Battery life with WP 8.1

[agaskew]

After the latest 8.1 update my 925 average battery use per hour went up to 8%. I did a hard reset then restore from backup, now its back to 2.5% per hour. Weird.

 

[DaveGx]

What does the battery statistics really tell us? My battery life is the worst it's ever been. It dropped 40% in a few hours, mostly unused. My battery statistics shows Phone as the most used. I don't make many calls so I don't get it

 

[dicks-webos]

After the last updates on Display, Calling/SMS and so on, the battery life has improved dramatically. I charged by 820 this morning and used it for a bit of Whatsapp, email, news reading. It was on wifi the entire day. It is now down to 90% after I took it off the charger roughly 7 hours ago.

Before the updates the phone sometimes ran pretty hot, now its just cold no matter what apps I use. Either the settle in time is too long, but in any case the battery consumption seems pretty efficient now. I'm just thinking how a 1320 user would feel with such a discharge...

 

[Compiux]

OK, 2 days since my last post.
The next day after my post, battery betrayed me and died in less than 12 hours. But I used the phone a little more than usual.
Next day (Yesterday) I found an article here in WP central that was a bit old but still usefull on how to save battery. Something I found that many might not know (I was in that group) is that apparently (or at least that is what it seems to me) when you update, all your mail accounts start to update as often as possible. I had my Google account and University account to update hourly (un 8.0) and my hotmail account as often as possible (as items come) so, maybe that's why your battery is drained at a faster peace.

Yesterday, I changed it and all of them are now on the every 2 hours update and after that change, the battery lasted almost 12 hours (the change was made not at the hour 0 but somewhere in the 4th hour after disconnecting the device) At 9:45pm or so, I put the phone (which was at 4% battery) in airplane mode and today, by 5am it was still in 4% battery.

To avoid making this post longer I'll avoid details on what I did between home and office but I'll tell you this:
unplugged at 8:25am, it's 11:28am and the amount of battery drained is 28% haven't been too busy but yeah, that is promising. I am hoping for a 15 hour mark before putting it into airplane mode.

Oh and just a reminder. As much as I love Cortana, I keep her off and location services off. I only turn them on when I want Cortana to add an appointment in my calendar. (Should work offline dammit!)

 

[dubai911]

8.1 first release was a disaster
Then the next update fixed it for me on my 1520
Now the very last update got back to worst again

 

[Baiar Ali]

in wp 8(lumia 520)battery lasted the most 1 day and 12 hours!in wp8.1..with most background apps blocked(facebook+whatsapp always on)..and mostly Edge(for whatsapp) battery lasted even 2 days!Wifi uses more juice on ma phone still..more than edge/3g(occasionaly)

 

[Mafiatounes]

My became unusable since the last WP8.1 update, i disabled almost all background apps, and sync my mail once an hour with no use, i do not use my phone and take it out of charger at midnight next day at 17h when i'm back from work the battery is dead! Hope Cyan and final WP8.1 come soon i need my 1020 for vacation in Paris.

 

[Vicious Enzyme]

It would be so nice to hear from the winphone team about this issue, hate it when they go all quiet.

 

[abhishyam2007]

After messing around a bit I decided to try and disable LTE (i.e. using 2G only) and wow what a difference. I am now getting an estimated 2+ days directly after a charge and the phone has lost less than 5% overnight. I think perhaps the 8.1 update isn't working well with the cellular radio and is perhaps using more power than needed to transmit or keep in contact with the network. Hopefully the official 8.1 update (which includes firmware from Nokia + the carrier) will solve this issue.

True that. My 820's battery level drops like tequila shots! With 3G on I barely get one or two hours of usage. Switch to 2G and there's peace, though it still isn't that good as it was in WP8.
Also, i wanna ask, when you switch from 2G to 3/4G, it vice versa, how much time does each switch take? For me one switch takes like 40-60 seconds!!! And turning airplane mode on during switching doesn't help, though i feel i shouldn't do it.

 

[Thomas Jordan]

A few days ago I changed my email sync from as they arrive to every hour. My phone was lasting about 15 h hours before. I had tried that's test and changing other options. But nothing seemed to make much difference. Now since I changed email sync massive improvement. I am currently on 63% after 16 hours. I'm shocked at how much extra juice email uses. I know some people probably use email more than me so every hour is not good enough. But try every 15 min. I'm sure even on that setting the will be a significant improvement.

 

[Thomas Jordan]

I'm on 8.1 btw. Although I still sorted with battery on 8. So don't think this was a 8.1 problem

 

[Flying Sq]

I'm using a 928 with latest 8.1 updates. My battery usage has at least doubled. I've done a soft reset, but not a hard yet. Battery saver is showing apps like HERE drive taking a massive amount of battery, or phone taking up an equal amount, or just apps like bing news takes equally double what it used to. Also, it now takes about 3+ seconds for my phone to recognize that it has been plugged into anything, or at least for the audible feedback. Sometimes it takes up to 10 or 15 seconds. I keep as little running as possible, and only allow a few apps such as weather updating and one drive running in the background. Cortana also takes a few seconds to load as well. Touch response on tiles and the 3 buttons on the bottom is also delayed. Going to do a hard reset, and then monitor.

 

[Connor Price]

My battery life after the latest update has increased for the most part, but has become unpredictable and often I find the battery percentage is actually inaccurate. At 11:30 last night, I checked my phone and saw it had only 12% battery. I put it next to my bed and plugged in the charger. Unbeknown to me at the time, my charger wasn't plugged into the wall xD Anyway, I woke up the next morning, and went to unlock the phone. Clicked the unlock button, nothing happened. Then the phone started to vibrate, and the Nokia logo came up. I left the phone to turn on. Upon turning the phone on, it has 42% battery. Very confusing. It's gone from 12%, to shutting off, to 42%. I'm guessing these are all firmware related problems which will most likely be fixed upon the official release.

 

[Paul Verizzo]

Since everyone's experience seems to be inexplicable and of every possibility, here's mine:

Nokia 810 (T-Mobile/MetroPCS)
Ten month old 2500 mah battery, compare to 1800(?)mah factory.
Always have wifi, Glance, and 4G data on, almost everything else off.
Idle battery consumption typically has been just under 3.0% idle. However, sometimes it's as low as .8% and as high as 20%. We all know that "sudden battery drain symptom," of WP. And then it will return to a more normal range. I've just lived with it.

Yesterday I upgraded to WP 8.1. Since TM had never seen fit to release GDR3 (I think) to 810 owners, I had SIX, count 'em, SIX updates to install. I think four of them were full upgrades requiring the forever dowloading data screen. At last, the 8.1 upgrade. I had the phone charging most of the time, the battery ran very warm.

Ater removing from the charger, my battery life started plummeting. (I use Battery Sense app.) Oh, damn! Then, as others have reported, different battery reporting devices showing different percent remaining!

I did a soft reset and stopped the majority of apps from running in the background. I'm a low app user, no FB, blah blah. Pretty soon went to bed with the phone on charger as usual.

One hour after unplugging the charger, my discharge rate was the old 2.9%! Woo hoo! At two hours, back to the old .8%!!! Triple woo hoo!

I don't know if this has anything to do with the alleged "tweaked" 8.1 or not, but obviously I'm happy. (I mostly wanted notifications on my Glance screen. Maybe I'll start playing with Cortana, but after the last gf seriously knee capped me recently, I'm a bit skittish about putting my heart out there again.

So, I guess the bottom line is, one more experience to add to the inconsistency. Perhaps some of the early 8.1 adapters might get a more recent version and find the battery issue solved?

 

[Madeye234]

I'm curious if the posters back in 4.15.2014 thread who say they got good or better battery life with the 8.1 DP can say the same three months later.. let us know!

 

[Will6371]

I'm curious if the posters back in 4.15.2014 thread who say they got good or better battery life with the 8.1 DP can say the same three months later.. let us know!

Yes I can.

 

[chezm]

The last two days I've had a massive battery drain using Nokia mixradio, I'm talking 1 hr losing 40% and only using mixradio(driving home from work).

 

[engineermoore]

My phone was in for repair but I have it back now and one of its first tasks was to give me directions around a city I do not know. All the updates had been installed yet using here drive+ the phone got incredibly hot and the battery was draining at a phenomenal rate. It was plugged in to my car charger and was still draining at about 1% every few minutes! I have done a full reset now so hopefully it was just a bug. I am using a Lumia 820.

 

[anon(5969054)]

I notice the most drainage when using the phone..

I compared the automatic brightness to a wp8.0 phone from my sister, and I noticed mine is much brighter all the time.

Can anyone confirm this? This could be the reason why wp8.1 seems to drain much faster when using it.

 

[sharadh]

I notice the most drainage when using the phone..

I compared the automatic brightness to a wp8.0 phone from my sister, and I noticed mine is much brighter all the time.

Can anyone confirm this? This could be the reason why wp8.1 seems to drain much faster when using it.

yes it is much brighter than in wp8!