Battery

[toocrazy2yoo]

Well, since there are no listings for a RAZR M, here I am. I lost my original RAZR M around a month ago, Asurion sent me a "refurbished" replacement and the battery life is crummy. Not even using the phone from full charge, the phone is dead in 6 hours if I don't continuously charge it. I don't surf, use the GPS (I take the train into Boston), there are no apps downloaded into it other than the sabotage apps inserted into the phone by Google. You know the ones, there are about 20 uninstallable Google Play apps running in the background but they were on the other phone and at least the thing would make it through the day. Google is reprehensible to install all these useless apps on the phone knowing full well no one buys anything from them. You can stop them one by one and in an hour, they're all back on again. Google is really creepy to render the phone unuseable for this junk.

After a phone replacement by Asurion, who do I get help from? I'm deserted by both Asurion AND Verizon now. I'd buy a new battery, but the one that's in this thing is hard-wired. Can't be replaced. Any ideas?

[SuzyQ]

toocrazy2yoo wrote:

... there are about 20 uninstallable Google Play apps running in the background but they were on the other phone and at least the thing would make it through the day. Google is reprehensible to install all these useless apps on the phone knowing full well no one buys anything from them. You can stop them one by one and in an hour, they're all back on again. ...

Don't STOP them - they just return, as you've found.  Instead, uninstall updates, then DISABLE the app.  Then it won't update, and it won't run.  You can't uninstall, but disabling, then hiding the app, is the the best you can do.  It's now out of sight, and disabled so it won't be coming back again and again.  And your battery life should improve, too.

[toocrazy2yoo]

Wow! Thanks! Uhmmm, I know the "Uninstall Updates" part, how to disable? Thanks again, ya hear? Appreciate ya!

[SuzyQ]

When you go into your "App drawer", and go to ALL, find the ones you want to disable.  Click to open, and the option to disable should be there, next to Force Stop. 

[toocrazy2yoo]

No, when I go to the drawer, for any of the apps, there's only "Force Stop", "Uninstall updates" and a check box, checked, to "show notifications".  When I scroll down to "Launch by default", there's no option to change the default, just an inaccessible  shaded-over button that says "clear defaults". Pretty insidious, no? I know stuff can be uninstalled though because any third-party app I ever installed that later turned out no good, I've been able to uninstall them easy as 1,2,3.

When I tally up the various Google services (play, books, movies, etc.), it's 13 running processes. Three or four Kindle/Amazon processes, too. Suzy, thanks for your help. Either I'm missing something, or the OS in this thing is different somehow. Meanwhile, you've gone above and beyond the call here. Might be, I should throw it in the fire and be done with it.

[SuzyQ]

toocrazy2yoo wrote:

No, when I go to the drawer, for any of the apps, there's only "Force Stop", "Uninstall updates" and a check box, checked, to "show notifications".

I think, though I'm not totally sure, that once you "uninstall updates" - the option changes to uninstall or disable.... try that and let us know?

You can also uncheck the "show notifications"

[B33]

When I looked in on my Moto X SuzyQ the only thing I see running is the Dialer and the Android system UI, it showing on Panel that there are 14 to 15 service-only Processes running but so far on my Moto X when I checked the battery this time around it's gave me 20h and 9m and some change it's not totally drained yet but that's not bad on my new Moto X i usually get 1.day and some change out of it.. the other day when I was testing the Longevity of my Droid Maxx's battery I got little over 2 days out of it.. not bad either.

[tikibar1]

SuzyQ wrote:

toocrazy2yoo wrote:

No, when I go to the drawer, for any of the apps, there's only "Force Stop", "Uninstall updates" and a check box, checked, to "show notifications".

I think, though I'm not totally sure, that once you "uninstall updates" - the option changes to uninstall or disable....

That's correct ... once you 'uninstall updates', that button changes to Uninstall, Disable, or Turn Off.  Any uninstalled apps are gone but can be redownloaded from the Play Store if needed again.  Apps that are Disabled/Turned Off are either moved to the bottom of the app list in the app manager or moved to the Disabled/Turned Off tab (depending on the phone) in case you want to enable them again.

[B33]

Or they can be found in the My- Apps section, most of the time I just leave em were they are)  One thing I'd like to Note! on settings in the PlayStore if a customer has them custom set to there liking when you re-fresh the Store or when it gets an Up-date you have to go back into the settings and reset things as they were.. a couple times I forgot and I had about 25 apps wanting to update at the same time was not happy. But I got them stopped..

[B33]

There are Good Apps Like System Panel that you can use that keep's an eye on the app of your apps and the whole phone for that matter) I've used System Panel since 2010 for all of my Droids to me its the best at keeping a trusty eye on everything.. b33

[toocrazy2yoo]

Yeah, but with System Panel, can I shut the apps down?

[B33]

As Suzy mentioned you don't want to totally shut them down, you can though do this and I do as much a 5 to 8 times through out the day when I visit apps, or I go into the playstore when I'm finished I press and hold functions button I call it next to the home button when I see there is a bunch of apps I either swipe to left or the Right and that does away with them a running Now like Facebook and apps like Facebook they will run in the background especially if you got it set up to send you messages and and such but, System Panel can if you press the End all can stop the all of the apps you got running but it's always as mentioned a necessary thing to do it)  Only if your having issues.

[toocrazy2yoo]

I finally figured it out, folks, and thanks one and all. Each of you had a piece of it right. I figured out that if I go to my "all apps" button, hold down the offending app for a few seconds a "more options" button appears at the top of the screen. I then, while still holding down the app I want to disable get aotner finger on the "more options" button, THEN release the app button. At that point, I get the menu to stop the app, uninstall the updates and uncheck notifications, returning the app to factory state. Then, repeating all of the above, I can finally disable the app. Google music, news, magazines, store, play store, slacker radio, there are more than I can remember. Google has become an insidious, miserable nuisance as far as I'm concerned. Verizon has NFL Networks, NBA, MLB apps running, those are all dead now too. The three circles widget, now dead. I didn't ask for any of this stuff. I just wanted to make a couple of phone calls a day, text this or that gal once in a while, my daughter and call it a day. And they killed my battery with this stuff. From full charge idle in 8 hours' time before this adjustment, I was losing 60% of my charge. This morning, 8 hours off charge? 2%.

One would think they'd focus group some of this stuff and realize all they're doing is enraging the populace with this stuff. I wonder if there's a better browser? Than Chrome?

Thanks again, one and all for your efforts to help. I'm like green glass, eventually, the light shines through. And so, at last, it has.

[Altruistic_1]

You said that you were deserted by Asurion and a VZW after you got your replacement which is strange. Did they both day that they wouldn't be able to help you? I know for a fact that Asurion provides a one year warranty on their own devices which they honor. VZW will help troubleshoot but only Asurion can replace it.

[toocrazy2yoo]

Yeah, I spoke with one of their reps last week. They ran me through the wringer (so to speak) over the apps, how, when and how often I use the phone. After that call and the adjustments they made, there are (or were) times when the thing would get hot sitting there and I hadn't used it for hours. Verizon said Asurion was my agent on the replacement phone. If it got to a point, I suppose I could badger Asurion into sending another phone, but I'd still be here pestering you guys (ok, asking for technical help:).

I'm ten hours or so as I write this and the phone is down to 92% after a twenty minute call and a few texts. The phone is cool as a cucumber and working quite well, thanks to you guys. There's nothing like picking the brains of end users, something the PTB ought to do before they build this stuff. Some app, either Google's or Verizon was frying my battery.

And now, they're not.