Battery usage versus iphone?

Cyrus

Not giving out, more curious, why is the iphone 4 so much better in terms of battery life v the latest android handsets.

ive had my sgs2 for a few days now and getting into a regular routine, it seems to use a lot more juice than the iphone ever did.

Typical usage would be, off charge at 6.30am, out for a run, listen to mp3s or radio for 30 minutes with runkeeper running.

then on bus to work fm radio on and reading news websites engadget, bbc etc for say 30 minutes again,

receive a few emails, texts before lunch, no calls made.

At the moment, after 4 hours and 20 minutes of on time my phone is at 64% battery.

Iphone would have been 80% or so and all the radio id listen to on that was streamed over 3g as there is no fm radio.

why is it some much better, is the battery bigger or what?

Atomic Pineapple

16% difference at a guess is not a huge difference, you are now using a bigger brighter screen on an operating system that is fully multi tasking.

Professey Chin

Bigger battery,smaller screen and underclocked processor would be the big reasons id guess.
A lot of people would point at androids multitasking method(Apples is practically identical except they only allow specific services) but that really doesnt use as much as some claim (which just brings up the task killer argument again).

Zagato

Well screen is a lot smaller

Apple also underclock the CPU AFAIK

I'm not sure about iPhone4 battery capacity, but SGS2 is almost 16% lighter

You can underclock your CPU with setCPU if you are rooted, to see if this helps, but if you are getting through the day, why slow down your phone:)

Bluefoam

I'd say its more to do with your settings.

Turn down the brightness of your screen, shorten the display timeout and adjust your sync settings. Check your battery counter and delete third party apps that use too much battery... The display is the biggest drain on battery and here you have a much bigger screen that that of the iPhone.

Marco85

im havein serious battery problems the last few days with my sgs2. granted im off work sick and have been usein it a little bit more but last nite it was fully charged before i went asleep at 12.30pm and then when i woke up this morning at half ten the battery level was down at 19%. its been plugged in since 11am and now battery level is only at 46% and i havent touched it while its been chargin. anybody have any ideas for me. the screen brigtnesss is turned down low. how do i kill the background apps that arent needed?
cheers

G1032

Check whats using the battery
You could have the Android OS battery drain. There is a patch for that AFAIK.

Marco85

android os 39%
android system 23%
display 14%
cell standby 11%
phone idle 7%
wi fi sharing 4%
internet 2%
voice calls 2%


how do i get this patch mate?? does it involve flasing or rooting because i havent a breeze how to do that?

Bluefoam

Out of interest:

Display 84%
Internet 7%
Cell Standby 4%
Phone Idle 3%
Android OS 2%

Cyrus

right ive lost 30% since i posted and i havent touched the thing

Display 50%
Android system 24%
Cell Sandy by 9%

Whats the android system thing?

Says screen has beem on for 47minutes since 7 am this morning or so

srsly78

SGS2 ships with android 2.3.3 which has a small power bug. Fixed in 2.3.4, should improve things slightly.

Also, you may be running lots of unncessary stuff? Live wallpaper? GPS? Turn off stuff you don't need. Use the built in samsung power thingy, it works well I find. Note if you live in area of weak signal the phone will "work harder" to send/receive data.

Are you unlocking the phone while in your pocket? Screen shouldn't be on for that long should it? Set screen brightness to auto as well.

Zagato

@Bluefoam that's pretty impressive for you Android OS, what ROM are you using


@Marco85 as I was just saying in the other thread to you, the high Android OS use is usually due to a third party app downloaded from the Market or whereever, seems like this buggy app may be draining your battery

The quality of your phone signal can have quite an effect too 11% seems high, are you in a poor signal area. I have pretty good signal where I live/work, but when I'm in poor signal area I usually switch 3G off. Also I posted on Talk to Vodafone about Fast Dormancy, waiting for them to get back to me (will be surprised if they do) but probably worth switching off.

Mine:
Display 30%
Android OS 21%
Drag Racing (game) 18%
Android System 9%
Voice Calls 8%
Maps 6% -This is pissing me off haven't been using them
Cell Standby 4%
Dialer 3%
Phone idle 3%


P.S. if anyone knows how to stop maps draining the battery then please do tell, it's becoming a bugbear

srsly78

Maps 6% -This is pissing me off haven't been using them

You using any map widgets? Latitude? Location aware apps? GPS turned on? Navigation running in background because you forgot to exit it?

Cyrus

srsly78 wrote: »

SGS2 ships with android 2.3.3 which has a small power bug. Fixed in 2.3.4, should improve things slightly.

Also, you may be running lots of unncessary stuff? Live wallpaper? GPS? Turn off stuff you don't need. Use the built in samsung power thingy, it works well I find. Note if you live in area of weak signal the phone will "work harder" to send/receive data.

Are you unlocking the phone while in your pocket? Screen shouldn't be on for that long should it? Set screen brightness to auto as well.

im runnging a custom 2.3.4 rom, in dublin cc so no signal issues

screen gets swtiched off every time i finish with the phone, brightness set to auto,

must be one of the clocks im using or something like that?

apparently the maps issue is due to wifi sharing and its as the result of a recent update which you can uninstall?

saw that somehwhere

Zagato

srsly78 wrote: »

Maps 6% -This is pissing me off haven't been using them

You using any map widgets? Latitude? Location aware apps? GPS turned on? Navigation running in background because you forgot to exit it?

No, I'm not but I've noticed this on my Hero previously too, it only started happening after the update to maps which added the places widget. When I go into running applications Maps is there 1 Process 1 Service running, the process is network location service, but when I stop it it just starts again immediately

Zagato

Cyrus wrote: »

apparently the maps issue is due to wifi sharing and its as the result of a recent update which you can uninstall?

saw that somehwhere

I have wifi sharing frozen using bloat freezer

Cyrus

i have a shazam and a youtube widget that are updating all the time, would they be killing my battery

srsly78

Note that there is no official 2.3.4 for sgs2. And none of those custom roms are perfect YET. I just went and upgraded, and now my fookin bluetooth headset won't work (litening rom 3.0, known issue)

Cyrus

Zagato wrote: »

I have wifi sharing frozen using bloat freezer

am i better upgrading titanium for a fiver or downloading bloat freezer for 75c, what other advantages to spending 5 quid on titanium give me?

Zagato

Could be, my battery life is usually great when I switch syncing off, which may get back to your OP as the iphone doesn't use multitasking as much, notifications are all push notifications and maybe this uses less battery than a fetch and receive syncing.

I have 1 exchange email on push, one email account syncing every 15mins, gmail syncing, twitter and facebook syncing every 15mins via tweetdeck (could it be using my maps for my location - hang on maybe I'm signed into latitude actually D'oh) back to point- plus the usual weather updates and whatever.

Widgets that update do tend to use a lot of battery, it is why I usually try to confine myself to 3 homescreens

Zagato

Cyrus wrote: »

am i better upgrading titanium for a fiver or downloading bloat freezer for 75c, what other advantages to spending 5 quid on titanium give me?

Well that's why I got bloat freezer.

TBH used to have the free Ti Backup for changing ROMs and I used to find it a little confusing what to restore after flashing a new ROM (i.e. usually flashed the ROM to get rid of all the crap, and am I know adding it back again)

I use App List Backup and sms backup and restore, contacts are all on my exchange account, and doing a wipe is less painless now

hidinginthebush

This is my main gripe with my desire. My gf has an iphone 4, keeps 3g and wireless on constantly, does nothing to adjust screen brightness, plays music frequently etc. and gets nearly 48 hrs from a charge. I, on the other hand, have screen brightness set to minimum, only turn wireless on for maybe 30 mins/day, limit media playback, don't use 3g, use task killer and juice defender, and still only manage 24 hrs or so from a full charge.

Zagato

On the flipside my wife has a desire, refused to consider iPhone (which I thought might have suited her better, as she's not as big a fan of the tinkering as I) but refused point blank because it was so heavy.

She usually gets 2 days out of her desire with 3G and wifi on all the time, but she mostly uses it as a phone, doesn't browse on it -although she did just find teeter last night:p

Bluefoam

Zagato wrote: »

@Bluefoam that's pretty impressive for you Android OS, what ROM are using?

Stock Android 2.3.3 with Sense 2.1 on Desire S

hidinginthebush

I was also anti-iphone buying mine, as I wanted something that was easier to tinker around with

That is true though, if I use it only as a phone it goes forever

Zagato

Bluefoam wrote: »

Stock Android 2.34 with sense on Desire S

Cool, am waiting to move to 2.3.4 at the mo, the SGS2 ROMs still seem a little buggy

Think the Desire S is the best looking android at the moment, and a nice size for your hand and your pocket - Don't get me wrong I like my big screen:p

srsly78

hidinginthebush wrote: »

This is my main gripe with my desire. My gf has an iphone 4, keeps 3g and wireless on constantly, does nothing to adjust screen brightness, plays music frequently etc. and gets nearly 48 hrs from a charge. I, on the other hand, have screen brightness set to minimum, only turn wireless on for maybe 30 mins/day, limit media playback, don't use 3g, use task killer and juice defender, and still only manage 24 hrs or so from a full charge.

Found your problem.

Marco85

something seriously up with mine. on charge since 11 this morning,got home at 2 and it wasnt fully charged so left it on charge. after gettin home there now and says its fully charged so unplugged it and check battery level and its at 85%. i downloaded 'whatsapp' yesterday,surely this couldnt make my battery go so bad just like that??

Zagato

Marco85 wrote: »

something seriously up with mine. on charge since 11 this morning,got home at 2 and it wasnt fully charged so left it on charge. after gettin home there now and says its fully charged so unplugged it and check battery level and its at 85%. i downloaded 'whatsapp' yesterday,surely this couldnt make my battery go so bad just like that??

That seems a little unusual, but it is fairly normal for you battery to appear to drop up to 10% after you unplug. It's bad for your battery to be fully charged, so your phone tries to avoid it being fully charged for any length of time. Your phone gives you the impression that it charges it to full, and then keeps it at that while plugged in.

However as I understand it, what actually happens is that your phone charges rapidly at first, and then after ~90% slows to a drip feed slowly charging up to 100%, then lets it fall back to 90% and starts to drip feed again. While this is all happening the phone is saying that it's fully charged, and then after you unplug it, it quickly corrects to where the charge is really at.

You can 'overcharge' your phone by fully charging it, unplugging switching it off and plugging in for another half hour, you will get longer out of the charge but less life out of your battery doing this

WhatsApp shouldn't do that, but it might be worth doing an uninstall and then reinstall, if it's the only thing different and you feel your battery is definitely worse, and as Srsly points out don't use any taskillers

Marco85

how long should the phone take to fully charge?

Marco85

battery usage at the moment
1h 5m 27s on battery


display 38%
wakelock 22%
Android OS 21%
android system 13%
cell standby 5%
phone idle 3%

wtf is wakelock??????

srsly78

Some app has a wakelock and it keeping device active. You should be able to see what app is holding the lock on one of the other screens.

Marco85

cant see anything mate. where should i be looking?

srsly78

Hmm sorry mate. I must have had a special thing before that made it easy to view. Here is the harder way (needs console commands): http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5780280/how-can-i-see-which-wakelocks-are-active

Also the dev tools display it.

Marco85

jesus mate havent a clue what that means,not the techiest person around. i only have a couple of apps on the phone so cant see why all of a sudden its gone like this,downloaded whatsapp yesterday evening and used it once. would it have anything to do with that??

srsly78

Possibly. Some googling shows people complaining about it: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=764163&page=18

Bluefoam

Marco85 wrote: »

jesus mate havent a clue what that means,not the techiest person around. i only have a couple of apps on the phone so cant see why all of a sudden its gone like this,downloaded whatsapp yesterday evening and used it once. would it have anything to do with that??

Whatsapp should be fine, although it does allow notifications in the background - one of its best features IMHO.

Whatsapp is my new favorite app.

Marco85

after reading through that mate.id say thats my problem alright, bit co-incidental that the battery was draining rapidly after downloading that app. any other apps out there similar to this that will let me txt free to o2 and vodafone numbers?

Marco85

so have you any idea what is causing wakelock on my phone then. wakelock never appeared in my battery usage until today and i only installed whats app yesterday evening. the only other apps i have and use are twitter,ireland news,man utd news,bbc news,sky and bbc sports?

scudzilla

I have a Desire HD, my wife had a Legend but upgraded 2 weeks ago to Desire S.

I was also using a NOkia N95 as my UK O2 phone, for my family to contact me, when she upgraded i took the legend as my UK phone.

I have wi-fi and data turned off, screen brightness down to half, no apps on it.

It's been 5 days since i charged it now and it's still at maybe 25%, mayve had 20 mins of voice calls and sent a few texts.

Just goes to show how much wi-fi and constantly running apps burns the battery up

srsly78

3g is the main culprit in my experience (misbehaving apps etc aside). I was in london and had data turned off because of roaming. Desire lasted monday->friday with light use for normal phonecalls + mp3player.

Keith186

Unplugged mine about 1am last night.
Using periodically through put the day, some browsing texts and FM radio.

Desire
18h 22m on battery
Display 53% on 1hr 22m
Cell 14%
Dialler 13%
Phone idle 12%
Internet 3%
Android OS 2%
Wifi 2%

Marco85

this is really pissen me off now. fully charged at 5pm and now its dowwn to 52% and barely touched it. just noticed i have a rake of things comin up in running services that ive never even used since i got the phone like

settings
drm content
software update
task manager
voice commands x 2
digital clock
social hub x 2
accuweather
google services
maps
kiers air
imeitracker
wi fi sharing
wi fi sharing manager
email
samsung keypad

some of them running more than 50 mins. wtf are all these and can i stop them without feckin the phone up??

Zagato

Marco85 wrote: »

this is really pissen me off now. fully charged at 5pm and now its dowwn to 52% and barely touched it. just noticed i have a rake of things comin up in running services that ive never even used since i got the phone like

settings
drm content
software update
task manager
voice commands x 2
digital clock
social hub x 2
accuweather
google services
maps
kiers air
imeitracker
wi fi sharing
wi fi sharing manager
email
samsung keypad

some of them running more than 50 mins. wtf are all these and can i stop them without feckin the phone up??

It's important to remember that just because they're running doesn't mean they're using battery. Wifi sharing is known to use battery mind. Of the apps you list above I have frozen using bloat freezer (without any apparent downside):

DRM Content
Software update
Voice Commands -I don't use this but will affect car mode if you use it
Digital clock
Social hub (and all other hubs)
Kies air (don't use)
Wifi sharing
Wifi sharing manager - freezing these does not affect your wifi

Marco85

Zagato wrote: »

It's important to remember that just because they're running doesn't mean they're using battery. Wifi sharing is known to use battery mind. Of the apps you list above I have frozen using bloat freezer (without any apparent downside):

DRM Content
Software update
Voice Commands -I don't use this but will affect car mode if you use it
Digital clock
Social hub (and all other hubs)
Kies air (don't use)
Wifi sharing
Wifi sharing manager - freezing these does not affect your wifi

right so if i download bloat freezer and freeze these you think it would improve the battery? only one id want on that list is the digital clock!

Bluefoam

Fecked around with my settings yesterday, after needing a recharge at lunch time.

I'm now at 100% battery after 4 hours with some light browsing and Facebook as well as a 5 minute phone call over Bluetooth.

Marco85

Bluefoam wrote: »

Fecked around with my settings yesterday, after needing a recharge at lunch time.

I'm now at 100% battery after 4 hours with some light browsing and Facebook as well as a 5 minute phone call over Bluetooth.

What things did u change mate!

pancuronium

IPHONE 4 Battery and i'm lucky to get 1 day!!

Zagato

Marco85 wrote: »

right so if i download bloat freezer and freeze these you think it would improve the battery? only one id want on that list is the digital clock!

Bloat Freezer requires root access by the way.

Digital Clock is just the Samsung Digital Clock widget, I'm sure you'll find nicer free ones around

Pulser has a list of apps you can remove freeze over at XDA

Cyrus

Zagato wrote: »

Bloat Freezer requires root access by the way.

Digital Clock is just the Samsung Digital Clock widget, I'm sure you'll find nicer free ones around

Pulser has a list of apps you can remove freeze over at XDA

I flashed KG2 last night, froze samsung bloatware and turned off sync and things appear and awful lot better sitting at 84% now versus 60 odd this time yesterday

will be going to CM7 soon as it stable

Zagato

Cyrus wrote: »

I flashed KG2 last night, froze samsung bloatware and turned off sync and things appear and awful lot better sitting at 84% now versus 60 odd this time yesterday

will be going to CM7 soon as it stable

Yeah, was using CM6 previously on Hero, but it didn't work fantastic for my email, which I tend to rely on working (and prefer Samsung's client to stock tbh)

Just see that Villainrom 2.1 is out with no browser lag -it's KG2 based, so might give that a whirl