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a self admited newbie asks for some real battery awnsers........please help!

hello and thnks for reading, i just got my droid x a week ago, this is my first smartphone. here are the facts i have:

1)downloaded: google skymap, angry birds, lookout, ringdroid, aim, pandora, bank of america app, tideapp, flixster, and texas hold em.

2)i am running 2.2, called *228 already

3)GPS is toggled off always, running stock weather widget

4)i know there is an extended battery available.

5)my battery lasts not even 8 hours with some moderate use (moderate being defined as playing angry birds for an hour or two, very few texts and short calls <5min, checking facebook once or twice...etc)

here are my questions: what else can i do to lengthen battery life? is there something im missing? is the extended battery much better? i heard you need to "calibrate" the phone by charging the battery, discharging completely then recharging, true or false? does Verizon plan on doing anything else besides the new battery to fix this issue? i know its a common problem. i am a simple guy so i ask, if you have an awnser, just lay it out in terms suitable for a **bleep** lol thanks a lot.

Comments

galaxie500fb

Welcome to the forum. For me the biggest drain on my battery is signal strenght. When i'm at home I have a nearly perfect strong signal and my battery will last at least the full day. At work is another story. The phone struggles to keep a signal and will switch between 3g and the 1x signal level. When you have a weak signal the phone works harder trying to achieve the best signal. This means it uses more battery trying to maintain a workable signal. This can be checked in battery manager and selecting cell standby. If you see time without a signal then your phone is sucking up more power trying to keep or get a signal. If you see time without a signal then that's where some extra battery juice is going. At home I have no loss of signal but at work over an 8 hour shift I can easily have 90% time without a signal. Now there's some apps that regularly sync with online servers such as weather and facebook. At work I just set them to manually sync. I also don't use any task killers. I have run them in the past but my experience has been that on my phone they actually drained my battery faster. At home I play games, watch some youtube and i'm always looking for a worthwile app to add. At work I usually text probably at least 200 messages and receive the same. I use my phone less overall at work but I can barely make 6 or 7 hours before I reach 20%. Sorry for being so long winded. In short signal strenght is the biggest drain on my phone.

mr-wolf-0

thank u so much for replying! now that you mentioned it, my situation is the same at work I do lose signal a lot, at home my signals fine. what phone do you use?

mortb

Looking for good signal strength is one reason. Another, and I am guilty of it, is playing games on the Droid, especially action type games. Takes a lot of power to get any action. My battery normally lasts about 8 hours. I charge it up at night before I hit the pillow. Then around noon I normally have to charge it up again. I never let it get lower than 30 per cent, and definitely never drain it all the way. All smartphones, be it Blackberry or Droid, are power hungry beasts and will eat up any any all batteries. As far as getting an extended battery, the extra power it offers isn't that much, and I, myself, do not think it worth it. I would suggest, if you haven't done it all ready, is get a car charger. Handiest gadget you can have.

galaxie500fb

I have a droid x also. Its a great phone overall with just a few issues that have arisen since the 2.2 update. Hopefully Verizon releases the bug fixes that motorola has come up with. I have the docking station and it stays on my nite stand. I charge it in the dock before I go to sleep and it wakes me up in the morning. I'm one of the types of People who wake up a couple times a night and its nice having the phone in the dock displaying the time. The charger that is included with the dock allows me to take my original charger to work with me. The car charger is nice but I find that it takes longer to recharge than the one that plugs into an electrical outlet.

PacoX

Set the battery profile to Maximum battery saver instead of Nightime saver. If you don't mind low brightness, set you screens brightness yourself rather than leave it on auto. Don't let notifications sit in the status bar. Remember to hit the power button to turn off your screen when you are not using you phone. Even having you screen yo auto shutoff is wasted battery life. Don't use live wallpapers, they aren't worth it past the initial WOW factory. Uninstall any apps you don't use. Go into Settings > Data > turn off background data.

crb79

1-2 hours of playing a game on your phone is going to kill your battery no matter how you slice it. Most of these games prevents the phone from going into a low-power mode, they also crank your backlight up to max, and some even run an active internet connection in the background to post high scores etc.

Whenever you play these games on your phone, try to have it plugged in. You have to keep in mind that they are sucking almost as much juice as if you were streaming video on your phone.

stricksw

Well..Coming from an LG ENV3, I was SHOCKED!!! at the change in battery life. Having had internet access on it and played all kinds of games, I still had mucho battery to spare. Now I know they are totally different animals entirely, but I was expecting more. Running a battery manager and cleaning up after myself or rather my droid, I could get 6-8 hours if just talking or texting..But...if I started surfing the net or the signal search happened as mentioned in other posts...I got 3 HOURS!!! So I always kept a charger with me, both car and wall....and when not actually using it, I would be charging it. Finally they (Verizon) have released an extended life battery. 1940mh I believe? Anyway...it has made a big difference in my charging frequency...I still carry the chargers but have to do so at not quite the previous frequency. As far as the phone, the more bells and whistles you run and pretty live wallpapers you display, the higher the battery consumption. That's the trade off...I notice that Verizon's coverage map suggests that there should be pretty good coverage throughout Georgia, but I see my Droid struggle to acquire and maintain 3g...this is disappointing since that directly affects another aspect of battery life. I have been with Verizon for about 6 years and they have not strengthened / expanded coverage in the Henry county area, so at home I have quick consumption....so much for being able to get rid of the home phone...

Best of luck with your Droid...other than battery life, I have really enjoyed mine.

Stephen

Wildman

A smartphone needs more power because the device diffrences, its like comparing a desktop to a PDA... Try Advance Task Killer also, it will allow you to close the apps in the background. Some users have different opinons on using a Task Killer but it has became a application I have to have.

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