I have a problem with ICS and it's mail app running extremely slow and causing the phone to heat up so hot you can't hold it. Here is what I have experienced.
I did a factory reset yesterday then shortly after updated my Razr Maxx to ICS (I know I didn't have to do the FR, but I wanted to start from scratch). I setup my Gmail, corporate mail, Facebook and Twitter. Those were the only apps I had syncing. I noticed the phone seemed to be running extremely hot, but chalked it up to having the screen on for an extended period of time while playing with ICS (although I've streamed Netflix for hours under Gingerbread and never had the phone get this hot).
Anyway, today I was checking my corporate mail and was receiving new messages (again the phone was really hot and I was hardly using it). Then suddenly the mail app froze and all the messages disappeared. I hit the sync button in the mail app and the messages started to crawl in, extremely slow. 45mins went by and I still didn't have my current messages (I only sync two weeks worth). And again the phone was extremely hot.
I did another factory reset on my phone and left it sitting (plugged into the wall outlet to charge) for an hour. It cooled down and remained cool. Then I setup ONLY my corporate email (no Gmail, no Facebook, no Twitter) I did not download a single additional app or even install any updates (which it wouldn't do anyway because I haven't logged in with my Gmail account yet)
I set my corporate email to sync 2 weeks of mail, calendar and contacts. Once again my Razr Maxx is EXTREMELY hot and the two weeks of messages have been syncing for over an hour and have only reached one week's worth. I have a 4G connection full bars (same as I had under Gingerbread).
It seems to me there is some issue with the ICS mail app on the Razr Max. Is anyone else experiencing this issue?
The only email problem I am having is when an email that has been formatted for a wider screen (ie for a computer) will not automatically reformat for my mobile screen leaving me to have to turn it landscape or scroll left and right. But I do not have my corporate email coming into my phone. My POP3 is working fine as well as Gmail (Yahoo! is only giving me the formatting problem).
Mine has been extremely hot since upgrading to ICS today. It gets so hot (from not using it) that I can't hold it to my ear during a conversation and can barely hold it in my hand. I killed some Verizon services that run in the background which seemed to help, but shouldn't need to do this since they start on their own at random intervals and when the device is rebooted. Also, my Gmail is working fine and I don't use my device for corporate email.
I can't turn off my email sync right now, but tomorrow while I am at work I am going to turn off the data sync on my corporate email and leave the phone sitting on my desk (basically doing nothing but waiting for phone calls). I usually have full bars\4G at my desk. It'll be interesting to see if the phone cools down or if the battery still drains like crazy.
Also, I read that ICS enables full support for dual core CPUs. That could account for the extra heat and battery usage, however the phone ran fine under Gingerbread and it's SO HOT I would choose to loose the dual core support. At this point there's no way I could make a phone call without burning my ear and forget about putting it in my pocket.
Here's an update to the issues I have with ICS. Yesterday I started with my phone fully charged. I still have nothing installed but the stock apps and the only account I have setup is my Corporate email (which is syncing with Exchange 2003).
I left my phone sitting on my desk all day. I rarely turned on the screen (the battery utility shows the screen was on for a total of 23mins all day) and took no phone call on it. All the phone did was sync my Corporate email (for which I received a normal amount). I had a 4G connection all day (except for a few hours when I was in the subway) By the end of the day 60% of the battery was used. The battery utility reported the screen and Exchange were the biggest battery users.
By comparison, under Gingerbread, I would have Corporate email, Gmail, Hotmail, Facebook, Google+, Twitter all syncing all day. Plus I spent about an hour a day browsing the web and reading news feeds. Also, I would have 4G connection all day (except for a few hours when I was in the subway). By the end of the day my battery would be around 40% used.
So basically ICS has turned my Razr Maxx into the terrible HTC Incredible I used to have. I could not make it a day on that phone. If I enable all the features\apps I had before my battery on my Razr Maxx would be drained before the end of the day.
I am calling Verizon support, to see if I can roll back to Gingerbread. I can not believe how horrid ICS is.
Since doing a FR on my device after upgrading to ICS, all has been well for me. Sorry you're not getting the same luck as I did.
That sounds very frustrating ac2012! I would like to help. Tell me, when testing, was GPS enabled on your device? If so, please test with the GPS disabled http://bit.ly/LvhIHJ for a day, and let me know the results. Thanks!
AnthonyTa_VZW
VZW Support
Follow us on Twitter @VZWSupport
Thank you for your reply Anthony. My GPS is not on. I never turn it on unless I am plugged into a power source and I have not turned it on at all since I upgraded to ICS. Also, I did turn on my WiFi to test connectivity to my home network, however Wifi has also been turned off since my initial test.
Even I face a similar issue, phone gets hot plus excessive usage of RAM by the apps. This slows down my phone terribly. Need to use the task killer every now and then. Never faced this issue with earlier version of Android. Should i do a FR after ICS installation??
D_A, I would recommend doing a FC after upgrading to ICS, the FC does seem to help a little. However, I don't think your phone will ever be as good on battery life as it was on Gingerbread.
The ICS update does not appear to have affected my battery life span (except as I will explain in a moment). I got the update last Saturday morning at 0130 and have now been using the phone for a week without a reboot, a factory reset or anything. I have not noticed any change in the battery temperature. The only thing that seems slower to me are the screen changes. They are more fluid, but seem slower.
One thing I did two days ago was put the Power widget on my home page. I turn off/on what I'm not using (I wish Airplane mode was on it), things like wifi when I'm on the road, GPS off and airplane on when I'm in the plant, bluetooth on only when using hands free in the car. I'm actually getting better battery life than before because the power control features are easier for me to use. The 3G and 4G switch all the time just as they used to (I live in the country where 4G is still being implemented).
I don't sync up to Exchange Server for e-mail so I don't know very much about it. Maybe if you set up a Smart Action to only sync up once an hour it would help. I have a friend (using Razr - not Razr Maxx) who had other sync issues with GB and they set up a Smart Action to check for updates five minutes of every hour while at work and they increased their battery life by about 25%. You can tell if the phone is using a lot of power searching for stuff by looking at the Cell standby in the Battery section of the settings.
In my case, I always keep GPS, Wifi, and Bluetooth disabled. I almost always have a 4G connection with full bars. The only time it drops out (confirmed by the native battery utility) is when I am on the subway for an hour in the morning and an hour at night. This is the same as when I was running Gingerbread and could go two days on one charge. Now that I've upgraded to ICS, I can only go one day.
Again I stress, my usage patterns and my environment have not changed. The only thing that has changed is that I went from Gingerbread to ICS.
Gingerbread = 2 days on one charge
ICS = 1 day on one charge
ICS has reduced my battery by 50%.
Did you have good 4G prior to ICS? I've read that 4G eats more power but I think it is probably more a relation to the use of data over 4G than phone services.
What do you show for the OS usage? About an hour ago mine (the OS power percentage) spiked up for some reason and the phone has just been setting there on the desk. I'm showing that the OS is using 30% of the battery but only 25 minutes of the 5 hrs 29 min the phone has been off charge. That's a pretty high usage when you think about it. Less than 8% of the run time on the phone and it eats 30% of the battery. OUCH!
Just an FYI.
I just went into the apps manager and since I don't use Facebook or Netflix I did Force Stops on them. That alone knocked 8% off the battery use by the OS. When you consider the drain the OS puts on the battery, that 8% can be pretty significant.
I believe I have narrowed down the issue. There appears to be a bug in the Exchange services on ICS. Again today my phone was just sitting on my desk (4 to 5 bars 4G - I always have 4 to 5 bars 4G), no Wifi, no GPS, no Bluetooth. I touched it (didn't turn the screen on) and it was burning hot. I checked and Exchange services has used 46% of my battery (the devices has been on battery for 4hrs and 50 mins). So basically I can go 10 hours on a charge, under Gingerbread I could go 48 hours on a charge.
Under the Battery details it shows I've had a good 4G connection all day (Mobile network signal is green all the way). So the phone has not been struggling for a signal.
I have asked our Exchange administrator to move my mailbox to our new Exchange 2010 servers in the hopes that this bug is only with Exchange 2003.
Again, I stress, this DID NOT HAPPEN under Gingerbread. I HAVE NOT CHANGED my usage patterns. I was connecting to the same Exchange system under Gingerbread and I NEVER had this issue. I had the same 4G connection under Gingerbread and I NEVER had this issue. I had the same apps installed under Gingerbread (more actually) and I NEVER had this issue.
This is a work phone, it is not an option for me to disable the Exchange services. It is also not an option for me to only sync my email every hour, I am expected to check email pretty much constantly except during the middle of the night.
Hmmmm....
Exchange server and Android 4.0.4? Gotta look into that one some more. When you did a factory reset, did you let the FR save all the settings or did you restore all your apps yourself? There are some issues apparently with old GB settings that don't get replaced with ICS settings. Said settings have been seen to be battery drainers.
I'm fortunate that I'm not tied to checking e-mail or phone all the time ( I am starting to get OCD about checking this forum though 
)
Hi Duewester, I did not let Google restore any apps or settings. Here are the exact steps I took.
1. Uninstalled all apps from my Google play account via the website.
2. Confirmed all apps removed successfully from the phone
3. Did a factory reset
4. Skipped all account setups during the initial boot of ICS
5. Let the phone sit with ICS installed and no accounts or apps setup. After several hours the phone stayed cool and the battery was charged 100%
6. Only setup Exchange email (no Gmail, therefor my device was not registered with Google at this point. And I was not prompted to update any of the Verizon bloatware or the ICS apps)
7. Took Exchange services 1.5 hours to sync 1 weeks worth of mail (approx 40MB) on a full bars 4G connection, phone was burning hot, not plugged in, took battery down to 20%.
I ran two days with nothing but Exchange on the phone. The battery would be around 50% by the end of the day.
Mid week I added Gmail, Hotmail, Facebook and Twitter. Battery still draining to around 50% by the end of the day (I had these same apps under Gingerbread and would only be at 20 - 25% battery used by the end of the day.
Today the phone has returned to getting super hot, the mail app is laggy and the battery is draining like crazy.
Because adding Gmail, Hotmail, Facebook and Twitter did not significantly increase my battery usage and going off what the battery utility on the phone is telling me, I believe I have confirmed that the Exchange services are the problem.
now the problem is, that is the one app that I absolutely can not turn off. If moving my mailbox to Exchange 2010 doesn't resolve the issue, i guess I will look into alternate apps for Exchange.
Hey AC, I just pulled this from a Exchange Server forum (it's a PDF) about using Android 4.0 pure Google devices. Ask the IT dudes about it.
Requirements
To support Android 4.0 running on pure Google devices, you must be running one of the
following versions of Microsoft Exchange:
● Exchange Server 2010 SP1 with Exchange ActiveSync 14.1
● Exchange Server 2010 with Exchange ActiveSync 14.0
● Exchange Server 2007 SP1 with Exchange ActiveSync 12.1
● Exchange Server 2007 with Exchange ActiveSync 12.0
● Exchange Server 2003 SP2 with Exchange ActiveSync 2.5
My mailbox is currently on Exchange Server 2003 SP2 with Exchange ActiveSync 2.5
So I Googled "ics exchange services battery drain" and wow did I get a lot of hits. This seems to be an issue that has been around since ICS was released. I'm finding tons of posts across phone types\carriers\rooted\stock, etc.
Exchange services ramps up for no reason and starts sending\receiving 100s of MB when the user reports they haven't sent\received nearly that much mail.
Does anyone know what time frame the usage details represent in the battery utility? For example, if I go to System Settings -> Battery -> Exchange Services, I see
Use Details
CPU total: 44m 14s
Keep awake: 2h 53m 43s
Data sent: 28.55 MB
Data received: 150.10 MB
I assumed this represented the total usage since the last time the phone was on the charger, however I just plugged it in and the total usage didn't reset to 0.
Is this total usage in a 24 hr period?
I've always use Circle Battery on my Droids and as Mentioned System Panel App they seem to work Ok as for watching really closely on the statistics Unless things change Vastly i let Phones do as they are..
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