Touch Pro Battery life!!! Post your reviews!!

[z28marols1]

From what I read Li-Po batteries will operate the same way in regards to charge cycles, memory and heat that Li-Ion do. Li-Po is really just a variation of Li-Ion.

[ScrapMaker]

Originally Posted by saumaun

Petabyte, heat is a major issue with the TP. Personally, mine only gets hot after about 30 mins of constant use/talking, but it's still annoying. Keeping a charger with you is a good idea.

It was ON the charger... it doesn't matter, when the phone overheats, it refuses to charge, until it cools down.

Originally Posted by PhantomApolyon

bad battery life comes with the territory, its a WM phone, I haven't seen a STOCK WM phone that had anything but ****ty battery life

Again, it wasn't the battery life itself he seemed most frustrated with--but the fact that it wouldn't even work while plugged in.

Originally Posted by Anonymatt

My treo 700w could go 4 or 5 days between charges with minimal usage, that's not too bad.

Edit: And oh yeah, I'm able to go ~2 days between charges on the TP with minimal usage. Not quite as good, but the battery is only ~2/3 the capacity, and it is a more powerful device.

I hate this defense... it's more powerful, but so what? Just because it's more powerful, doesn't mean it should draw more power...

a 2009 Corvette Z06 has 600hp, and can get nearly 30MPG.

a 1970 Corvette has ~250hp, and gets <15MPG.

Same goes with laptops, phones, etc.

[[sammich]]

Originally Posted by ScrapMaker

I hate this defense... it's more powerful, but so what? Just because it's more powerful, doesn't mean it should draw more power...

a 2009 Corvette Z06 has 600hp, and can get nearly 30MPG.

a 1970 Corvette has ~250hp, and gets <15MPG.

Same goes with laptops, phones, etc.

That's one of the points another member made before. With the rate that technology changes, the battery draw of a newer processor should be less than an older processor.

[dr g]

Originally Posted by ScrapMaker

With push mail on, and data connected, (idle,) mine pulled 150-200 nearly all day.

I say all day, but it never lasted that long. I had to keep it on the charger literally all day.

Let's hope this hardware version 2 is better!

Something definitely wrong, my results are with push mail on and da ta connected.

[Anonymatt]

Originally Posted by ScrapMaker

I hate this defense... it's more powerful, but so what? Just because it's more powerful, doesn't mean it should draw more power...

a 2009 Corvette Z06 has 600hp, and can get nearly 30MPG.

a 1970 Corvette has ~250hp, and gets <15MPG.

Same goes with laptops, phones, etc.

I wasn't just specifically talking about the processor power. There are other things to account for, such as the larger screen, the higher resolution screen, and I also allow the Touch Pro screen to go brighter than the Treos (I kept my Treo's screen near the minimum, even outside, to save battery, but I let the TP auto-adjust). There is also more RAM, which may or may not cause an increase in power consumption, and the addition of WiFi and GPS (though I don't think those draw any extra power when not in use)

and to address this:

Originally Posted by saumaun

That's one of the points another member made before. With the rate that technology changes, the battery draw of a newer processor should be less than an older processor.

That is true to an extent. You won't get leaps and bounds better, but there are typically efficiency increases. This is just for equally rated processors. A new generation 528 MHz processor should be more efficient than an older generation 528 MHz processor, however that doesn't mean that a newer generation 528 MHz processor will be more efficient than an older generation 400 MHz processor.

So anyway, onto some specifics on my battery drain evaluation, and comparing to my previous phone. I haven't run any battery logging programs on the old phone, so all that info is anecdotal, but I did have a pretty good feel for how often it would last between charges, since I did have it for 3 years.

First off, my Treo 700w had an (I think) 1800 mAh battery and would last me 4-5 days between charges on VERY LOW usage. Unfortunately the 700w was so gimped on memory I never used it for anything other than a phone, text messages, calendar and watch, with occasional game play, but never really any data usage, whereas the Touch Pro is significantly more functional and I stream video/audio and search the net much more frequently. Let's just say on the Treo my average was 4.5 days, and that equals ~400 mAh/day with minimal usage.

Under similar usage (though actually using it more than the 700w), my Touch Pro, which has a 1350 mA battery, has been lasting me, on average, 2 days, though each charge cycle lately seems to be increasing this, and right now I have been on the same charge for almost 3 full days (71 hours since I pulled it off the charger) and my battery reader still says I have 30% left (who knows how accurate that is, though).

Let's just say that 2 days is the norm, (hopefully it keeps increasing, though), and that works out to 675 mAh/day, or roughly a 70% increase in battery drain. If my new record of 3 days starts being the norm (I doubt it, but if it can do it once, then it should be able to do it again under similar usage patterns), then this number drops down to 450 mAh/day, which isn't that much higher than what I would see on my Treo.

Now onto some caveats: I have been trying to use the phone/data portion of the Touch Pro as little as possible the past week or so to get a better feel for how long the battery lasts, and how much of a hit the radios really add to the battery. Unfortunately these radios seem to be the biggest battery killer. Using Palladium's Batt Log program, just now I recorded a draw of ~475 mA when on the phone, 13 mA when in standby (screen off, phone on but not active), and 57 mA with the screen on (phone on, but not active).

Since my phone is in standby in my pocket for the majority of the time, this means that every minute of talking on the phone will consume the equivalent of ~36.5 minutes of the phone being in my pocket, or ~8.3 minutes of my device being on, but nothing really being used. Active data connections use about the same amount of power as the phone. At that rate, a 40 minute phone call will use the equivalent of a day's worth of "perfect" battery (if the phone was completely in standby, and never had any spikes, such as when searching for signal, waking up in pocket, or anything that would cause it to go above the typical 13 mA).

Under "perfect" conditions in standby, my phone should theoretically last ~100 hours (1350 mAh/13 mA) in standby, which is just over 4 days, or about 2.8 hours talk time (1350 mAh/475 mA) on the phone (with a perfect charge), or some combination thereof (like my typical 2 day standby [624 mAh], 30 minutes on the phone [237.5 mAh], 30 min surfing the net [237.5 mAh...though really it would be less since the data connection isn't usually active 100% unless streaming], and then another 250 mAh for "other" things [max 5 hours of screen "on" usage], such as searching for signal, or when I turn on the phone to check the time or appointments, or text messaging, etc).

By the way, I have NO idea where they get their claim of "up to 4 hours of continuous talk time", and that does annoy me a bit since I don't see how that is physically possible with the battery capacity and the power draw of the phone radio, but I've never believed (or achieved) rated talk times on any phone I've ever had. I also hope that they can do something to fix the radio draw, as that would significantly increase the life of the battery.

I also don't know what a typical draw for the radio is on other phones (I just assume it is lower, but I don't know real numbers), but at least in comparison to my Treo, I wonder if it has anything to do with not having an antenna that sticks out of the device at all (though other, more recent phones, such as the Touch/Tilt/etc haven't had an antenna nub, either)

[quarantine22]

thanks for the tip. i have 2 of the lithium ones and neither of them can hold a charge. i dont run anything. mainly skyfire and my txt msging. but i usually end the process when im done with skyfire. i also have the backlight set low.( i also dont have touch flo or the cube setting on it) but thank you

[ScrapMaker]

@ Anonymatt

The fact that you were able to come in at under 400mAh for an entire day, (on your old phone,) tells me that you don't use push email or exchange...

Also, your radio usage of 475 is lower than I expected--- I saw nearly 700 sometimes.

Everything revolves around the radio, and in the case of the TP, it's practically defective--based on the software/firmware in it that causes such a drain...

My Sprint Touch uses 290ma with the screen on the 3rd-lowest brightness, during a phone call... with zero/one bar of signal, in a server room filled with buko RF.

With device on, with Dashwire, Seven(Gmail,) Exchange, GPSToday, and S2U2 running, my Touch uses ~100ma/73ma (if the screen dims.)

That's in this 0-1 bar area... Whereas, I had the Pro, and in this same exact spot, it was drawing 2-3 times more power.

Clearly something is wrong with the radio in the TP. Not sure if it's just software, or if it's the hardware itself... I give it a huge sad-face.

edit: I almost forgot about Instant Messager. I am ALWAYS connected--regardless.

[Anonymatt]

Originally Posted by ScrapMaker

@ Anonymatt

The fact that you were able to come in at under 400mAh for an entire day, (on your old phone,) tells me that you don't use push email or exchange...

Also, your radio usage of 475 is lower than I expected--- I saw nearly 700 sometimes.

Everything revolves around the radio, and in the case of the TP, it's practically defective--based on the software/firmware in it that causes such a drain...

My Sprint Touch uses 290ma with the screen on the 3rd-lowest brightness, during a phone call... with zero/one bar of signal, in a server room filled with buko RF.

With device on, with Dashwire, Seven(Gmail,) Exchange, GPSToday, and S2U2 running, my Touch uses ~100ma/73ma (if the screen dims.)

That's in this 0-1 bar area... Whereas, I had the Pro, and in this same exact spot, it was drawing 2-3 times more power.

Clearly something is wrong with the radio in the TP. Not sure if it's just software, or if it's the hardware itself... I give it a huge sad-face.

edit: I almost forgot about Instant Messager. I am ALWAYS connected--regardless.

You are right, I don't use push e-mail, but I previously did have it set up to check my e-mail on a scheduled basis. On my Treo, this would kill the battery about as fast as it kills my battery on the Touch Pro. Also, I found it impossible to go even a half day with the Instant Messenger always connected.

Of course these are 2 things that I really want in a phone, but I (personally) haven't seen a phone that lasts a long time with push/frequent e-mail and Instant Messenger on. I know with my Treo, my battery would be dead in a day when I had IM open, and it would definitely drain faster with e-mail (though it depended on how frequent). It all became moot when I got sick of how low the memory was, and basically reverted it to a dumbphone with PDA functionality, and very infrequent internet checking.

Right now, though, I am trying to assess how different things affect battery life on the Touch Pro, and I've been slowly making changes or adding programs, and then giving it 2-3 charge cycles to get an estimate of the impact, and also checking the battery drain using the Batt Log program. I currently haven't set up anything that frequently uses the data connection as I already know that is a huge drain.

One more thing about radio draw: I recall getting something closer to 600+ mA previously (before I hard reset to "start over"), but now it hovers just under 500 mA when I use it. Perhaps before I had something else installed that was routinely using another 1-200 mA.

My point with all of this, though, wasn't to say that the Touch Pro battery is great, but that it isn't much worse than my previous devices (in non-phone call/data usage at least). You seem to be making a similar conclusion, and obviously the phone radio is a VERY important aspect of a phone :-p and as I said before, I can't even get close to the rated talk time of 4 hours, even if I was under the perfect conditions.

I am still hopeful, however, that a future software (or hardware...can always try exchanging if need be) fix comes and solves this issue.

Just out of curiosity, since you have gone back to your Vogue, but if you run the BattLog (or the Neupower log), how much power do your phone and data radios draw? (like what is the draw during a call, and what is your draw without making a call, so we can see the difference in mA usage) I haven't seen any reports of what the radio draw is on these other phones, and so I just am assuming that the numbers I see for the TP are bad.

[Q_Q]

Originally Posted by itouch24

have u guys tried this?.. i am using the default sprint ROM and changed to decimal value 20000 from 5000 and i am seeing a great increase in battery

http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=39966

Yeah definitely works for about ....10 days.
Then my battery charge started draining quicker than prior. Odd.

[ScrapMaker]

Originally Posted by Anonymatt

Just out of curiosity, since you have gone back to your Vogue, but if you run the BattLog (or the Neupower log), how much power do your phone and data radios draw? (like what is the draw during a call, and what is your draw without making a call, so we can see the difference in mA usage) I haven't seen any reports of what the radio draw is on these other phones, and so I just am assuming that the numbers I see for the TP are bad.

Originally Posted by ScrapMaker

My Sprint Touch uses 290ma with the screen on the 3rd-lowest brightness, during a phone call... with zero/one bar of signal, in a server room filled with buko RF.

With device on, with Dashwire, Seven(Gmail,) Exchange, GPSToday, and S2U2 running, my Touch uses ~100ma/73ma (if the screen dims.)

edit: I almost forgot about Instant Messager. I am ALWAYS connected--regardless.