Need better battery in desire!

seanin4711

HI all!
I really hope someone comes up with a higher capacity battery for the dsire as it is the cause of all my woes!
1-1/2 days is all i get and a usb car charger willl not cut it as it seems like the charger is zapping the juice out of it not putting it in!weird or what!
slan
s

MagicMarker

If you use it a lot then the battery's gonna go. Simple as that. I charge mine every night and there's no problem with it lasting a whole day even if I'm constantly using it, I don't think there's any problem with that tbh.

For the record, I haven't really used it much the last few days. It's hasn't been charged since I woke up on Thursday morning and there's still 20% left.

Bruno Batista

Advanced Task Killer Pro is a godsend, I went from going through my battery in 6 hours if I was using the internet, now it will last me a day and still going online and facebook and twitter and what not.

conor.hogan.2

over a day is great for a smartphone.

Are you tweaking the settings like turning down brightness, killing useless apps/widgets and turning off wifi/bluetooth etc when you are not using them?

djgaillimh

As mentioned above, 24-36hrs is good going for a phone like this.

Smartphones are more like pocket-sized laptops at this point so you can't expect them to last 3 or 4 days, unless you're just not using it.

If you want good battery life, get yourself a Nokia 3300

Don't bother with task-killers. Android's management of apps is just fine. I didn't lose any battery life when I stopped using one.

jimmycrackcorm

I found that juice defender helps a lot.

robinph

More power is always good, but as already mentioned if you are getting over a days use out of a smart phone before it dies then you are doing well.

elderlemon

Get a high mA usb or cig charger. A lot of the cheap usb chargers only output 250mA which is not enough to charge the desire. I got one (1amp) on Sunday and I can tell you it more than puts the juice back in the phone.

seanin4711 wrote: »

HI all!
I really hope someone comes up with a higher capacity battery for the dsire as it is the cause of all my woes!
1-1/2 days is all i get and a usb car charger willl not cut it as it seems like the charger is zapping the juice out of it not putting it in!weird or what!
slan
s

seanin4711

elderlemon wrote: »

Get a high mA usb or cig charger. A lot of the cheap usb chargers only output 250mA which is not enough to charge the desire. I got one (1amp) on Sunday and I can tell you it more than puts the juice back in the phone.

can you post link to said item?
thanks
j

apope8

I found that the live wallpaper was eating up the battery like a mad yoke so unless im planning to show the phone off i knock the live wallpapers off. Get good use out of the battery now where as it was only lasting eight hours when i was using the live wallpapers

Brian

I use a plain black wallpaper to save battery on my Nexus One as the AMOLED screen does not use any power to display black, unlike LCDs.

conor.hogan.2

ye black or plain wallpapers really help.

I dont see how people expect the phone to last as long as a dumb phone nokia.

Ask Iphone users if they ever get a day and a half out of their phones.

kayos

I got a APC Mobile Power Pack (Model - UPB10) from a mate all I will say is god send!

youcancallmeal

I got around 84 hours battery out of my desire last week. Charged on Sunday night and it lasted right through to around when I got home from work on Thursday.

Screen was medium brightness, 3G turned off the whole time, about an hour using wifi each day, a good few calls and texts, using a live wallpaper, using various apps, vibrate mode only. Generally normal usage for me, can't think of anything else that would drain the battery. At night when I go to bed the phone only uses up about 3 to 5% battery over the space of 8 hours. I don't run 3G because I havent got a data plan yet but I would imagine that would be the biggest drain if I was running it turned on 24x7.

I'd be interested to know what kind of usage your phone is getting if the battery only lasts 12-24 hours? For me to go through the battery in one day I'd say I would need to be running wifi all day, 3G, GPS, bluetooth, fm radio and screen on full brightness!

Brian

I have my phone at medium brightness, browse the web on 3G for about an hour, download a bunch of podcasts and IM a bit. Battery lasts about 18 hours. I don't think I'd get 84 hours even if I didn't touch it.

jimmycrackcorm

youcancallme>al wrote: »

I don't run 3G because I havent got a data plan yet but I would imagine that would be the biggest drain if I was running it turned on 24x7.

I'd be interested to know what kind of usage your phone is getting if the battery only lasts 12-24 hours? For me to go through the battery in one day I'd say I would need to be running wifi all day, 3G, GPS, bluetooth, fm radio and screen on full brightness!

It becomes a bit pointless without the data plan - what about push Gmail for example or using Google maps etc. By all means you can conserve the battery by basically turning off the features that makes it such an attractive phone but then you might as well go back to using a Nokia.

Also if you are on the 3 network then not running 3G is a problem as GPRS is no fun.

conor.hogan.2

http://gizmodo.com/5542314/google-if-you-are-not-getting-a-day-[of-android-battery]-there-is-something-wrong

ixtlan

I wonder if the 3G on/off is the crucial issue here. I'm contemplating getting my first smartphone, possibly the Desire and this is a concern for me. I do have a 3G phone (old Motorola V3X) and find that disabling 3G doubles the battery life. This is because I live in a non-3G area and with it on, the phone is constantly trying to check to see if it's available. Also even in 3G areas the signal tends to be weaker than the 2G.

I think though that I can live with EDGE (2.5G) speeds and therefore probably would leave 3G turned off. For e-mail/GPS/mobile web sites EDGE should be more than enough.


I'll add my expectation of a phone is that it should last 2 days (with minimal use), just in case I would miss charging it one day/night. From reports of the Desire I think this is achievable, certainly it should be with 3G off, data service off (until manually enabled), wifi/bluetooth off. Many would say this defeats the purpose of the phone, but I'll pull any data I need.

Ix.

Brian

Yep, I've had 3G off for the last few days and the battery is definitely lasting noticeably longer.

FastFullBack

How can you turn just 3G off as oppose to EDGE?
I just have an option to turn mobile internet on/off, which I'm leaving off now permanently until I need it.

Brian

Go to settings, wireless & networks, mobile networks, use 2G networks only.

Keith186

FastFullBack wrote: »

How can you turn just 3G off as oppose to EDGE?
I just have an option to turn mobile internet on/off, which I'm leaving off now permanently until I need it.

On home screen: Menu - Settings - wireless & networks - Mobile Networks - Network Mode GSM only.

I think the gsm one is the 2g one anyways!

partyatmygaff

You do know that data transfer on EDGE uses more power than 3G

If anything, I would set it to 3G only but you would be without a signal most of the day. That and the fact that on EDGE you can't simulataneously use data and make phone calls. I.e. if your downloading something you won't be able to receive calls.

Brian

partyatmygaff wrote: »

You do know that data transfer on EDGE uses more power than 3G

Why then did the original iPhone not have 3G for battery considerations?

partyatmygaff

Baza210 wrote: »

Why then did the original iPhone not have 3G for battery considerations?

That was 2007. Newer radio chips = better efficiency.

At the moment they use relatively the same at idle but when data is being transferred EDGE uses a lot more. Add that to the fact it's slower and therefore needs to be used for longer to do the same amount of work and you'll see why 3G is more battery efficient than EDGE.

consultech

Adding wifi/3g/bluetooth widgets on one of your home screens is fairly slick. You can then turn them on/off instantaneously when you need them.

Brian

If you have root otherwise it just brings you to the menu, which is what I have (SwitchPro Widget)

consultech

Baza210 wrote: »

If you have root otherwise it just brings you to the menu, which is what I have (SwitchPro Widget)

No, you can. I'm not rooted and I have a direct link button to wifi/mobile/Bluetooth net on/off.

At home screen you press menu->Add to Home->Widget->Settings->Choose which one.

Brian

That one doesn't have 2G/3G though :l

consultech

Baza210 wrote: »

That one doesn't have 2G/3G though :l

You serious? One does and the other doesn't???

I haven't had all that much cause to use mobile web in the 9 days since I got the phone, but that's mad if true...

Brian

Nevermind, crossed wires here.

ixtlan

partyatmygaff wrote: »

At the moment they use relatively the same at idle but when data is being transferred EDGE uses a lot more. Add that to the fact it's slower and therefore needs to be used for longer to do the same amount of work and you'll see why 3G is more battery efficient than EDGE.

This is true in theory but not really in practice.

Say you (like me) live in a house with 2-3 bars of 2G service, and 0-1 bars of 3G. Most of the time 3G does not work.

2G only the phone finds the min power to stay registered and works away.
3G/2G the phone keeps trying to attach to 3G using it's max power, constantly.

This scenario isn't quite so bad in better 3G coverage areas, but even there the power the phone uses at idle is likely to be higher if it's attaching to 3G and if the 2G signal is stronger.

So, again, what you say is true, but only where all things are equal, and they are not equal in terms of 2G/3G coverage.

Ix