battery meter and "x" to close windows

Huskerfan · #1 (**permalink**) 11-11-2009, 08:12 PM

Seems simple enough but I can't find it. Is there a battery meter on the phone to tell exactly how much juice is left other than on the top bar?

Also,

Seems like you don't really close programs with this phone??? You just go back or hit the "home" button. Wouldn't this eat the battery with all those open programs?

Just been tinkering today.....

Thanks!

nerdherd · #2 (**permalink**) 11-11-2009, 08:35 PM

For the battery I use "Battery Widget".

Also, I use a program called ""Advanced Task Manager Free" to shut programs down when I'm done with them. It has a widget that you can place on the desktop that will shut down all running apps when you click on it. Very handy.

There are many other options on the Android Market as well.

Huskerfan · #3 (**permalink**) 11-11-2009, 08:53 PM

I found the ATMF program but wondered about an Android program vs. home brew. You would think the phone would have something like that preinstalled. And I found some battery meters after you posted. Thanks for your suggestions.

**blazingwolf** · #4 (**permalink**) 11-11-2009, 10:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Huskerfan

I found the ATMF program but wondered about an Android program vs. home brew. You would think the phone would have something like that preinstalled. And I found some battery meters after you posted. Thanks for your suggestions.

Settings/Applications/Running Services. You can use this to shut down services.

nerdherd · #5 (**permalink**) 11-12-2009, 12:43 AM

Yes, but it doesn't let you shut down applications. Strange, isn't it? To shut down applications you have to go settings, applications, manage applications, filter by running, click on the app you want, then force close.

**breakmyfootoff** · #6 (**permalink**) 11-12-2009, 03:28 AM

This is going to be a hard thing for us WM users to get used to, but supposedly there is no real need to close down apps. Android is very much like Linux and when an app is open in the background it is supposed to use very little processing power or ram. Here is a quote posted on another forum from ann Android app developer.

Android is different to most other phone operating systems. It's closer to Linux than any other type of operating system. Lots of services and applications constantly run in the background just like they do on Windows. However, and this is important, they do not have to use up a ton of resources. A service or app can be loaded, yet use almost no additional memory, and 0% CPU until it actually has to do something.

In general, killing off stuff is a waste of time. Android automatically asks apps to close that aren't needed when it needs more memory. Killing off some of the processes you are killing off also means it'll slow your phone down, as these processes only need to reload, and when you do need to use them it means the phone will be slower for the few seconds it takes to reload them.

nickb34 · #7 (**permalink**) 11-12-2009, 04:19 AM

If you go to settings>about phone>battery use it will tell you exactly what is using the battery. I check it every so often and the applications use so little of the battery that I just don't really worry about them any more. The top of the list is always the screen and the usually phone idle/standby and wi-fi.

**yearn** · #8 (**permalink**) 11-12-2009, 10:54 AM

I use tasKiller to kill running app's, but I really never need to.
About the only time I do is if I got like 10 games piled up on there and even then I dont notice a slowdown, I just cant help myself (used WM to long), lol

As far as the battery goes I use vizBattery, it makes a nice little widget thats no bigger than a regular icon and tells you what % battery you have left