Awful battery performance on my HTC Desire

Zascar

I got a desire a while back and absolutely loved it. I still do, but I am pretty appalled at the battery life. I'm not even that heavy a user, but you'd really struggle to get more than a day out of it. I've lost count of the amount of times I've gone to bed at night with 1/4 to 1/5 of battery, and I wake up late for work cause the phone died and the alarm did not go off. I used to think my iPhone was terrible but it was twice as good as this. I use task killer and I'm not using wifi/gps etc - and its not like I sit on the web all day or anything. I'd say for a heavy user you would be lucky to get half a day out of it!

Is there anything I can do or is this just Android/Desire?

Saadyst

Update to 2.2 (froyo) and stop using a task killer. Get watchdog if you want to keep an eye on what's going on.

Desire battery life seems to get better over time, naturally. Mine was horrendous as well - and it still is, if I spend ages on it every day, but it's much more improved at the moment, compared to the time I bought it.

There's not really much else to do except just make sure you turn off wi-fi if you wont be using it - common sense things like that.

cullenswood

Set it to airplane mode at night time

Beefy78

I've done a fair bit of reading about this in the last few days as a new owner of a Desire, myself.

Firstly, turn the task killer off. It eats battery itself and popular opinion seems to be that it isn't necessary. Check the settings for your email, Facebook, Twitter, Stocks, Friend Stream, Weather and everything else which the phone syncs with on a regular basis and tell the phone how often you want it to check for updates for these things. Out of the box it was checking my hotmail every 30 minutes. I didn't need that. It was checking stock prices every 30 minutes too. I don't own any stocks!

If you're finding that it's running out of battery overnight then again it'll probably be because it's connecting to the internet whilst you sleep. Hold down the power button for a few seconds before you go to bed and turn mobile internet off. That pretty much turns it into a 'normal' phone and battery usage should be minimal.

Ultimately though I think you need to accept that you're not going to get much more than a day or two out of a phone like this before you need to charge it. It does so much more than a phone did years ago and all of that drains battery. It's a pain, but until better batteries are designed I guess it's a pain that we're going to have to learn to live with.

Atomic Pineapple

Remove the task killer ASAP it will be destroying your battery life.

Turn off background data, wifi, bluetooth, gps when not in use.

Use the widget.

You can use Airplane mode but that also turns off the GSM radio so you wont recieve calls or texts.

Also dim the screen when you dont need it at its full brightness, indoors, in the evening, at night etc...

By simply using the widget to turn off stuff when its not used I've increased my battery life on a Nexus One from 1 day (dieing during the night) to 3 - 4days.

seklly

If your phone is rooted try another ROM. I was using DJ Droid and getting around 12 hours and recently moved to OpenDesire and now i'm getting over 30 hours with pretty regular use.

A few other things which have improved my battery life greatly would be the 'locale' and 'juice defender' apps.

newbie2

I own a desire. When I got it first the battery was ok. I downloaded Task killer and was using it with no problems. However after reading some articals I uninstalled it. I noticed yesterday that the battery ran out very quickly. Was gone before 6.30pm !!! (I unplugged the charger at 8.00am).

I redownloaded Task killer this morning and used it to shut a load of apps - such as radio etc. Gonna see how the battery react today.

FWIW - I use the widget to shut Bluetooth/WiFi/Sync/GPS etc when I want them off. SO no wifi unbless theres one available, no bluetooth except in the car.

Gonna get watchdog to seee whats running and eatinmg the battery.

Beefy78

draffodx wrote: »

Remove the task killer ASAP it will be destroying your battery life.

Turn off background data, wifi, bluetooth, gps when not in use.

Use the widget.

You can use Airplane mode but that also turns off the GSM radio so you wont recieve calls or texts.

Also dim the screen when you dont need it at its full brightness, indoors, in the evening, at night etc...

By simply using the widget to turn off stuff when its not used I've increased my battery life on a Nexus One from 1 day (dieing during the night) to 3 - 4days.

Stupid question I know but which widget is it that you mean? Someone else told me to use the widget to turn things like Wifi, etc, off and on, but I can't see which widget to use or where to get it from...!

Nekro Man

has no one mentioned just turn the phone off/charge it at night?

Basq

Am getting 4 - 5 days out of mine... using WiFi / GPS / CDN / BT at a bare minimum however.

Am I put it on Airplane Mode at night - it's timed to go into Airplane Mode from 11pm - 8.30am the next morning.

Atomic Pineapple

newbie2 wrote: »

I own a desire. When I got it first the battery was ok. I downloaded Task killer and was using it with no problems. However after reading some articals I uninstalled it. I noticed yesterday that the battery ran out very quickly. Was gone before 6.30pm !!! (I unplugged the charger at 8.00am).

I redownloaded Task killer this morning and used it to shut a load of apps - such as radio etc. Gonna see how the battery react today.

FWIW - I use the widget to shut Bluetooth/WiFi/Sync/GPS etc when I want them off. SO no wifi unbless theres one available, no bluetooth except in the car.

Gonna get watchdog to seee whats running and eatinmg the battery.

If you have Froyo the task killer is pointless.

Beefy78 wrote: »

Stupid question I know but which widget is it that you mean? Someone else told me to use the widget to turn things like Wifi, etc, off and on, but I can't see which widget to use or where to get it from...!

The one that looks like this: (Top)



Its slightly different on the Nexus One so is probably different with HTC's sense.

angel01

Nekro Man wrote: »

has no one mentioned just turn the phone off/charge it at night?

People are depending on their phones as an alarm and my alarm doesn't work if the phone is switched off.

angel01

draffodx wrote: »

If you have Froyo the task killer is pointless.

What about if you have 2.1?

Basq

angel01 wrote: »

People are depending on their phones as an alarm and my alarm doesn't work if the phone is switched off.

Use Airplane Mode..

Your phone will use shag all power then.

Beefy78

draffodx wrote: »

If you have Froyo the task killer is pointless.



The one that looks like this: (Top)



Its slightly different on the Nexus One so is probably different with HTC's sense.

That looks fantastic. But is it pre-installed on the phone or do you need to download it from somewhere?

Beefy78

Beefy78 wrote: »

That looks fantastic. But is it pre-installed on the phone or do you need to download it from somewhere?

Found it. Awesome. Thanks!

Abelloid

Nekro Man wrote: »

has no one mentioned just turn the phone off/charge it at night?

Alarm doesn't work when switched off.


I only sync manually, airplane mode at night and never use GPS, my battery lasts well into the second day.

youcancallmeal

I have a problem with my battery where if I charge it overnight it charges to 100% fine. Then when my alarm goes off in the morning I will snooze it maybe 6 or 7 times and each time the alarm could be going off for 20-30 seconds (yes it takes me ages to get up in the morning). Anyway when I unplug it the battery usually shows as around 90%. So it seems that once the phone has charged to 100% it stops and won't charge again until you unplug and plug it back in!? I thought it would run off the mains once it reaches 100% but obviously not

newbie2

draffodx wrote: »

If you have Froyo the task killer is pointless.
.

I have Froyo. Why is task Killer pointless? BTW I have Advanced Task Killer Froyo.

angel01

basquille wrote: »

Use Airplane Mode..

Your phone will use shag all power then.

Will the alarm still sound? I have a Galaxy S.

Basq

angel01 wrote: »

Will the alarm still sound? I have a Galaxy S.

Yep..

angel01

basquille wrote: »

Yep..

Okay perfect, I will do that in future, thanks

Atomic Pineapple

angel01 wrote: »

What about if you have 2.1?

Same.

The following image shows how an Activity is handled by the Android OS



A task killer messes with this leading to applications missing stages in the lifecycle where data or something else important might not be saved or get to run.

Atomic Pineapple

newbie2 wrote: »

I have Froyo. Why is task Killer pointless? BTW I have Advanced Task Killer Froyo.

See above post, also on Froyo you have the ability shut down a long running Activity or Service properly yourself from the settings menu.

cullenswood

basquille wrote: »

Am getting 4 - 5 days out of mine... using WiFi / GPS / CDN / BT at a bare minimum however.

What ROM are you using?

Abelloid

youcancallme>al wrote: »

I have a problem with my battery where if I charge it overnight it charges to 100% fine. Then when my alarm goes off in the morning I will snooze it maybe 6 or 7 times and each time the alarm could be going off for 20-30 seconds (yes it takes me ages to get up in the morning). Anyway when I unplug it the battery usually shows as around 90%. So it seems that once the phone has charged to 100% it stops and won't charge again until you unplug and plug it back in!? I thought it would run off the mains once it reaches 100% but obviously not

I'm pretty sure it begins discharging once it reaches 100% and then charging again when it hits 90%, it will do that all day.

Basq

cullenswood wrote: »

What ROM are you using?

Stock Android 2.1..


.. I've rooted and have been meaning to try new ones, but haven't gotten around to debranding it.

Zascar

Well, this is the problem. I’m on 2.1 – I rooted successfully, but I am completely unable to put on any new ROM’s. It just never works for me, gives me an error and I have to restart.

I was in the UK last week and I got a notification that 2.2 was available. I downloaded and installed but again, all that happened was I got a black screen with a bit yellow exclamation point with the Android icon.



I have not really tried again but does anyone know how I can fix this?

Atomic Pineapple

Zascar wrote: »

Well, this is the problem. I’m on 2.1 – I rooted successfully, but I am completely unable to put on any new ROM’s. It just never works for me, gives me an error and I have to restart.

I was in the UK last week and I got a notification that 2.2 was available. I downloaded and installed but again, all that happened was I got a black screen with a bit yellow exclamation point with the Android icon.



I have not really tried again but does anyone know how I can fix this?

Flash your recovery image on and update from that.

Zascar

Sorry but what does that mean?

Atomic Pineapple

Zascar wrote: »

Sorry but what does that mean?

What steps did you follow to root the device?