Poor battery life Samsung Captivate

[Scientific]

Originally Posted by ppcgpirate

also use solid black wallpaper. the screen supposedly uses very little power when displaying black, it's almost like the pixels are turned off.

LOL...kinda takes away from that amazing screen though doesn't it?

[potatoofdoom]

Originally Posted by ppcgpirate

also use solid black wallpaper. the screen supposedly uses very little power when displaying black, it's almost like the pixels are turned off.

Fromwhat I've read, when the display is showing black the pixels actually are off, so you're 100% right.

[diablo09]

Mine used to give me like a day's battery with average use. Ok, here's what i did.

I have rooted my phone, and have:
1. task manager,
2. battery monitor in status to show battery percentage,
3. start up auditor,
4. cpu info widget (with temp and speed and cpu usage),
5. app protector, and
6. 3G data usage monitor
These are always on, except for the cpu info widget that's turned occasionally on and off.
Apart from this,
1. static wallpaper (not black screen)
2. use wifi all time at home, and bluetooth when outside.
3. have brightness set to 0 when not in sun, and to about 50% when outside.
4. screen auto-rotation turned off, since i hardly use this

i installed "SetCPU" app, and here are my settings of the app:
1. when display is turned off, auto set the phone to 400 MHz speed with "conservative" mode on.
2. all other times, set the speed to 400 MHz with "on demand" mode.

i don't notice any noticeable lag for my day to day tasks, and my battery life has more than doubled.

EDIT: This is my second Captivate. I exchanged my first Captivate after about 10 days for its horrible battery life.

[potatoofdoom]

Originally Posted by magicdanw

I'm in the same situation as you were, potato. Did you do anything that improved the battery life, or did it just improve on it's own? I'm trying to strip out all the widgets and things that may run in the background, so I'll see how it goes tomorrow, but I'm really thinking about bringing it back to AT&T and seeing if they'd replace it to let me find out if it's a bad battery or something.

The most important thing that you can turn off is automatic brightness, I think. It seems to kill the battery very quickly. Just set it to the lowest, its still plenty bright. I also turned off both location settings gps and network location. I also turned background data off.

But, I did all those things the day I bought the phone, so I actually think the battery life did improve on its own. I talked on it for awhile earlier and I got about onepercent per three minutes of talk.which is pretty decent for a low signal area in an old building.

[blackberryandy]

Originally Posted by potatoofdoom

It may just be me, but has anyone with a captivate felt that the battery life is not as good as it should be?

FWIW, I think the battery life on the Captivate leaves much to be desired. I just got my phone (Rogers Wireless in Canada, the i896 model) and I am finding that if I leave the phone on for a day, without using it, it is completely dead the next morning. If I try to turn the phone on, I get the i896 splash screen momentarily and then the phone shuts off, but the 4 soft keys stay lit for some reason. Being a BlackBerry user (primarily) but wanting to use the Samsung for other purposes (I find the Navigation app terrific, so much so that I have gotten rid of my TomTom) but this is a major concern to me.

[JunkionMarnot]

I'm so glad i came back to PPCG Forums, this one in particular. I'm up for an upgrade in January, and was considering a Captivate or other Android (most likely the X10 if not the Captivate) instead of the iPhone 4. Now that I'm seeing issues some of you are having with your Captivates, I'm reconsidering. But overall, do you guys love your Androids? Would you switch or keep the Captivate? I'm thinking about getting a Captivate as a test phone/standby. I've never HAD a Android before so I'd like to experience one on my own (i.e. not in a store). Like to hear your thoughts.

[gTen]

Originally Posted by JunkionMarnot

I'm so glad i came back to PPCG Forums, this one in particular. I'm up for an upgrade in January, and was considering a Captivate or other Android (most likely the X10 if not the Captivate) instead of the iPhone 4. Now that I'm seeing issues some of you are having with your Captivates, I'm reconsidering. But overall, do you guys love your Androids? Would you switch or keep the Captivate? I'm thinking about getting a Captivate as a test phone/standby. I've never HAD a Android before so I'd like to experience one on my own (i.e. not in a store). Like to hear your thoughts.

There will always be a few issues here and there with every phone...I don't have a captivate but have an Epic which is similar..and its pretty much the best phone I've ever used...I'm personally coming from a WM background so was a bit sketchy on the switch as well..but once I saw the awesome hardware in these phones I couldn't resist :P

Doesn't AT&T give you a 14 day period to return? if so I would use it to play around with the phone and see how it fits your taste..

IF you want to get into specifics, tell me your primary concerns and I'll try to answer them the best I can.

[blackberryandy]

Having TERRIBLE time with battery on my Captivate.
I followed the instructions on how to "calibrate" the battery (draining, charging, charging again, etc.) but it seems to be WORSE than before.

For example, last night prior to going to sleep, the battery was charged to 100%. I turned the power completely off (shut down the phone), and 8 hours later when I woke up this morning, the phone was COMPLETELY DEAD.

Obviously something is wrong. Is it a bad battery, phone or both, any thoughts? Rogers, my carrier here in Toronto, isn't all that knowledgeable on this phone since it's relatively new and since I've had it more than the 30 day tryout period, they won't give me a new one.

Also, when using the phone, as I send or read an email, for example, I watch the battery meter go down with every touch of the screen. I have turned automatic brightness down as far as I can and still be able to see the screen. I have tried disabling WiFi and GPS (but doesn't that sort of defeat the purpose of having a powerful phone like this?), have made sure no unnecessary apps or processes are running in the background, etc.


Thank you.

[gTen]

Well first of all did you disable DRM running at startup?

[blackberryandy]

Originally Posted by gTen

Well first of all did you disable DRM running at startup?

Hi gTen, thanks for replying (I presume you're replying to me?). I am not familiar with what you are referring to, can you provide more info?

Thanks.