The Droid is a power sucking vampire

I've had mine since the first day...

When I bring it into Verizon they slobber all over it because I'm one of the few customers who've cusomized the hell out of it - background, widgets, etc...

BUT.

My power drains super quickly.

Now that I have it sit in the dock it's not a MAJOR issue. But this IS the issue. The house we are renting must be made out of anti-cellphone materials because when we had the crackberry we could barely make calls and the Droid can make them but has places in the house where it just gives me network errors.

The Verizon rep said to buy the Verizon Wireless Network Extender and that would solve my problems.

It's $250. I researched them and it's a reasonable price.

Will it work? Is it worth it?

Accepted answers

Jagger-VzW

11/9/09 - Tips and Hints to help better manage battery life.

It may take several charging cycles for the battery to reach optimum performance.

The battery charger shipped with this device is a high rate charger specifically designed for the Motorola Droid.

The Power Control Widget displays a quick snapshot of some of the tools that can be optimized to conserve your battery. The widget provides information on Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Location (GPS), Synchronization, and Display. To add the Widget, from the home screen, touch Menu => Add => Widgets => Power Control.

The Battery Use feature provides a real time view of what features or applications are using the highest percentage of battery. It also provides tips on modifying these features or applications, e.g. click on Display to change reduce brightness and/or screen timeout. To access Battery Use, from the home screen, touch Menu => Settings => About Phone = > Battery use.

Turn Wi-Fi and Bluetooth off when not in use.

If using Exchange Active Sync email, change settings to download email less frequently. Press Menu => Account Settings =>Email check frequency.

Close any third party applications running in the background that are not needed.

All comments

earlw33

I am confused. Is your question about the fact that a palm sized computer with 2 possessors, wifi, bluetooth and lots of other stuff takes a lot of power? Especially when you ad widgets and programs that run and suck power.

Or is your question about a problem with cell service at your house?

If your question is really about using the range extenders, I can say get 1 and give it a try. Make sure it has the same 30 return policy as the phones in case it does not work.

There is some programs you can download that will show you how much energy is being used. Turning off Wifi and bluetooth will help.

SSHGuru

My question was intended to solve the problem without spending $250.00..

How are other people who are running their Droids like I am doing with power? No problem?

Do you find that even without talking the battery drains fast if you have widgets up and running.

Does GPS and WiFi etc... really take up THAT much power.

I want to know what other droid users are experiencing so I have a baseline.

Packet

Honestly, I've had better battery life out of the Droid than I've seen from any other smartphone I've ever owned (two PalmOS devices, three Windows Mobile phones, three iPhones and a G1 -- by way of explanation, I do mobile development for my day job, so I have some justification for having these many random phones floating around). The battery life has been one of the things I've been most impressed by.

However, many phones will chew power when they're trying to obtain signal. I'd be curious to see if your phone has a better battery life if you were somewhere with a good, solid consistent signal, rather than in a house made of 'cell signal killing materials,' as you suggested.

yewslus

One of the few issues I have is that some apps don't seem to have a QUIT command, so when you home out of them, the app stays running. If it's Maps are something like that, then your GPS service stays on, too.

I downloaded Advanced App Killer and use it to "clear the air" after a Droiding session. It seems to help.

I also have a toggle for my WiFi, and I keep it off unless I know I'm at a location where I can connect.

But I've been LOL using the CARP out of this thing, so yeah, the battery drops like a lead weight. But it does charge pretty quickly...

Good luck.

fezzik

Yes Wifi and GPS drain battery. It isn't that they so much take the battery themselves but when you add all the processing, the gps, the wifi always on, and the screen backlight all drain it. You add it all up and it can drain it. I think the wifi toggle and gps toggle are good widgits.

powderhoundrich

+1 on taskiller. I was shocked by how much was running in the background. Also, as others have said, make sure that your gps/wifi isn't going when you don't need it.

kenyu73

Install "Spare Parts" and view your Partial Wake Usage. That will tell you if its a rogue application that's sucking your battery.

Also, it doesn't matter how many apps and widgets you install... once you lock your screen they should all SLEEP.. again unless you have a poorly designed app installed.

The only thing tons of widgets do is give some lag when you first unlock the phone as they all are coming awake at the same time and updating as needed. I recommend only having only 1 or 2 simple widgets on your main home screen... or even none... makes waking up your phone quicker...

Also, go to settings--> about--> status and scroll to the bottom, it will list your awake time vs. total up time.. it should be a relatively low percent.. mine is 14% with 59 hours up time.

somegirl

When my friend got the G1, he had the same power problem. After doing some research online, he found a site that suggested draining the battery completely and then recharging it fully before turning it back on again.

He turned on everything he could that drains the battery (GPS, WiFi, etc.) and played a game until it turned itself off from lack of power, then charged it overnight. He noticed a marked improvement in battery life the next day, so he did it again. It does "cap out" after a while (obviously, no battery is infinite), but doing it once or twice can help a lot. He now has no complaints about the battery life.

Also, make sure you are turning things like GPS and WiFi off when you're not using them. :smileyhappy:

Hope this helps!

Jagger-VzW

11/9/09 - Tips and Hints to help better manage battery life.

It may take several charging cycles for the battery to reach optimum performance.

The battery charger shipped with this device is a high rate charger specifically designed for the Motorola Droid.

The Power Control Widget displays a quick snapshot of some of the tools that can be optimized to conserve your battery. The widget provides information on Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Location (GPS), Synchronization, and Display. To add the Widget, from the home screen, touch Menu => Add => Widgets => Power Control.

The Battery Use feature provides a real time view of what features or applications are using the highest percentage of battery. It also provides tips on modifying these features or applications, e.g. click on Display to change reduce brightness and/or screen timeout. To access Battery Use, from the home screen, touch Menu => Settings => About Phone = > Battery use.

Turn Wi-Fi and Bluetooth off when not in use.

If using Exchange Active Sync email, change settings to download email less frequently. Press Menu => Account Settings =>Email check frequency.

Close any third party applications running in the background that are not needed.

Haggie

Download an app called "SpareParts" and go to "partial wake usage". That shows battery usage by application. Check to see if there is a particular app that is a battery hog.

In my case, I found that "Remember the Milk" was using more battery than the Android system itself and every time I killed it, it would restart. So I changed the sync setting to "manual".

SSHGuru

Thanks.

It's strange but for some reason I'm getting better reception and it's not sucking the power as bad as before.

As far as killing tasks I find it creates more problems than it cures sometimes.

I bought a docking station which keeps it charged all the time and I just ordered another for my bedside so power should no longer be an issue.

Thanks for the help.

androidtapp

I would also recommend Power Manager http://www.androidtapp.com/power-manager/ it has alot of features to manage your power for you via profiels versus you doing it yourself.

Tips to help on battery include:

Toggling Wifi, Bluetooth and GPS as needed, when they're on they run as background processes that continually check... over time draining.
Reduce apps that poorly use backgrounds processes or ones that constantly update frequently
Reduce email update frequency

SSHGuru

I read power manager doesnt work well with the droid...