Nexus one battery life

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martyyn

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#66587 20-Aug-2010 10:45

Ive had my Nexus One for two weeks now and Ive not been at all impressed with the battery life, so Im keen to find out how its my battery or expectations which are at fault.

Ive yet to get anywhere near a full day out of it without it needing to be charged. The USB charger has been a waste of time (it takes forever to get nowhere) and I followed the 'full charge, full drain, full charge' method when I first got it out of the box.

Yesterday for example, at 2pm it was fully charged from the ac adaptor. I did 20 mins of streaming BBC radio whilst in the car, 20 mins of navigation and 30 mins of music. Sent a couple of emails and texts but no calls. In the evening I spent 30 mins checking out new apps on the market and then 20 mins playing with tweetdeck for android. There was probably 30 mins of surfing in there as well and by 10pm it was pretty much empty.

I turned it on this morning and it last all of ten mins before shutting down as empty. So with what I would consider 'minimal to reasonable' use it only just made it to eight hours.

I dont have bluetooth or wireless on at all and the GPS was only one during the nav. Is this normal or should I be able to expect more ?

walt12

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#370289 20-Aug-2010 11:55

I'd consider that about normal.

Linuxluver

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#370319 20-Aug-2010 13:05

I agree. That's about normal. Interestingly, if you look in Settings and see what has been using the battery, it is almost always the display using 50% or more. It pays to keep the brightness down to as low a level as is still comfortable to use it.

Having had previous experience with smartphones, I bought two batteries and have been swapping them at about 6pm most days. I always put the most empty one in the phone when I go to bed and charge it first, in case i don't wake during the night to swap them (I almost always wake up).

I've ordered a stand-alone battery charger from DealExtreme in Hong Kong and should receive it next week.

You can charge via the USB if you keep the display off and you're not doing 3G data. It takes about 2.5 times longer than the mains charger. That's 5 hours vs 2 hours. USB is a trickle charge. I recall once using my phone as an Access Point to two tethered devices...and was plugged into USB. After two hours the battery was 2% lower than when I started....even with the screen off. Data eats power. On USB, you'll charge at most about 20% each hour with the phone doing almost nothing. On mains it's close to 50% / hour...doing nothing and screen dark.

Also, go through your apps (facebook, twitter-stuff, whatever) and turn off any background notifications you don't need. Increase the intervals on the ones you do not.....though not so much as to make them useless. No point tossing the baby out with the bath water.

At my desk at work, if I move the phone a metre to the left where I sit down, I get better 3G reception. Better reception means better battery life. Little things like that help.....though getting two batteries is really the best answer. Why ration for the relatively minor cost of a second battery?

GOOD NEWS is.....I've been on CyanogenMod V6.0 (Release candidate 3) for 3 days now...and my battery life has improved quite a lot. It's 1pm and I'm at 73%. The past two days I've made it to midnight on one battery. That is excellent: 17 hours and still 13% and then 40% battery on each of two consecutive days.

But you always have to charge overnight. I've had to do that ever since I got my first 3G data phone 3 years ago. Your're not in Voice / Txt Kansas anymore , Toto.

I always have two batteries.....and I'm an optimist!! :-)

You can buy a new battery via DealExtreme while you're ordering the external battery charger.

_____________________________________________________________________

I've been on Geekzone over 16 years..... Time flies....

martyyn

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#370330 20-Aug-2010 13:47

Thanks guys,

I was thinking of just getting a desk charger at work and it could sit in that all day. It would only be 'off charge' for a couple of hours outside of work but I would probably end up coming in in the morning with it needing to charge and defeats the purpose of having the device if I need it to be sitting on the desk !

An additional battery and charger it is then :)

[edit]
Five mins later and I have two docks and one battery on its way from DealExtreme for NZD75...cant argue with that. 4-7 days delivery so fingers crossed its here for next weekend.

bentise

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#370380 20-Aug-2010 16:18

First thing I did when I got my desire was go out and buy another charger.
I have a AC charger at work, USB charger at home and a car charger. That tells you how good the battery life is... at least HTC desire/nexus use universal micro USB for charging, unlike iPhones. And at least your Nexus One has contact points on the bottom for quick drop in charge docks, unlike its sister phone the desire which doesn't have em ><

I do frustrated at how bad the recharge times are though, especially USB. I used to have the usb charger at work and ac at home but I swapped them around because I listen to music at work and music + usb charge = no recharge like linuxlover said.

eXDee

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#370393 20-Aug-2010 17:26

Calibrate the battery. Topic on this below.

edge

edge
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#370399 20-Aug-2010 17:33

eXDee: Calibrate the battery. Topic on this below.

I'm assuming the missing link was supposed to be:
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=97&topicid=66393
??