Battery Life: How heavy a user are you?

[savagelizards]

I would expect that most members of this forum would be heavier phone users. After all, if you were a light user, would your phone experience be important enough to you to join an online community?

So I have been quite confused to read some of the users describe themselves as heavy phone users and talk about how stout the Icon's battery life is. This hasn't been my experience at all. The full icon battery can only withstand about five hours or less of continuous use. If someone is coming from another phone and considering an Icon I would want them to have the right information.

So I am confused when I see self-described "moderate-heavy use" as the following:

I havent had any issues with battery drain - I go an entire day with moderate - heavy use. Start the day at 7am - through the course of the day, I streaming music for 1-2 hours, and read news on Weave, and play a game or 2 for 5-10 mins each, and I go to bed around midnight with 25-30% battery left.

So here's a comparison, based on my own experience. I wake up 5:15-5:30am. Spend about an hour on email, news, weather, WWF. Usually about 20 minutes streaming music or listening to an audiobook. Leave for the office about 7:45, making calls or listening to Audible on the way. Hit the office and start making calls and texts. Using the speakerphone from the QI charger when possible to nurse the battery back up. Leave for lunch, making calls or streaming. Maybe a few minutes catching up on WWF or news. Back in the office for the afternoon, 1-2 hours of calls and texts. Heading home in the evening, I am making calls or streaming. Usually an hour or so of mixed use in the evening, texting, calling, reading news, surfing the web or using apps. Usually by 10-10:30 my phone is plugged back in to re-charge overnight.

Of course, my cell phone is my primary phone. I don't have a home phone or a desk phone in the office. My cell number is the only number on my business card. If I am on the road and away from my QI charger, I am definitely using my external battery to keep my Icon running.

Please understand that I mean no disrespect. If I was still considering the Icon instead of already owning one I would really feel misled by some of the representations of battery life, so I wanted to ask the question: how heavily do you use your Icon?

 

[Laura Knotek]

Granted, I'd probably venture to say that you are a heavier user than almost anyone. Even those who do not have landlines at home probably have desk phones at their workplaces (possibly VoIP phones, not landlines), but still there aren't many people who don't have desk phones of any sort at work.

 

[falconrap]

I would categorize you as an extreme user. Most phones will need to be charged regularly during the day if you are making several hours of phone calls and streaming music for a couple of hours as well, on top of all the email and web usage. While mine is still less than a week old, I'm getting about 14-16 hours of use with about an hour of 3D game playing, about an hour of streaming music, 1-2 hours of web and email usage, and about an hour or two of reading (bible or books, not internet related). I have, for the first time, taken the phone down below 20% tonight and the last 10% (put it on the charger a few minutes ago at 2%) lasted about an hour and a half with some occasional reading. This phone comes off of 100% extremely fast, which makes me think the battery metering calibration needs some work. I'll see how it goes after fully charging.

With my 822, it used to perform similarly until I drained it down pretty far and recharged it. Over time, the battery got well conditioned and metering more accurate, and the phone would last all day with my normal usage, and not bat an eye. I expect the Icon will get that way as well. Have you let the battery drain down to, or near, 0%?

 

[Oliverspin]

My 928 will last 5-6 hours of heavy use (constant browsing, posting, texting, reading) but can last 12+ with light use.

 

[savagelizards]

I would categorize you as an extreme user. Most phones will need to be charged regularly during the day if you are making several hours of phone calls and streaming music for a couple of hours as well, on top of all the email and web usage. While mine is still less than a week old, I'm getting about 14-16 hours of use with about an hour of 3D game playing, about an hour of streaming music, 1-2 hours of web and email usage, and about an hour or two of reading (bible or books, not internet related). I have, for the first time, taken the phone down below 20% tonight and the last 10% (put it on the charger a few minutes ago at 2%) lasted about an hour and a half with some occasional reading. This phone comes off of 100% extremely fast, which makes me think the battery metering calibration needs some work. I'll see how it goes after fully charging.

With my 822, it used to perform similarly until I drained it down pretty far and recharged it. Over time, the battery got well conditioned and metering more accurate, and the phone would last all day with my normal usage, and not bat an eye. I expect the Icon will get that way as well. Have you let the battery drain down to, or near, 0%?

Yes I have had the phone turn of on me a couple of times but I try not to let that happen.

For comparison purposes, my last phone was a Razr Maxx and that could almost always power me through a full 16-hour day. That phone was equipped with a 3300 mAh battery, the same size Nokia gave to the 1520.

 

[Laura Knotek]

Yes I have had the phone turn of on me a couple of times but I try not to let that happen.

For comparison purposes, my last phone was a Razr Maxx and that could almost always power me through a full 16-hour day. That phone was equipped with a 3300 mAh battery, the same size Nokia gave to the 1520.

A big difference would be the carrier's network technology. Verizon is CDMA, which penetrates walls better than GSM used by AT&T. Therefore, a Verizon device will typically have a stronger signal indoors than an AT&T device. The stronger the signal, the less battery drainage due to searching for signal.

 

[anon(7901790)]

Last week while down at Waikiki and Honolulu Zoo, I went from 100% down to under 20% in about 4-5 hours. I took over 130 photos and some video, and uploading to Facebook and texting fairly often. I'm not sure if that constitutes heavy usage or not.

 

[Kage Maru]

I would say I'm a moderate to heavy user, though my usage changes day by day. Other than my lunch hour, I don't use my phone often while I'm at work, so most of my time on the phone is at home. If I'm not busy with something, I'll be on my phone reading or trying to play a game. I can go anywhere from 6-8 hours of battery life to 24 hours without needing a charge. This past weekend I went from 60% to ~13% in a matter of hours because of the amount of photos and videos I was taking.

I've always said they should have put a bigger battery in the Icon, but really any power user will usually need to charge their phone mutliple times a day if they are using anything other than a phablet type device these days. Unless I'm mistaken, regular sized smartphones with great life (like the G2) is not that common, is it? Even my roommates who both own a Note 3 plug their phones in a few times a day and all they do is play candy crush all day.

 

[cbreze]

I'm probably moderate to heavy user. I find my icon will frequently need a boost by 6 or 7pm to see me thru till midnight and my bedtime. It is my only phone tho. I was out on my kayak for four hours the other day and left the icon high and dry in my truck for obvious reasons. By not using for 4 hours I found I went to bed with 40% still in the tank. One thing I've begun to notice lately tho is sometimes I will wake up to a very warm phone. Something going on while I was asleep. This is a new thing over only the past few days. I keep it very minimal on the app installs and have not installed anything new lately. I do a reboot and this usually fixes it, but upon rebooting its down 10% from full charge. I'm hoping I don't have some ghost activity going on and this isn't going to become the new normal. Looking forward to 8.1. Love the phone but if it becomes an issue I can revert back to android as I never had such issues there. I look forward to sticking here tho.

 

[falconrap]

I'm probably moderate to heavy user. I find my icon will frequently need a boost by 6 or 7pm to see me thru till midnight and my bedtime. It is my only phone tho. I was out on my kayak for four hours the other day and left the icon high and dry in my truck for obvious reasons. By not using for 4 hours I found I went to bed with 40% still in the tank. One thing I've begun to notice lately tho is sometimes I will wake up to a very warm phone. Something going on while I was asleep. This is a new thing over only the past few days. I keep it very minimal on the app installs and have not installed anything new lately. I do a reboot and this usually fixes it, but upon rebooting its down 10% from full charge. I'm hoping I don't have some ghost activity going on and this isn't going to become the new normal. Looking forward to 8.1. Love the phone but if it becomes an issue I can revert back to android as I never had such issues there. I look forward to sticking here tho.

One of your apps is probably getting one of its background services stuck running when it shouldn't. You can always disable background tasks one at a time to see if which one causes the drain to stop. WP8 isn't immune to poorly written apps getting stuck pinging data and draining your battery. Hopefully, 8.1's tools will make it easier to spot the offenders so we can push back on the developers to fix their apps. It should also help developers spot these issues themselves before they get released.

 

[savagelizards]

A big difference would be the carrier's network technology. Verizon is CDMA, which penetrates walls better than GSM used by AT&T. Therefore, a Verizon device will typically have a stronger signal indoors than an AT&T device. The stronger the signal, the less battery drainage due to searching for signal.

I haven't heard of CDMA penetrating walls better than GSM. I do understand that Verizon's spectrum is lower frequency spectrum because it derived from the old phone company spectrum, while ATT spectrum was Cellular One>Cingular>ATT. If I remember correctly, ATT was "A" spectrum at 900 mhz and Verizon was "B" spectrum at 800 MHz. Verizon would have the edge, but both would be relatively good at penetrating walls. Worst of all was Sprints PCS spectrum at 1950 MHz.

The spectrum Sprint bought from Nextel was at 850 mhz, which is why they finally abandoned the old McCaw Cellular push to talk gear and are frantically converting those Nextel cell sites to LTE.

That said, Icon is a Verizon exclusive, so I'm a comparison between Icon users, none would be on ATT and at a disadvantage in poor coverage areas. Its an apples to apples battery comparison.

 

[savagelizards]

My 928 will last 5-6 hours of heavy use (constant browsing, posting, texting, reading) but can last 12+ with light use.

This morning, with web browsing, news reading and some posts here on WP central, I blew about 70% of my battery in less than three and a half hours:



This was not heavy gaming, like Asphalt 8 or anything, and my phone is not particularly hot. Just comfortably warm...