Average Battery Consumption and Maintenance

[unimatrix001]

I heard that smartphones generally use up alot of power. I am trying to figure out if charging the phone once a day is normal.

My wife and I purchased the Droid 2 at the same time. We only make a few calls at a time and they are very short. Sometimes we use the browser to check news and e-mail. At the end of the day I have about 60% charge left on my phone while my wife's phone has only 20%. Our usage is generally about the same. We really are not constantly using it and most of the time it is in standby / sleep mode.

1. Is it possible that she has a "faulty" battery? 

2. The standard battery that comes with the Droid 2 is rated at 1420 mAh.  Would getting the extended battery (1860 mAh) make a huge difference in terms of how long it will take before the next charge? Would the extended battery take longer to recharge?

3. What is the best way to extend the life of the battery. Do I always need to drain the battery down to empty before recharging or occasionally or not necessary?

[sdpk]

People moving from feature phones to smart phones generally experience a more frequent need to charge and generally more battery usage.  Still, so far of 5 different model of smartphone I have used (3 different windows mobile devices by various manufacturers, a BB and a Palm) I am finding the DROID 2 to have the best battery life - I have the normal battery in the Droid, had extended batteries in the last 3 smart phones.  I have taken some time to adjust settings in line with recommendations I've found on the web and my experience and needs.  Search battery and Android for some of the web articles.

Specific things I have done that help:

• Reducing the amount of time the screen is on and how much power it draws is the biggest thing you can do.  If you look at the graph in the battery settings area for what is drawing the most power, display is usually 50% of the total draw, Setting the display time-out to the lowest value (30 seconds) and taking the display off auto-brightness and setting it to somewhere in the lower 1/3 of the range is a big help.  The only downside is in bright environments (bright sunshine, not normal indoor lighting) it is harder to see, but it is easy enough to set back to auto if you are in these environments.
• Turn off GPS and wifi when not in use - there are some nice widgets you can put on one of your screens to make this easy.  Wifi when the phone stays in the same environment doesn't seem like a big deal - I usually turn on wi-fi in my home and leave it running when I am there - but keeping it on when you are moving (car, whatever) just wastes power.  Similar for GPS if you aren't using it.
• Decrease frequency of syncing - mine is set to 60 minutes.
• Look at the battery settings and make sure its usage profile matches what you need.
• Turn off the display whenever you don't really need it.  For example, I have used the navigation app a few times, but most recently I turn the display off while it it running - I find the voice prompts 90% of the time are enough and I don;t need the screen on.  Same with Pandora when I play music or other apps where the screen component is optional.

[unimatrix001]

Thanks for the wealth of information.

What I am also trying to figure out is do I need to drain the battery once a month in the Droid 2.

For instance, I have a MacBook Pro and it is recommended to drain the battery once a month to calibrate the battery for best performance. What about the Droid 2?

[Cobjones]

They say you don't have to, but I would recommend it.

[infiltwb]

NO! Do NOT drain the battery down to nothing. This phone WILL NOT CHARGE without being able to boot up. Getting the phone to charge from a 0% battery will be a nightmare. 

The battery will learn its adaptive memory after about a week or so and life will get much better. I can go through a day of heavy use (14-16 hours off the charger) and come home with about 60% left on the battery.

www.androidforums.com and droid 2 will give alot of helpful information on conserving battery life if you still find yourself having issues with the battery draining down.