[BugzLife]

i get terrible battery life from my treo 650, even when i don't use the data feature but as a phone only. do other people have this problem? any suggestions?

[Petergil]

I've had no problems with the 650's battery life, in fact I find it lasts a surprisingly long time even with hourly data usage. Maybe you've got a bad battery or its past its useful life??

[jgm]

There are a couple of things that may be part of your problem.

The Treo 650 screen is one of the nicest around and the brightness can be turned down to about 20% and still be readable in sunlight. At full brightness settings it can use a lot of juice. It is surprising how many people miss this on many phones, not just the Treo.

I notice mine uses a lot of juice if I am moving through multiple areas where coverage varies from good to poor to none. When the transition is from one good strong cell to another there is no problem. I am in China and really notice it when travelling by train. You may be experiencing the same thing if you are driving on the outskirts of a city or in the countryside.

Other than that my battery life is not great but certainly acceptable. I use both the phone and pda functions a lot including some pretty demanding software and easily get two days between charges with at least a 25% safety cushion.

Hope this helps.

[Phawk]

do you have btmute?, it happend to me, and it was btmute.

Phawk

[jeffgibson]

do you have btmute?, it happend to me, and it was btmute.

Phawk

That did happen in BTmute a long time ago. Those problems have since been fixed in the newest versions. I also included the "Alternate" method in BTmute to stop this action if your particular phone was still having problems.

If others are having this problem, please contact me and I will make sure this problem is addressed.

Jeff

[jeffgibson]

There are a couple of things that may be part of your problem.

The Treo 650 screen is one of the nicest around and the brightness can be turned down to about 20% and still be readable in sunlight. At full brightness settings it can use a lot of juice. It is surprising how many people miss this on many phones, not just the Treo.

I notice mine uses a lot of juice if I am moving through multiple areas where coverage varies from good to poor to none. When the transition is from one good strong cell to another there is no problem. I am in China and really notice it when travelling by train. You may be experiencing the same thing if you are driving on the outskirts of a city or in the countryside.

Other than that my battery life is not great but certainly acceptable. I use both the phone and pda functions a lot including some pretty demanding software and easily get two days between charges with at least a 25% safety cushion.

Hope this helps.

I have built in several battery saving features into ProfileCare tht may really help this issue:

1) ProfileCare will shutdown systems on your Treo when a given battery % level has been reached. For example, you can define 30% as your threshold. At 30% ProfileCare can be configured to change up to 24 differnt Treo Settings. Like shutdown the phone radio, BT radio, turn the screen brightness down to 20%, shutoff the IR port, stop all LED activity, turn off all vibrate notifications, reduce the ringer volumes, and/or reduce the auto time off. This is a great way to preserve the remaining battery life. Plus all of these options are fully configurable.
2) ProfileCare can detect no-signal conditions. When the Treo is scanning for a signal, it eats up battery. ProfileCare allows you to say: "If I loose my signal for X minutes, shut off the phone's radio for Y minutes. Then after Y minutes, the radio will be powered back up to again check for a signal. Then if after X minutes there is no signal, the cycle will repeat itself. This is much more efficient and saves a tremendous amount of battery.

Hope this helps.....

Jeff

[meyerweb]

You might also consider a program to turn off the keyboard backlighting. I use KBLights off, but there are other options, including a free one.

[jeffgibson]

You might also consider a program to turn off the keyboard backlighting. I use KBLights off, but there are other options, including a free one.

I also forgot to say ProfileCare controls the KB lights as well. But meyerweb is correct, there are alternatives if this is the only thing you want an applicaiton to control.

Jeff

[XJCoupe]

I just got my VzW 650 three days ago, and my battery has been nearly dead the two mornings it wasn't plugged in. The battery was at about 50% before I went to sleep the first night, as I had been playing around with it quite a bit, and the phone was left on. Last night the battery was about 45%, and I turned the phone off. This morning the charge was less than 10%! Any ideas other than doing a hard reset?

[Christinac130]

My battery life was terrible. Make sure your diconnected from Blazer. I assumed just pressing the "phone" or "home" keys disconnected the web browser. Then, I started to notice those green connection squiggles were on all the time. Now, I manually disconnect before exiting the web and my battery life is much better.

[XJCoupe]

Thanks for the suggestion -- I was unaware that an idle (or supposedly idle) data connection would run the battery down.

Today the T650 wouldn't even charge... It was on for an hour, and still reported "Charging: 0%". So I did a soft reset: nothing. Then a hard reset. I turned off Bluetooth, restored my data and fully charged it without further use or disruption (temporarily switched back to my ancient StarTAC). Four hours after charging, I'm down to 80%, after a couple minutes of PIM use, a couple minutes in Blazer (disconnected after) and a few minutes of phone use. I have auto-power-down set to 1 min, and I usually power it off manually before dropping in a pocket. Time to head to a Verizon store to get another one, I think.

The puzzling thing to me is that it'll drain about half a charge with the phone off in about 8 hours.

[ashworth102680]

Listen to Jeff, he's right. The biggest thing for me of all time are Chatter real-time syncing and BlueTooth being on when not needed.

The screen brightness plays a role in this as well and I use "KB Lights Off" as well as another app (cannot recall the name...sorry) that will keep the screen off when on calls.

[jorang]

Has anyone of you mentioned that the Treo battery lasts considerably longer after updating FW?

[lancorp]

I got my VZW 650 three days ago, and apart from one full charge, I am amazed at how long the battery lasts. I've been playing with it alot over the weekend, and this morning, my battery is still at 73%. I have BT on, auto-off in 1 min. No other special settings. Once I get back to work tomorrow and start using the phone part more, but so far I am happy. I had a moto V600 w/BT, that even if I didn't use the phone, it would die overnight just by having the BT on!

[Noahas]

I found this thread on the 650 board but I assume it hasn't changed since the 600 (which I have). On a couple of occasions, I get a call or a SMS at 5pm when I have put my phone away for the day with a 70+% charge, and I go and get it the next morning only to find it discharged because the screen had been on all night telling me about the missed call or sms. Is there an easy solution to this seemingly simple problem.

[XJCoupe]

Listen to Jeff, he's right. The biggest thing for me of all time are Chatter real-time syncing and BlueTooth being on when not needed.

The screen brightness plays a role in this as well and I use "KB Lights Off" as well as another app (cannot recall the name...sorry) that will keep the screen off when on calls.

Bluetooth, screen brightness and synching have no bearing on this problem though, when the phone is powered off. If I lose 35-40% of the charge overnight -- 8 hours -- it's gotta be something other than the lights and radios.

[gtwo]

Sounds like a runaway program is keeping the Treo active, if the phone is off. (To lose 35-40% overnight.)

Hot Sync. (to save all data to your regular user ID)
Do a hard reset. (to clear your Treo)
Re-sync to a new user called "test." (So no 3rd party apps return)
Does it lose this much overnight in this configuration? (Base apps only.)

If so -- I'd say you have a hardware problem.

If not -- you have a problem 3rd party app.
Install one at a time back until you find the culprit.

Cheers, Perry.

[Marianne]

I have an unlocked GSM, and in my manual it says that you should preferably charge the Treo every night to prolong the battery life.

[mg48]

I only use 2 to 3% of battery life at night. I do use treohelper to turn the phone off at midnight and backupman runs at 1am. When I get up to treoalarm with my weather forecast in the morning I'm only down 2-3%. With the phone on and no calls I would expect ~ 5- 10% if no one called. (Sprint)

[XJCoupe]

Re-sync to a new user called "test." (So no 3rd party apps return)
Does it lose this much overnight in this configuration? (Base apps only.)

Thanks, I'll give that a try.