Why is my Lumia 920's battery life draining so fast?

[DaxeTM]

I know, I know that there are a lot of threads on this topic, but I need some help because nothing has helped me 'till now.
I bought a L920 about 3 months ago, the thing is: It wasn't on a store. But the seller told me it was brand new (And you could see it) coming from the UK which was cheaper than here in Portugal.
So, I had the phone, I got home and charged it to 100% capacity, then, I updated its Windows Phone 8 to Cyan and guess what? After installing the new updates I had 29% battery life and I was like: WTH is going on?
So I thought: well, it must be something with the updates because the phone was very hot too.
But when I recharged it with its own charger the phone would charge about 1% per minute and don't mind me, but that's very slow for me.
Now, the phone charges at the same speed and with moderate use the battery holds up for 12 to 13 hours just texting and listening to music for 1 hour. Everytime I leave home, I have to turn on battery saving. So I want to know, is this a problem with the battery or with the phone? Because many people have been rating battery life issues and other say it is really good and I really can't stand this, because I can't even use my social network apps on the background to give me notifications, the phone will just die!
(Sorry for making ya lose ur time with such a big text).

 

[bryanibuan]

Go to battery saver and make sure you turn off apps that can run on the background that are not important. In my case, I have my battery saver always on and enabled few apps to run on background with battery saver on. The only catch is you can't make that exemption for the FB Messenger.

 

[DaxeTM]

Correct, but I've done that already and the only apps I have running on the background now are Fb; Calender and Whatsapp (including FB Messenger). I'm really desperate, ahah.

 

[bryanibuan]

That is usually normal when you buy a new phone, and the phone has been stucked for long on stores. And will take a couple of full charge and discharge before you get the full capacity of your battery. But in your case it has been three months already.

 

[DaxeTM]

Exactly, so, I reach the smae conclusion. xD
Really hoping that someone could have experienced this issue to tell me something about it.

 

[vsmh96]

You should probably have stayed away from Cyan untill Denim was available, i went to Cyan and had bad over heating (no denim at that point) till it had to get repaired. The battery can report wrong percentages after an update (at least in my case) should settle within 2-3 days. If not, get a replacement.

 

[ajayden]

You should let the phone discharge completely and switch off by itself. Then charge it back and use it. Do this 2 or 3 times and it should be ok.
Posted on Lumia 1520 via Taptalk

 

[gpobernardo]

Hmmm... 1% per minute of charging is NOT slow... that would fully charge an empty battery in under two hours, which is at par with most phones. I haven't seen my L1020 charge that fast, and I've been taking care of the battery* of my L1020 since day 1.

If your phone is getting hot and draining the battery quickly, try enabling airplane mode and see if the symptom disappears. Most of the time, that symptom is caused by poor signals, whereas the antenna is consuming more power in search of "better" cellular sites. Mobile data is also a major battery drainer.

What do you mean by "holds up"? Up to what % are you referring to? If what you meant by that is that your phone gets drained in 12 to 13 hours of "regular" use, e.g. texting and listening to music, then that's not a bad performance at all, especially for a relatively "old" phone.

But when you mentioned that your "phone will just die" with social network apps running in the background, that doesn't sound right anymore. Depending on which apps are allowed to run in the background, the phone may or may not be significantly affected -especially because allowing apps to run in the background doesn't always mean that they are continuously running in the background. Weather apps, for example, only run at most twice every hour in the background. Messaging and chat apps only "run" when a message is "pushed" to your phone.

We may need to perform some tests before we can arrive at some definite "diagnosis", whether it is the phone, the battery, or nothing's wrong at all. If you're up to it, here are some of those tests:
1. Charge your phone in airplane mode - see if it charges faster.
2. Allow apps to run in the background one at a time - see which ones will drain your battery faster. You'll have to disable all of them first.
3. Be aware of your signal quality - low signals mean more power needed by the antenna, which means faster battery drain.
4. Optionally, you can just allow all your social networking apps to run in the background, but you must allow Battery Saver to "Always run in the background". This will allow battery saver to gather enough data which will show you which of your apps are draining your battery the most.

Hope these help.

By the way, try not to go beyond a depth-of-charge of 50%, i.e. discharging or charging your phone more than 50% at a time. Higher depth of charges dramatically decrease the usable life of the battery.

*- There are many guides on how to maximize a Li-ion battery, or to prolong its usable life, but that's a different topic.

 

[DaxeTM]

Thanks for your reply.
I've charged my phone in airplane mode and it actually is faster, but not that much.
Usually I have 3G with 2/3 bar signal.
I'm going to try that out with the battery saver.
So, basically my phone will drain the battery in 12/13 hours because it's old? So imagine a Lumia 640, would it last longer than that, like a full day just because it's newer?

 

[DaxeTM]

I've done all that already and nothing seems to work, maybe it's because it really supposed to drain in 13 hours, I don't know. :s

 

[DaxeTM]

And by the way, my 620 would charge in about less than 1 hour, but then again, it must be because of the battery size.

 

[jmshub]

Doing an update is resource intensive and will not accurately reflect day to day use of the phone. And especially with the 920, every now and again, a process would hang and cause the problem you discuss, where the battery would drain rapidly while the phone heated up a lot. Restarting the phone will fix that.

The 920 was a great phone, but battery life was always mediocre. Couple that with the age and number of recharge cycles that your phone may have already gone through, and it's possible that your battery has 50-70% of it's storage capacity.

 

[DaxeTM]

Okay, thanks. Guys, I'm consindering on selling my 920 and get a cheap 930 that I saw.
Would it be a good choice? I know the 1520 is always the best in the Lumia family, but still, is it worth? I've seen people reporting problems with it and others very satisfied and I know that satisfied people usually don't report online they're experince as frustrated users do, so... I'm kind of wondering.

 

[vsmh96]

Okay, thanks. Guys, I'm consindering on selling my 920 and get a cheap 930 that I saw.
Would it be a good choice? I know the 1520 is always the best in the Lumia family, but still, is it worth? I've seen people reporting problems with it and others very satisfied and I know that satisfied people usually don't report online they're experince as frustrated users do, so... I'm kind of wondering.

That can be a hit or miss. In the end its your choice. The 930 doesnt (as i know) have a way better battery so yeah.

 

[mary beth hale]

That can be a hit or miss. In the end its your choice. The 930 doesnt (as i know) have a way better battery so yeah.

Agree. Love my 930 but the battery is no "beast". Fine for me though. Depends on what kind of user you are. It does get warm when working hard, but I have not had any major issues with mine. Screen is beautiful, good camera and it's fast.

 

[randomscandinavian]

Im wondering: What is the battery lifespan on a phone like this? Even if the OP bought it recently, it still has to be a few years old and maybe the battery started deteriorating at some earlier point if the phone had been turned on at some point?

My 920 still has pretty good battery life as long as I don't use it for anything whatsoever except calls and messages. I bought it on day one so it has been in use for a while now. It'd OK but I miss using apps for more than three minutes.

Thinking maybe a battery replacement might help. Would be fun to open it up. But those generic ebay batteries from Hong Kong may not be a good idea and an official one probably costs the same as a new 920 if one can even be found.

 

[jefbeard911]

I personally don't think it's simply a bad / old battery. It sounds like you have a rouge app draining it. My 920 is doing the same. It's 3 years old and the battery won't last a full day, but that's normal and not the issue for me. This is:

At night I go to bed with it 100% charged and its at 45% when I wake up. Not normal. Still trying to solve it.

Posted via the Windows Central App for Android

 

[Tom Snyder]

I personally don't think it's simply a bad / old battery. It sounds like you have a rouge app draining it. My 920 is doing the same. It's 3 years old and the battery won't last a full day, but that's normal and not the issue for me. This is:

At night I go to bed with it 100% charged and its at 45% when I wake up. Not normal. Still trying to solve it.

Posted via the Windows Central App for Android

I agree, till you find out what app or apps are the battery hog the problem will continue. I've had the same problem and discovered it was certain apps running in the background after they were stopped from running in the background my battery life was good, one of the worse was the Store ( Update Apps Auto) I do it myself now.

My 920 is going on 3 years now and unless I'm watching a lot of video or taking a lot of pictures battery will go for over 24 hours.

 

[cj-m]

I think, maybe, it depends on each unit itself? Like the OP, my 920 also has bad battery drain. Using Here + or any other navigation app kills my battery in a few hours, so does medium use of internet/games overheats the battery, etc. Leaving the house with a fully charged battery in the morning and not doing much except intermittent texting, checking emails and weather will leave it by 45% by the early afternoon. Battery Saver doesn't help much either.

 

[Harrie-S]

I think, maybe, it depends on each unit itself? Like the OP, my 920 also has bad battery drain. Using Here + or any other navigation app kills my battery in a few hours, so does medium use of internet/games overheats the battery, etc. Leaving the house with a fully charged battery in the morning and not doing much except intermittent texting, checking emails and weather will leave it by 45% by the early afternoon. Battery Saver doesn't help much either.

Navigation is known for heavy battery usage. Or in other words without charging during navigation you indeed have an "empty" battery in no time.