Thread: Time... For a new phone.

Little tips for Android users...

If you are somewhere you have a wifi connection... LEAVE IT ON. Any data access that happens will go over wifi and not your 3G/4G radio.

If you AREN'T going to be near a wifi hotspot turn it off or it will continue to scan for wifi signals.

Turn that 4G shit OFF. 3G is plenty good enough for phone calls and 3G is good enough for data if you really need it and aren't near a wifi hotspot.

NEVER use the GPS unless you absolutely have to. Keep that shit off. Same with bluetooth.

Live wallpaper is the devil. Turn that shit off too.

Those tips right there will increase you battery life immensely. I was using the nexus last night stock as I got it.... well... I did root it, but other than that it was bone stock. Battery life was stupid. It drained about 30% in less than 2 hours.

I got around to tweaking it last night before I went to bed and fully charged it. At that point I unplugged it and have been keeping an eye on it today.

1AM -- Full charge. Wifi ON. 4G OFF. GPS OFF. Bluetooth OFF.
9AM -- Wake up and check it and it's sitting at 86%
5pm -- Just checked it again. 77%

At this rate I'll need to charge it tomorrow afternoon... ish... late... maybe.

You don't need to kill apps, run juice defender, etc... any of that as long as you are aware of what eats the shit out of android devices batteries.

That said... there's some apps you definitely do want to kill because they don't play nicely with the battery life. As a for-instance... Weather Underground. Plays nice UNLESS... Never bring up the map and animate it... Then go to your home screen. It sits back there and chews up cpu time like a madman.

Originally Posted by Kanati8869

Little tips for Android users...

If you are somewhere you have a wifi connection... LEAVE IT ON. Any data access that happens will go over wifi and not your 3G/4G radio.

If you AREN'T going to be near a wifi hotspot turn it off or it will continue to scan for wifi signals.

Turn that 4G shit OFF. 3G is plenty good enough for phone calls and 3G is good enough for data if you really need it and aren't near a wifi hotspot.

NEVER use the GPS unless you absolutely have to. Keep that shit off. Same with bluetooth.

Live wallpaper is the devil. Turn that shit off too.

Those tips right there will increase you battery life immensely. I was using the nexus last night stock as I got it.... well... I did root it, but other than that it was bone stock. Battery life was stupid. It drained about 30% in less than 2 hours.

I got around to tweaking it last night before I went to bed and fully charged it. At that point I unplugged it and have been keeping an eye on it today.

1AM -- Full charge. Wifi ON. 4G OFF. GPS OFF. Bluetooth OFF.
9AM -- Wake up and check it and it's sitting at 86%
5pm -- Just checked it again. 77%

At this rate I'll need to charge it tomorrow afternoon... ish... late... maybe.

You don't need to kill apps, run juice defender, etc... any of that as long as you are aware of what eats the shit out of android devices batteries.

That said... there's some apps you definitely do want to kill because they don't play nicely with the battery life. As a for-instance... Weather Underground. Plays nice UNLESS... Never bring up the map and animate it... Then go to your home screen. It sits back there and chews up cpu time like a madman.

Going to try the live WP thingy, I always have live BG on.

Ive been using that avatar for at least 12 years now... haha Just cant be mad at that thing. Look at how happy/drugged up he always is!

iPhone is great for the norm but Im a tinkerer, so I needed me some Droid. Too bad the Bionic was delayed. I had to settle for the Charge which has already been forgotten about in the mod world. Still a stable phone and a great choice for my first smart phone.

For modding and such you need a Nexus. All iterations of it are what is called a "Google Experience Phone". No bloatware from the manufacturer... no skins or anything to identify it as Samsung or HTC or whatever. It's designed with the intention of people unlocking the bootloader and rooting it and giving the pure android experience.

That's why there's ALWAYS a nexus phone with a new iteration of the android operating system.

FYI on killing tasks on droid phones:

Android Task Killers Explained: What They Do and Why You Shouldn't Use Them

Good article enf. I would contest their wifi off thing though if you are in range of wifi. Because ANY polling or syncing will happen over the 3G radio which uses FAR more juice than wifi does. 3G/4G is a battery leech.

They talk about bad apps and I totally forgot to mention one of the tweaks that I did last night as well. TURN AUTOSYNC OFF FOR GMAIL!!! That sucks the battery down fast. If you want to check your gmail, just open it up and hit the resync button. It does it once and it's done. Otherwise it will just sit there in the background and nom on your battery.

Juice Defender handles all of this for you (pretty sure the free version as well):

Enabling/disabling radios (when screen is on or certain apps that need it)
Enabling/disabling GPS (when an app needs to use it like Maps)
Enabling/disabling WiFi (when in range of a known Wifi spot)
Enabling/disabling auto sync (every X hours)

Yeah, all your suggestions Kanati can be done auto-magically by Juice Defender. It learns where your common WiFi hotspots are (via network location not GPS) and will turn on WiFi automatically when you're in range. When WiFi is on... 3G & 4G are automatically off. The OS does this because you can't be on 2 data networks simultaneously. For $5 it's cheaper than the extended battery and likely gives you a comparable boost in battery life.

When I go camping, I typically completely disable 3G/4G/WiFi and just work off CDMA service for phone & sms. My phone will last all weekend that way.

Originally Posted by WileECyte

Yeah, all your suggestions Kanati can be done auto-magically by Juice Defender. It learns where your common WiFi hotspots are (via network location not GPS) and will turn on WiFi automatically when you're in range. When WiFi is on... 3G & 4G are automatically off. The OS does this because you can't be on 2 data networks simultaneously. For $5 it's cheaper than the extended battery and likely gives you a comparable boost in battery life.

When I go camping, I typically completely disable 3G/4G/WiFi and just work off CDMA service for phone & sms. My phone will last all weekend that way.

Awesome - buying it now! I will give the beauty a charge tonight and watch it tomorrow!

Originally Posted by WileECyte

Yeah, all your suggestions Kanati can be done auto-magically by Juice Defender. It learns where your common WiFi hotspots are (via network location not GPS) and will turn on WiFi automatically when you're in range. When WiFi is on... 3G & 4G are automatically off. The OS does this because you can't be on 2 data networks simultaneously. For $5 it's cheaper than the extended battery and likely gives you a comparable boost in battery life.

When I go camping, I typically completely disable 3G/4G/WiFi and just work off CDMA service for phone & sms. My phone will last all weekend that way.

I think I'll do it manually for a week or so and get a baseline on the battery life. Then I'll try JD and see if it does a better job of it than I do. I'm just kind of a stickler for doing things myself.