Battery life with WP 8.1

masterbarata

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I am curious to know what are the impacts of WP 8.1 on the battery life of lumia 520? As I currently have already some problems with its battery life, I am wondering if the 8.1 makes it even worse or if the effect is only marginal.

Thanks in advance!
 

gumblecosby

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All signs point to it being worse even after a hard reset. I configured my WP 8.1 install as closely as I could have it to WP8. I disabled the same background tasks and any new features that could be toggled off that also ran in the background. A very rough estimate points to an extra 25% drain over the length of the charge. Edit: This is on a Lumia 520

Anybody with any good news?
 
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DennisvdG

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My 920 seems to have gotten worse too, granted this is the first day so lets hope it's just my imagination or something :(
 

jasqid

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Oh no. My phone was on the charge stand all night. Wok up 30 minutes ago and battery is at 50%! It has fallen like a rock!

I did a hard reset last night and started fresh. Before getting the update, battery lasted all day.
 

Suedezu

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My 920 seems to be discharging faster too but I think this can be due to several reasons listed below

- various apps are not updated to support 8.1 (Viber, WhatsApp, Twitter) and they may cause battery drain
- Cortana may be the biggest culprit though. I check Battery Saver and she was using the most battery although to be fair I have been playing with her quite a bit :)
- every update required a couple of discharge - charge cycles in order for the battery life to improve

Worst case scenario we will have to wait for Microsoft to release an update fixing battery life.
 

fonix232

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Am I the only one who did not notice this? I've got a 520 too, and in my experience, battery life is on par, or even better, than before. I usually have WiFi and 3G data connected, BT off, been playing around a lot with Cortana, and my phone was down to 35% last night, after update (truth is, I kept trying the Store every 10-15 minutes to get some of my apps back...). Now, it's been mostly idle (some FB chat and installing apps), and it's down to 94%
 

amrut_m

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Its too early to comment but on my 1020 the battery seems on par or a bit better,
The background tasks are a bit more organized now and offer much better controls.

For me i was continuously playing and toying with Tiles, Cortana, backgrounds etc still got more than 8 hours.
Will wait for a few days and then comment on the battery.

For now I like WP 8.1 <3
 

masterbarata

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All signs point to it being worse even after a hard reset. I configured my WP 8.1 install as closely as I could have it to WP8. I disabled the same background tasks and any new features that could be toggled off that also ran in the background. A very rough estimate points to an extra 25% drain over the length of the charge. Edit: This is on a Lumia 520

Anybody with any good news?

Please keep us updated regarding your battery life. Im more concerned with lumia 520 as it is my device. I have originally posted this on lumi 520 forum, but the topic was moved.
 

gumblecosby

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I had the luck to have a quiet night in work to charge and discharge the phone twice fully through heavy use. Then before bed I charged it to 100%. 5 hours later when I woke up it was at 87%. Previously it would still be at almost 100%. As I said earlier, I configured 8.1 to be as close as possible to my 8.0 settings. I gave GDR2 and 3 the same mercy and they responded well after a similar test pattern. I know this is a new OS entirely but 2 full charge cycles should be enough for any OS. My partner has their phone (also a 520) updated to 8.1 also. Before it would make it through the day with some ~20% left. Ill see when they come home if that is still the case…
 
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fonix232

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My partner has their phone (also a 520) updated to 8.1 also. Before it would make it through the day with some ~20% left. Ill see when they come home if that is still the case…

Given the fact that if something new is presented, people start playing around with them (more than usual), I wouldn't say it is an exact measure. But of course, again, the point would be that your phone survives the time as long as you want it to/need it to/used to.
 

Muadh Choudhury

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My Lumia 520's battery life is pretty much the same or possibly better than it was on WP8, again it could be just the apps aren't optimised for 8.1 or that people are playing around with their phones a lot more.
 

gumblecosby

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Given the fact that if something new is presented, people start playing around with them (more than usual), I wouldn't say it is an exact measure. But of course, again, the point would be that your phone survives the time as long as you want it to/need it to/used to.

I'm aware of increased usage patterns when a new update comes out. The person I mentioned doesn't care about phone updates so they won't even be aware of the update (well hopefully anyway). For my own reports, well I tried to be as impartial as possible. The only fair observation I can make is that after 2 full charge cycles the battery currently drains more overnight than before when configured as close as possible to WP8. I don't think anyone can really get anything useful from these reports since we are running beta software here. But we can still discuss it. The last thing I want is worse battery life but Im not too worried about the state of 8.1 yet as there will be stability updates coming in the future if GDR3 is anything to go by.
 

elyl

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I was getting ridiculous battery drain with 8.1, and the phone getting how. I'm in the UK and had set the region to US to turn Cortana on. I, too, realised the Location Services indicator was turning on frequently, so I switched back to UK to turn Cortana off, and my phone cooled down.

I charged my phone to 70% and left it an hour to confirm that it was fixed. I just checked there, and my battery is showing 85% charged (and that's with it off the charger).
So I think there's two issues; excessive battery drain, and the battery charge being reported incorrectly.
 

uopjo6

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Not living in US. Region set to US for Cortana with L920.

Not sure if above is the reason for battery issues it drained almost 10% in 10min when I was playing around with photos and backgrounds.

Will charge it back to 100% and test again but it's not looking good so far. Turned most of the background apps off leaving some essential messaging apps (Whatsapp / Line / Messenger)
 

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