Extending Battery Life Tips

[justreadup2@gmail.com]

Here's an easier way to access a quick check on battery life, date/time, wi-fi/bluetooth settings, etc.

Instead of tapping on the battery icon on the top right; tap on the time on the upper panel...much easier to access.

[beandipsupreme]

thankss

[Daemon]

The attached battery monitor graph shows what's possible using mostly
just the tips in this thread.

It shows less than 2%/hr drain over 18 hours on standby.
Could almost last two days at this rate.
Decent Sprint signal
Data on
Wifi on
GPS off
Battery saver app puts Pre into Airplane Mode between 4am and 6:30am so not much savings there.
Screen brightness at about 23%
3 pop email accounts checking every 30 minutes
No "push" email accounts. (they keep the network active more often so more drain)
No Yahoo Contacts synergy (this one is a real sucker and gets added
automatically if you add Yahoo Messenger)
No Messenger accounts active when I'm on standby, but I do use Y!M sometimes and it doesn't seem to be a huge drain.

The only real added trick is I'm running my own version of the
SmartReflex 550 CPU hack but even without it, I still get less than
3%/hr drain when on standby with everything else above the same.

There are certain types of apps that shouldn't be left idling, and
the battery monitor app can help you root them out. What I do is
run battery monitor, set it to 1 minute polling, and then turn
the screen off for a few minutes and come back and check
the %/hr draw, and under detailed battery status, look at the instantaneous
current draw. With a good signal and the above settings, you shouldn't
see more than about 3-4%/hr and -4 to -5 mA draw.
With a poor signal it may go up to 7-8%/hr. If it's higher than
that, look for things to shut off.

I've had a couple times where the drain rate just went up and
stayed up for no good reason. 10-15%/hr even with all apps shut down.
Cured it last time by shutting the Pre down, popping the battery out
and back in, and restarting and then it was fine again. Others
have reported the battery out and back in trick, so I don't claim
that one as my own.

Anyway, just showing what's possible. On a "normal" day with
mostly standby, a couple calls, light web usage, and some messaging, I
typically see about 4%/hr draw over the whole day. If I stream audio
it jumps to 25%/hr while streaming and not much you can do about that.

BTW, one other thing. The UI% is "flexible". It will show the battery at 100%
even though the actual battery % is as low as 95%. You'll see the difference
in the battery monitor app. Means if you take the Pre off the charger
the moment it reaches an indicated 100%, you're probably shy by
2-5% of being topped off. Let it charge until you see the actual %
in battery monitor reach 99-100% and you can get up to
an hour of extra runtime.

ian

[igor.cv]

when my battery goes empty i'm getting my wall charger and start charging my Pre. for a couple minutes of charging i see the screen with a battery (hope, you know what i'm talking about), but a little later phone switches on and still charging being on the network. afaik, when a device charges when it is operating the battery can't be fully charged. i mean fully.
i've thinked about it and the thing i can proved is making a patch to prevent drained phone going online when charging.
any ideas?

[Daemon]

Don't know what you're talking about. The phone *can* fully charge whether
it's on or off. If you use the battery monitor app you'll see that
it charges fully, but once topped off, it'll slowly cycle between 95 and 100%
to avoid nuking the battery. You can't just keep pumping juice into
a Li+ battery, so it charges it to 100%, then lets it discharge to about 95%
while the UI still shows 100%, then tops it off, and repeats.
If you pull it off the charger when the actual % is at 95% and UI at 100%,
you'll see it drop seemingly very fast, but it's really just the UI %
catching up with the actual %.

ian

[StoneRyno]

Originally Posted by igor.cv

when my battery goes empty i'm getting my wall charger and start charging my Pre. for a couple minutes of charging i see the screen with a battery (hope, you know what i'm talking about), but a little later phone switches on and still charging being on the network. afaik, when a device charges when it is operating the battery can't be fully charged. i mean fully.
i've thinked about it and the thing i can proved is making a patch to prevent drained phone going online when charging.
any ideas?

1.3.1 provided a new feature that allows you to power down (aka like pc shutdown) which keeps the device powered off. The intended use of it is to swap batteries but I see no reason why one wouldn't use it to power down the device if they wish to charge it in a powered off state. However there is no reason to do so over charging while powered up. It will charge to 100% at which time it will cycle to prevent overcharging and stop charging until battery level drops below 95% then top off and repeat as long as it is plugged in. This would give a false sense of not fully charging if it is pulled off the charger at the lowest point before it would top off.

[igor.cv]

Originally Posted by StoneRyno

1.3.1 provided a new feature that allows you to power down (aka like pc shutdown)

yep, i mean this. but running 1.2.1 (I'm scared about no 1x on my Pre in Ukraine when updating to 1.3.1) haven't known about the feature you told.

btw, can anybody confirm this?

[Daemon]

Confirm what?
That there's a shutdown option in 1.3.1? Yes.

That you can charge while it's shut down? Don't know. Never
tried it, and no way to monitor battery voltage while it's off.

That it can definitely top the battery off while it's *on* and charging? Yes.

ian

[Irocdaspot513]

2250mAh Extended Battery with cover for Palm Treo Pre - eBay (item 370284853490 end time Jan-02-10 05:53:39 PST) I get a full day without charge out of this battery... Got one fo me and my wife..this is the ultimate solution and can't beat that price!!! 23 bucks for a 2250mah free shippin..the replacement door actually makes the pre feel better in my hands!!even my wife agrees

[eastwildcat89]

these tips helped

[ivpalm]

very interesting! thank you!

[Tigerjacket]

Thanks - that was helpful.

[pgillin2]

Let's face it. The battery life on the pre is horrible. I have had every Palm for Sprint there has been and this is the worst battery experience I have every had. I cannot even recommend this phone to anyone without mentioning the crappy battery and once I do that, folks shy away from what would otherwise be an incredible device. If Palm wants to survive, why can't they get a battery that lasts at least one day with moderate to heavy usage?

[StoneRyno]

I think people expect too much. They want the devices to be more powerful and want to get days out of the same size stock battery that has been put in smartphones for years (I'm pretty sure years is right). You simply can't have double the processing power as smartphones from a year or two ago and expect the battery to last as long between charges. This is why extended batteries are so popular. How long you get between charges is subjective to your use of the device if it sits idle for half or more of the day the stock battery probably will get you through the day. The price we pay for a computer in our pockets is faster battery drain there is no getting around it unless you go old school and get a dumbphone where the only thing draining the battery is the phone radio.

I find it funny everyone that complains about the battery life when we sit down and analyse their use it is discovered they are using it like crazy. Listen to music for an hour boom there goes 15% (tossing out a number I'd have to look for my data to be more accurate) of the stock battery. Talk on the phone for an hour boom there goes at least 25% of the stock battery (which by the way is pretty normal for just about any phone smart or dumb). Toss out to me some other usage on top of this and you see my point. The battery life isn't junk it is the usage that is high and you are going to get the same experience with probably every phone you try with that same usage. So users like that (I'm one of them) get an extended battery so we are sure to have enough juice. My typical experience on my extended battery is two full days or more depending on if one of those days is light use for me. On the stock battery with the same heavy use I got 1/2 to 3/4 of a day. But again lots of talk time use and heavy processing from music listening etc. you can't get a full day on any phone.

[dameweg]

this article is really good... hopefully those whiners about battery life reads this before complaining...

[mrtonk]

Originally Posted by DSPKweb

it will take a few weeks before the battery "seasons" and gets to its full potential as well as by that time you have gotten most of the "playing with the phone stuff" out of your system with it being new and everything, you will find that the battery life will get better.

This is my favorite line from this whole thread. :-)

[jguerrero13]

The only way that I found to extend the battery life during a day is stop the data services. It gives me more than one day of battery life.

[del420]

well i stopped trying to figure out ways to make my battery last longer, it just stinks. i did figure out a way to go all day without hitting a wall outlet. I went to sprint and got the travel charger. you charge it up and you good to go. It will charge your phone two or three times before you have to charge it again. you can even hook your touchstone up to it and charge your phone at the same time. also the charger is a bit smaller than the pre. its been making my life a whole lot easier. you can do that or carry around an extra car battery. lol

[clintwinstead]

Open cards will not increase battery drain unless they are streaming data. If they're a static app such as a game, calculator, etc., the drain is negligible.
As others have posted, use wi-fi for web access when ever possible. The wi-fi uses much less power, but when finished, turn it off, as the wi-fi actually uses more power when not in use.
Also, another little known, but well tested trick, not just on the Pre but many other devices as well, darker colored wallpapers use less power, much the same way lowering the brightness of your screen does. If you're into themes, use darker colored or black scrims in apps and launcher. I've tested this myself on several different devices and it works.

[skinneejay]

So after reading this thread completely through again I think people might have missed a way to save battery life. If this was said before please disregard. When you have WiFi on go ahead and turn phone data off. This will save you a ton of battery. I know we have stated to turn WiFi on to save battery life but it was never mentioned to also turn phone data off.

I don't think turning WiFi on turns off phone data which it should. Doing this helped me out a ton! I went from 3.75% in office ( horrible signal) with WiFi on Phone Data on to 1.7% with WiFi on Phone Data off.

Please let me know if this helps anyone out.