Why my Lumia 900 battery performance is so bad.

[paradox-sj]

With a little testing I was able to figure out what is eating up the battery on my Lumia 900. My phone was discharging at an average rate 400-434mA (charging at 55mA). I figured it was one of the radios in the device i.e wirless, Bluetooth cellular or some combination. Whilst running the On Device diagnostic tool and viewing the battery status I:

?Turned on Airplane mood and checked the discharge rate (70-85mA)
?Turned on each radio separately and checked the discharge rate

During this process the discharge rate would spike but would settle back down around 90-115mA after all the radios were turned back on.

It wasn't until my phone connect to my Micro Cell (4G symbol) that an additional 200mA started to drain. I subsequently unplugged my micro cell and connected to LTE tower and the discharge rate dropped back down to the 90-115mA range. I turned back on the micro cell and as soon as it connected, boom back up it went. We have the same micro cells at work and as we know there is more 4G coverage than LTE in many parts.


So the conclusion in my situation is whenever the phone connects using its 4G radio the battery usage goes up and stays up by 3x normal rates. This explains why it takes as much as 8hr for my phone to charge and while I must leave it connected at work and at home.


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[cluberti]

https://www.google.com/search?btnG=1&pws=0&q=site:forums.att.com+microcell+battery+drain

Apparently not an isolated problem, unfortunately.

 

[sting7k]

Yea I'm not happy with the battery life either. Standby time is not great.

 

[manicottiK]

I had the same problem, but I think that I fixed it by disabling LTE. (I live in the Philadelphia market, where we don't yet have LTE.)

I did some searching and found instructions to make the Cellular settings page show a "Highest connection speed" settings. (Note: this setting offers choices of E, 3G, and 4G, where 4G means LTE and 3G means HSPA/HSPA+. That is, this setting hasn't been a victim of AT&T's marketing department calling HSPA a 4G technology. Maybe that's why this setting is normally hidden.)

Anyway, after setting it to 3G, I have much better battery life, particularly at home where I have the micro-cell. My drain rate outside of home does not seem impacted. Of course, if you are using LTE, this may not be a useful thing for you.

I don't recall where I found the instructions, but an Internet search should reveal them. Good luck.

 

[woodbane]

Hallelujah! Before we canned AT&T we had a microcell and as soon as I had it installed I noticed immediately the battery life on my Focus was shorter, MUCH shorter. Why this happens is a mystery as it doesn't affect all phones. My wife's LG phone, which was definitely a 3G model and connected to the microcell, it made no difference whatsoever.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[Archimedes]

With a little testing I was able to figure out what is eating up the battery on my Lumia 900. My phone was discharging at an average rate 400-434mA (charging at 55mA). I figured it was one of the radios in the device i.e wirless, Bluetooth cellular or some combination. Whilst running the On Device diagnostic tool and viewing the battery status I:

?Turned on Airplane mood and checked the discharge rate (70-85mA)
?Turned on each radio separately and checked the discharge rate

During this process the discharge rate would spike but would settle back down around 90-115mA after all the radios were turned back on.

It wasn't until my phone connect to my Micro Cell (4G symbol) that an additional 200mA started to drain. I subsequently unplugged my micro cell and connected to LTE tower and the discharge rate dropped back down to the 90-115mA range. I turned back on the micro cell and as soon as it connected, boom back up it went. We have the same micro cells at work and as we know there is more 4G coverage than LTE in many parts.


So the conclusion in my situation is whenever the phone connects using its 4G radio the battery usage goes up and stays up by 3x normal rates. This explains why it takes as much as 8hr for my phone to charge and while I must leave it connected at work and at home.


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Might I ask how you were able to change the settings for the 4g to 3g?

I have tried and cannot seem to figure this out, we also have the Micro Cell from ****, and it's killing my battery life....

 

[jimski]

I wrote an article about how to do this a while back. Can't copy a link on my phone, but go to www.mobilitydigest.com and type Lumia 900 Edge into search to find the article.

Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express Pro