HTC One LTE (4g) and Battery Life

Mad Mike

The battery life on my HTC one used to be brilliant (typically 2 - 3 days with decent usage) but last week I updated the operating system (to 4.4.2 Kit Kat) and the battery life became awful - a 100% charge wouldn't even last a day. I found various suggestions on the internet none of which helped but after doing my own investigations I am convinced that the declining battery life has something to do with my network's (three.ie) rolling out of 4g (LTE) which also happened last week. I don't fully understand what is going on but here is what I have determined:

1. I updated to 4.4.2 Kit-Kat last week which apparently also included LTE support on the phone. 4g seems to only be available in a few places at the moment - I have seen it in Dublin City Centre and in Dunlaoire.

2. When I am at home which is not a 4g area, my phone is connected to wifi and my battery life seems normal enough perhaps 1% per hour drain when not in use.

3. However when I am at work my battery drains very rapidly (10% per hour when not in use). My workplace is near the centre of Dublin and seems to be on the border of 4g coverage.

4. This afternoon I managed to turn off 4g (LTE) mode on the phone. Using "Network mode" under "Mobile Data" in the setting memory. since then my battery drain seems to have returned to its normal 1% per hour drain. It has only been a couple of hours so it is a bit early to tell but I am optimistic.

Anyone else experience this?
Is 4g really a battery hog?
Is it something to do with the intermittent 4g coverage?

Skittle

Try this (I saw this on XDA Developers).
Set the phone to only use 2g + 3g.
Wait for the phone to establish a 3g connection.
Reboot the phone (hold the power button down, select option from the menu)
When the phone reboots, go in and select 2g + 3g + 4g
Wait for the phone to establish a 4g connection.
Reboot the phone again.

This has been known to cure some battery problems with 4g, but in general 4g does use more power since there are more antennas active.

Mad Mike

Thanks Skittle I will try that and report back. I have left work now though so I won't be able to report anything about 4g performance until tomorrow.

Mad Mike

Ok I experimented with turning on 3G mode and resetting the phone as Skittle suggested. It is better than yesterday but 4g mode still seems to use a lot more battery. Here are some preliminary results.

4G disabled (Network Mode GSM/WCDMA only): Very low drain approximately 1% per hour when idle
4G Enabled (Network Mode GSM/WCDMA/LTE): Drain approximately 3% per hour. A lot more than than 4G disabled but still a big improvement on the 10% per hour I was getting before.

These results are pretty rough because I am trying to filter out the periods when I am using the phone. The big increase from turning on 4G is undeniable though because I can see a definite change in the slope of the graph.

Conclusion for me: Skittles trick seems to have solved the disastrously high battery drain in 4G mode. Nevertheless 4G is definitely using a lot more more battery than 3G. I think I will stick with 3G for the foreseeable future. There just isn't enough 4G coverage to justify the massive reduction in battery life. Apart from which I can't think of any applications that actually need 4G at present.

Skittle

I'm mostly based around Dublin City so I usually get a 4G signal. I use Juice Defender too, so my phone only enables the data connection every 2 hours. Plus because 4G is faster transferring data the connection doesn't need to stay open for longer.

Soggypants

Mad Mike wrote: »

The battery life on my HTC one used to be brilliant (typically 2 - 3 days with decent usage) but last week I updated the operating system (to 4.4.2 Kit Kat) and the battery life became awful - a 100% charge wouldn't even last a day. I found various suggestions on the internet none of which helped but after doing my own investigations I am convinced that the declining battery life has something to do with my network's (three.ie) rolling out of 4g (LTE) which also happened last week. I don't fully understand what is going on but here is what I have determined:

1. I updated to 4.4.2 Kit-Kat last week which apparently also included LTE support on the phone. 4g seems to only be available in a few places at the moment - I have seen it in Dublin City Centre and in Dunlaoire.

2. When I am at home which is not a 4g area, my phone is connected to wifi and my battery life seems normal enough perhaps 1% per hour drain when not in use.

3. However when I am at work my battery drains very rapidly (10% per hour when not in use). My workplace is near the centre of Dublin and seems to be on the border of 4g coverage.

4. This afternoon I managed to turn off 4g (LTE) mode on the phone. Using "Network mode" under "Mobile Data" in the setting memory. since then my battery drain seems to have returned to its normal 1% per hour drain. It has only been a couple of hours so it is a bit early to tell but I am optimistic.

Anyone else experience this?
Is 4g really a battery hog?
Is it something to do with the intermittent 4g coverage?

I tried everything and no joy. Today I done a factory reset and all's good again. No need to erase everything.