Battery Life

[savagelizards]

I have two Icons as well, (my daughter always copies me she followed me moving away from Apple) and she just updated last night to the developer preview. I have had it for awhile now and the battery has adjusted fine and I am getting about 2 days or so on a full charge. I used to get on average 3 days (most was 4 days). All I use it for is mainly email, texting, Internet, and FB chat and updates. Some Twitter, Instagram and of course the Windows Phone Central app. I never really use it as a phone much.
With this in mind before the update I used the battery saver option set to kick in at 20% and would charge it anywhere after 10% was left. Now I have the battery saver off (for battery drain troubleshooting purposes) but plan on testing it out again by turning it back on after this next full charge.

I have had kind of sketchy battery life since I got my Icon back in February when it first came out. I knew from the specs that the battery was kind of undersized for the screen and processor the Icon was sporting. I actually held off on the 8.1 preview to see if there were any bugs, and I was concerned about the reports of poor battery life with 8.1.

Of course, I could only hold out so long, and I installed the preview Sunday evening. Surprisingly, my battery life seems none the worse, and possibly a slight improvement form 8.0. I still charge it when I can throughout the day, but I use my phone as my primary work device, so it gets a workout. If battery life is your primary requirement in a phone, I would suggest looking for a different model, but if you are on Verizon, Icon is pretty much your only choice.

 

[DavidinCT]

After disabling a lot of stuff (wi-fi, battery sence, bluetooh, NFC, all background apps besides 3, etc), I can get through a day with normal use, 20+ texts, maybe an hour or 2 with calls, email every half hour (exchange set to sync as items come)but, if I even touch a game, i will lose 10% in about 5-10 min. Even my old 928 was a lot less than that. If I want to play a game for a 1/2 hour or so, I better have a charger with me. This is with 8.1, I got the phone the day after 8.1 came out so I upgraded it right as soon as I got it...

I'm sure when the offical version comes out from Nokia, it will tweek the settings so battery life will be better. That is months away tho...

 

[garak0410]

Moderate use, I usually have to charge around lunch and then again overnight. It is for sure not as good as I expected. Not sure if it is needed or not, but I didn't "condition" the battery...in my line of work, I need a battery charged 24/7.

 

[sagmart]

I believe on Gionee smartphones for long battery life.

 

[cbreze]

In my unscientific battery testing I've tried various apps disabled in background and have found that Cortana is definitely the biggest battery hog on my phone. I re-enabled it yesterday and this morning my icon comes off charge at 100% and within 1 hour of remaining idle the whole time sitting on a table it has dropped 11%. With Cortana disabled it would drop about 2% in the same time frame. Apparently Cortana is doing a lot behind the scenes and sucking power to do it. Ive ordered a charging pad, but seriously don't know whether Cortana is worth it for my needs. Kinda cutsie and all having her talk at me, but when I had her shut off before I didn't seem to be missing anything in functionality.

 

[DavidinCT]

In my unscientific battery testing I've tried various apps disabled in background and have found that Cortana is definitely the biggest battery hog on my phone. I re-enabled it yesterday and this morning my icon comes off charge at 100% and within 1 hour of remaining idle the whole time sitting on a table it has dropped 11%. With Cortana disabled it would drop about 2% in the same time frame. Apparently Cortana is doing a lot behind the scenes and sucking power to do it. Ive ordered a charging pad, but seriously don't know whether Cortana is worth it for my needs. Kinda cutsie and all having her talk at me, but when I had her shut off before I didn't seem to be missing anything in functionality.

You might have something else going on there. Check all your other apps, I'm running the ICON and from 6am to 11am, I used about 14% battery, this is with 10-15 min in calls(2 actuall calls), about 20 min in Weave reading news in the morning, 15-20 texts and checking email every hour or so on the phone. I have Cortana enabled and disabled all background apps besides Twitter, FB beta and Weave.

Are you in full LTE coverage or 3G ? I have full LTE (home and work but, spotty in my 1/2 hour ride to work), and if your going into 3G a lot, it does drain a lot faster, I noticed a big change when going over a family members house that had no LTE and the battery was dropping very quick...

Cortana is nice but, still a little buggy at this point, I hope they add new features to make her (it) more usefull but, when I am driving or otherwise handsbusy, she is a life saver and worth having her enabled for that alone...

 

[cbreze]

I'm solid LTE all the time unless I leave town which I have not done yet since I got the icon. I do like Cortana for nav help tho.She(it) is a def battery draw tho, no doubt. I'll just lay it down on the pad as needed and enjoy this wonderful piece of tech as it was designed.

 

[anon(7901790)]

Yes. Gaming is a huge battery drain. I was playing Star Wars: Assault Force for an hour and my phone dropped from around 80% to under 15% in that time frame. Fortunately, I could slap it on my car charger on my way home.

 

[falconrap]

In my unscientific battery testing I've tried various apps disabled in background and have found that Cortana is definitely the biggest battery hog on my phone. I re-enabled it yesterday and this morning my icon comes off charge at 100% and within 1 hour of remaining idle the whole time sitting on a table it has dropped 11%. With Cortana disabled it would drop about 2% in the same time frame. Apparently Cortana is doing a lot behind the scenes and sucking power to do it. Ive ordered a charging pad, but seriously don't know whether Cortana is worth it for my needs. Kinda cutsie and all having her talk at me, but when I had her shut off before I didn't seem to be missing anything in functionality.

I haven't had Cortana off since I got WP8.1 on my Icon. I think there's just a combination of problems that varies from phone to phone. Hopefully, an updated build along with the OEM firmware updates will cure all of this. I have seen IE 11 cause a lot of issues for me and it shows as the number 1 power draw, by far, on my phone under Battery Saver.

 

[Kristin429]

Has anyone used the built-in Fm radio on a daily basis? I plan on listening to it about 60-90 minutes about 5 days a week. In addition, I'll be texting (not moderately), not making a lot of calls, but having one or two lengthy ones. I'll also have 3 email accounts-1 push and 2 with checking new emails every 30 minutes, along with checking Facebook and local news Web sites.
Also, can anyone recommend an external battery to carry that is not too bulky?

 

[anon(7901790)]

Has anyone used the built-in Fm radio on a daily basis? I plan on listening to it about 60-90 minutes about 5 days a week. In addition, I'll be texting (not moderately), not making a lot of calls, but having one or two lengthy ones. I'll also have 3 email accounts-1 push and 2 with checking new emails every 30 minutes, along with checking Facebook and local news Web sites.
Also, can anyone recommend an external battery to carry that is not too bulky?

Nokia has some external batteries. They are also releasing a portable wireless charger.

Nokia Portable Wireless Charging Plate DC-50 - Overview - Nokia - USA

 

[RetBchBoy]

Try this;
settings>cellular+SIM>SIM settings>mode selection> LTE and CDMA
the default is Global Mode, unless you need it, that should keep your radio from constant searching.

This is my 3rd day with an ICON running 8.1 and the battery usage (Insider-Pro) went from -5.4% 1st day, to -4.1% 2nd day, to -1.8% today, average per hour per day.

Keep you eye out on Battery Saver, it's very useful. First day showed WPCentral using a LOT of battery. I uninstalled and reinstalled and now works great...

 

[anon(7901790)]

I did a hard reset a few days ago, and have seen an improvement in battery life. I also keep my background apps to a minimum. Cortana is the only background app allowed.

Speaking of background apps and choosing whether to allow or not, anybody have any info on it? When I go to allow or disallow all it says that certain functions won't work but doesn't say which ones.

 

[nasellok]

I've had the phone since launch, battery has been decent, but nothing to write home about. I would go from 7am to 11pm and have about 15% battery left with moderate to heavy usage (8-10% loss overnight). I installed 8.1 immediately when it was available, and battery life seemingly got a little worse, but not terrible, would still make it through the day.

All of a sudden, the past few days I'm getting home with like 40-50% remaining, and only losing 2% overnight. I haven't changed usage, or anything in background, or battery saver

Just very happy with this new development........2 days is within reach

 

[anon(7901790)]

I did a hard reset about a week ago and did not restore from a back up. I've noticed much better battery life on my Icon after a few days. Even when playing games. I'm running WP8.1 DP.

 

[David Hilliard]

I've had the phone since launch, battery has been decent, but nothing to write home about. I would go from 7am to 11pm and have about 15% battery left with moderate to heavy usage (8-10% loss overnight). I installed 8.1 immediately when it was available, and battery life seemingly got a little worse, but not terrible, would still make it through the day.

All of a sudden, the past few days I'm getting home with like 40-50% remaining, and only losing 2% overnight. I haven't changed usage, or anything in background, or battery saver

Just very happy with this new development........2 days is within reach

Is this still the case?

Anybody want to update their status on battery life?

 

[DatabaseMX]

Is this still the case?

Anybody want to update their status on battery life?

(Is this David H my tax guy?)
​
Background Tasks:
CNN, Battery (app), Bluetooth Tile, Bing Finance, Insider Pro (another battery app), TD Ameritrade & Weather.
Location is On. Pretty much everything else is off.

If in a 24 hour period, I do a couple of voice calls/day, handful of texting, Google/CNN news a few times, Facebook and FB Messenger ... then I can easily get 3-4 days on a 100% charge ... dropping approx 25%/day. So, in this pseudo 'standby' mode ... I would say it's pretty darn good. And really, this is typically what I do with this phone.
Now, if I take a few pictures, then of course the discharge rate is faster.

Also, maybe 1/x week or 10 days ... without changing anything I mentioned above, an abnormal (relative) discharge rate may happen - like 5-7-9 % hour ... for no apparent reason I can discern. It's maybe happened 3 times since I got the phone a few weeks ago. Some sequence of events must trigger this, but no clue here. The good news: A soft reset clears out the issue.

===

 

[spicypadthai]

Is this still the case?

Anybody want to update their status on battery life?

I did a hard reset a little over a week ago b/c I was seeing the random rapid drain. Battery life was decent for almost a week and then this past Friday I had a 40%+ drain in less than an hour so I punted and reverted back to 8.

 

[admorris#AC]

I've had the phone since launch, battery has been decent, but nothing to write home about. I would go from 7am to 11pm and have about 15% battery left with moderate to heavy usage (8-10% loss overnight). I installed 8.1 immediately when it was available, and battery life seemingly got a little worse, but not terrible, would still make it through the day.

All of a sudden, the past few days I'm getting home with like 40-50% remaining, and only losing 2% overnight. I haven't changed usage, or anything in background, or battery saver

Just very happy with this new development........2 days is within reach

That right there is the EXACT reason I can't make a move to windows phone. I've had the same experience with two Lumia 920's and the Ativ SE. Windows needs to get a handle on this problem...battery life is HUGELY inconsistent.

Sent from my XT1060 using Tapatalk

 

[tgp]

That right there is the EXACT reason I can't make a move to windows phone. I've had the same experience with two Lumia 920's and the Ativ SE. Windows needs to get a handle on this problem...battery life is HUGELY inconsistent.

Aren't you a truck driver? I would think you could have it plugged in almost all the time.

At the same time I don't want to make it sound like the issue isn't important; it is. Keeping it plugged in is a workaround of sorts, not a fix.