I hve been using my phone on power saving mode from 2 days to save battery and to hve more life out of it. I wana ask tht it is ok to use it continuously on power saving mode forever??
Any ideas??
No problem in using power mode all the time. It's a feature Samsung enables to save battery
Yep. Can't see a problem except the expected performance downgrade etc.
Sent from my GT-I9300T using xda premium
Personally I hated the power saving modes in every smartphone i had cause it affects performance. I will buy a spsre battery and a charger. If you are ok with the performance in power saving mode you should use it!
Enjoy your phone to its maximal potential. Don't let the battery saving issue to disturb your user experience.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using XDA
My phone doesn't decrease in performance with saving mode enabled. It is always fast.
Sent from my GT-I9300
CreekDirt said:
My phone doesn't decrease in performance with saving mode enabled. It is always fast.
Sent from my GT-I9300
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not the case with mine, I notice a decrease in performance. It most likely under clocks the CPU...
In regards to the original question, no there is nothing wrong with leaving the phone in power saver mode. In fact you could probably argue that its better as the phone creates less heat.
Ideally I'd like to overclock mine
Well there is no such thing as saving power without sacreficing preformance. (unless you undervolt it or use more power effectient drivers)
But you should be ok running in power save mode all the time, although I do question why you bought a top of the line smartphone then. I think you would have saved more power (and money) buying a lower end phone.
It does govern the cpu. You can uncheck it. I leave mine checked.
Sent from my GT-I9300
Truely speaking i cant see diiference of even 1% in comparison to power saving and normal mode. Any one knows y battrey depleting though good but at same rate in both modes??
juice defender app does a good job for me. i use the basic settings but you can tweak it to save more battery.
Power saving appears to cap the clock speed at 1.0 GHz rather than 1.4 GHz and it may also disable cores, too. Most of the time it feels just as responsive to use. It is less snappy for some apps and benchmarks quite a bit slower, but I feel I'm splitting hairs as it still feels quicker than my last handset.
I see two days of moderate use with Power Saving on. I don't quite see two days with it off, but the difference is probably not statistically significant and the device is still new.
Power Saving
im using a power saving application on Xperia S ... is it okay to keep it working all the time??
thank you ....
ButterMaker: first of all, wrong forum, also battery saving apps are known to interfere with androids way to handle memory so I would say no
CuttyCZ said:
ButterMaker: first of all, wrong forum, also battery saving apps are known to interfere with androids way to handle memory so I would say no
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, should not use battery/ram optimization apps. They interfere with androids core system.
I uninstalled all these apps after trying and researching. They eat more battery then they save. I only use battery stats apps to keep a log of battery drain.
Now I easily get 40+ hours on my S3 with moderate uses.
hey, so i have ran pretty much every "jelly bean" rom out there for this phone for about 2-2.5 months. maybe less. note sure..
anyway, the battery has been horrible! on every rom.. I have a 2700 mAMP battery, and a regular Samsung battery. I have to use both once a day for this phone.. now I have no idea what is making the phone loose percentage after percentage of battery as fast as it has for me, but everytime i post i get about 0 luck from people that either have the same issue, or just people saying they have heard it a million times. i probably should have put this in the "Q&A" thread, but maybe i forgot. can someone, preferably more than one, help me out here?? i don't get how other people say they have 8 or more hours of screen on time with half the battery left. it just doesn't make since. I am loving the android system. but this could be anything! the apps in the background. the kernel, maybe I didn't clean my cache or something. i can't raise my brightness up to far or it'll drain my battery, jamie in the paranoid thread said he had his batter on 100 percent and had excellent battery. so I'm far from confused here. do I need to get another phone, or what. very much apprentice the help from as many people as possible. I love my phone, but I hate that i have to focus on using two battery a day with this phone.
Same here battery draining pretty quick on all jb ROMs.
Sent from the TermiNOTEr!
Battery usage is highly subjective..
It's nearly impossible to determine a baseline Usage expectancy, simply due to the untold number of variables that drain the battery.
We know the obvious power users ....the display, wifi, data ..
But it gets far more difficult to track the Usage after that.
We know that JB is not optimized for our device, but it's getting better, and until we see a true JB kernel with the rom matched to it, the battery is going to suffer.
Then of course we have the many services that users run, along with countless apps ...
Long story short ....maybe a more stable choice would work better? ?
Like ICS, At least until JB calms down a bit ...
I'm actually running Saurom as I type this ...and my battery life is excellent.
JB just isn't quite there yet ...IMHO ....g
to get better battery turn brightness to lowest usable setting, turn off sync for any non essential apps, turn off soft key lights, flash a kernel that lets you under volt and under clock, try different govonors and io schedulers, turn off gps, put in airplane mode when not using. these should help. keep in mind cell signal strength will also impact battery and 4g will kill it faster then 3g. i am on cm9 stable under clocked to 1.18 undervolt all by 25mv( not much change but i like to be safe) ondemand and sio and get amazing battery life.
What's your screen-on time? 4 hours is the close to the limit on ANY rom for our Notes. You have to make sure it's not some sort of confirmation bias going on here.
gregsarg said:
Battery usage is highly subjective..
It's nearly impossible to determine a baseline Usage expectancy, simply due to the untold number of variables that drain the battery.
We know the obvious power users ....the display, wifi, data ..
But it gets far more difficult to track the Usage after that.
We know that JB is not optimized for our device, but it's getting better, and until we see a true JB kernel with the rom matched to it, the battery is going to suffer.
Then of course we have the many services that users run, along with countless apps ...
Long story short ....maybe a more stable choice would work better? ?
Like ICS, At least until JB calms down a bit ...
I'm actually running Saurom as I type this ...and my battery life is excellent.
JB just isn't quite there yet ...IMHO ....g
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thank you so much man! i actually went to at&t and they mentioned that too. they said the kernel im using isn't fully optimized for the phone yet. other words. the phone wont support it. he said basic stock ics is the best thing to do now. he also said. these forums are for phones from Europe as well. not just for AT&T in the us. again, the ROMS these devs are making are not supported for the phone, and is kinda like a mimic of something its not. he said jelly bean was out, but i don't know where to get it. can someone tell me how to install ICS, because when I download it, and use KIES, it installs the system, but never fully completes the process.
trancemusic+1 said:
thank you so much man! i actually went to at&t and they mentioned that too. they said the kernel im using isn't fully optimized for the phone yet. other words. the phone wont support it. he said basic stock ics is the best thing to do now. he also said. these forums are for phones from Europe as well. not just for AT&T in the us. again, the ROMS these devs are making are not supported for the phone, and is kinda like a mimic of something its not. he said jelly bean was out, but i don't know where to get it. can someone tell me how to install ICS, because when I download it, and use KIES, it installs the system, but never fully completes the process.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sure...
At the top of the general note section, you will find the "note super everything thread"....
Scroll down to find the ICS info you need...
There are many great ICS roms, and you will find that your phone is "MUCH" better running on the software that was intended for it..
Do the homework in the superthread, and read, read, read......then if you have more questions....just PM me, and we'll get ya up and running....g
gregsarg said:
Sure...
At the top of the general note section, you will find the "note super everything thread"....
Scroll down to find the ICS info you need...
There are many great ICS roms, and you will find that your phone is "MUCH" better running on the software that was intended for it..
Do the homework in the superthread, and read, read, read......then if you have more questions....just PM me, and we'll get ya up and running....g
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thank you so much! I will get right to this
I never got more then 2 hours screen on time on any ROM, just figured that was normal.
Ugh.
That is low scout ....
I pull 3 hours average ...
Must be the internut ..on XDA ....LOL ......g
gregsarg said:
Ugh.
That is low scout ....
I pull 3 hours average ...
Must be the internut ..on XDA ....LOL ......g
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm in the same boat as manel, never gotten anywhere above 2h on screen time. Maybe additional 10m or so. Figured it was normal lol
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using xda premium
Battery life is purely subjective. No two people will have the same experience.
Have you used an app like CPU spy to make sure the phone is going into deep sleep? Rogue apps keeping the phone in a wake lock can seriously affect battery life, but its hard to say if anybody's apps are doing that, because we all use different apps and there's no list of apps that keep a wake lock, so you need to use something like CPU spy to see if you are going to deep sleep when your screen is off.
Related to apps as well, don't use any task killers or constantly kill apps when you exit them. A lot of people think killing apps is necessary when it completely is not. Android, since donut or eclair, manages its RAM very well, so that when a properly written app (ie. It's not keeping a wake lock) is in RAM, it's just in a frozen state not using any CPU cycles. Constantly killing well written apps hurts battery life, because restarting the app fresh is much more processor intensive than pulling a frozen app out of RAM. Plus you don't have to deal with annoying loading/splash screens.
Also, like others have said, using the lowest brightness possible, and turning off sync for any unnecessary apps will help battery life. GPS doesn't matter so long as you don't keep something running that uses it. If an app isn't using GPS, then GPS isn't using battery. I always leave my GPS on and do not notice a difference compared to turning it off. If you're paranoid about GPS leave it off, but it's annoying to have to turn it on every time you want to use an app that requires it. You can also disable location access in most apps like Facebook, twitter, etc where you don't need GPS really, and that will make leaving it on even better. If you don't use GPS much anyways, leave it off.
Like somebody said, your cell signal can greatly affect your performance, so use WiFi whenever possible, and even put a data toggle in your pulldown so you can disable cell data when you don't really need it. WiFi in general uses less battery than cellular data, so I use it whenever possible.
I've also noticed that how you use your screen on time also has a great effect on battery life. When I have extended lengths of constant screen on time where the phone starts heating up and whatnot, I see much less battery life than if I just use my phone here and there intermittently. Long stretches of screen on time stress the processor and battery heating them up and making them less efficient, where as short stretches allow the processor time to stay at a cooler, more efficient temperature. If you game at all on your phone, you've definitely experienced this, as you know that your phone heats up due to the extended lengths of screen on time and heavy processor usage. Gaming is a no-no if you're striving for better battery life.
With following those guidelines, my Note sees about 3.5 screen on time with JB on Gubment Cheeze. I would get around that on ICS as well, and I don't remember what it was on GB. Fellow testers and teammates for Gubment Cheeze have seen up to 4 hours and a little more even on JB, so it's definitely possible to have decent battery life on JB.
It really comes down to your own personal usage.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
(quoted)(Related to apps as well, don't use any task killers or constantly kill apps when you exit them. A lot of people think killing apps is necessary when it completely is not. Android, since donut or eclair, manages its RAM very well, so that when a properly written app (ie. It's not keeping a wake lock) is in RAM, it's just in a frozen state not using any CPU cycles. Constantly killing well written apps hurts battery life, because restarting the app fresh is much more processor intensive than pulling a frozen app out of RAM. Plus you don't have to deal with annoying loading/splash screens. )quoted)
I was not aware of this info....many thanks for the heads up...I always supposed that since the ram was consumed with applications, that those apps were pulling CPU usage from the device...
that is clearly not the case......g
Yep, no problem. If you go back to a touchwiz based ROM and go into the stock task manager, it shows you what's taking up RAM, as well as the CPU usage of each thing in the list. If the apps are working properly, pretty much everything will show very little to 0% CPU usage, and ones that are using it heavily will even be highlighted in yellow or red depending on their CPU usage %age. Unfortunately aosp based ROMs don't have that task manager, one of the things I miss from touchwiz.
Every time a non-techy friend buys a new android, it seems the overly aggressive sales rep that sold the phone to them 'helped' them get to know the phone and installed a task killer, specifically advanced task killer. I always just uninstall it without telling them and see how long it takes them to notice lol.
It's still useful in certain instances, for example if you have an app that doesn't run well but you still like/need to use, but in general practice android does a much better job of managing itself. Besides, if you have an app that you know runs poorly and hogs your processor in the background, but you still need to use it, with most aosp based ROMs you can set your phone so that long pressing the back button kills the current app, essentially making task killers useless.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
welchertc said:
Battery life is purely subjective. No two people will have the same experience.
Have you used an app like CPU spy to make sure the phone is going into deep sleep? Rogue apps keeping the phone in a wake lock can seriously affect battery life, but its hard to say if anybody's apps are doing that, because we all use different apps and there's no list of apps that keep a wake lock, so you need to use something like CPU spy to see if you are going to deep sleep when your screen is off.
Related to apps as well, don't use any task killers or constantly kill apps when you exit them. A lot of people think killing apps is necessary when it completely is not. Android, since donut or eclair, manages its RAM very well, so that when a properly written app (ie. It's not keeping a wake lock) is in RAM, it's just in a frozen state not using any CPU cycles. Constantly killing well written apps hurts battery life, because restarting the app fresh is much more processor intensive than pulling a frozen app out of RAM. Plus you don't have to deal with annoying loading/splash screens.
Also, like others have said, using the lowest brightness possible, and turning off sync for any unnecessary apps will help battery life. GPS doesn't matter so long as you don't keep something running that uses it. If an app isn't using GPS, then GPS isn't using battery. I always leave my GPS on and do not notice a difference compared to turning it off. If you're paranoid about GPS leave it off, but it's annoying to have to turn it on every time you want to use an app that requires it. You can also disable location access in most apps like Facebook, twitter, etc where you don't need GPS really, and that will make leaving it on even better. If you don't use GPS much anyways, leave it off.
Like somebody said, your cell signal can greatly affect your performance, so use WiFi whenever possible, and even put a data toggle in your pulldown so you can disable cell data when you don't really need it. WiFi in general uses less battery than cellular data, so I use it whenever possible.
I've also noticed that how you use your screen on time also has a great effect on battery life. When I have extended lengths of constant screen on time where the phone starts heating up and whatnot, I see much less battery life than if I just use my phone here and there intermittently. Long stretches of screen on time stress the processor and battery heating them up and making them less efficient, where as short stretches allow the processor time to stay at a cooler, more efficient temperature. If you game at all on your phone, you've definitely experienced this, as you know that your phone heats up due to the extended lengths of screen on time and heavy processor usage. Gaming is a no-no if you're striving for better battery life.
With following those guidelines, my Note sees about 3.5 screen on time with JB on Gubment Cheeze. I would get around that on ICS as well, and I don't remember what it was on GB. Fellow testers and teammates for Gubment Cheeze have seen up to 4 hours and a little more even on JB, so it's definitely possible to have decent battery life on JB.
It really comes down to your own personal usage.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's a very big heads up. Thanks. But thing is when I have wifi on. Don't I need to be connected to wifi network first before it actually can help me??
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using xda premium
trancemusic+1 said:
That's a very big heads up. Thanks. But thing is when I have wifi on. Don't I need to be connected to wifi network first before it actually can help me??
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using xda premium
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Click to collapse
This is true. What kind of signal strength do you get where you are at? Does your phone bounce back and forth to lte. I have noticed when i go from a strong signal to weaker signals or band switching a lot, my battery drains rapidly.
Use cpuspy, as mentioned, to verify you do see deep sleep. Also, i find if rooted, that seting the min speed to 192 helps quite a bit.
Links pointing to androidbatterylife.com are DOWN FOR GOOD!
Android Battery Life, a pretty successful website has been made in order to help android users achieve better battery life while still using many functions and apps. All of these guides are available, with screenshots, at www.androidbatterylife.com
It's my 2000th post here on xda, and I wanna make it special
PORTAL! http://www.xda-developers.com/android/battery-saving-mega-guide-celebrating-users-2000th-post/
A lot of users are thinking that everything mentioned should be applied. You don't have to apply all of them, just apply what you think works for you. This is more of an index of guides, if you will.
Yes, this is in the Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting because of the word "Troubleshooting"... I'm shooting your "Low battery life" trouble in the face.
So let's begin:
The guide is split into 3 parts: Easy, Medium, and Advanced.
First up is... you guessed it..
Easy
Screen / Display LINK
If you go to Settings>Battery, you’ll clearly see that “Screen” has the biggest bar of about 40-60%. The bigger the bar (and the number), the bigger the battery drain. We’ll try to lower that bar as much as we can.
Brightness
First of all, to reduce the battery drain caused by the display, click on the Screen button, then click display (it’s the same as going to Settings>Display), then click on brightness, untick Auto-Brightness if it’s ticked and lower the brightness to minimum.
Explanation: A brighter screen means the screen is emitting more light, which consumes more battery. So lowering the brightness makes the screen use less battery juice.
Wallpaper
Second thing to do to reduce the “Screen” battery consumption is having a Static Wallpaper, and not a Live Wallpaper. So go to Settings>Display and click Wallpaper, and pick any wallpaper you want except the wallpapers from the Live Wallpapers list.
Explanation: Live Wallpapers use the CPU (and possibly the GPU) to make the image move. So the phone is using the CPU to process these images, which means more battery sucking, and we don’t want that.
Sleep
Again, go to Settings>Display, and click Sleep (aka screen timeout) and set that to something less than 1 minute. I personally use 30 seconds and it’s good enough for day-to-day use.
Explanation: The more time the screen is on, the higher is the battery usage, because the screen won’t be using the battery when it’s off…
Framework Animation
Fourth thing to do is disable the Framework Animations. Framework Animations are the animations you see when you switch from an app to another app, or when you press home, or back, or recent apps buttons. To turn those off go to Settings>Developer options (if you don’t see that, then go to About Phone and press the Build Number button 8 times, then go back), scroll down to drawing section, and set Window animation scale, Transition animation scale, and Animator duration scale to “Animation off”.
Explanation: Framework Animations use the GPU (and possibly the CPU) to draw the frames of the animations, so by turning them off, you’re pulling some load off of the GPU and CPU to make the battery life better.
Widgets
Believe it or not, widgets can greatly affect battery life, it's because they update themselves regularly. This can wake up the phone a lot of times. So the best way to prevent this is to remove all the widgets on the homescreen.... and maybe keep the ones that don't update themselves much.
Remember, everything that’s shown on-screen that isn't app related is registered as “Screen” in the battery window. So to lower that, you have to compromise every little thing that’s shown on the screen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Google Services LINK
One major issue you may face with Google Services is the location battery drain. This was born in Android 4.2.2 and can be easily fixed by just unticking a button.
Problem
The real problem is, in one word, Location.
Google Services such as Gmail, Now, Maps, and Google+ constantly polls your location using your wifi (if you're connected) or your cell network. And every time Google Services poll your location, your battery gets affected. So what's the solution to that?
Solution
Further research by Galaxo60 proved that going to Settings - Location Settings (or Location on android 4.4), and unticking WiFi & mobile network location (or setting the Mode to Device Only) prevents Google Services from polling your location, thus preventing the battery drain
So disable the WiFi & mobile network location option, and actually tick and turn on GPS satellites. (It's just like setting the Mode to Device only on KitKat)
But why do that? Why should I turn on GPS?
Picture taken using Android 4.4 KitKat
Explanation
Google Services don't use your GPS to poll your location, so your GPS actually stays offline most of the time; and the reason you should enable GPS is to "Let apps that have asked your permission use your location information".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Go Dark LINK
Some devices have AMOLED or SAMOLED (Super-AMOLED) screens, like the Samsung Galaxy SII and the Motorola Moto X. The following method is helpful for these kind of devices.
You may check what's your screen type to see if it's AMOLED or not. If it's not, this method won't help you achieve better battery life, but may help your eyes
What's AMOLED?
AMOLED is a screen type designed to get the highest contrast a screen can get to. Black pixels turn themselves off, unlike the IPS screens that always require a backlight. So AMOLED has less battery consumption than most screen types.
What to do?
Try turning everything as dark as you can. So make the wallpaper have as much black areas as possible, and use dark apps. The best way to convert most apps to dark apps is downloading Team Black Out Updater. From that app, download the apps you want to make them darker and install them. Some apps require having root because you have to flash them via recovery.
This consumes less power
This consumes more power
Explanation
By turning most things dark/black, more pixels in the AMOLED screen will turn off, thus lowering the power consumption caused by the screen.
Remember, this is only for AMOLED screens, IPS/LCD screens will still consume the same power from the battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Turn Off Auto-Sync LINK
Auto-Sync constantly checks the data on the phone and the data on the cloud, and adds the missing files. In other words, Auto-Sync = wasted battery.
Turn off Auto-Sync
Go to settings, scroll down to you google account, tap it and tap on your gmail. Then uncheck all the items on the list.
This is wrong. Now untick them!
Explanation
Auto-Sync consumes a lot of data and battery. By unchecking the items, Auto-Sync will turn off, and thus saving battery AND data!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Turn Off NFC LINK
NFC is wireless, and wireless consumes battery. So turning off NFC will make the battery life slightly better.
NFC off when not needed
If you don't use NFC, go to settings > more > and turn it off. Android beam will grey out because it needs NFC, we don't need that either.
Explanation
NFC consumes a lot of battery if you keep your screen on most of the time. So by turning it off, we're improving battery life while the screen is on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
NO Task managers/Hibernators LINK
Yes... I know... Weird right? Don't be misguided, and understand what's happening inside android before doing anything.
Uninstall / Disable Task Managers / Killers / Hibernators
If you have any Task killer, or Task manager apps installed, either disable them if you can, or uninstall them.
Explanation
Android learns the way you use it. It knows which apps you like best and pre-opens them and puts them in RAM so that they get opened faster. Android keeps a log of how much time you've been spending on an app.
By using a Task killer, you're breaking this log, thus preventing Android from learning how you use it. The results?
Android will be loading every app you open from scratch.
Android will get slower.
Android will be wasting battery.
So uninstall those "battery killers" and let Android do the work instead.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use ART LINK
Yes... ART... Not art, but ART... It's an Android 4.4 KitKat specific thing...
What is ART?
ART is a runtime replacement of the Dalvik runtime. It's the way the phone handles apps. Dalvik used to install apps fast, and conserve some space after the installation, but it compiles the app as soon as you open it, and runs it on a Virtual Machine (if it's not a native app).
ART pre-compiles the app on installation, which takes up a little bit (teeny tiny) more space, but makes apps faster to open, and over all performance better.
Switch to ART
Go to settings, developer options, and tap on select runtime, then use ART and reboot. It'll take some time to finish booting the first time it's running ART, but when it's done optimizing apps it'll be worth the wait.
Explanation
ART demands less CPU power to process things over time. It pre-compiles apps just once so that when you open an app, the CPU won't work as much to compile the app just-in-time (JIT). So, less CPU work, less battery consumption, more battery juice, and more performance!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Pick the correct charger LINK
I can't put direct links to chargers, so go HERE to the relevant page and see the chargers from there.
Is a fast charger better? or is it the slow one?
Use the Right Charger
A slow charger relaxes the battery, making it last longer when it fully charges. So, for a better battery life, use a slow charger at night when you're sleeping, or when you don't need to charge it quickly.
I recommend using this charger*: it's small, looks good, and it's slow with a 1A power output... Perfect for what we want.
If you're in a hurry, and your phone's battery has little juice left, you may want to charge it pretty quickly. In this situation, you won't care about the relaxation of the battery, so you should use a fast charger.
Something like this charger* should help a lot in achieving what you need. It also has a second slot it you have to charge another device. Use the A slot to charge faster with its 2.4A power.
You can also use a car charger if your phone's battery suddenly dies while you're not home.
This car charger* is perfect because it's fast enough to revive your phone and gives you enough juice to save the day.
So be wise and use the right charger for the right situation, so that you can achieve the best battery life possible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have a Spare Battery / Power Bank LINK
Sometimes, your battery will die, whatever you do...
Have a Spare Battery
In that case, if you have a phone with removable battery like any current Samsung device, equipping another spare battery could be very useful. If your battery is almost dead, just turn off the phone, open it up, and put your spare battery in. Voila, insta-charge
Have a Battery Bank
One great gadget to own with your phone is a backup power bank. This portable power bank (see link of the page HERE) is awesome because it's universal, and has a 13000 mAh capacity which can charge your phone about 5 times!
So if you don't want to scratch your head to do tweaks, you can use spare batteries or power banks to save the day
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Know How to Use Android LINK
It's all about how you use it...
We see a lot of users that use Android the wrong way. We see people setting their screen timeout to 30 minutes because "whenever I want to chat, the screen keeps turning off". We also see a lot of users, even devs and power users, constantly pressing the back button to go home.
Know How to Use Android
If you have the screen problem where whenever you want to interact with the screen, it turns off, don't turn the screen timeout up. Turn it down, so that the screen turns off sooner, and saves battery.
And to go home, there's a button for that for a reason! Use it! Pressing back over and over again closes the app, and clears it from your device's RAM. When you re-open the app, it will open from scratch, so your phone will be slower, and will consume more battery since it's using more CPU power.
So use the home button, try to keep as much apps in RAM as possible, stop "clearing all" apps from RAM, and save battery!
Explanation
RAM, either full or empty, consumes the same amount of electricity, unlike RAM in computers.
The CPU copies data from storage to RAM and then runs the app. If the app is already in RAM, the CPU won't reopen it, it'll directly use it.
So making the RAM full of opened apps helps the CPU. The phone becomes faster, and the need of electricity running through the CPU to open the app is now nonexistent.
Also, Android keeps a log of how you use your phone and pre-opens the apps you need. If you constantly kill and clear out apps, you're breaking that log. So when clearing apps, you're not letting Android learn the way you use it. This results in a slower experience, and more battery drain.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Deactivate Auto-Rotate LINK
Auto Rotation isn't always needed... right?
Disable Auto Rotation
Go to Settings, Display, Rotation, and turn off Auto-rotate.
Explanation
Auto-rotate uses the phone's G-Sensor to see how you're holding the phone. By turning off Auto Rotation, you're using less hardware, thus using less battery
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Turn on Airplane Mode LINK
When in low signal places, it's a hassle trying to find that precious signal...
Turn on Airplane Mode
Whenever you feel that the mobile signal is getting too low, turn on airplane mode if you don't need to call someone. Go to settings, More, and check Airplane mode to turn it on.
Explanation
The phone wants you to stay connected to a cell tower whenever possible. On low signal places, the phone will try harder to find a tower to connect to, and that drain a lot of battery. So turning on Airplane Mode makes your phone rest and not search for any tower, thus saving battery.
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Use a Light Theme for LCD Screens LINK
AMOLED will consume less battery on the dark theme, LCD isn't affected by that...
Use a Light Theme for LCD
Using a lighter theme with more white in it helps your eyes, because you can lower the brightness even more and still see the screen just fine.
Explanation
The lower the brightness, the better the battery life. So a lighter theme is what we want, so we can reduce the brightness and still see everything.
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Charge You Battery Correctly LINK
It's called a battery cycle, not a quarter of it
Charge it correctly
Don't let your battery go down to 0%, charge it while it's about 50%.
Explanation
No matter what charger you're using (either a slow or a fast one), the battery is greatly affected by the frequency of the charges. Our phones have different batteries than past devices had, so battery life cycles are a bit different as we used to think.
More info here: http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/charging_lithium_ion_batteries
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Use Widgets with Manual Refresh LINK
Widgets update themselves a lot... but there's a solution for that.
Use Manual Refreshed Widgets
Check every widget you have, and see whether you can set it to refresh whenever you click on it, or do something to refresh it.
Explanation
Auto-refreshing widgets make the phone wake up a lot and do some processing which can use the battery. By making them manual, you are controlling the frequency of the refreshes, and you are forbidding the widgets to refresh while the phone is asleep.
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Do Not Rely On Battery Discharge Rate LINK
Look! Left it overnight and only lost 2%! This is about 0.25%/hr!
WRONG!
The battery acts like a capacitor (not exactly like it, but very similar to it), so whenever its charge is changed, the discharge / charge rate will change with it.
So, if you leave your phone overnight at 100%, you'll get a rate of x%/hr. If you leave it at 50%, you'll get a rate of y%/hr where x and y are very different.
It's only a matter of experimenting where is the sweet spot of battery percentage that you should have when keeping it overnight.
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Do Not Wipe Battery Stats LINK
Some people do that a lot... but why?
What's Battery Stats?
Battery stats is basically a file in Android that stores the battery history. The longer the battery stats is, the more accurate the battery percentage reading is.
Why not wipe it?
Wiping battery stats is like tinkering with the fuel gauge in your car: you won't get more gas if you glue the gauge's needle at Full.
The problem is that wiping battery stats will give you wrong readings. Users thought that wiping it will make the battery "hold the charge better". This is wrong because doing so will break Android's battery reading, and that's why it will show you a higher percentage for a longer time.
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Do Not Buy Cheap Batteries LINK
Wow! A 2500 mAh battery for my Galaxy Ace! And the same size of the original!
The problem here is that some users order a battery with a higher mAh value for a very low price. They get their 2500 mAh battery and put it in the phone. The device would last a lot longer now before its battery dies.
Now let's not forget why they ordered such a battery. It's most probably because their old battery is just exhausted and isn't lasting much. So no matter what battery they get, they'll notice a big difference in battery life.
Usually these cheap batteries are advertised as 2500 mAh, while they're actually a lot less.
So if you want to replace your old battery, try getting an original one.
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Thanks to all of you who gave me more ideas on how to achieve better battery life
Medium
Undervolt LINK
The CPU is the biggest battery consumer, and it needs voltage from the battery. If we decrease that, we'll gain some battery life.
Undervolt your CPU
Assuming you have TricksterMOD, launch it and go to the specific window. Scroll down to CPU Voltages, then click Profile, and save the Profile as Default.
Now hit the minus/plus button right above where it now says "Default". When the window pops up, hit the minus button JUST ONCE. Every time you hit the minus button you undervolt by 12500 mV, and we'll call that a "step"; so undervolt by one step.
Hit the check mark button to apply.
Explanation
Every time you undervolt by a step, the CPU will demand less and less from the battery to run. This improves the battery by just a bit. It's mainly to avoid temperature throttling, but it also improves battery.
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Increasing SD card Read-Ahead Value LINK
Whether or not you have an SD card, this helps...
Increase readahead Value
Go to TricksterMOD, swipe to general, and click Read Ahead Buffer Size under the I/O Control section. Set it to 3072 (Value is in KB, so it's 3MB)
Explanation
The bigger the read-ahead buffer is, the better the SDcard can predict what command would come next. It prepares itself to do a command before it's even issued. This gives you better performance, and a potential increase of battery life because generating 3MB is nothing compared to the performance benefit.
Check out this Spreadsheet from broodplank.net for more info on the benefits of read-ahead.
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Advanced
Underclocking LINK
One major battery drainer is the CPU, so if you don't really use the phone much, and you don't care about games, you should probably consider underclocking it to get that precious juice back.
Requirements
You must be rooted and have a kernel that supports overclocking. You may find out how to root by doing a little online research because every device has its own rooting method (for example, I wrote a fully detailed guide on how to root your Nexus 4).
CPU Underclocking
Warning: Underclocking the CPU too much could result in an SOD (Sleep Of Death) which makes the phone sleep and not turn on without pulling the battery.
First of all, we need a controller, or a daemon to control the CPU's clock speeds. So go ahead and download TricksterMOD from the Play store, we'll be using that to underclock the CPU.
Now enter it and grant su permissions, swipe from left to right and select the general menu, scroll down to CPU frequency control and tick frequency lock, then click on the number next to the min button, and choose the smallest number in the list.
Then, click on the number next to the max button and choose something a little less than you CPU's stock frequency... on a Nexus 4, the stock frequency is 1.5 GHz (or 1512000) so I picked 1.2 GHz (or 1242000).
Now swipe down to CPU Governor Control and click the button next to the Governor Button, and select conservative. If you don't have conservative in the list, pick ondemand. Now hit the check mark button at the top of the app to apply the settings.
Explanation
We are lowering the CPU's clock speed which makes it a little slower, but consumes much less battery. We are also changing the way the frequencies are handled: with the conservative governor, the CPU will prefer staying at lower frequencies.
MP Decision
We're not done yet, swipe again from left to right and click specific, then look for MP Decision. If it's there, turn it off, if not then it's probably already off. Hit the check mark to apply the settings.
Explanation
MP Decision sees how you use the phone, and clocks the CPU relatively (if you're just chatting, it'll underclock. If you're playing games, it'll clock it to normal). We don't want that since we want to force underclock the CPU, so we turn this off to prevent it from playing with our settings.
GPU Underclocking
On that same screen, scroll down to GPU max frequency, and lower that just one step below the default clockspeed (400 MHz being the stock frequency on the Nexus 4, so let's set that to 320 MHz). Don't forget to hit the check mark button to apply the changes you've made.
Explanation
The GPU draws almost everything you see on the screen, so it's always active. Lowering its frequency has a big positive impact on battery life, which is what we want.
So that's basically it for the underclocking part, have fun playing with different governors and frequencies to get that precious Performance/Battery life point.
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Detecting Wakelocks VS Installing Battery Saving Apps LINK
The most cliche thing to do when your battery doesn't last a day is install a battery saver app. However, I don't do it myself. I prefer detecting wakelocks in order to reduce battery consumption.
What is a Wakelock?
A wakelock is the moment where you turn the screen off, but the CPU stays awake doing something. It is the phenomenon when the CPU isn't asleep when the screen is off and it shouldn't be doing anything. Wakelocks usually drain battery because the CPU is kept awake and working while it should be resting.
Detecting a Wakelock
To detect a wakelock, install Wakelock Detector. Charge your phone, then unplug it and leave it with the screen turned off for about an hour or two. Then open the app and check the list of wakelocks.
The bigger the red bar on the top, the longer the wakelocks are. The top app is the number 1 culprit, and should be removed. If the top app is Google Services, it's probably the Location issue. If it's another app, check if there are syncing issues, and try making the sync interval a little longer, or turn off its notifications.
Explanation
We're trying to minimize the wakelocks caused by some apps to prevent the phone from being awakened. By doing that, we let the phone go to deep sleep faster, and longer. So, more battery life for us!
Another way to detect wakelocks (a little more pro)
Download and install betterbatterystats. It's basically a more pro version of Wakelock Detector. It also needs root for some functionality to work, but it gives you a more in-depth info about the wakelocks, CPU states, and network usage.
msm_hsic_host is the 3G... not to worry about that
So that's it for the wakelocks! Keep testing with different app configurations to achieve the best deep sleep mode for your phone, and get the most out of your battery.
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Undervolt Even More! LINK
Undervolting once is fine. Undervolting twice is better. But undervolting a million times isn't good... So let's undervolt as much as we can.
Download Stability Test, run it, and hit the Scaling Stability Test button (root will be needed). Wait about 8 to 10 minutes while it's doing the process. If it doesn't crash, stop it by pressing the back button. Your phone is stable, you can undervolt even more.
So go to TricksterMOD and undervolt another step (remember to save a profile indicating how many steps you've undervolted). Then test again using stability test....
Keep doing that until something bad happens like the app crashing, or Android itself rebooting. When it does crash, "overvolt" back one step. At this point your CPU is running good while on the lowest voltage.
Explanation
Every time we undervolt by a step, we test the stability of the CPU so it doesn't crash. When it crashes, we overvolt back to the last voltage set that was stable, so that we get the lowest voltages our CPU can handle without going crazy, and thus, getting that slight push of the battery life.
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Tweak Kernel Governors / Schedulers / KSM LINK
These tweaks only apply to certain kernels, since not all kernels allow you to modify these settings.
Governor, Schedulers, and KSM Tweaks
If you have a kernel tweaking app like tricksterMOD or faux clock, you are 90% free of all trouble of tweaking kernel governors.
First, find a kernel that has a specific and optimized governor. Turn off MPDecision if the kernel has an alternative (anything like "Intelli-Plug" will do). Now let's tweak!
We cannot cover the options for every kernel and every governor in the universe since each one has its own options and settings.
I am currently using faux kernel on my device. This kernel has intellidemand as the optimized governor. The aim of the kernel dev was to replace MPDecision with something better.
The links below provide some info about that kernel. These settings include tweaking the governor, schedulers and the KSM:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/nex...ernel-ver-031-mako-kk-4-4-uv-otg-cpu-t2008222 (the second post shows the recommended settings for faux kernel)
https://plus.google.com/+PaulReioux/posts/WFcjPqMEZgJ
Have fun tweaking!
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Great guide, and great usage of your 2000th post! I've featured this on the XDA Portal
Great post!
I like using Screebl to prevent screen turning off and on unnecessarily. And use One Power Guard by onexuan. It really lessens the drain over night. I use Condi to automatically disable mobile data when connected to wifi at home as well.
very great guide! Just note something for people with HTC Sense. If you use the weather clock with current sensor, setting the location to GPS only will disable the location service (even if it's seems on, the widget will say it's off since it doesn't want to use the GPS). Because of that, you loose that feature if you do that.
Um, there's a problem with this guide. Instead of underclocking, overclock the processor. The faster the processor, the faster it gets jobs done, the faster it can go to sleep. These reduces long wakelocks and in general improves battery life.
I used to think the same way, but thinking that way is false.
What about Greenify?
idk about you, but greenify is useful.
EDIT: And for the fast charge/slow charge, do you have any proof?
Beatsleigher said:
Um, there's a problem with this guide. Instead of underclocking, overclock the processor. The faster the processor, the faster it gets jobs done, the faster it can go to sleep. These reduces long wakelocks and in general battery life.
I used to think the same way, but thinking that way is false.
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So you're saying that it's better not to underclock and just use default values?
Hmm kind of skeptical about the home button thing. I usually back out of an app to prevent it from running in the background and consuming battery. Can anyone comment on this?
fredrick1213 said:
Hmm kind of skeptical about the home button thing. I usually back out of an app to prevent it from running in the background and consuming battery. Can anyone comment on this?
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the fact that the app opens from scratch again makes the CPU work more and thus using more battery
if it's kept in the RAM, it'll stay paused, it won't use the CPU and makes your phone faster sincr it resumes the app, thus making your battery usage less.
Sent from my Nexus 4
Riro Zizo said:
the fact that the app opens from scratch again makes the CPU work more and thus using more battery
if it's kept in the RAM, it'll stay paused, it won't use the CPU and makes your phone faster sincr it resumes the app, thus making your battery usage less.
Sent from my Nexus 4
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So if using Greenify, which automatically hibernates apps and greatly increases my battery life btw, will it make pressing the home button useless?
Beatsleigher said:
Um, there's a problem with this guide. Instead of underclocking, overclock the processor. The faster the processor, the faster it gets jobs done, the faster it can go to sleep. These reduces long wakelocks and in general improves battery life.
I used to think the same way, but thinking that way is false.
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Click to collapse
you have a point if the user is a heavy user. But for normal users, the CPU won't be doing much; so underclocking it won't affect time, but it greatly improves battery life.
steakhutzeee said:
What about Greenify?
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pham818 said:
idk about you, but greenify is useful.
EDIT: And for the fast charge/slow charge, do you have any proof?
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greenify freezes the app if you're not using it, so the phone will start it from scratch... it's a good app if you use it on apps that you barely use, but don't greenify the apps that you use frequently, it will badly affect your battery life.
as for the fast/slow charge, I have no proof since this is what i usually have as a personal experience, but i find out that my battery lasts longer when i charge it slower...
Sent from my Nexus 4
fredrick1213 said:
So if using Greenify, which automatically hibernates apps and greatly increases my battery life btw, will it make pressing the home button useless?
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if for example you greenify whatsapp, and you press home while you were inside whatsapp... yes... it's useless...
but try building the habit of pressing it, the back button kills the apps, we don't want that
Sent from my Nexus 4
i always clear all my apps before i put the phone to sleep.
i'll try to not clear apps anymore, and see how that works.
thanks
pham818 said:
i always clear all my apps before i put the phone to sleep.
i'll try to not clear apps anymore, and see how that works.
thanks
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ah, you see, here's where it does make the good difference, keep doing that because you won't use the apps for about 8 hours, so it's better if they're closed.
i just posted this because i see people constantly closong the apps that they always use, but if you're not using the apps much (like when sleeping) it's better to kill them
Sent from my Nexus 4
Great post, love all of the tips. Keep up the good work. I hope to see 2000 more posts to come.
aguilar8788 said:
Great post, love all of the tips. Keep up the good work. I hope to see 2000 more posts to come.
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oh you will, trust me
every 1k posts I'll make something very special.
my 1000th post was releasing 2 very annoying apps that the portal newswriters denied them for being too annoying
Sent from my Nexus 4
First of all thanks! battery life is a never ending issue in any smartphone using the no animations, less widgets and device only location... hope it'll prove useful
I got a question... I use go power master which has a "screen off optimization" and i noticed that my battery barely drains itself while the phone is idle... it's not what you count as a task killer right?