i know why battery life sucks so much!

[darren.wlsn1]

Originally Posted by dew.man

It's the reception - anytime the phone is searching for a signal or switching to/from roaming, it's gulping the juice!

im not buying that, im never roaming and my battery drains real fast. im still not flashed though.

[sirtronics]

Yes I notice it always switches from 1xRTT and EVDo all the time.
It does not let me answer incoming calls and the screen turnns on by itself.
I guess this means I am NOT alone. but there is a tower like 2 miles from my house. so what do we do?
What ROM are you running?

Originally Posted by snovvman

How is your coverage? Do you observe the phone switching between 1xRTT and EVDO and/or roam often? Does your phone sometimes not ring on incoming calls? Does your screen turn on by itself sometimes? It seems like the Diamond handles poor coverage poorly. At home, my phone will only go for about six hours with ~10 SMS per hour ONLY.

[c0wb0ycliche]

I think there most certainly is an issue with battery drain, however, I have some more, abstract ideas about why this happening.

I really think it has to do with usage.

I see some of these posts where people mention they made a few quick calls, maybe sent a few texts, and had push e-mail. And their phone lasted all day.

My Diamond doesn't last very long. At all. By around 2-4 PM it's getting dead if I don't plug it in.

However, my usage is hardly what I'd call usual.

I am usually on Opera/YouTube/Sprint TV for around 2 hours in the morning. While doing this I usually receive and send a large amount of text messages. After this, when I leave work, I usually am on the phone for at least half an hour. The rest of the day has maybe half a dozen phone calls, and maybe 100 or so incoming and outgoing text messages. I'll check my e-mail manually maybe 3 or 4 times. Sometimes I'll have IM running in the background. I would say before the end of the day (midnight usually?) I have used the internet for around 3 hours, been on the phone for at least 2 hours, and sent and recieved at least 100 messages and another maybe 20 instant messages. And played Teeter for 10 minutes. GPS is maybe every three days for usually only 20 minutes. Oh and about 30 minutes a day of using it to listen to music.

So. I would consider myself a pretty heavy user.

And while I wish my phone wouldn't be dead by the afternoon, I don't see how it couldn't be with how much I use it.

My question is this... are people on here using it like I am, and still having a good charge by end/mid day?

And are the people whose batteries are sucking using their phone all crazy like I am?

I should also point out my phone get pretty hot. Not like, OUCH hot, but a little hot.

Hope this maybe helps the discussion!

[budney]

Originally Posted by darren.wlsn1

im not buying that, im never roaming and my battery drains real fast. im still not flashed though.

I would buy that. Any time any phone is in a low to no signal area it will use up a lot of battery trying to find a better signal.

[boe]

I'll try the data setting from 600 to 60 today to see if it makes a difference - I forgot to leave my phone plugged in at the office and even though I only got 4 2 minute phone calls my phone was dead by 10:30 AM even though it was fully charged at 6AM - by far my worst day for battery life. Usually I make it from 7 AM to around 2:30 at the office before my battery is dead. I received one text message, 4 two minute calls, plenty of push and hotmail messaages - probably around 20 total. I did not use it to browse the web, I did not use it to get directions. I did not use it in the house, I did not use it with a mouse. I did not use it in the head, my battery is dead Sam I am.

Any chance the GPS is always turned on? I know on my touch turning on the GPS would kill the battery fast.

[snovvman]

Originally Posted by sirtronics

Yes I notice it always switches from 1xRTT and EVDo all the time.
It does not let me answer incoming calls and the screen turnns on by itself.
I guess this means I am NOT alone. but there is a tower like 2 miles from my house. so what do we do?
What ROM are you running?

I'm using the stock ROM. Airwave in your house would most certainly help your battery life.

Here is another clue for everyone reading: My Touch would hold EVDO much bettery than the Diamond. The Diamond seems to switch between 1xRTT and EVDO a lot more at my house (bad coverage). When sending an SMS, the Touch would swtich from EVDO to 1xRTT briefly (sending msg) and then switch back to EVDO immediately. The Diamond seems to hang at 1x much longer.

I looked at ##778# and compared, wondering if radio settings have something to do with fast drain in poor coverage area. I see some radio settings that are different between the two. I'm still researching the settings, their values, and what they actually mean.

[cappy]

Originally Posted by boe

Any chance the GPS is always turned on? I know on my touch turning on the GPS would kill the battery fast.

All of the readings that I have reported here have been with GPS locator On, but I have not activated any programs to get current location. I have GPS Today installed and displayed on my Second Today screen. Unless GPS Today (or Google Maps, Live Search, etc) actually connects to search for a location, there appears to be no impact on discharge rate.

[executor485]

I have tried a number of tweaks on my device and the strangest thing is that I cannot get an accurate or constant battery life measurement. I work in the same office, spend the same amount of time in the same spots, try saving battery life by not doing much with it, and try to drain the battery by playing games and using opera, and still cannot get constant results.
Example, yesterday I played around on the phone quite a bit, probably 2 hours of games, some youtube for 10 min, bout 20 text messages, listened to sirius for 4 min, surfed the web for about 20 min, and made 4 phone calls probably totalling to about 45 min. The battery lasted from 545AM to 10PM and still had 1 bar left! But the day prior to that the battery died at 7PM with VERY LIGHT usage (about 20 texts and maybe 20 min of gaming or so, most of the time it was on standby) Oh, forgot to mention that I have email checking every 30 min as well, for both scenario's, and probalby received about 5 emails both days.
This is a constant theme with this phone for me though. I cannot replicate battery life from one day to another regardless of what I do. Its completely sparadic for me.

[rainfreak]

Originally Posted by budney

I would buy that. Any time any phone is in a low to no signal area it will use up a lot of battery trying to find a better signal.

100% agree. When the phone has little or no signal it is going to do everything that it can to find a better signal, either in the home or roaming network. The search for a better network connection will obviously drain the battery more quickly.

Basically it does what we all expect that it will do, be a phone for us.

[the7thson]

Originally Posted by sirtronics

Yes I notice it always switches from 1xRTT and EVDo all the time.
It does not let me answer incoming calls and the screen turnns on by itself.
I guess this means I am NOT alone. but there is a tower like 2 miles from my house. so what do we do?
What ROM are you running?

This is the main cause of your higher than average battery drain. The phone is constantly searching for a signal. I think it does so more aggressively than some other phones and this makes it power hungry. If this is in fact the case, there's not much you'll be able to do until Sprint updates the radio software unfortunately.