs of battery life low for an idle phone with a 1500mAh battery? It seems so to me. How long yours last?
 
No, that is actually pretty good, although it depends on what you mean by "idle". If you mean screen off, sitting completely untouched, then that sounds about right.

Turning GPS off doesn't really do much - it's only on if an app is trying to use it in the first place. Syncing is going to be your biggest power draw, but of course if you turn that off then why even have a smartphone, heh. Honestly I would try it without things like Juice Defender. Micro-managing your power usage isn't necessarily better - it will just get in the way sometimes.
 
kllrnohj said:
No, that is actually pretty good, although it depends on what you mean by "idle". If you mean screen off, sitting completely untouched, then that sounds about right.

Turning GPS off doesn't really do much - it's only on if an app is trying to use it in the first place. Syncing is going to be your biggest power draw, but of course if you turn that off then why even have a smartphone, heh. Honestly I would try it without things like Juice Defender. Micro-managing your power usage isn't necessarily better - it will just get in the way sometimes.
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Yup. I got a 2600mAh battery when I bought my EVO4G, simply because I hate turning off usable and desired features in the name of not running out of battery....due to using my device.

With syncing background apps every hour, WIFI on, and GPS on (for Weatherbug Elite syning), and 4G off as there is none here, I can idle screen off for several days at a time under CyanogenMod7.1 with Tiamat's 4.1 kernel. Just moved to ICS AOKP so have yet to test battery life. Surfing my device constantly on WIFI I can get a full workday in comfortably and still have battery left.
 
kllrnohj said:
No, that is actually pretty good, although it depends on what you mean by "idle". If you mean screen off, sitting completely untouched, then that sounds about right.

Turning GPS off doesn't really do much - it's only on if an app is trying to use it in the first place. Syncing is going to be your biggest power draw, but of course if you turn that off then why even have a smartphone, heh. Honestly I would try it without things like Juice Defender. Micro-managing your power usage isn't necessarily better - it will just get in the way sometimes.
Click to expand...

Yeah, "untouched" is what I mean. So 35hrs is just about right.... I thought it could last several days lol.

I'll try disabling Juice Defender and see how much battery life I'll get.

Thanks!
 
Paperclip said:
Yeah, "untouched" is what I mean. So 35hrs is just about right.... I thought it could last several days lol.

I'll try disabling Juice Defender and see how much battery life I'll get.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

If your interested in really long standy times go and turn off account syncing and background data - standby times will shoot into the week+ range. But that comes at the expense of why most of us have a smartphone in the first place ;)
 
untouched my T989 can go damn near 72 hours unless it spergs out on something.
 
Stock battery 2/3 days, extended about 5 days. This being completely idle of course. I don't even use my extended battery anymore as the stock battery is fine for my daily uses and I generally have chargers somewhere around me when i need it.
 
With an HTC Evo4G - and the official 2600mAh battery -- I could get about 3-4 days of "on" time, that comes with a couple of conditions though.

turning wifi, 4G, *AND* 3G all off. Basically turning the phone into a pure "phone" that could do nothing but call and text which kind of defeats the purpose of a smartphone.

This is running cyanogen mod 7 and a custom kernel as well. The "out of the box" levels were kinda sad to be honest, yay for modding though.

Funny enough - I have a Galaxy Nexus out to be delivered to me today - will be jumping to Verizon. I intent to root and start modding the phone right away, I want to get back to having a "thin" phone, so I don't know if I want to use the extended battery route just yet.
 
Paperclip said:
Is 35hrs of battery life low for an idle phone with a 1500mAh battery? It seems so to me. How long yours last?
Click to expand...

Seems low to me. My G2 has very similar hardware and a 1300mah battery.

Idle would mean wifi and 3G on and no screen-on time. Even a full 48 hours wouldn't drain the battery in that case. Of course, if a message came in and activated the notification light, that takes a toll lol.
 
I don't know if I can just let my iPhone sit idle till it dies, but it looks like it is using .8%/hour with Wifi on and Push notifications for some apps and email.
 
We've had multiple Android models and an iPhone 4S in this thread so far. I've got a Samsung Focus, so I'll toss the first Windows Phone 7 entry in.

The stock battery for the Samsung Focus is 1500 mAh. I'm currently using a Samsung Epic 4G battery, which fits perfectly in the Samsung Focus and is rated at 1800 mAh.


My normal usage pattern: 42 hours
("Battery Saver" mode set to automatically enable itself at 20% remaining)

Mostly idle: 56 hours
("Battery Saver" mode set to automatically enable itself at 20% remaining)

Mostly idle: 149 hours
("Battery Saver" mode enabled for the entire duration of the discharge)


When Battery Saver kicks in, it disables most types of background tasks, disables all automatic syncing from all accounts (you can still manually sync), live tiles stop updating unless a push notification is issued to the associated application, the OS also prevents you from setting up the phone as a wifi hotspot when in Battery Saver mode. For obvious reasons, this IS NOT a mode you want to run in 24/7, but it does come in handy.

I'll be interested to see if the Tango update further improves my battery life, but I'm already more than happy with it.
 
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Currently at 88% after 9.5 hours. I did use it for about 10 minutes today so it wasn't totally idle.
 
I can get about 4-5 days on my Blackberry Pearl. Which is pretty good considering it's an ancient phone. :p
 
About 44 hours with the stock battery for my Epic 4G Touch with 3G on, maybe half that with 4G.
 
28 hours later and it is down to 65%.
I did play a game for a few minutes as well as took a couple of calls.
 
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