Battery life

[Guest 325i]

I have a HTC desire which i really like, but the i find the battery life is quite poor. Is there any apps that can help with increased battery life?

Or have you got any tips on how to? At the moment, the 3g is always on, the wifi and gps are never on and i have changed the weather and news update to every 12 hrs.

Is there anything else i can do?

[Guest afiorillo]

Install an app killer, like Advanced Task Manager and setup it to auto-kill every 30 mins. It'll greatly reduce the unwanted battery drain by unclosed apps.

[Guest 325i]

Thank you for the reply, is there any other methods?

[Guest Twister360]

Im curious to what people have to say to this. Task Killers appear to be the apps causing your battery to drain quicker.

Im not an expert nor experienced with this so I won't comment on it. I'll just wait and see ^^

My tips for the batterylife itself are:

-Put a toggle internet widget on your homescreen. Near the Power widget..

I only turn on the internet when I want to see Twitter updates etc.

- Set the auto-updates to off. That also means that auto-update thingy on the Power control widget. I just update my weather when I want to know what the weather is outside while I'm still in bed ^^

- Turn the brightness down to about 1/6.. it's still pretty viewable. And when it's not, just click the Power Control widget and voilá!

That's about it. There are apps like Powerjuice or something that helps you save battery but I had issues with it so I'm not using it anymore.

Anyways, hope this helps you a bit!

[Guest Olipheus]

Thank you for the reply, is there any other methods?

If you are ready to take some risks you might want to root it and go for a UV flash, available on xda-developers forum. I notices an increased battery life when I applied it and has now flashed the OCUV version 11 from the same place.

It increases the maximum speed to 1267 MHz and decreases the Min to 245 MHz. The lower minimum makes the battery even better.

I think it's possible to lower the minimum speed even more, I think I read about someone running at min 125MHz which should make the batterylife even better.

This is, as I said, if you are ready to risk getting your phone bricked. Our phones suffer from random bricking when flashing and noone seems to have figured out why just yet. Some has flashed hundreds of times without problems and some has got bricked at the first attempt.

[Guest afiorillo]

[...]

-Put a toggle internet widget on your homescreen. Near the Power widget..

I only turn on the internet when I want to see Twitter updates etc.

- Set the auto-updates to off. That also means that auto-update thingy on the Power control widget. [...]

That certainly reduces battery usage, but it reduces the overall device experience too! Why have an always-online device like this and dealing with switching on and off internet connections? :rolleyes:

[Guest Snarkasm]

Task killers are generally recommended against - Android manages processes quite fine.

Wifi is also less of a power drain than 3G when connected and active - if you have a wifi network available, use that instead of 3G. If you don't have an available network, definitely turn off wifi - it scans relentlessly if it's not actively connected.

[Guest afiorillo]

Task killers are generally recommended against - Android manages processes quite fine. [...]

Well, I'll definitely do some deep investigations about that; first impressions I had said that unclosed apps drain a lot of juice, but I certainly can be wrong about that.

[Guest Snarkasm]

Some light reading for you, then. :rolleyes:

[Guest Rich Cranney]

Well, I'll definitely do some deep investigations about that; first impressions I had said that unclosed apps drain a lot of juice, but I certainly can be wrong about that.

I heard that although they look like they are running in the background, they are not 100%, ie if you close them using the back button, they remain dormant, not using internet, not using gps etc and they remain in a "cache" like state for quick reload.

Obviously it will use some battery life, but using a task killer can cause more, as if you close a program down and Android still needs it, it will simply run it again in the background using more battery powering it up.

Its a catch 22 either way, different people will prefer different options, best to experiment and find the one that suits you best.

[Guest skinnypupp]

Yeah for the most part, it's better to leave the apps alone. As soon as they are in the background, they go to 'sleep' in a way. Some programs like IM apps will continue to use the network, so those are the ones you need to close when not in use. But they usually allow you to quit out because of this anyway.

As Windows users, we have the mentality not to leave anything open if it's not being used.. But this is totally different, and takes some getting used to :rolleyes:

Most of the battery tips out there are useless. All it comes down to is, the more you use your phone, the more battery you'll drain. I would rather buy a spare battery than force myself to use my phone a certain way all the time.

Hopefully 2.2 helps with battery life a bit... Are there any reports on that?

[Guest DarrenMowat]

Or you could check this video out, it explains how android manages processes.

[Guest NarutoDKz]

Task killers are generally recommended against - Android manages processes quite fine.

Wifi is also less of a power drain than 3G when connected and active - if you have a wifi network available, use that instead of 3G. If you don't have an available network, definitely turn off wifi - it scans relentlessly if it's not actively connected.

3G uses less power than wifi. But again if you have wifi at home you can always connect the Desire to the recharger :rolleyes:

[Guest Snarkasm]

You sure about that, Naruto? A full day of wifi usage leaves me with about 60-70% battery after a day. A day on the train using 3G/HSDPA leaves me with 15-25 at the end of the day. I admit my usage patterns are slightly different, but I don't use the phone proportionally more to account for that amount of battery difference. Any data to back you up?

From this place, which conforms with my experiences:

At full throughput (100% data flow), EDGE is using significantly more energy than 3G. 3G is much more energy-efficient than EDGE.

WiFi is using more energy than 3G (when both are at 100% use), but since it transfers files much faster and then goes to “sleep”, it’s actually recommended to use WiFi whenever possible. Since it’ll “sleep” more often than 3G, overall it will use much less battery than using 3G.

Edited May 25, 2010 by Snarkasm

[Guest khtse]

I find Task Killers useful not for memory management, but for killing apps that f-up or unintentionally eats up a lot of resources and slows down the phone.

Having said that I used task killers quite a lot when I was using my old Hero, and I did notice the differences. With the Desire, I find it really unnecessary, as the phone rarely got slowed down. My hunch is that the speed difference I saw on the Hero had more to do with the weak CPU unable to handle multiple apps running simultaneously, rather than insufficient memory or poor memory management.

[Guest Nanux]

I am curious about having wifi in idle mode. For example at home (and don't want to be plugged into recharger) being connected to wifi and not using my phone (2 hours intervals between updates). Are there any data from some experiences?

And second thing, if I am recharging my phone in about 50-25%, does it hurt the battery (or having it in recharger overnight and powered on)?

Edited May 25, 2010 by Nanux

[Guest Snarkasm]

It will get your small updates every 2 hours and shut down whenever nothing's actively requesting data. It saves a lot of power. Like I said, wifi usage for me daily results in around 30% battery usage, frequently better if I don't use the phone much on a day.

[Guest Twister360]

That certainly reduces battery usage, but it reduces the overall device experience too! Why have an always-online device like this and dealing with switching on and off internet connections? :rolleyes:

True, but I'd rather have it still at 80% after being unplugged for 6 hours and no more than 10 mins of usage than having it at 40% because of all the auto-updates. Being able to pop it out (the phone...) and play some games on it appeals to me more than having to put it away because I'm expecting a phonecall in 2 hours..

See my point? By the way, the widgets HTC put in Sense really make it effortless to turn on/off your internet.

[Guest Snarkasm]

If your battery's going to 40% in 6 hours only from auto-updates, you have other problems.

[Guest NarutoDKz]

You sure about that, Naruto? A full day of wifi usage leaves me with about 60-70% battery after a day. A day on the train using 3G/HSDPA leaves me with 15-25 at the end of the day. I admit my usage patterns are slightly different, but I don't use the phone proportionally more to account for that amount of battery difference. Any data to back you up?

From this place, which conforms with my experiences:

Very good find. But it may also depend on the speed of the wifi. In my case the 3g network is faster than wifi so I doesn't use wifi anymore.

But when I did it used more battery, probably because of the speed.

(I have 10 mbps wifi)

[Guest irishandrew]

If your battery's going to 40% in 6 hours only from auto-updates, you have other problems.

I leave my WiFi on at home and it saves me a lot of battery power compared to 3G - especially if you have a weak data (or cell) reception at home as when the phone needs to poll the cell tower it puts a strain on the battery. I usually remember to toggle it off when I leave (I was using an app to do it by location, but was a bit inconsistent - rather do it myself!) and rarely struggle to make it through the day. I leave my phone always on (internet), and do a lot of surfing/twitter etc. on the go. I don't play too many games - just occasionally - though they do drain the battery very quickly.

I use bluetooth a2dp for the parrot kit in my car (and for podcasts in the same) and a moderate amount of talk/texting during the day. Using the latest radio - massive improvement compared to the last version for me where I was occasionally getting the phone turning off on the way home due to battery drain.

Definately WiFi uses less power than 3G, and as others have mentioned when not active appears to be idle regarding drain too.

Cheers,

Andrew.

[Guest StuMcBill]

I find that I lose about 3-5% per hour when I am surfing the internet, I still think this is quite excessive. Not sure what is draining it so much. It seems to be on both 3g and wi-fi.

I am running MCR r3 and Richard trip kernel undervolted, I thought that this would greatly help my battery life, but it doesn't seem to really be helping much.

Are there any known apps that a are battery drainers?

Stu

[Guest Snarkasm]

Honestly, it's a smartphone. If you weren't used to charging every day, it may come as a shock, but that's how it goes.

The biggest battery killers are live wallpapers and widgets that update a lot. Stay away from those, turn off wifi when you're out of range and keep GPS and BT off when you're not using them, and you'll be getting the most you can expect out of the battery.

[Guest pina]

using my bricked phone, I think the battery is draining more then before. Or perhaps it's because I'm using 0.8 bootloader + 1.21xxxx rom. Unplugged it this morning around 7u20. Charged in car during 30 mins while using the 3G-network. After unplugging from the car, at work, only received 2 messages and sent 1 message. Now my battery has only 70% left.

already turned wifi, BT and 3G off

Edited May 26, 2010 by pina

[Guest afiorillo]

using my bricked phone, I think the battery is draining more then before. [...]

Yep, it was reported to do so.