Are you sure that Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS are off?
Do you use task manager to shut off active applications that you are not using? If you have WIFI off and GPS off the only two things I can think off is either you have a bad battery that discharges too quickly or you spend lots of time in a place with no signal or a very weak signal. The phone will use more power to stay linked to a very weak signal or constantly try to connect if there is no signal.
Same here, in my area I only show 1 or 2 bars. I've been told the strength indicator with eclair 2.1 isn't very accurate, go figure! Go into settings, location & security and be sure that VZW location services and standalone GPS services are not checked. These are not needed unless using the GPS. Actually when using GPS I only have checked the standalone GPS services and Google location services.
Instead of using the built in task manager, I use an app called NetQuin Android Booster which is very good for stopping tasks from running except for those that automatically restart themselves. NetQuin also has a good anti-virus called NQmobile Anti-virus.
Let me guess. You owned a Blackberry before the Fascinate, right?
No, before the fascinate, my first kinda smartphone, I had a LG shine. Why do you ask?
My question was directed at Coalcracker.
I have found that my battery lasts longer if I turn off the phone and charge it while it is off. Don't know why that is or why it works but it does. This was addressed by a previous thread. Hope it works for you. Have a nice day.
I'll throw my 2-cents in as well.
The low bars may be a clue to some battery drain. If your are at the edge of coverage then the phone's radio may actually be losing connection and then looking for a signal from a tower or even switching back and forth between two different towers. This radio activity will increase battery useage.
Check any apps you have installed, they may be regularly updating, this will increase batt useage. Some apps don't play well together, even from the same source. I have Google Maps installed. I installed Google Earth too and my battery useage increased about 30%. I went from about a day and a half between charges to less than a day. I removed Google Earth and battery drainage went back to normal.
Android phones supposedly don't react well when a task manager is used to turn off apps. This is a big battery eater because Android will restart an app if it thinks the app is needed. This kill/restart/kill/restart cycle will increse battery useage because the app is always drawing full power due to the fact it isn't allowed to "idle". Following is an email I sent to a coworker:
Here is a summary:
Link to articles:
A general explanation
http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-with-android/
A reprint of a a Google engineer’s blog
http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/04/multitasking-android-way.html
at times i have a fast battery drain, i have traced it down to weatherbug, it gets stuck and eats the battery up, turning off and back on fixes this, i use @ 25% from 6am to 10pm when its running right
go to menu>settings>about phone>battery use
and see whats using your battery
I have been saying this since I got phone I turn everything off except auto sync and just playing around with phone checking Facebook and another ste i have to charge three times in a day and Don M i dont understand all of what you wrote like Google earth if I have it installed but dont use it and does not show im using in task manager how can it use battery. I need some eduction here because battery even runs down 20% over night with everything turned off other then sync which I dont know what its syncing and if i even need to have on. Thank you
roachman55 wrote: I have been saying this since I got phone I turn everything off except auto sync and just playing around with phone checking Facebook and another ste i have to charge three times in a day and Don M i dont understand all of what you wrote like Google earth if I have it installed but dont use it and does not show im using in task manager how can it use battery. I need some eduction here because battery even runs down 20% over night with everything turned off other then sync which I dont know what its syncing and if i even need to have on. Thank you
I was just offering up possible solutions, I didn't say if you have Google Earth installed it will drain your battery faster. I and others have seen that having both Google Earth and Google Maps installed together seems to cause faster battery usage. Having only one or the other doesn't seem to do that.
mdram4x4 had a very good suggestion. Go to menu>settings>about phone>battery use. Focus your attention and efforts on whatever category shows the biggest drain. Making a change and keeping an eye on battery drain will also let you know if the change helped.
A 20% drain over 8 hours or so is about normal, that would be a battery life of 40 hours. Charging three times a day isn't normal.
Sync is only needed if you are syncing email, contact lists, calendar, etc... with Outlook or Google or other outside sources, if you aren't doing that then you don't need sync-turn it off. If you do need sync try increasing the time between syncs. Also check any programs like Weatherbug or anything that might occasionally update online and if you find an app updating increase times between updates or like mdram4x4 mentioned pay attention to them in case the app is having issues. Plus if you are using anything like Advanced Task Killer try turning it off to see if battery life improves.
Extending the battery life on a smartphone is more art than science, a lot of guesswork, testing and sometimes modifying user behavior is involved.
I use my phone moderately or less and get about a day and a half total use from one charge. I charge the phone every night. That is only way I can guarantee the phone staying charged throughout the day. If I use the phone a lot, I will be lucky to make it throught the day. My stepboy's Thunderbolt can drain a battery far faster than I can on a Fascinate. It's the nature of the beast and until there is a major battery technology breakthrough we are going to be fighting this battle.
Mine was horrid at first as well. Then I got a profile manager (profile settings) to manage things like screen brightness, gps, wireless, vibrate, sync, etc... Make sure your gmail sync is either off or set to a very minimal update period. Same with facebook and other e-mail. Also trying to access internet when you have a bad signal kills the battery too. Now I'm good pretty much from 6am until I go to bed at 11. There are some days when it's at maybe 20% at the end of the day but more often about 30% or so left. I've found there are two big battery drains. One is constant vibrate for messages of any kind. Try to minimize that. The next drain are run away programs. It's possible to have a program that pegs your CPU. I had this happen and when it does, your battery goes down faster than a...ok...no lewd joke there, but it kills the battery! Get a CPU/Process monitoring program like process monitor or system panel. They will show you if your CPU is working too much. If you just can't figure it out...backup your stuff, wipe the phone and start over. See how it runs without any additional programs.
At any rate, it's 100% normal with any smart phone to have the battery last maybe a day max under moderate use.
I would recommend changing your battery. Perhaps your phone came with a bad battery.
I use stock Fascinate with GPS, WiFI and BT on all the time. I have one gmail (push) and two other email accounts and Facebook syncing at 30 minute intervals or higher. I stream Pandora for about one hour every day and play it on my car audio system via BT. While using Pandira, Google Maps is also on (mainly for traffic updates). I DO NOT use any app killers. I do not use Weatherbug, though I understand it is part of VZW bloatware and always runs in BG. I talk 30 mins max per day. I browse using 3G for the most part (about 2 hours) and on WiFi for about an hour. My battery lasts the full day with about 20% remaining before I go to bed. I always charge to full capacity over-night. I charge the phone during the day only if I use the camera/flash a lot.
Edit: My signal is 2 to 3 bars for the most part. I do find one wierd behavior with my Fascinate. When I have WiFi turned on, my cell signal goes up by a couple of bars, though they are no way inter-related. If I switch my WiFi off, my cell signal bars go down by a couple. Not sure why this happens. I think there is a bug with how Fascinate/Android calculate/display the number of bars.
I use an app to show me the percentage of battery life remaining. It is better to keep Wi-Fi turned off until it is needed because battery life will dramatically be reduced. For example, looking at my cell right now with Wi-Fi turned off I am at 83% with 1 day 36 minutes of battery life remaining. When I turn Wi-Fi on the battery power remaining goes down to 4 hours and 29 minutes, huge difference!
So I hope this is not a stupid question, but well...... I read earlier about apps updating themselves like weather bug and such. You know when you add applications and it has the box to check off if you want those apps updated automatically, should you not set the phone up to do that automatically if you want to improve your battery?
ladybell wrote: So I hope this is not a stupid question, but well...... I read earlier about apps updating themselves like weather bug and such. You know when you add applications and it has the box to check off if you want those apps updated automatically, should you not set the phone up to do that automatically if you want to improve your battery?
diff type of update
that the app software update
we are saying the data update the app uses.
Regarding the extended warrany from Samsung for signing up and registering the phone, on the front page of Samsung's USA site is the small print: * Sorry, extended warranty is currently not available for cell phones. So don't bother.
Lol, the Fascinate easy on the battery compared to this...
I 've found that all the bloatware sucks up a lot of battery life. Once you remove the all the bloatware you'll gain at least three hours of battery life.
Mine is the exact same. Went back to factory settings. No applications except the pre-installed. Turned off wifi, GPS, bluetooth, all background data. Go to airplane mode when not using it. Turned the brightness down, turned animation off, screen timeout to the lowest. Phone on Idle.... 57% The battery life is mainly horrible because the pre-installed applications auto-run. and there is no off switch. Oh... and that Advanced Task Killer, DONT INSTALL. The application is BUGGY!!! Infact one of the first things they ask when you call tech support is... Is Advanced Task Killer installed? My answer... " If you have to ask that because so many people use it that shows that those auto-run applications you have are causing problems. FIX IT "
I'm a new fascinate user - but not a new smartphone user. I charged my phone fully and left the house this morning at 9am, and by 3pm, with two short phone calls, a couple internet browsing sessions ( short; as in looking for the name of a fastpitch bat) and scrolling through email.......... the phone battery is near dead.
When I look at the detail, it tells me that 76% of the battery drain is from 'display'.... ??? What am I doing wrong - or rather, what should I be doing differently, so that I can have that 76% to actually "use" my smartphone?
We are aware of multiple problems with users having the display take up their battery life even while phone is in standby mode after the Froyo 2.2 update . This is being investigated by our product research team, and we will update everyone with a fix once one is provided to us.
Thanks for everyone's patience while we research this issue to get to the bottom of things.
I've had my Samsung Fascinate for 3 days now, and I must say that the battery life is just awful. I applied the Froyo 2.2 update right away, so I really don't know if it made a difference in battery life from out of the box or not. I've done everything I could - turned off all background actions, lowest display setting, no sync, no gps, no WiFi, etc. . . . When I check battery usage, it says that 90% of usage comes from the display! Is that possible? Did I get a bad battery, or is it just this update issue? This is my first smartphone, and I know that battery life is not the best, but 5 hours running naked? Please help.
Has there been any new discoveries on this? The battery dying too fast can definitely be attributed to the Froyo update at least for mine and my husband's phone. We never had this problem before the update.
How much patience are we supposed to have, vz has been working on the issue since 5/3 and still no word on a fix??
