HTC Desire Battery Life

[andrewducker]

After various discussions about the battery life of my phone, I decided to run an experiment. I hadn't charged my phone fully for a while, so I left it charging overnight, and unplugged it around 8:30 this morning.

I listened to music (via Spotify), played half an hour of Angry Birds, had it checking email constantly all day (via Push email via IMAP), and have also checked Twitter and Facebook a few times each. I also made a couple of phone calls, about 30 minutes in total.

WiFi was off during the day (well, it turns itself on for ten seconds every five minutes to check if I'm near a WiFi point it can connect to), but then connected from 5:30 to now (8:00).

It has just now warned me that my battery has hit 15%. Which means that it would, theoretically last thirteen and a half hours before dying.

According to the battery metrics:
Cell Standby: 34%
Phone Idle: 30%
Android System: 15%
Wi-Fi: 10%
Voice Calls: 7%
Display: 7%

The big energy saver there over my previous usage appears to be having the WiFi turned off when it's not in use - it's usually up at the same level as Cell Standby and Phone Idle, and that would presumably have knocked the phone out around the ten hour mark (which jibes with my experience too).

High GPS usage also definitely burns through the battery life (but then that was also true of my Nokia). And I should note that I tend to turn the screen on when the LED tells me there's email, read the mail, and then turn the screen off again. If I'd been surfing the web a lot then that display usage would definitely have been higher.

My normal usage is also to have a charger in the flat and one in the office, so I can charge the phone in both places whenever it's running low. But it's nice to know that I could grab it when I left the flat this morning and it's still happily going (and would be going better if I hadn't re-attached to the WiFi when I got home).

Comments

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Okay, what does "phone idle" represent? Is that background activity by multitasking apps?

[andrewducker]

I _think_ it's power used that isn't directly attributed to any particular app, but is just the phone being on.

Background apps don't tend to actually use much power unless they're doing something (and I can't think of anything that I'd have running in the background doing anything).

One thing it seems to be bad for is power used that's not the CPU itself - for instance Angry Birds uses the GPU for its graphics, and thus doesn't seem to register as using much power itself.

So far as I can tell, in fact, most apps use very little power themselves. It's not like they're doing complex calculations, after all. And power used by the screen/network for a particular app is counted as display or WiFi rather than allocated directly to the application.

If I play some Angry Birds right after the phone is turned on then I've seen it go as high as 1 or 2% of battery power consumed, but that drops away as soon as I stop playing it, because it pales next to powering the communications hardware.

[recycled-sales.livejournal.com]

This is part of the reason I chose the iPhone 4 over an equivelant Android handset. Whether through optimisation because they have only one set of devices, or because it has a bigger battery, I can manage to get through over 24 hours with some decent use (checking twitter every hour at work, playing a few games and using it on the Wi-fi at home).

Whilst there are obvious advantages to Android in terms of openness and not having to use That-Bastard-iTunes, having a battery that will easily last a day is very important to me.

[princealbert.livejournal.com]

The power usage in the Desire has more to do with the 'Radio' ROM [Baseband version on your About Phone] than the main ROM. The OS can't really see what the Radio ROM is doing it runs in parallel and doesn't report back power usage.

Nearly every provider changes HTC's Baseband to suit their own network, and they seem to like to tweak the system performance variables. Unfortunately tech support and customer services never get to see the changelogs and are utterly oblivious to the effects.

On rooted phones we ran through around thirty Radio ROMs until we found around three that gave really good battery usage.

BTW the Radio ROM does the camera as well as the obvious hardware like Wifi, Bluetooth, GSM, data and GPS. This is so you can run the camera while on the phone without degrading call quality.

[andrewducker]

Aaaah, gotcha. That makes a certain amount of sense. It's a shame it's not something I can do anything about without rooting the phone.

[princealbert.livejournal.com]

Well you can read the forums and refuse to accept the Radio ROM upgrades.

[andrewducker]

Refuse to accept them? How does that work?

[princealbert.livejournal.com]

When the phone receives notification of a System/Firmware update it tells you the version number of the update and asks if you want to connect to Wifi or use 3G (Network Provider can specify in the ROM to only allow either method).

Dont automatically press the Accept button, go read up.
(Anyways you should always always always sync your phone and back up all your data before an System/Firmware Update is applied!

[dreema.livejournal.com]

I upgraded to a desire HD a little while ago, but didn't start using it as a phone till i got my hard case for it. Interesting to note, when running in airplane mode, the phone sat for nearly two weeks on the same battery charge. Granted i didn't use it much, just took some pics with the camera, played a few games of solitaire, browsed facebook and mail over the wifi, but turning off when not in use.

In average use today, it's been 13 hours since i had it plugged in, i've got 4 battery blocks used, and it's been the display (at 53%) that's used most of that.

As far as charging goes, i've got a usb car charger for it, a charger in the house, one in work (handily the kindle has the same style charger) and i've got an older one of these knocking around in my bag for emergencies.

[andrewducker]

Yup. If I go into airplane mode then I can run happily for an age with almost no battery drain.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Hm. My Wildfire will run for the thick end of a week between charges. It's pretty much permanently connected to an AP at home or work, but I rarely use the GPS. 'Tasker' has been a fine purchase in that regard.

[blearyboy.livejournal.com]

Android 2.2.1 majorly improves battery life, if that update's available.

If not, then there is a known bug in 2.2. Go into Applications->Development and turn on USB Debugging, which should stop a rogue battery-eating process from running non-stop.

[andrewducker]

Interesting. I've done that, but I thought that would only matter if I was plugged in.

[lizw.livejournal.com]

Blimey, that still looks pretty dreadful to me. I get 48 hours on the Blackberry even with really heavy use, and ordinarily more like 4-7 days. Having to charge it every day would really, really annoy me. And then there's the Kindle - 4 weeks with the wireless only turned on when actually downloading, 2 weeks if left on permanently...

[andrewducker]

Seems to be one of the drawbacks of touchscreen phones. My old Nokia also gave me much more battery life. It's definitely something to take into consideration, but nowhere near enough to have me change back.

[lizw.livejournal.com]

*nods* I personally don't like touch screens, but I can see how it could be worth putting up with the poor battery life for people who do.