Battery Life Question

[anon(123856)]

Hey All,

After using my 822 for a couple of days I have a question about the battery life. Please don't misinterpret this as a complaint, I'm just trying gather info and understand how this phone holds up battery wise. Ok, I used my 822 for the whole day while at work and I have experience with my previous phone for comparison. After 12 hrs my 822 is down to 50%. This is with a couple of texts, ten emails, two short phone calls and no web browsing. I only sync one email account and its set to push. Bluetooth was on while I commuted (say, an hour total), location and wifi have been off all day. No social networking apps. I've turned the screen brightness down and followed some of the guidelines regarding improving battery life in WP8. My last phone (an android phone) would have roughly 75-80% battery left under the same conditions and carrier. Now, having said that, my last phone was not an LTE phone and I have zero experience with LTE. I only get one or two bars at work and it switched to 3G a few times as well. So my question is: Is this about right for battery life? I've looked at a bunch of threads on battery life but I figured I might as well ask the folks the use the 822. Again, I'm not saying this is bad, just not what I'm accustomed to seeing, on my previous and admittedly much less capable phone. Thanks!

 

[stmav]

Here's a thread that tells of battery life of an 822 and WiFi. Maybe it can help some.

http://forums.windowscentral.com/wi...or-battery-life-wifi-connectivity-status.html

 

[anon(123856)]

Thanks for the reply and the link. I already had wifi turned off when I left my house because there is no wifi where I work. I tried disabling some of the other wifi settings just for the heck of it. Thanks again.

 

[stmav]

I was traveling last week and when I wasn't in LTE coverage, and it was going between 3g and 4g, my battery life was down with the normal amount of usage. At home with good LTE all the time, I usually use around 10-15% a day.

 

[anon(123856)]

Well today I used the phone in exactly the same manner as yesterday, and after 11 hrs I'm at 80% left. A huge improvement over yesterday. I turned off all the wifi options, which I didn't think would matter much as wifi was turned off. The only other thing I noticed was that when I checked location again it was enabled. I had turned it off but turned it on to goof around with the map programs and might not have turned it off when I was done playing. There's no indicator to show its status so I just can't say for sure. Does the GPS hammer the battery? I hardly ever enabled it on my Android phone either, just when I needed Google maps. If the battery life is in the ballpark of today, I'm good! :grin:

 

[boovish]

Turn off Tap+Send. Thats what did it for me

 

[anon(807977)]

My Galaxy Nexus was getting 2-3 hours before dropping dead. This 822 is a dream with battery life!

 

[anon(123856)]

@ boovish, I had already disabled that as well. I'm not sure why it got so much better, but I'll take it! :grin:

 

[anon(123856)]

@ZenPirate, My Droid Pro's battery life was ok at first. But I applied a bunch of various tweaks meant to improve battery life and they seemed to help. I don't expect this or any other smartphone to give me days of of use without a recharge. What I saw yesterday on my 822 is good and I'm happy with that.

 

[anon(123856)]

I suppose while we're on the topic, what have you guys found that hammers the battery? boovish has already mentioned tap+send. What about the GPS? Any other services that seem to promote battery drain? Speaking for myself, on Android I always found stuff to disable or turn off that didn't really impact my user experience because I never used them anyway. One thing I that I've noticed on my 822 is a complete lack of bloatware. It's great that you can uninstall stuff you don't want as well. I think I've found a home with Windows Phone.

 

[bigboy29]

The only thing that I feel can have a noticeable impact is if you let Drive+ work in the background and do not stop navigation.

Otherwise... I have 2 email accounts. Play music over BT about an hour and a half each day. Running Skype, Lync 2013, and at least 6 various other apps in background tasks (such as Amazing weather which is also on my lockscreen w. Daily forecast). Running a My Battery battery logger too. WiFi on all the time. Today I used Drive to navigate a 20 mile trip too. Two calls and texts with me browsing news and stuff at the water cooler. Still, I am down to 60% after whole day. I do agree that service quality matters. If I travel and am in low single bars, battery life suffers quite a bit.

 

[anon(123856)]

The only thing that I feel can have a noticeable impact is if you let Drive+ work in the background and do not stop navigation.

Otherwise... I have 2 email accounts. Play music over BT about an hour and a half each day. Running Skype, Lync 2013, and at least 6 various other apps in background tasks (such as Amazing weather which is also on my lockscreen w. Daily forecast). Running a My Battery battery logger too. WiFi on all the time. Today I used Drive to navigate a 20 mile trip too. Two calls and texts with me browsing news and stuff at the water cooler. Still, I am down to 60% after whole day. I do agree that service quality matters. If I travel and am in low single bars, battery life suffers quite a bit.

I'm finding that the battery life is still improving. Which is a good thing. :grin: I'm used to running my phone in a minimalist mode. I don't use any social networking apps or the GPS (my car has built in nav) so it's primarily for text, emails and phone calls. I tend to turn off anything I'm not using. I think that the Win phones not having any Verizon bloatware must help too. No junk that you don't want running in the background.

 

[nwildcat]

hi badcat, there's plenty in this folder on battery life already, but may not be that easy to find because most posts are from a few months ago. Here's the main thread on battery life that I can remember that many of us posted on initially. It contains a lot of advice about battery life and improving it on the 822.

http://forums.windowscentral.com/nokia-lumia-822/203316-4.htm


The main gist to the thread is this though - Your phone will have iffy battery life to start while it learns your behavior, it will improve some over the course of the first few days, drastically over the course of a week, and a bit more for the next week as it gets a feel for how you use your phone. If you are not getting the battery life that you expect but it's still the first few days of ownership, that's nothing to panic about. Most of us get well over a day's worth of battery life, with many, myself included, getting over 2 days worth. The two big keys are to make certain that your Cellular Connection is set to LTE and CDMA and not set to Global, as that is a massive drain. Tap & Send is the other biggie. Location, when you don't need it, can help with saving battery life. Making certain that wifi isn't set to ON when you know you won't be anywhere near a steady wifi connection is another one, since your phone will continue to search for a network, thus draining battery life. Also, take a look at your Background Tasks, more may be on that you think for apps that you don't use much or don't have pinned and that can cause a drain as well.

For myself, I don't limit my use of the phone at all, I'm a moderate user and I get over 2 days worth of battery life most times unless I'm using it heavily and then I'll get a full day. But I definitely don't have the problem with the 822 where I have to avoid using it in order to preserve battery life, which is wonderful. I keep Tap & Send off unless I'm using it, Location Off unless I'm using it (but have forgotten it's on several times and it hasn't lessened the battery life much), Wifi is on for me most of the time, I have brightness set to automatic and I keep a dark (not white) background and of course, it is set to Verizon Cellular (LTE and CDMA). Also, I don't use bluetooth. Now, I found for myself, that the thing that tipped the scale for my battery life from a day and a half over to two and a half days was turning off "Connect to Xbox" in the Games settings. I turn it on if I'm playing an Xbox game (mostly Wordament) but beyond that, I keep it off. That was the one thing that seemed to keep me from getting excellent battery life. I have that now.

Good luck. Ask questions here or in the other thread if you need more help. Hope you are enjoying your new 822.

 

[anon(123856)]

Thank you for the very detailed reply. I'm starting to think you may be on to something as my battery life has improved a lot over the last few days. Today with light use I was at 80% left after 10 hours of use. I'm good with that. I don't expect to improve on that markedly. If I can go a day without recharging I'll be happy and I'm already there. As I mentioned above I run my phone in a minimalist mode but it's really more about me turning off stuff I don't use. I have already changed Cellular Connection to LTE and CDMA because that caused issues in my Android phone as well. I had already disabled tap and send, mostly because I won't use it but as boovish mentioned, it can drain the battery as well. Anyway, thanks to all that replied and it looks like my battery life is now up to par. I have to say that now that I have a week of experience with the phone I love it. I bought a wireless charger and back for the phone and really like that too!

 

[CapitanMexicooo]

The thing that helped me out was disabling the background tasks. I disabled most of then and now I can get a full day with wifi, bluetooth, tap+send, and location on. Granted most of those features are not heavily used, I leave them on just in case.

 

[anon(123856)]

The thing that helped me out was disabling the background tasks. I disabled most of then and now I can get a full day with wifi, bluetooth, tap+send, and location on. Granted most of those features are not heavily used, I leave them on just in case.

Yeah I disabled backgrounds tasks as well. So far my battery life has markedly improved and I haven't lost any of the functionality that I need.

 

[gpstrucker]

I leave my phone in Global mode simply because I travel constantly and need to be sure the phone is connected at all times (as much as that's possible in some areas). I have noticed that the battery life has improved over time and is now quite acceptable to me. Perhaps it could be better if I switch it off of Global but I just can't afford to not have at least a phone signal. I also have certain background tasks running, such as weather information which is important in my business.

I did find that doing all of those other things mentioned really does help, but I think it's correct to say that the battery just naturally gets better the longer you use the phone. The first couple of days it drained pretty quickly, which I expected to happen. Over the past couple of weeks or so I have seen it really improve a lot. One thing I found helps is only using Bluetooth while the phone is connected to power. I only use a headset when I drive (which is most of the day) and I keep the phone plugged in to the charger while I am driving. On the days I am not driving I don't use Bluetooth, and the battery stays up for a very long time.

 

[anon(123856)]

I don't use Bluetooth all that much either. Mostly while I'm commuting so I can have it connected up with my car for hands free. I usually turn off Bluetooth and WiFi at work because I can't use either of them while I'm there.

 

[willied]

I leave my phone in Global mode simply because I travel constantly and need to be sure the phone is connected at all times (as much as that's possible in some areas). I have noticed that the battery life has improved over time and is now quite acceptable to me. Perhaps it could be better if I switch it off of Global but I just can't afford to not have at least a phone signal. I also have certain background tasks running, such as weather information which is important in my business.

I did find that doing all of those other things mentioned really does help, but I think it's correct to say that the battery just naturally gets better the longer you use the phone. The first couple of days it drained pretty quickly, which I expected to happen. Over the past couple of weeks or so I have seen it really improve a lot. One thing I found helps is only using Bluetooth while the phone is connected to power. I only use a headset when I drive (which is most of the day) and I keep the phone plugged in to the charger while I am driving. On the days I am not driving I don't use Bluetooth, and the battery stays up for a very long time.

I've tried both Global mode and LTE and CDMA mode and found no noticeable difference with mine. So I guess everyone's mileage will vary.