Who Else is Seeing Incredibly Low Battery Consumption?

MattLFC

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Aside from not being able to install MixRadio onto the device, I'm absolutely loving life with my Lumia 950. I've only had it 36 hours granted, but I have to say, the battery life thus far, seems pretty incredible! I am coming from a Lumia 920, so my expectations were never amazingly high to begin with, but the 950 is so far, blowing me away.

A few points:

- I did a fresh install (learnt the hard way as my Lumia 920 with W10M was a bit of a mess from a WP8 restore)

- I have only been using 3G maximum. The 4G signal where I live is fabulous (including 800Mhz and VoLTE) but fortunately my network provider (Three UK) uses HSDPA2+ DC on 3G for most of the network, so whilst the 4G does feel a little faster, the 3G generally runs in excess of 20Mbps.

- I have Hey Cortana disabled, Edge prefetching disabled, push-email disabled (set to every 30 minutes), and kept a check on apps that may be running in the background.

- I do have Glance set to "Always On" with only date, time, and notification icons. I am used to Glance always being on with the Lumia 920, however I don't have a photo on it (with the Lumia 920 I had a colour photo as I thought if the LCD has to be lit fully anyway, it may as well have a photo to display, whereas the AMOLED screen on the 950 should use less battery without a photo).

- I have Windows Hello turned on, and have trained it at least 40 times in different lights/distances.

- When I first received the phone, it was on 46% battery, so prior to use I did charge it to 100% (it doesn't take long anyway).


Anyway, the actual usage on standby is approx 1% - 1.5% per hour! Even with a few turn on's (using Windows Hello), messages, Win Central notifications, it is hovering around 1.5% per hour.

This morning it was at 94% at 0700 and 5 hours later at 1200 it was still at 87%. That's 1.4% per hour! Now I know people may say "this should not be using any power) - but that includes Glance screen running, plus I don't have any apps set to sleep etc, just to run as normal 224/7. I always checked it a couple of times, and used Windows Hello when doing so.

Even when using the phone, the battery seems to last forever. Of course we use the phone a lot more when we have a new handset - not least on a fresh install for installing everything and setting it up. Not once has the battery drained worryingly quick!

I know there will be a lot of people criticizing the phone for it's battery life. There will be people who are unhappy with it, even if they are seeing similar to myself! I know some people will have restored from old WP8/legacy backups, and experiencing issues, and others who have not made a few changes to optimize battery consumption. There will be many people who are unable to turn 4G/LTE off because they do not have the luxury of such a fast 3G network. I'm not saying it's perfect to have to adjust a new phone to get great battery life, but I do feel these are only a few very minor changes I have made (thinking about it, there's plenty of things like Xbox etc that I've not even checked!).

However I just felt I should buck the trend of complaining about battery life, and say well done to Microsoft, you seem to created a perfectly adequate phone and OS thus far. I'm not going to say it's the best on the market, but it's far from the worst, and lightyears ahead of my trusty old 920 ever was! The fast charging is also unbelievable and there's little reason ever to run dry now. I have wireless charges all over the house, and I have not even used them, because I'm not constantly fearing for the battery.

For the record, I charged to 100% at 1500, and since then it has dropped to 98%, as we approach 1700. That includes a phonecall, a few notifications from Win Central, a news alert, some incoming emails, texts, a few whatsapps, and the use of hello on at least 8 occasions, plus the training of it a couple of times, not to mention taking a screenshot and sending it via email to pop on here.

This is my start screen incase people are wondering whether I even have any livetiles/apps running such is the low consumption lol:

wp_ss_20151205_0001.jpg
 
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ven07

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Happy to hear about the battery life :) but continue to drain the battery below 5% for this week and charge back up to 100%. Helps to calibrate
 

KrisYYC

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I'm having similar battery performance as the OP! I don't use windows hello however I do have glance screen on and several live tiles running. Went to bed with a full charge and woke up 8 hours later with 93%.

Mine is an unlocked dual SIM from a physical Microsoft store. I did not restore from a backup of an older phone. Only copied the contacts over.
 

Manmikey

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Question to OP, I see you must be uk based by your various apps so I wonder if you would mind installing the First Direct mobile banking app and seeing if it will load beyond the splash screen? On my L640 after updating 8.1 to W10M the first direct app crashed back to the start screen every time I tried to load it, that's a show stopper for me so I went back to 8.1 and I can't imaging First Direct updating their app anytime soon :(

If you could try that It and see if it loads on your W10 device that would help see if it's just me or a general problem

Thanks
 

MattLFC

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I've just tried this, and unfortunately it won't load, it shows the splash screen for literally a split second, and then dies. I also restarted the phone, and the same issue occurred. Have you contact them about this? They may not be aware of the issue since most people won't be running W10M. I'm not a customer unfortunately. :(
 

Manmikey

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I've just tried this, and unfortunately it won't load, it shows the splash screen for literally a split second, and then dies. I also restarted the phone, and the same issue occurred. Have you contact them about this? They may not be aware of the issue since most people won't be running W10M. I'm not a customer unfortunately. :(

Thanks for trying that MAttLFC much appreciated, that's exactly the behaviour i experienced too so i can now contact their helpdesk with confidence that it is their app that is the problem
 

ven07

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Thanks for trying that MAttLFC much appreciated, that's exactly the behaviour i experienced too so i can now contact their helpdesk with confidence that it is their app that is the problem

Odds are that you'll get the "w10 is currently still in beta so we will be waiting for the official launch before updating the app" or "the user base isn't big enough" -_-
 

congthanhgiong

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Maybe ms did a optimization from phone to phone, that's why it takes for ages to release official win 10 on all phones. My friend 1020,after upgrading to 10586 a few weeks ago, it's been terrible that only lasts for half a day though i tried to turn off some background app. Maybe facebook, fb messenger, line are those apps consume most power as she uses those alot.
 

ven07

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Maybe ms did a optimization from phone to phone, that's why it takes for ages to release official win 10 on all phones. My friend 1020,after upgrading to 10586 a few weeks ago, it's been terrible that only lasts for half a day though i tried to turn off some background app. Maybe facebook, fb messenger, line are those apps consume most power as she uses those alot.

(Not my theory, but seems likely) "Old phones" might have issues when too many apps are left open. Back when we had the loading/resuming bug, I developed the habit of closing off all apps (never had more than 3 apps open), because if I left too many open, I would be hit with the resuming bug more often.

This habit has stuck with me ever since. So maybe try that and check if it has an impact on battery life
 

JasonKruys

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Thanks for trying that MAttLFC much appreciated, that's exactly the behaviour i experienced too so i can now contact their helpdesk with confidence that it is their app that is the problem


The 'App' is actually just a poor web wrapper - hence it fires up, attempts to load the IE engine, and fails because it is now edge....i think.
 

MattLFC

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I seem to recall reading on here, that Microsoft did branch off development for the 950/950XL (and possibly 550 though it wasn't mentioned) so the had a separate development team hastily patching W10M to ensure it was stable for the consumer release on these phones individually. Hence the insiders version for other handsets is still a bit buggy and laggy, whereas it seems nicer on these phones because they have their own optimized/patched version (or perhaps the current insider build is optimized for these phones only)?

I think (aside from Hey Cortana) restoring from backups seems to cause a lot of issues with battery as well. Hence I went fresh. A strong network signal impacts on any phone, and I've always found 4G to use more battery much like 3G vs 2G (I remember my K800i was good for a week on 2G/Edge but on 3G it was barely Capable of 2 days!). I'm lucky my network is as fast on 3G as it is on 4G, so I have no real need to use 4G, which I think helps.

There's still a lot of bugs present, and the OS isn't really ready, IMHO, for a general consumer release yet. I hope they can get it in a much better position for the 550 because that will be the first mass-market handset. A few tweaks can certainly help out. I don't like the way the OS permanently leaves apps running, it was much nicer when apps closed when you pressed back to exit them. I can understand why they did this, but personally I dislike it. The new app switcher is crud as well, I preferred the big row of cards than 4x windows, it's also a chore to push the top row down to close, unlike the single row.
 

Paolo Ferrazza

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I seem to recall reading on here, that Microsoft did branch off development for the 950/950XL (and possibly 550 though it wasn't mentioned) so the had a separate development team hastily patching W10M to ensure it was stable for the consumer release on these phones individually. Hence the insiders version for other handsets is still a bit buggy and laggy, whereas it seems nicer on these phones because they have their own optimized/patched version (or perhaps the current insider build is optimized for these phones only)?

I think (aside from Hey Cortana) restoring from backups seems to cause a lot of issues with battery as well. Hence I went fresh. A strong network signal impacts on any phone, and I've always found 4G to use more battery much like 3G vs 2G (I remember my K800i was good for a week on 2G/Edge but on 3G it was barely Capable of 2 days!). I'm lucky my network is as fast on 3G as it is on 4G, so I have no real need to use 4G, which I think helps.

There's still a lot of bugs present, and the OS isn't really ready, IMHO, for a general consumer release yet. I hope they can get it in a much better position for the 550 because that will be the first mass-market handset. A few tweaks can certainly help out. I don't like the way the OS permanently leaves apps running, it was much nicer when apps closed when you pressed back to exit them. I can understand why they did this, but personally I dislike it. The new app switcher is crud as well, I preferred the big row of cards than 4x windows, it's also a chore to push the top row down to close, unlike the single row.

Just to clarify, the apps are not running. They are suspended until the OS decides to clean them up. This means they do not do any work (no CPU - battery is used) but they are much faster when they resume. They are also ordered so that most used ones are on top in the taskview. In other words you should never be closing them unless there is a bug and you want to reset them. Really do not close them for the best OS experience. It is like when we had to stop the compulsive back-back-back to close an app and we had to learn to use home button. It took sometime to get used to it but it was for the better for both usability and performance.
 

Manmikey

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The 'App' is actually just a poor web wrapper - hence it fires up, attempts to load the IE engine, and fails because it is now edge....i think.

Thanks, That's interesting and a good explanation of the behaviour, I'll add that to my conversation with first direct when I contact them
 

Dewg

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I've had it for 1 day, but the battery life seems to be good so far. Losing about 1% or so. I'm even thinking of turning on a few features to see their effect - like "Hey Cortana"
 

MattLFC

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Just to clarify, the apps are not running. They are suspended until the OS decides to clean them up. This means they do not do any work (no CPU - battery is used) but they are much faster when they resume. They are also ordered so that most used ones are on top in the taskview. In other words you should never be closing them unless there is a bug and you want to reset them. Really do not close them for the best OS experience. It is like when we had to stop the compulsive back-back-back to close an app and we had to learn to use home button. It took sometime to get used to it but it was for the better for both usability and performance.

I hope you're correct about the background apps. Otherwise, I can see this becoming a massive problem for W10M on lower spec handsets. We always talk (joke) about task managers to close apps and memory managers in Android being the most important part of the phone, if W10M was to lose this advantage, the platform may as well be dead in general lol.
 

MattLFC

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So here's a bit more of a review of battery life... I charged the phone up to 100% last night (this morning). It came off charge at 03:00 (GMT) as I finished watching a film and went to bed. It hasn't been near a charger since! It is now 20:00 (GMT) and is still showing 27% battery remaining.

From memory, I have the following apps and services running (the apps I know (or suspect) use data in the background as they have livetiles and notifications etc):

  • Windows Hello
  • MSN Sport
  • MSN News (plus news alerts)
  • Frost Free
  • MSN Money (plus news alerts)
  • Whatsapp
  • Windows Central
  • Store (unsure if this uses anything)
  • Sky Sports
  • Glance Screen
  • 2x Email Accounts 1 checks @ 15mins 1 checks @ 30 mins
  • eBay (with notifications)
  • Windows Calendar
As mentioned in the OP, I have turned off Hey Cortana, 4G/LTE, push email, and a couple of background apps.

I've done a fair bit of browsing, using the Win Central app, a couple of short youtube/facebook videos, some whataspping and emailing etc... Please note, I don't use WiFi at all! So all data has gone over the 3G. For the past few hours I've been monitoring usage and it is as follows:

Whilst using MixRadio over 3G (using the playme option - so continuously streaming from the internet, not a downloaded mix) and streaming via Bluetooth to my hifi:
  • 17:25 - 40%
  • 17:35 - 39%
  • 17:45 - 38%
  • 18:05 - 37%
Stopped streaming (left connected to bluetooth though) to have dinner:
  • 19:05 - 36%
Started MixRadio streaming again and then after a few minutes, made a 20 minutes whatsapp call:
  • 19:35 - 29%
Finished whatsapp call, been streaming MixRadio and bluetooth ever since:
  • 20:00 - 27%
  • 20:09 - 26%
It is worth noting I was streaming MixRadio to my hifi for a couple of hours prior to logging the battery usage. I hope this gives some more idea of how the battery is handling use. After 17 hours of medium usage, the battery is still at 26%. I'd say that's pretty impressive! If you're weary of whether this phone can last the duration, I'd say there is little to worry about - but it is of course subjective to how you use the phone and network conditions.

:grin:

EDIT - After streaming MixRadio to the hifi for another half hour or so, as well as using the phone a few times, the battery is standing at 21% at almost 22:00. So that's after 19 hours of medium usage.
 
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MattLFC

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It was blocked due to "company policy" for a day or so (it's a personal phone!!) and then all of a sudden it appeared for download! See my thread in the questions forum about it 😊
 

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