Android Battery Life

[patseguin Global Moderator]

Being a recent Android convert, the one thing I've noticed is that all 3 of my devices have relatively short battery lives. I can leave my iPad sitting on the couch for days and it won't lose much. I pretty much have to charge my Nexus tablets every day. Is this because of live wallpapers? I imagine they eat up more battery than static wallpapers, but do Android users tend to stay away from Live wallpapers because of battery drainage? Or, is there another factor perhaps impacting my battery life?

[Detection]

If you look in Settings > Battery it should show you what is using the most power

Generally, Screen > Wifi > BT - are the most battery hungry

I get a massive improvement on battery life by just dropping the screen brightness to 75>50%

Rogue apps can kill the battery, and live wallpapers do use more, but shouldn't if the device is in sleep mode, just when you're using it

Grab "CPU Spy" from the market and it will tell you if your device is managing to enter Deep Sleep or not, if not, disable apps until it does, that way you might find any bad apps that are preventing deep sleep

[REM2000]

well i don't use live wallpapers as its not my cup of tea but ive noticed that my Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 has about the same battery life as my iPad3, my Galaxy Note2 has amazing battery life and will easily sail through a day, two if i take it easy and not watch movies or surf the net too much. In comparison the things i do with my Note2 on a daily basis would discharge my previous phone an iPhone 4 in about 1/2 day, i.e. it would discharge at about 2/3pm where as the note will last all day and well into the night.

[Anibal P]

Don't know what you're doing with your Nexus that you didn't do with your iPad, but my rooted and CMd Kindle Fire will last days on a single charge if it's not being used, I'm guessing the Nexus is the same but you are just using it differently especially since it does some things better than the iPad.

My phone GS3 gets charged daily, Kindle gets charged every couple of days, depending on usage my Touch was charged daily or by daily, in my experiences it's the iOS devices that needed constant charging, not my Android devices, but that was because they were being used differently. Hell I could easily change one or two small things and have my phone last 2 days on a charge and still keep my live wallpaper, the kindle could easily get weekly charges, it's not the batteries, it's how you use the devices that makes a difference

[SMELTN]

Keep in mind as others have mentioned, that the difference between Android devices and iOS devices is that, when iOS goes to "sleep mode" it shuts all background apps from being able to use Wifi, so it does all the battery saving for you. The downside is, you won't get good updates/notifications, or background downloads on iOS where as you will on Android devices

[TCA]

Try using Juice Defender for your android, That should help. I used it when my battery would die faster then a black guy in a horror movie. Also, battery life depends on how much you use the device and how many apps you have running in background. Try turning off some of them and then turn off haptic feedback, adjust the brightness to a comfortable level. I don't know anything about Apple because I never owned anything from them. Web browsing tends to eat a lot of battery too.

[Growled Member]

I use Advanced Task Manager on my Android phone and I have it set to kill apps when the screen is dark. That and resetting screen brightness really helps with battery life.

[HoochieMamma]

Turn off AutoSync in Accounts/Settings

[dnast]

How much are you using these devices? You mentioned that you could leave your iPad on the couch for a few days without charging but how much were you actually using it during those times?

I only ask because you've been posting here a lot lately about your new toys. It's possible you are just using these devices more than you normally would because of the excitement of a new toy and trying to learn more about them.

[Detection]

My Transformer will last around a week+ in deep sleep but thats with it docked so it has an extra battery in there, I'd say a good few days undocked if I just wake it up > check emails > update apps > few mins browsing each day

[AJerman]

Yeah, never had an Android tablet, but I imagine something like JuiceDefender or being good at Tasker could earn you a decent amount more power. That's one thing I'll give my iPad. It's battery last for ages in standby.

[The Dark Knight]

Keep in mind as others have mentioned, that the difference between Android devices and iOS devices is that, when iOS goes to "sleep mode" it shuts all background apps from being able to use Wifi, so it does all the battery saving for you. The downside is, you won't get good updates/notifications, or background downloads on iOS where as you will on Android devices

Umm, no. I continue to get notifications for all my internet apps like Gmail, Mail, Twitter, Facebook etc when my iPad is on Standby. I don't know about app update downloads though as I have disabled automatic updating.

[c.grz]

Untouched; my Nexus 7 loses about 10% of battery life a day but I use it heavily and it loses about 35-45% a day. But I pop it on the charger every night so it's never a problem.

Off topic, but it boggles me that people just don't charge their devices when their sleeping. I've done that and never run into problems with devices not having enough power.

[Salty Wagyu]

Disabling location services gives good improvement to Android's standby time, could easily get over a week on Nexus 7 if I didn't use it, but as it is now it is usually 5 days of standby with 4-5 hours of screen time before I need to recharge.

[tsupersonic]

I use Advanced Task Manager on my Android phone and I have it set to kill apps when the screen is dark. That and resetting screen brightness really helps with battery life.

Worst advice ever. Whatever you do, DO NOT install a task manger, it actually won't help any. This has been overstated many many times by many articles online.

Turn off AutoSync in Accounts/Settings

This right here is the best advice. If you don't need autosync, turn it off and it will save a great deal of battery.

My Nexus 7 tablet lasts me 2-3 day of moderate usage (2-3 hours/day usually). My Galaxy Nexus is equally impressive on battery as well - I get 12-14 hours based on my current usage (~1.5 hr. screen time, 100-150 texts/day, phone calls vary from 5 mins/day - 2 hrs/day)

[V8nside]

WiFi off when not needed and lower screen brightness works well for me on HP Touchpad running Android..

[tsupersonic]

Disabling location services gives good improvement to Android's standby time, could easily get over a week on Nexus 7 if I didn't use it, but as it is now it is usually 5 days of standby with 4-5 hours of screen time before I need to recharge.

Location services (especially GPS radio) are only used if an app. needs it. Otherwise, it really won't consume much battery.

[Luis Mazza]

Location services (especially GPS radio) are only used if an app. needs it. Otherwise, it really won't consume much battery.

More or less, because sometimes you don't actually know that an app is using location services...

You can have great battery life on Android, but you must do a good research and track down the wakelocks that are being responsible for that. Reboot and test... :)

[Richteralan]

Being a recent Android convert, the one thing I've noticed is that all 3 of my devices have relatively short battery lives. I can leave my iPad sitting on the couch for days and it won't lose much. I pretty much have to charge my Nexus tablets every day. Is this because of live wallpapers? I imagine they eat up more battery than static wallpapers, but do Android users tend to stay away from Live wallpapers because of battery drainage? Or, is there another factor perhaps impacting my battery life?

Unlock your N4, flash a custom Kernel with UV. Biggest battery saving right there.

[Egocentric]

Having to disable features that contributed to people choosing android and reducing screen brightness to prolong battery life is crazy. I'm hoping that manufacturers start investing in battery r&d rather than trying to up the processing specs all the time.

[patseguin Global Moderator]

Agreed Newowinian.

Unlock your N4, flash a custom Kernel with UV. Biggest battery saving right there.

Why would I want to flash a custom kernel and what is UV?

[AJerman]

Agreed Newowinian.

Why would I want to flash a custom kernel and what is UV?

Custom kernels frequently contain many more optimizations and features than stock kernels. UV means undervolt, which is something that custom kernels can offer you. A lot of times you can turn down the voltage at some or all CPU states and save a chunk of power. As with any overclocking and undervolting though, how much you can OC/UV depends on your specific hardware.

[Shadrack]

Unlock your N4, flash a custom Kernel with UV. Biggest battery saving right there.

Thanks, I'm going to keep that in mind if my I find my N4's battery life to not be acceptable. Any quantitative information on how much difference running a custom UV Kernel like that will make?

[AJerman]

Thanks, I'm going to keep that in mind if my I find my N4's battery life to not be acceptable. Any quantitative information on how much difference running a custom UV Kernel like that will make?

Battery life is very difficult to put into those kind of terms because it VERY much depends on how much you use your phone and what you use it for. You can try reading some related threads on XDA and see if anyone can give you any idea there, but more than likely you're going to get an answer of "your mileage may vary".

[Davo]

Such sad-face to people recommending apps like Advanced Task Killer and Juice Defender. The folks at XDA have said these are useless since 2.2 and in some cases even have a negative impact.