[stankuo]

Hi guys:

I received my AT&T refurbished bold last Friday and proceeded to upgrade the OS to .247. After using it today I've noticed that the battery life seems to be kind of short. For example, yesterday I did a overnight charge and I started to use it around 9am @ 100%. I did a few calls, but mostly chatting on and off with beejive and bbm. By 4pm, I've noticed that I have around 15% battery left. Is this normal? FYI: I've already changed the backlight setting to 60, and turned off wifi and bluetooth prior to this. I didn't disable GPS though. I'm gonna test it again tomorrow with the GPS disabled. So my question is:

1. Is the GPS settings the issue?
2. Is it because my battery still needs a "break-in" period?
3. Anyone experiencing similar issues?

Thanks!

[papped]

Constant BBM + Beejive is guaranteed to kill your battery. Try using the RIM aim app instead of Beejive for a bit and notice the difference.

[stankuo]

Constant BBM + Beejive is guaranteed to kill your battery. Try using the RIM aim app instead of Beejive for a bit and notice the difference.

Good idea. Beejive is convenient for me because I have Windows Messenger, AIM and Gtalk. I'll use those individual apps instead of Beejive and try it out though. Thanks!

[papped]

Yeah, it's mostly because Beejive has to maintain a constant data connection and updates for every little thing. BBM is kinda similar so you have a double whammie. The RIM apps use push.

[Jeffdc5]

You need to lower the light even more bbm is a battery killer and 3g is a power hog so phone calls and web surfing kills batt. Just buy a car charger and stay near a plug if you tend to be a heavy user

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[smoke921]

You need to lower the light even more bbm is a battery killer and 3g is a power hog so phone calls and web surfing kills batt. Just buy a car charger and stay near a plug if you tend to be a heavy user

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

And buy an extra battery.

[stuaw11]

Yeah, it's mostly because Beejive has to maintain a constant data connection and updates for every little thing. BBM is kinda similar so you have a double whammie. The RIM apps use push.

BBM uses such little data i doubt thats draining anyones battery. BBM uses one measly byte per character, so youre making talking avg 40-50 bytes per message. Itd take a heck of a lot of BBMing all day non stop to see any battery effect. Remember 1 MB is 1,048,000 bytes. You do the math but thats about 20,000 BBMs a day to hit 1MB. Youll use more data getting emails or visiting one webpage than ever BBMing in a day.


And i dunno if the RIM apps use push, never heard of that one. Id say they use data like beejive or any of those apps do. Maybe its more optimized for battery life, but doubtful they use push. Push is an email service, this isnt the iphone with push notification system. Everything goes through data and IM apps need a constant data connection. The only IM app Ive seen that uses anything close to push is IM+ which pushes IMs to your email so you can reply that way. The RIM apps are very basic IM apps.

[papped]

BBM uses such little data i doubt thats draining anyones battery. BBM uses one measly byte per character, so youre making talking avg 40-50 bytes per message. Itd take a heck of a lot of BBMing all day non stop to see any battery effect. Remember 1 MB is 1,048,000 bytes. You do the math but thats about 20,000 BBMs a day to hit 1MB. Youll use more data getting emails or visiting one webpage than ever BBMing in a day.

It's not the amount of data that determines battery drain. Beejive murders battery with it's minute status updates and all the other little things it does.

It's the frequency and the method it uses for the data transfer. But hey, don't take my word for it. I'm not trying to convince anyone nor do I care.

[stuaw11]

well you said BBM kills the battery which just isnt true. Ive sent/received hundreds of BBMs in a day and it uses minimal battery. The screen being on to read/type the message prob uses more battery life than the messages themselves. BBM is always connected if you have it installed.

And yes the data amount does matter too besides polling, it determines how long the connection is active and the load on the battery from sending that amount of data. Equate this to push email. If user A is polling at 5 min but sending a 5mb attachment, and user B is polling every 1 min but only sending a 1kb message, whose using more battery? I can tell you A is even though theyre polling less, but that connection has to be open quite a while to deliver the bigger file. Size of the message is the other factor besides polling interval.

Sending 40 or 50 bytes over a 3g connection means the connection is active for a split second literally isnt killing the battery. Ive never heard anyone say BBM kills their battery. I BBM prob 200 in and out a day with emails coming in and light web use and end the day 16 hours later with about 70% battery left.

And also i dont use Beejive, but there is supposedly a battery save feature which will change the polling time when youre in idle. I know instango has something similar which i do use. Any IM app is going to suck the juice because they have to poll AIM/yahoo/etc servers to get notification of the IMs, RIMs apps are no different nor use anything push.


To the OP, if the phone is new it will get better with break-in time. If you dont need to be constantly connected to IM then exit the program when youre not using it. theres really no good way to stay connected all day and have good battery life (if you have unlimited texts some IM programs will forward IMs as texts and let you reply which is easier on the battery though). Turning off gps all together likely wont give you any noticeable battery increase as long as youre not running a gps program or google maps in the background using it.

[papped]

Search a little better... There's multiple posts on this board from different people stating BBM kills their battery.

Now you choosing to believe it or not, who cares. But don't say no one says it
Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[stuaw11]

BBM works through RIMs server which is a push IM as you say it, theres no polling with BBM the message is pushed when its received just like BB email is.

I have researched it extensively despite what inexperienced users have said they subjectively feel their battery is doing- the technology speaks for itself. It uses negligible battery life compared to email, gps, IM, or even the screen being on- most of the phone's functions.

BBM alone will not kill the phone's battery in a few hours or even a day. Theres obviously more to the story then people saying the BBM is killing their battery are telling about their usage. But im done arguing a null topic believe what you will, I trust how the technology is implemented than a few subjective posts.

[JonnyIreland]

On a related topic, I've never had any battery issues with my Bold.... until yesterday, when it completely drained down to 0% in 8 hours!!
I didn't install any new software/apps or change my 'normal' usage pattern, and did not have any data intensive programmes running in background.
I hope the Bold isn't "going iPhone" on me- it also has a nasty habit of getting hot and draining the battery for no reason.

[stuaw11]

15-20 hours is more than a typical day use though. you cant expect miracles, its still only has a 5 hour talktime on 3g.

[daiver]

Yeah, I have the same issues. I'd say that I get 15 hours of moderate use and then it has to go back to the wall.

[zkyevolved]

Yeah, it's mostly because Beejive has to maintain a constant data connection and updates for every little thing. BBM is kinda similar so you have a double whammie. The RIM apps use push.

BBM doesn't need "constant connection" it's always on!

[JnglstTICAL]

I just got my bold. Switched from an 8830-WE (from VZ). This bold battery life sucks so far. I've dimmed the backlight to 10, changed the time that it goes out to the min 10-secs, turned off wifi and also blue-tooth, and it still sucks. Any other tricks?

So, I charged all night, left me house, had about a 45 minute commute to work today, received and read 5 emails (didn't send any), and typed about 40 words on bbm, get to work, and battery already down 20%. Don't want to get an extended life battery and have a thick phone like it was 1997 again. Hoping that after this "break-in" period it will get better. It's only been a few days.

[jjr2064]

I had issue with the battery life getting a max of 15hrs out of it. The best thing I have done is buy the seidio 3500 extended battery. With heavy usage I get abut 2 days out of the battery and it still fits in the standard bold case.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[JnglstTICAL]

Fits in the standard case? Awesome, I'll have to check that out. I'm running 247 right now and I'm downloading 266, seems like on the beta threads 266 has helped with battery life.

[buster3535]

@stankuo:

make sure you are properly closing unused apps. use the task switcher (hold down menu button) and close any app that shouldn't be running. note: some apps can't be completely closed (phone, browser, messages, blackberry messenger)

[JnglstTICAL]

I had issue with the battery life getting a max of 15hrs out of it. The best thing I have done is buy the seidio 3500 extended battery. With heavy usage I get abut 2 days out of the battery and it still fits in the standard bold case.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

seidio 3500 extended battery still fits in the oem case? online, all the stores say it comes with another backdoor because it is thicker....?

[njnets21]

i've had my bold for just 5 days now and i love it, but the battery life hasn't been great. HOWEVER, i wanted to post this on here because it's now 1:37pm and my phone has been with me here at work (not being charged at all) since 8:00am this morning. my battery claims to be at 95%. how is this possible? i havnt done much with it today other than some light texting and weatherberry has been updating every 30 minutes. also, watched about 5 minutes of tv on slingplayer. that isn't much, but still combined with about 5.5 hours of time away from a charger, isn't a 95% battery level a bit odd? i mean it's great, but i'm a bit owrried the indicator isnt working or something.

[njnets21]

oh, and i'm on OS .266

[bt224]

i've had my bold for just 5 days now and i love it, but the battery life hasn't been great. HOWEVER, i wanted to post this on here because it's now 1:37pm and my phone has been with me here at work (not being charged at all) since 8:00am this morning. my battery claims to be at 95%. how is this possible? i havnt done much with it today other than some light texting and weatherberry has been updating every 30 minutes. also, watched about 5 minutes of tv on slingplayer. that isn't much, but still combined with about 5.5 hours of time away from a charger, isn't a 95% battery level a bit odd? i mean it's great, but i'm a bit owrried the indicator isnt working or something.

Sounds about right. This has been a light day for my phone. Pulled it off the charger at 0500, it's now 7.75 hrs later and I'm at 90%. Running 185.

[bt224]

Fits in the standard case? Awesome, I'll have to check that out. I'm running 247 right now and I'm downloading 266, seems like on the beta threads 266 has helped with battery life.

Not sure what the issue is, but something is very wrong. 247 seems to have a battery issue for some people, so 266 might fix it. I would take a close look at your apps, and be sure you are properly closing them. Could also be a hardware issue.

[papped]

I wouldn't say the battery life is particularly great in .266 so far. The speed is worth it though for now.