The great battery test!

[ingdawg]

I know there is an ongoing post about battery life, I have read it, but given the length and depth of this test, I figured it easier to create a separate post for it. My intention here is to record EVERYTHING I do with the phone. Even unlocking it to check the time, whatever it may be, I will record it, and for how long I did it. This test will be very comprehensive. You will see all of my stats/story below. My overall goal is to help people here, Nokia, Microsoft, and of course myself to solve our battery woes. Enjoy and feel free to contribute/suggest.

So I just created an account here finally after constantly visiting and reading. I got my (Black) Lumia 920 exactly one week ago today. I have been enjoying it a lot over my original Focus. After that initial "honeymoon period" I really started to look at my usage and battery life. At first I'm thinking my battery life is "okay," getting 7-8 hours with moderate use, but I read about people getting multiple days with moderate-heavy use and even things turned on that I don't. So I start to wonder (and maybe get a little paranoid obsessive) I did a soft reset a couple of time throughout the week, and made the decision to do a factory reset. That didn't bring about any improvement whatsoever. So after reading a little bit more here I decided to slow down and do a complete, comprehensive investigation of this; here's what I'm going to do and I hope this helps people in the end:

Currently, after reaching about 10% battery, my phone is charging and almost has a full charge. When it's done I am going to use it with settings I deem "everyday necessary," but I'm going to turn off ALL background tasks at first. This is done to possibly narrow down any potential culprits. I am also going to turn off my cellular connection entirely. I am doing this to filter out the possibility of it just being network related, as I will be on Wi-Fi the whole time with airplane mode ON. My testing stats/reasons are as follows:

ENVIRONMENT: Rural, little to no data, but strong voice/sms. Room temperature for most of the test.
PHONE: Nokia Lumia 920 (Black) on at&t, ordered through the phone, has a SPECK case on it.

Settings are as follows:
RING and VIBRATE are on, all sounds set to ON.
ACCOUNTS: 2 email accounts, 1 Microsoft account (updating every 30 minutes) 1 Exchange account (updating every hour) Facebook and Twitter (push enabled in app) LinkedIn, and Nokia Account.
INTERNET SHARING: Off
LOCKSCREEN: Photo background, 1 minute timeout
WI-FI: On, a non-hidden, secure network. Set to not automatically alert about new connections.
BLUETOOTH: Off
TAP+SEND: Off
AIRPLANE MODE: ON (I am doing this to filter out the possibility of it just being network related, as I will be on Wi-Fi the whole time.)
CELLULAR: See above (My normal conditions of course would be At&t will data enabled, again, this is "baby steps testing")
LOCATION: On
KIDS CORNER: Off
BATTERY SAVER: On when battery gets low.
BACKUP: On with photos and video set to best quality. That way it's, of course best quality, and only backups on Wi-Fi.
BRIGHTNESS: Auto
FIND MY PHONE: Completely on.
FEEDBACK: Enabled
DISPLAY: Normal

Application Settings are as follows:
BACKGROUND TASKS: All off for now, with the purpose of re-enabling some of the essential ones later.
GAMES: All one
INTERNET EXPLORER: CAN use location
MAPS: Use location
MUSIC+VIDEO: All on
PEOPLE: CAN use location
PHOTOS: Use location
SEARCH: All enabled, including location

Start Screen:
I have about 4-5 live tiles on screen, but sense I’ve disable all background task (for now) I assume none of them will update as all of them have a background task for this purpose alone.
Apps: For now I will not post an entire app list of what is on my phone, but remember, I will be recording every activity and app I use and for how long.
App settings: I do have Facebook and Twitter set for push notifications, CNN for breaking news alerts, and TVShow set for reminder notifications. Other than that I don’t expect any apps to deliver notifications.
THAT’S IT! Let the testing begin! Please let me know if you think I missed something above or if you would like something included.
My phone reads 100% charged, and as soon as this post goes live (time stamp) is when it has been taken off the charger.

UPDATE 3:42 EST taken off the charger with 100% battery
UPDATE 3:52 EST unlocked went straight to EPSN scorecenter, read an article, watched a video, closed app. Went to CNN, crashed on start, has never happened before, could be related to turning off background task, which I've never done until this test. Gave up, relocked the phone at 3:55 EST
UPDATE 3:59 EST Used camera button to take two photos, unlocked phone, went to photos, deleted one, but both uploaded while doing so. Relocked phone at 4:01 EST
UPDATE 6:30 Currently at 96% battery after various activities, including audio podcasts. Amazing so far. I have decided to post my logs after all is said and done instead of constant activity updates. That being said, when I reach 90% I will be turning on some background task. Stay tuned!
UPDATE 11:19 pm 84% battery I will be turning my phone off for the night and resuming tomorrow. I will of course post my logs, but as a brief summary; I spent the night texting, checking news, weather, facebook, twitter, a few other misc. activities. All of this was spread out, with airplane mode on towards the beginning and wifi on, but at 8:30 pm I turned AP mode off with cellular on (no data connection) and wifi on. Battery saver says 2 days est. battery life (I know it's not super accurate, just saying) Will post more tomorrow.

 

[ingdawg]

Due to the constant updating, recording, it's also my recommendation that you subscribe to this post. And remember, let my know if I miss something or you want something included.

 

[ishredthecello]

Why not just do it and post the results?

 

[ingdawg]

Why not just do it and post the results?

Yes, I am starting to realize that going to my computer constantly is....annoying. I intend now to note everything with a pad and pen, then post the results.

 

[Gken]

yeah this should be interesting, People don't always give the whole rundown of how they use it because well keeping track would be pretty daunting. Keep up the good work, can't wait to see the results. Been getting about 14+ hours, depends on how much I game though.

 

[nextbgates95]

Have you had any issues with a hot battery? My battery life has been so-so, but my phone got very hot last night at 13% battery.
Sent from my Lumia 920 via Board Express.

 

[ingdawg]

Have you had any issues with a hot battery? My battery life has been so-so, but my phone got very hot last night at 13% battery.
Sent from my Lumia 920 via Board Express.

I have seen others with this issue, however other than getting warm while charging, I've never experienced a hot phone.

P.S. Getting some great, interesting results so far, will post a quick update soon.

 

[socialcarpet]

Want better battery life? It's REALLY simple.

Turn off all the things.

That's all you need to know. If you don't need it, turn it off. Most of the time I don't need location services, NFC or Bluetooth or a bunch of background services running, email checking constantly and tiles updating needlessly.

With most of that junk switched off I can use my phone all day long and still have 65-70% left at the end of my work day. With it all turned on, it's more like 30%.

If you don't really need it, turn it off when you aren't using it.

 

[cruzr96]

Very interested in seeing the results, especially for idle drain. My phone eats my battery when it's idle.

 

[Stadifer]

I seem to suffer the most battery drain when my phone is idle as well.

 

[ingdawg]

Want better battery life? It's REALLY simple.

Turn off all the things.

That's all you need to know. If you don't need it, turn it off. Most of the time I don't need location services, NFC or Bluetooth or a bunch of background services running, email checking constantly and tiles updating needlessly.

With most of that junk switched off I can use my phone all day long and still have 65-70% left at the end of my work day. With it all turned on, it's more like 30%.

If you don't really need it, turn it off when you aren't using it.

While this make some sense, I personally don't agree with it. I think the reason most of us get smartphones is to stay is touch and to have a lot of stuff done seamlessly, automatically. I don't want to be that person who gets a call when something happened two days ago, I want to know as soon as it happens. That being said I do agree with turning things off that you know you probably won't need in the day. Location NOT being one of them. I don't use location all the time either, but I sure want it on already if I do need to use it.

 

[ingdawg]

Very interested in seeing the results, especially for idle drain. My phone eats my battery when it's idle.

YES! funny thing I forgot to mention is last night when I went to sleep I left my phone on and it drained 35% overnight doing nothing! Not a lot of stuff syncing either!
P.S. Currently at 96% after about three hours. Will be posting exact logs soon.

 

[navbouy]

YES! funny thing I forgot to mention is last night when I went to sleep I left my phone on and it drained 35% overnight doing nothing! Not a lot of stuff syncing either!
P.S. Currently at 96% after about three hours. Will be posting exact logs soon.

My phone lasts all day whilst I'm using it,put it in flight mode at night,bat drains at least 35% in 7hours just weird.