[jrdatrackstar]

Thanks. With many previous devices and the Pre, I've read that one way to extend battery life is by reducing brightness and it does make sense that it would. You're saying it doesn't help. Now I'm thinking I need to test this and find out for myself.

No problem. I'm not saying that having screen brightness doesn't affect it because it certainly does; that's just common sense. It's just I see all these people talking about keeping screen brightness down all the way for battery life and I never understood the point. IMO...even leaving it at the default setting doesn't really cause an increase in drain that warrants lowering the brightness. Like I said... I keep mine between the "t" and the "n" in the word "brightness" and I see no significant increase in life when I turn the brightness down to the lowest setting.

I will leave my brightness at the default setting if I'm outside or in situations where the sun is directly shining on my screen.

[StoneRyno]

At 10% brightness the screen consumes 100mA/hr. At 100% brightness the screen consumes 200mA/hr. I have not tested consumption rates for brightness below 10% since most users aren't going to install a patch and use brightness that low. I also don't know of brightness to consumption is linear. In other words if it is linear then there is 0.9mA per percent of brightness thus 30% brightness would consume 118mA/hr. I figured detailed testing for each 1% increase would be extreme.

[jrdatrackstar]

The biggest drains for me are browsing the web. Seems like I can let the phone sit all day and be cool, but if I browse the web for like 5 mins I'll lose like 5% (when I click on links). On the flip side, the Pre does render webpages pretty fast over 3G speed. The Hero would drag in rendering webpages, even with all it's plug-ins turned off.

Just started noticing that Google Location services sucks a lotta juice when set to on. I'm going to try and leave GPS on and Google Services on and just set the auto location to off and see if that doesn't decrease the drain.

[jrdatrackstar]

Also, has it actually confirmed that turning GPS completely off increases battery life? I know in my Hero if I turn GPS completely off my battery life increases greatly. Is this the case with the Pre, or does the GPS on consume power when an application calls upon it?

I've read amongst the forums about this, but I never seem to get a straight answer because some claim it makes no difference and some do....

[StoneRyno]

Yes I've done testing to confirm turning GPS completely off reduces drain rate. It may not be as much now as it used to be assuming they may have done some optimization with GPS to reduce it's consumption when idle. The savings may only be 10mA per hour or less though.

[jrdatrackstar]

Yes I've done testing to confirm turning GPS completely off reduces drain rate. It may not be as much now as it used to be assuming they may have done some optimization with GPS to reduce it's consumption when idle. The savings may only be 10mA per hour or less though.

Cool....I'll do my own testing to see if the impact is enough to see if it's worth it or not.

As of yesterday and today, my battery drain has just been awful, so I kinda have to wait to get that fixed first. I spoke with Palm chat to see if keeping my e-mail set to "as items arrive" affects battery and I got two different answers:

1. The first person I spoke to said that it will NOT impact battery life negatively because it only pulls in e-mail when it's received.

2. The second person said that it DOES decrease battery life because it is an internet based account and NOT and Exchange account.

After changing my e-mail to every 15 mins, my battery life didn't seem to improve within that hour, so I set it back to as items arrive. Right after that, that's when my drain when up and stayed like that all day today also, so I wonder if I "made the phone mad" tinkering with my email settings and caused higher drain? Or my battery may be going bad. Dr. Battery says that the health of my battery is 92%, so I'm re-calibrating it now to see where the health is at now in case something has gone wrong. I tried deleting and re-adding my email account to no avail.

[wrxdrunkie]

Ok, I am starting to remember why I wanted to throw this phone through a wall.

Long story short, I had the Evo 4g for 3 months, replaced it with Epic 4g, replaced the Epic 4g with pre until possibly the HD7 or palms next phone.

But this battery life is horrible. I get 12 hours of battery life not using the phone. I dont even use the phone during the day, and it dies in 12 hours.

gps is off, I have a good signal where I am, 2 email accounts set to push. Brightness at lowest setting (not that it matters because I am not even using the phone) its pathetic.

This thing even dies while plugged into a car charger and being a gps.


Please help me!

I was at a football game the other day. Phone had 30% battery, turned it off, turned it on at halftime, 26% battery, turned it off, turned it on after the game, 16% battery, WTH!!!

Pathetic man really pathetic, its so bad, I am honestly looking forward to wp7 to see how good the battery life is with its partial/no multi-tasking (can still load multiple web pages at the same time for ex)

But seriously, any tips other than airplane mode? My signal is good where I am.

[mamouton]

wrxdrunkie you should look at this thread. I noticed signficant battery improvement with the data on demand settings.

[jrdatrackstar]

wrxdrunkie you should look at this thread. I noticed signficant battery improvement with the data on demand settings.

Seriously....? I don't understand people and this tip. Yes, I understand it saves battery life but seriously......IT'S A WEB CONNECTED PHONE. That's what makes the Pre what it is. I know peoples' needs are different, but if battery is that bad they can't make it through a day then I don't know why they still have a Pre.

[The Bard]

Seriously....? I don't understand people and this tip. Yes, I understand it saves battery life but seriously......IT'S A WEB CONNECTED PHONE. That's what makes the Pre what it is. I know peoples' needs are different, but if battery is that bad they can't make it through a day then I don't know why they still have a Pre.

Correct!.. I can't stand with battery performance and heat problem on my Pre Plus.

But compared to android phone , iPhone, Blackberry, and Nokia. I found that Pre WebOS is far favorable for me then others. Maybe others think differently. (so please I don't want to argue about comparing other phones)

Because I can't find others better then my Pre, then I better accept my condition on my Pre Plus. The siginificant extending battery life tips is only by disabled the 3G connection! others maybe extend a bit but surely not significant.

Other Tips is: After you use Pre internet/data connection, Pre become hot, battery drain really really fast. So here what I do. I turn off the data connection for a few minutes, then turn it on again, the battery drain will be more stabilized compared if you leave it be.

About data connection on/off, you can find a patch for it on preware.

[somline]

You also should check the health of your battery.

[StoneRyno]

But this battery life is horrible. I get 12 hours of battery life not using the phone. I dont even use the phone during the day, and it dies in 12 hours.

I run mine with GPS and wifi on 24/7 regardless if I use it or not. I use carrier and wifi data relatively equally each day. I have gmail and yahoo email set to as items arrive but receive up to 5 email in one day. Send and receive a handful of text messages a day. Have a twitter client that polls every hour. Facebook app connected to my facebook. Synergy accounts (google, yahoo, facebook, and palm profile). Average 2 to 3 bars signal most of the day. Most days I spend less than an hour talking on the phone.

When my sprint pre is idle it consumes about 15mA per hour. At the end of a day with my daily use accounted in it is as much as 60mA per hour depending on how much time I'm on phone calls. With a stock battery these numbers equate to 1.3% and 5.2% per hour. Either way at least 24 hours on a single charge. Over the more than one year I have analyzed battery consumption most people have fallen in a range of 11mA (1%) to 92mA (8%) per hour depending on use (8% being heavier users). Percentages for stock battery.

Only with early versions of webOS I observed high idle rates from user reports. As time went on the idle rates got significantly better resulting in overall longer time on a single charge even with use. Most users should be able to get through a whole day on the stock battery unless their use is so heavy that they are always doing something with the device. But there are many things heavy users can do to cut down consumption based on their usage patterns. For example if a lot of that use keeps the screen on turn brightness down as much as possible.

Anyways sorry for the long post to illustrate that high idle drain rate is not normal any more. There are some things that can be done in this regard assuming the battery isn't bad (even a new battery, defective or sat on shelf too long before sold). The battery can be conditioned so to speak by charging it to 100% (not as reported by the UI but by the battery itself) and then wait until the device auto powers off before charging back up. Two or three times initially then only once every 2-4 weeks depending on circumstances. Or if one doesn't care if they will have to replace the battery quicker a full drain cycle can be done for every charge.

If weak signal is a factor to the high idle drain signal boosters or other ways of strengthening the signal can be taken. For example at my summer home I bounce between roaming 1 bar to not roaming 1 bar and half the time it is 0 bars either way but still connected to the towers. This causes my idle drain rate to be something like 10 times more. Anyways I'm always willing to help people by analyzing their usage and offering ways of optimizing things to better their battery drain. But this thread covers a lot of stuff that can be done to reduce idle rates since not everyone will need everything. And I think mode switcher can be used to automate many things for power savings dare I even say most or all?

[bigalh]

If I know I'm going to use wifi for a long period of time, I set the phone in airplane mode then turn on wifi. Missed calls, I call them later. It saves tons of battery charge.

If you have good coverage you shouldn't need to turn on airplane mode. The Pre will use wifi for all data if it is on, so technically the phone won't be used. Of course if you have poor reception then that will drain as it is trying to get good signal.

Of course turning airplane mode on will save some battery - but it is probably insignificant if you have a good signal.

-al

[chrish421]

Nice trick to save battery life is if you are overclocking your phone and using Govnah to control it you can set your screen state to run slower when your screen is off. I have mine to run at 250 mhz with the screen off and 1ghz when on.

[chrish421]

try to use uberkernel patch to overclock your phone and govnah to control this kernle. this will allow you to set your phone prossesor to run at faster speeds when the screen is on and slower speeds when the screen is off saving you battery when your phone is not in use.

[jkeitz]

Data is clearly a killer for the battery, but I see significant battery drainage when playing games. Things like FIFA 2010 and the Settlers really suck the power. I play one game of FIFA 2010, with 4 minute halves, and I'll go from 100% to under 80% easily. Low 70's if I go to overtime. This is independent of data usage, as I noticed this while flying cross country this summer. I carry one of those AAA battery powered chargers for my Pre while flying. It doesn't have enough juice to actually charge the Pre if I'm using it for anything, but it seems to stem the drain rate by about 50%.

[SmartFah]

If you really want to improve your battery life, get UberKernel & Govnah. Not only will you be able to modify your processor speed to run lower when the screen is off, (like others have mentioned above), you can also lower the voltage so that the processor drains less battery. I overclock my Pre, with the 500/800 screenstate profile in Govnah, and with the voltage tweaking, I can actually get through the day without having to recharge my Pre, it's awesome.

In Govnah tap Profile-->Advanced Settings --> CPU Frequency --> Core Voltages.

Here's a screenshot of my voltage settings, they work pretty well for me. Anything below these settings might be too low. They were the same settings from an article I found on WebOSRoundup about Voltage tweaking.

Since I don't have 10 posts yet, I can't post the link, just go to the WebOSRoundup webiste, and search "Voltage tweaking".

Hope that helps.

[rafalc]

If you really want to improve your battery life, get UberKernel & Govnah. Not only will you be able to modify your processor speed to run lower when the screen is off, (like others have mentioned above), you can also lower the voltage so that the processor drains less battery. I overclock my Pre, with the 500/800 screenstate profile in Govnah, and with the voltage tweaking, I can actually get through the day without having to recharge my Pre, it's awesome.

In Govnah tap Profile-->Advanced Settings --> CPU Frequency --> Core Voltages.

Here's a screenshot of my voltage settings, they work pretty well for me. Anything below these settings might be too low. They were the same settings from an article I found on WebOSRoundup about Voltage tweaking.

Since I don't have 10 posts yet, I can't post the link, just go to the WebOSRoundup webiste, and search "Voltage tweaking".

Hope that helps.

Im running lower voltages than you and charge still only lasts 8 hrs. I find that this is mostly due to very weak signal at work where I spend most off my day (1 bar to zero, sometimes 2 bars).

*In Govnah....what is your guys' average battery current without doing anything?

[SmartFah]

Im running lower voltages than you and charge still only lasts 8 hrs. I find that this is mostly due to very weak signal at work where I spend most off my day (1 bar to zero, sometimes 2 bars).

*In Govnah....what is your guys' average battery current without doing anything?

The weak signal probably has a lot to do with it, especially a weak data signal. If I know I'm going to be in a weak signal area for a while, I usually put it in airplane mode, or turn off either the cellular or data signal if it's just one of them that is weak. If not my battery would drain just as fast as well.

In Govnah my average battery current stays around -165 mA when it's not doing anything. That's at the 500/800 screenstate with the voltage settings I posted earlier.

[rafalc]

The weak signal probably has a lot to do with it, especially a weak data signal. If I know I'm going to be in a weak signal area for a while, I usually put it in airplane mode, or turn off either the cellular or data signal if it's just one of them that is weak. If not my battery would drain just as fast as well.

In Govnah my average battery current stays around -165 mA when it's not doing anything. That's at the 500/800 screenstate with the voltage settings I posted earlier.

Yea, thats what Im getting too and with voltages set to much lower than yours so I dont think lowering the voltage will do very much as far as battery saving. What I did notice is that I am getting a discharge of -5 when screen is off (this is at 720/250 screenstate) ... which is pretty good. I did notice recently that my ringers are delayed or dont come on at all when screen is off...might be due to the low frequency so Ill have to play around with it.

Ive been testing my phone at home and Im to my surprise, Im getting a life of around 20hrs with light use. At work this would still be 8hrs...so either a miracle happened within the last 2 days OR it really is the signal strength.

Ill post more once I do some more testing but Im definitely happy with the 20hr charge time.