How is your 950Xl battery doing?

[dbam987]

The battery life is practically non-existent on my 950 XL... most likely due to the fact I do not own one (yet - a minor detail). Awaiting to see if Verizon and Microsoft will patch things up and allow this device on their network (wishful thinking).

Off topic: Has anyone attempted to see if a Verizon SIM works on the 950 XL, despite the reports of Verizon not authorizing them on their network?

 

[pvcleave]

One thing I just noticed, My phone had dropped very quickly to 79% from 100%. I wrote my note and plugged in into my batter pack. I restarted and it now says 99%. I believe I had this issue when I first got my 1520. I remember thinking at the time I needed to drain it, not to condition the battery, but let the phone know what 100 - 0 was. I am wondering if it is just not accurately giving me battery info.

I am just throwing it out there, I know it sounds stupid, but I am grasping at straws.

 

[mdbuilder]

You know some things about lithium batteries, nice to see! My 950 XL, however, is not acting exactly like this and it perplexes me. Some of this must be a firmware issue, but some may be hardware.

Time - % complete - estimated time to charge - charge current
2:45 - start - 63 minutes - 1.8A
3:45 - 55% - 32 minutes - 1.4A
4:15 - 71% - 21 minutes - 1.4A
4:55 - 86% - 10 minutes - 1.2A
5:10 - 94% - 4 minutes - 0.7A
5:20 - 98% - 1 minutes - 0.5A
5:27 - 100% - 0 minutes - 0.4A

It takes my phone another hour or so for the charge current to fully drop down to 0.08A (which is the phone's operating current, not charge current). The takeaways here are that:
1. The phone's charge time calculation is WAY off.
2. Even at 100% the phone is far from truly being in CV mode thus is truly far away from being fully charged
3. I suspect ONE of the reasons some people are having poor battery runtime is because they think they are starting fully charged when they aren't

. That's what "they" say, but it clearly isn't true that they don't have a break-in period, they do. I've seen it on every battery powered device I ever had. Aside from the chemistry aspect many devices have a fuel gage that "learns" about battery capacity after a couple of charge/discharge cycles and frequently the very early estimates are wrong until it has had time to learn (making it appear the battery is "breaking in"). For this reason I always periodically run my batteries "into the ground" so that the fuel gage gets to see what the battery's present capacity really is. When I started the test above I started with the battery so discharged the phone refused to turn on. This poor initial estimate/learning not complete may be part of the issue I've outlined above

"CV mode" is everything below the 1.2 amp point in your table. "Full" is reached when the current required to maintain 4.2V drops to near zero + what the phone is drawing.

You must remember that the simple wall wart chargers being used here have virtually no intelligence. The actual profile of charge currents is not going to follow the ideal profile because the entire CC phase is fairly uncontrolled and just depends on the difference in voltage between the battery and the power supply.

In my other hobby I charge various packs of lithium polymer cells with a real battery charger. 4.0Ah, 6.6Ah and 8.0 Ah capacity in groups of 3 to 6 cells in series. I generally charge at 2 times capacity (2C) so for the 8.0Ah pack that is 16 amps. With a real charger the charge current will be exactly 16 amps + or - a few milliamps for the entire first 80% of capacity. You can watch the individual cell voltages and once any cell hits 4.2V the current begins to ramp down such that it does not exceed 4.2V, there is also some balancing going on between the cells to hold the charge back on a cell that is at 4.2 and let it through on those that are a few millivolts low. This particular charger has a few different modes such as fast charge or slow charge, in fast the time to charge completion is minimized and it cuts off the CV phase once the charge current falls to about 1/10th the initial value so 1.6 amps. A few minutes later after charge termination at about 25-30 minutes time elapsed the individual cell voltages will have stabilized at approximately 4.14 V. There is a slow mode which would continue dropping the current to a very low value over a much longer time to get close to 4.2V resting but that takes a while for very little additional capacity gained.

As far as "Break in" goes, there is a definite improvement in lipo performance over the first charge cycle but it only takes a small hand full of cycles. Cycle 2 is much better, 3 maybe a bit better and by cycle 5 you've basically got the best performance you will ever have...

 

[Musicman247]

The battery life is practically non-existent on my 950 XL... most likely due to the fact I do not own one (yet - a minor detail). Awaiting to see if Verizon and Microsoft will patch things up and allow this device on their network (wishful thinking).

Off topic: Has anyone attempted to see if a Verizon SIM works on the 950 XL, despite the reports of Verizon not authorizing them on their network?

Hello and welcome! Check out the 950XL hub on windowscentral.com: Microsoft Lumia 950 XL | Windows Central

There is an article and video there where Dan Rubino in no uncertain terms says and demonstrates that the 950XL will not work on Verizon. Microsoft Lumia 950 XL first impressions and unboxing | Windows Central

Also, please keep discussion from going off track. There is a thread devoted specifically to this question: http://forums.windowscentral.com/microsoft-lumia-950-xl/386522-will-unlocked-950xl-work-verizon.html

 

[kiteless]

At the bottom of the stack here. I got my phone on dreaded Black Friday here in the US. It seems to be getting better every day. Before this I had a Lumia 640 with Windows 10 Mobile latest build in slow ring on it and battery life was stellar. Before that I had a Lumia 925 the battery life was "oh kay". It got me through the day, but a heavy days use, not so much. This 925 XL is buttery and wonderful. As I said it seems to be getting better as the days go on. First day was the App Blitz and updates as someone said. I'll be holding onto mine. No way am I returning this awesome phone.

 

[Starwave]

A quick update after doing a hard reset:

My phone is currently at 70% after setting everything back up, and the estimated battery time shows 18 hours and 37 minutes.. Great!!
What I did though when I set up the phone now was to change the SIM settings.

When I first set up the phone, I had no SIM-card in any of the slots, and later inserted one once everything was set up (could this be the issue? I doubt it). However, at that time I selected the default cellular connection profile: "Ultra Mobile". I have now switched to "T_Mobile".

In the battery test I did in a previous post, where I activated Airplane Mode, the battery didn't drop a single percent in one hour, and we all know what is disabled in Airplane Mode..

So if you are having problem with battery life, please try to change your cellular connection profile. This can be found in:
Settings --> System --> Phone --> Sim Settings --> SIM1 (or SIM2) --> Cellular & SIM --> SIM 1 settings. Look for "Mobile Operator Settings".
Wow, they sure added a lot of steps to get to this setting

UPDATE: It's been one hour, and the phone has been untouched for the entire duration. The battery went from 70% to 68%! The estimated time remaining sits at "1 day" now. It dropped 10% every hour with no use before the hard reset.

 

[Ricardo Gonzalez5]

Hi,
All most the same with my Lumia ICON run WP10.586.11 The Battery is terrible bat, look at

 

[muness]

My battery life was terrible like most everyone else here. Last night I charged my phone fully, let it charge for another hour, rebooted a few times while connected to try to bump the charge. Then did a hard reset and setup up all apps from scratch all the while leaving it connected to my qc 2.0 charger. Today the battery life is amazing with lee's than 1% reported usage per hour when idle (wifi) and 5-7% or so with active usage (25% brightness).

Differences in the way I configured it this time:
* on original setup, battery was at 30% vs 100% this time
* No hey Cortana
* email sync set to 15minutes Gmail, 1hr outlook
* Facebook removed, Facebook beta installed
* only tweetium, no official twitter app
* I signed up for insider fast and got an update this morning (25 steps on boot, it said it was a configuration update). Build still says 10586.0.

So way too many variables to tell what made the difference. And it could get back to terrible tomorrow. If I were betting I'd say it was the update or a calibration bug with that's leading it to not fully charge the battery.

Update: So I just rebooted and battery went from a reported 92% straight down to 80%. I now have no confidence in any of the above...

 

[elindalyne]

Phone came off the charger at 10:45 AM. Was at 11% at 12:37 AM the next day.


Seriously, check what apps you have running in the background.

 

[Uncled1023]

http://i.imgur.com/Mtk3A0N.jpg

Phone came off the charger at 10:45 AM. Was at 11% at 12:37 AM the next day.


Seriously, check what apps you have running in the background.

Random question. What app is that?

 

[elindalyne]

Battery

 

[Lobbie1978]

I've been using the device since last Thursday, and I'm kind of feeling the battery is performing less than my Lumia 920. I'll give it some cycles though. Been really impressed with the device so far. The camera is absolutely stunning. No other device comes close to it.

 

[SpinelessWonder]

Horrible... I went out to do a photo shoot comparison against an iPhone 6S Plus... after an hour and a half the 950XL battery was down to 35% and the iPhone was at about 80%

 

[phelme]

One thing I just noticed, My phone had dropped very quickly to 79% from 100%. I wrote my note and plugged in into my batter pack. I restarted and it now says 99%. I believe I had this issue when I first got my 1520. I remember thinking at the time I needed to drain it, not to condition the battery, but let the phone know what 100 - 0 was. I am wondering if it is just not accurately giving me battery info.

I am just throwing it out there, I know it sounds stupid, but I am grasping at straws.

not stupid, mine has very rapid drop from 100% to the low 80s as well. and then it'll hang around there for a while. it's strange. you might be on to something with battery conditioning. I'll have to ask my friend who writes battery charging firmware what might be up with this.

 

[several potatos]

We should get some objective measures of these, then compare them with new battery measures when the next major windows phone debuts. Might put stuff into perspective.

 

[KickAssLumia]

@kitelessd

I moved over from a temporary 640 LTE to a 950 XL as well. I am noticing the same behavior. I would constantly brag about battery life against my wifes nexus 6. Not so much anymore .

 

[Michael Dontigney]

My battery life is so bad I cannot use wireless or plug into a computer. They do not charge it fast enough to prevent it from draining. This is with airplane mode on, glance off, NFC off. This is not just breaking in. I have never had a battery this bad before.

This sounds exactly like the WP10 issue I had with it on my 1520.... so it's gotta be the software... On he same device with WP10 my battery drained like crazy and the device was hot.... Downgaded after 4 days and same dice on WP8.1 works great and the battery lasts for DAYS....

 

[Donald Simard]

I think literally every new smartphone has a "my battery life is bad" thread less than 24 hours after the phone is released. Alternatively, I do not recall ever seeing an "OMG the battery life is amaaaaazing" thread in my life for any phone whether it is Android or iOS. Maybe the Turbo though, which it should, lol.

I don't have the 950 - but I can start a "battery is awesome" thread if it would make you smile a little J/K

 

[phelme]

Re: Rapid discharge from 100% to ~80%

My buddy who works on this stuff said it could be a couple things.

Charge levels are estimated through a hard coded "state of charge" curve. Microsoft may have botched the curve or more likely, there was a change at the production factory run that means a new curve will have to be implemented. This is apparently quite common.

The other scenario is the phone is running does the battery until a certain percentage level is reached. If the phone gets hot right off the charger this may be an indicator of that. Could be a process that kicks in when the charge state is changed. This is uncommon however.

The battery itself though is likely not the issue.

In any case my friend said this is all easily addressed in software fixes.

 

[don4law]

My battery was absolutely horrible for the first two days. It literally drained from near 100 to almost empty within only about 5 hours. Nonetheless, I read about the "breaking in" period on this thread and decided to wait it out for a bit before returning it. The battery is much better - not as great as my Lumia 640 before this, but much better and acceptable.

I have read a lot of negative reviews about battery life, if MSFT had some brains, they'd advise customers of this and other issues to expect and they would likely avoid much of the negative onslaught against the new phones that I've seen.