Battery Life: Just how bad?

[ToxicToastKatz]

Originally Posted by ToxicToastKatz

Ok, so here's what I've got so far from about 8.5 hours off of the charger after making the above listed changes and utilizing Handcent as my default SMS app:

Off charger at 7:30AM with 100% charge
Current State at 4:00PM:
30% battery remaining
"Up Time" = 17h16min
"Awake Time" = 3h41min (21%)
Usage (phone calls, browser, etc) has been very light. No phone calls, a few texts incoming and maybe 4 minutes on the browser.
Automatic Usage is set up pretty much as frequently as possible (Exchange Server syncronization, Google Sync for mail, Facebook and Twitter updates are on most frequent selections, weather is fairly frequent and GPS is on all the time)

I think at this point yesterday, I was pretty much at a dead battery, so I do believe that the Handcent workaround is doing SOMETHING. I guess my question to whoever can provide insight is this:

Shouldn't and Awake Time of 21% conserve quite a bit more battery than an Awake Time of 100%? Don't get me wrong, wtih the frequencies that I have all of the applications updating/refreshing I would expect the battery to not last quite as long as if none of the stuff was updated that frequently, however, I was just thinking that with such a difference in awake times, the battery would last quite a bit longer.

Personally, with everything that is going on with my phone, if I can squeeze 12 hours out of it w/o a charge, I'm pretty happy. Am I setting the bar too low? What is everyone else seeing with this kind of usage and updating? LIke I said, 12 hours, to me, isn't too bad, but if other people are getting 14-16 hours with the same usage i'd like to hear some tips.

Thanks guys.

In another test today, i have left all settings the exact same, with the 1 change of shutting GPS off, and it seems to have made quite a difference (i kind of figured it would); All other location settings (mobile network connected, location based off wifi, location based off towers, etc) are on all the time, but the GPS really seems to help. While turning the other settings off can have some effect on different programs (Facebook, Twitter, Weather), turning GPS off doesn't effect anything (other than accuracy of location) until you need it.

I am on 5 hours off charger and only lost 30%. I'll update later to see where I'm at.

[dannzeman]

I tried do everything except a hard reset last night and I couldn't get it to work. The Awake Timer was the same as the Up Timer no matter what I did. So I just went ahead and hard reset, didn't install anything, didn't sign in to any social networking features, didn't sign into google, nothing. Now the the phone would sleep and the timers were different. I put the phone on silent and left the radio on while I slept. When I woke up in the morning I checked it and I had received 6 SMS messages and my Awake Time was only 6%. Very good.
I went ahead and signed into google to get my contacts, email, and calendar. I downloaded Handcent and replied to all the SMS Messages. Tested the timers again, still good. But, I noticed my Google calendar didn't sync. I told it to re-sync and a few minutes later I noticed it had. Then I noticed my Awake Timer wasn't stopping when I would put it to sleep.
So I just hard reset and I'm going to go through it again but not sync my google calendar and see if that changes anything.

[princem131]

I actually preferred the stock sms app but not at the cost of battery life. I did the fix and awake time went from 95% to 16% battery is going strong still 6 hrs into my day its amazing. HTC better get on an update fast the average consumer will never know about this and will think the Hero has worse battery life than it really does.

One small gripe. Handcent doesn't seem to update sms while the convo is open I have to back out of the specific message and go back in is there a way to fix this I looked thru all the settings but maybe I missed it.

[Red_Cheeks]

Originally Posted by dannzeman

I tried do everything except a hard reset last night and I couldn't get it to work. The Awake Timer was the same as the Up Timer no matter what I did. So I just went ahead and hard reset, didn't install anything, didn't sign in to any social networking features, didn't sign into google, nothing. Now the the phone would sleep and the timers were different. I put the phone on silent and left the radio on while I slept. When I woke up in the morning I checked it and I had received 6 SMS messages and my Awake Time was only 6%. Very good.
I went ahead and signed into google to get my contacts, email, and calendar. I downloaded Handcent and replied to all the SMS Messages. Tested the timers again, still good. But, I noticed my Google calendar didn't sync. I told it to re-sync and a few minutes later I noticed it had. Then I noticed my Awake Timer wasn't stopping when I would put it to sleep.
So I just hard reset and I'm going to go through it again but not sync my google calendar and see if that changes anything.

its sounds like what you did wrong was use the stock SMS program. When you hard reset again make sure to not even open the original SMS program instead go right to the market and download the handcent app. Also dont forget to uncheck Auto-retrieve and notifications .

[Red_Cheeks]

well i guess you do have to open the original SMS program but just to uncheck those two things....

[dannzeman]

Originally Posted by Red_Cheeks

well i guess you do have to open the original SMS program but just to uncheck those two things....

Yeah, thats all I opened it for. I didn't check the messages or anything.

Since I hard reset this morning it's been great. I installed a couple more apps from the app store, and have logged into twitter but not facebook. I'll try that next as well as set up my yahoo mail account. I've noticed much better battery life just over the 6-7 hours its been working properly.

[nebula]

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Originally Posted by dannzeman

Yeah, thats all I opened it for. I didn't check the messages or anything.

Since I hard reset this morning it's been great. I installed a couple more apps from the app store, and have logged into twitter but not facebook. I'll try that next as well as set up my yahoo mail account. I've noticed much better battery life just over the 6-7 hours its been working properly.

The stock messages app will only prevent your phone from sleeping when you send a message using it. Hope that helps.

[ObsoleteE]

My usage is at 8 percent using handcent! I am thinking of just deleting the stock MMS icon, so I don't see the little 1 in the icon. When I get a text within handcent, it turns my screen on, whereas the stock mms app made the audible notification, but kept the screen off. Is there a way to make handcent ring, but not turn the screen on?

[Red_Cheeks]

Originally Posted by ObsoleteE

My usage is at 8 percent using handcent! I am thinking of just deleting the stock MMS icon, so I don't see the little 1 in the icon. When I get a text within handcent, it turns my screen on, whereas the stock mms app made the audible notification, but kept the screen off. Is there a way to make handcent ring, but not turn the screen on?

Open handcent app , press menu, setting, go down to pop up settings, unchecke screen on for pop up.

[ObsoleteE]

Originally Posted by Red_Cheeks

Open handcent app , press menu, setting, go down to pop up settings, unchecke screen on for pop up.

Just found it, handcent has a ton of options. Thanks!