Android help?

  • Thread starter Wilbur
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Wilbur

Wilbur

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WillyTwoScoops
I'm having some battery life issues with my ReZound and wishing to try to find out something to help that actually works.

I can kill a battery with average use or mainly texting with probably 5 minutes or so of Internet usage within 2 hours or so maybe 3. Task Killer doesn't really work for me, and I had to uninstall the google maps app because it always was running.

I'm just curious if there is anything else I can do without rooting because I have no clue how to.
 
I'm unfamiliar with android products but have you tried updating to the latest OS by any chance??
 
First off; uninstall task killer. All it does is let you close down running apps and 99% of the time those apps will then re launch themselves anyway, draining the battery more quickly.

Now what you need to do is when your battery is getting low on power go in to your settings menu and find the option to see what has been using your battery. It will also tell you how long it has been since you took it off charge. Post the results here and we can see what needs doing to help.
 
Tesla
And what phone do you have? That'd help too.
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It's a (HTC) ReZound, it says so on the first line of the post :P

HTC handsets used to be known for having poor battery performance but even so 3 hours isn't normal!
 
Missed that, my bad :P

I'd get it checked out, although if everything is normal I'd suspect that the 1.5ghz dual core isn't helping. I can't remember if you can underclock on an unrooted device but it's worth a shot.
 
I've had battery life problems with two different Android devices. Review your installed apps, particularly ones that run all the time, and decide which ones you can live without. Delete them, one at a time, to determine which one is the culprit. Yes this can take a while. Or just delete all of the ones you don't really need.

Something else which seemed to help in my case was to power the devices down completely periodically; I usually shut them down while charging.
 
Also make sure that no apps are constantly using your GPS as I find it burns through the battery very quickly while using the maps.
Some apps run in the background and use GPS for location data.
 
^ I have a widget on my RAZR that allows me to quickly toggle data, GPS, wi-fi, etc. No sense in any of those being on if the phone isn't.
 
Did you guys know that when you charge your phone via USB, the battery lasts longer then when using the normal charger?
 
I will get more information to you guys this afternoon and will explain some things that have been going on. I do have the latest OS which is ICS, and actually things work smoother but battery life blows since then (not that it was outstanding before). App wise I did delete a few last night.
 
I guess I should update to give some information. Most of the time the screen is what's taken up the most but I have it on roughly 25% brightness, only other programs I run are facebook, instagram, email app, tapatalk, and kik (which this is newest addition). My battery normally has lasted with I guess a decent amount of texting, and some browsing probably 5-6 hours, and I'm around that again after I reset my phone since I hadn't when I got ICS update.

I don't use maps or GPS but I do know I had to uninstall the updated maps because it ran all the time.
 
When you run the programs of Facebook, Instagram, Tapatalk and Kik (what is this one?), is it actually closed down fully or left running when you exit the program?

With regards to the screen brightness, see if you can use it at the minimum you can get away with, almost 0% brightness. I have a Samsung Galaxy S and I always have it on the lowest brightness, unless I am outside in the blazing sunshine.

Remember, the phone is like a mini-computer/laptop, it may be useful to shut it down at night and/or while charging. Or every so often. Especially when it runs very slowly.

If the battery is still causing you problems, you may need to look for a bigger battery for the phone. Ideally, the phone manufacturers should have better batteries, or the Operating Systems should run more efficiently!
 
Submerged
When you run the programs of Facebook, Instagram, Tapatalk and Kik (what is this one?), is it actually closed down fully or left running when you exit the program?

With regards to the screen brightness, see if you can use it at the minimum you can get away with, almost 0% brightness. I have a Samsung Galaxy S and I always have it on the lowest brightness, unless I am outside in the blazing sunshine.

Remember, the phone is like a mini-computer/laptop, it may be useful to shut it down at night and/or while charging. Or every so often. Especially when it runs very slowly.

If the battery is still causing you problems, you may need to look for a bigger battery for the phone. Ideally, the phone manufacturers should have better batteries, or the Operating Systems should run more efficiently!
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I am going to assume they still running most of the time in some shape or form. Kik is a form instant messaging, but I'm curious to delete that to see if thats really one of those things. Blackberry messenger was a battery drainer on my old phone.

I really wouldn't complain too much about battery life if it didn't take 2+ hours to charge it fully from anything under 20%. I am wondering if a bigger battery would be worth the money.

I don't shut down my phone a ton but maybe I should for a few hours a day while I sleep and see if that helps kind of chill out.
 
Pressing Back button kills app.
Pressing Home button keeps it running.

If you are on ICS or JellyBean hold Home button down for a list of all apps currently in memory, and just swipe them away to get rid/kill them.
 
Apps running isn't what kills battery. wifi and screen on is what kills battery. Never leave wifi on when you're not using it. Don't use it when you don't need to. In other words, just because a hot spot is available, you don't HAVE to connect to it.

Marginal coverage eats battery. If you find that your data is not 4G or 3G, or your phone goes into analog mode, then you're eating battery. In marginal coverage, try Airplane mode for a while. Yeah, you can't use the phone except to look at what's already in it, but it won't use high-power analog connections and signal searches just to stay connected.

I'm not sure about your phone, but I know on mine it makes a difference when leaving an app whether you "back" or "home" to get out, as someone said before. "Back" is close, "home" is minimize. I have no trouble getting through a day now unless I have to have lengthy calls at work, on the order of an hour or more of talk time. This may be your issue with Google Maps. Home out of it, it's still actively tracking your location and updating its display, even minimized. Back out of it and it stops doing that.

The web browser is sometimes different on the back vs home. Back doesn't exit the browser, it just goes back to your previous page. Don't home the browser from an active page, like Facebook; browse to a fairly static page like Google and then home out of the browser. The browser on an active page and minimized is doing a lot of data up and down.
 
Submerged
2 hours to charge fully?

A few years ago, when you had a nearly flat battery, it would take nearly 6 hours to do that.
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I have never had a phone ever take 6 hours to charge and pretty much had a cell for last 12 years. I wouldn't mind the longer charge time IF it lasted more than a few hours but so far after resetting the phone it seems to be doing back to what I was atleast used to with 5-6 hours give or take usage. It looks like I will try to swing an extended battery just to see and can easily carry the smaller battery for trips.

phil_75
Pressing Back button kills app.
Pressing Home button keeps it running.

If you are on ICS or JellyBean hold Home button down for a list of all apps currently in memory, and just swipe them away to get rid/kill them.
Click to expand...

I will keep that in mind when I'm playing around, it's weird how things like that work. Normally without having knowledge I would assume closing the app period would kill it but I'm wrong.
 

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