Battery drain whilst web browsing... what % per hour?

[SanPedroUK]

Hi Folks, first post here.

Had my 930 for a few weeks now and it's a lovely piece of kit. Sooooo much nicer than my old HTC 8S.

Couple of questions...

Anybody know (roughly) how much battery drain you experience when web browsing? ie what % per hour, or something like that... I realise that different sites will use more than others. I spent a lazy morning surfing the other day and was a bit surprised to find I got a low battery warning after maybe 4-5 hours surfing, after a full charge. Is that to be expected? I got the phone 2nd hand in what looks very new condition, but I was concerened I may have a duff battery.

BTW, this was using Surfy rather than IE.

If this is pretty normal, then is there an alternate browser that uses less power? And one that doesn't auto play videos on websites. Using IE, some videos on certain websites start autoplaying which is a PITA when I'm trying to keep data usage down. Or does anyone know how to stop videos autoplaying... I can't find anything in the IE settings menus.

 

[Geo Hutchings]

Try a soft reset and if not try a hard reset my works fine i get all day and then charge at night

 

[SanPedroUK]

Thanks... battery life seems ok when not using the phone much. I can generally get a day out of it. Music playing and calls seem to cause no problems. Just the battery life on browsing... so I wondered if my usage was normal. If so, then no problem. If not then I'll try your suggestion.

 

[martan1981#WN]

4-5 hours of surfing is pretty normal that it would deplete battery. No worries.

 

[mary beth hale]

4-5 hours of surfing is pretty normal that it would deplete battery. No worries.

Agreed. Love my 930, but nobody can say it is a "beast" regarding battery life. Mine does fine charging nightly but extended browsing will certainly drain it faster.

 

[SanPedroUK]

Thanks folks.
As long as that's considered normal I can live with it. It just surprised me a little.
Anyhoo, I have gotten around this problem by buying a battery recharger of the Bay with a beasting 50,000MAH capacity. Should see me right for a few days at a time.

 

[Loco5150]

Notable is the fact that AMOLED screen in your device hogs much more power when displaying white, opposed to black. Websites are often white, as are many apps. This is why I prefer LCD IPS screens over AMOLED.

Of course thats not all that consumes battery, but the difference is quite big on that.

 

[mary beth hale]

Notable is the fact that AMOLED screen in your device hogs much more power when displaying white, opposed to black. Websites are often white, as are many apps. This is why I prefer LCD IPS screens over AMOLED.

Of course thats not all that consumes battery, but the difference is quite big on that.

Good point. I do stick to dark background wherever possible.

 

[mary beth hale]

Thanks folks.
As long as that's considered normal I can live with it. It just surprised me a little.
Anyhoo, I have gotten around this problem by buying a battery recharger of the Bay with a beasting 50,000MAH capacity. Should see me right for a few days at a time.

Great. Also, the 930 seems to drop pretty quickly from 100 into the 80s, then kind of stabilizes.

 

[areithropos]

I too wondered about how quickly the battery gets depleted on my L930, all the more while using Skype or Messenger by Facebook (both using white background).
My battery app tells me that sometimes my L 930 depletes at a rate of 25 or 30% per hour but I am not sure how accurate it is. Are battery apps actually useful?

Still, it would have been nice to have the option to upgrade battery or internal memory and the L930 would be the perfect phone, in my opinion.

 

[mary beth hale]

Yes the battery in the 930 is undersized for sure, especially with that screen. It does, however, get me thru the day so I am ok with it.

 

[MikeSo]

I have a longstanding theory that it's the web pages that have a lot of realtime updates going on in the background, like Facebook, Disqus or sites that use them, etc, combined with the white background on these pages, and the touch screen use when chatting... That it's those three things in combination that wreck the battery. If I am on Facebook chat in the browser, I can drain the battery on my Icon in 2-3 hours. :/

I get quite a lot of drain just using text (SMS) or typing in the WP Central app too though, so I personally think the main culprit is the touch screen. Maybe it just uses a lot of power when we navigate or type on it.

 

[mary beth hale]

@MikeSo...your theory makes sense. Looking back, my messaging is always right after IE in battery use. I think the fact that i don't game much and only occasionally use FB saves my battery. Thanks for the insight. Have to say though, despite a mediocre battery, I really enjoy using my 930.

 

[areithropos]

Hm, my battery drains sometimes 10% in three hours (while not using it), is that normal or do I have to try a hard reset?

 

[mary beth hale]

Hm, my battery drains sometimes 10% in three hours (while not using it), is that normal or do I have to try a hard reset?

That seems like a lot. I only look at mine over a 24 hour period,though, so I'm not sure what the hour by hour hit is. I just know mine gets me from one charge to the next every 24 hours so I'm set.

 

[areithropos]

It is different from time to time, sometimes I happen to check the idle discharge rate and it is at 1% per hour and at another time at 5%, so it is varying.

I looked at a diagram and saw that after three hours my battery had lost 10%, as I wrote the post and wondered if that is to be expected.

And the highest rates while using it for reading or gaming were at 20 or 30% discharge power hour.

If the statistics are correct I get around 15 hours out of my battery with long idle times between shorter reading sessions.

As others said, if I would read much with white backgrounds like in the MSN news app the discharge were a lot higher.

Still, it is a fine phone but the battery life seems a bit ironic to me at times.

 

[mary beth hale]

Yes. I love my 930 but battery is not "a beast" by any means. Mediocre describes it I think. I'm not a heavy user so I'm fine with the battery. I can see where it would be an issue for some though.

 

[bo_woods]

Good point. I do stick to dark background wherever possible.

I totally get that AMOLED screens are better on black backgrounds due to the pixels being completely off, allowing the screen to use less power, so of course compared to white backgrounds on an AMOLED screen, more power is used.
But do white backgrounds really drain battery faster than White/black backgrounds on an LCD display. LCD's use the same amount of power whether displaying black or white right? And AMOLED only uses power when displaying things other than black right? So of course White on AMOLED uses more power than black on AMOLED, but are whites on AMOLED really any more consuming than any color on an LCD display, because if not, then AMOLED has the advantage because

AMOLED
Black-No consumption
White/colors-Normal consumption

LCD
Black- normal consumption
White/colors-normal consumption

?????

 

[areithropos]

I just read about it on Wikipedia and they say a LCD would consume roughly the same amount at all times regardless of what they display whereas AMOLED would consume much less with black but also much more with white as backgrounds.

After all, as for the L930 I do not get why they used such a display because the display is susceptible to screen burn-ins and is stressing the battery even more besides the strong CPU which also stresses a lot.

 

[MikeSo]

I think a huge part of this equation is the network hardware in the Icon. On many of today's websites there are so many connections and updates going on in the background, which I think along with the bright screen and touch functions is what is draining the battery. Go to a site that uses Disqus and you will feel the phone heat up.