[EnergyPlus]

Hey, rafiks: I realize it's all personal choice, but your post got me curious. I tried to put myself in your shoes, where I "never leave home without a charger of some sort." To me, that seems FAR MORE of a hassle than simply having a small, spare battery in my pocket. In fact, I don't even do that. If I'm leaving home or the office and my battery is near low or I know that I will be gone for a while, than I simply swap out my spare from the wall charger and head out, knowing I'm good to go for a long while. That seems much less of a hassle than dragging around charging equipment!

I am running the same. Willy's 705 is my fourth hybrid. I had lyricidals also. I tried the 517 and 607 radio and I haven't really noticed any great impact on my battery life . I use twitter a lot also BBM ,Berryblab ,mail,YM,Gtalk and I always ended up draining my battery.

So I learned just to live with. I always bring a charger ,a usb cable and a car charger. I just charge the thing whenever I can . For me having an extra battery is just a hassle.

Also whenever there is a bad 3g signal ,I just switch it off or use the wifi. Helps a lot.

[1812dave]

Hey, rafiks: I realize it's all personal choice, but your post got me curious. I tried to put myself in your shoes, where I "never leave home without a charger of some sort." To me, that seems FAR MORE of a hassle than simply having a small, spare battery in my pocket. In fact, I don't even do that. If I'm leaving home or the office and my battery is near low or I know that I will be gone for a while, than I simply swap out my spare from the wall charger and head out, knowing I'm good to go for a long while. That seems much less of a hassle than dragging around charging equipment!

OTOH, if someone is expecting ACTUAL PHONE CALLS (or wishes to make an outgoing call) , having to wait from 2 to 10 minutes for the phone to reboot is a deal breaker. eh??

[EnergyPlus]

Nahh...for me, not really. I'm conscious of it, but figure if someone just HAPPENS to call during the 7:30 bootup time, they'll leave a message. I plan this so that I'm rarely replacing the battery during peak times when messages are more critical to my work. If I think that an important call may come in, then I'll plug the phone into my computer to charge while on, but otherwise, it's just not that critical while I'm preparing to head out for the day. Besides, I'm at home or home office when I'm replacing the battery so if I want to initiate a call during those few minutes, I just use my landline. The bottom line though, I'd much prefer the relatively minor hassle of waiting for a reboot than to carry CHARGERS around with me, LOL.

OTOH, if someone is expecting ACTUAL PHONE CALLS (or wishes to make an outgoing call) , having to wait from 2 to 10 minutes for the phone to reboot is a deal breaker. eh??

[1812dave]

Nahh...for me, not really. I'm conscious of it, but figure if someone just HAPPENS to call during the 7:30 bootup time, they'll leave a message. I plan this so that I'm rarely replacing the battery during peak times when messages are more critical to my work. If I think that an important call may come in, then I'll plug the phone into my computer to charge while on, but otherwise, it's just not that critical while I'm preparing to head out for the day. Besides, I'm at home or home office when I'm replacing the battery so if I want to initiate a call during those few minutes, I just use my landline. The bottom line though, I'd much prefer the relatively minor hassle of waiting for a reboot than to carry CHARGERS around with me, LOL.

Since my phone doesn't drain as quickly as some member's of this forum, I don't bother to carry a charger in the car. HOWEVER, I've used car chargers before for other phones and find that a relatively simple way to boost the charge without requiring removing the back of the phone or knocking the phone off line (not to mention the expense of extra batteries). Since I keep an inverter in our vehicles I don't need to spend money on car chargers--the home charger can be used in our vehicles and those are always included with the purchase of a cell phone. I can spend literally 2 hours + on phone calls, plus use my S2 for other things and still don't dip below 50% in 12 hours.

I still maintain that the reason many members here complain about battery life is because they've loaded their phones to the gills with utilities that suck the life out of their batteries. Or perhaps non-utility apps that also drain the battery, such as Latitude and social apps. Since I keep in touch with family and friends via SMS and BBM only, I don't use any of the other social apps.

Bottom line: I don't have a "magic battery". It's all about the app load...

[pilsbury]

You ought to use an iPhone or Ipod touch for two hours solid.

[rafiks]

OTOH, if someone is expecting ACTUAL PHONE CALLS (or wishes to make an outgoing call) , having to wait from 2 to 10 minutes for the phone to reboot is a deal breaker. eh??

Yeah,boot time is also slow. Not to mention I have to take it out of the case and oh btw, where do I charge the spare battery?

I have an external USB battery that works with my N95 before but it can't keep up with the storm's power draw. Really sucks! pun intended!

[1812dave]

Yeah,boot time is also slow. Not to mention I have to take it out of the case and oh btw, where do I charge the spare battery?

I have an external USB battery that works with my N95 before but it can't keep up with the storm's power draw. Really sucks! pun intended!

you can buy a spare-battery charger (there used to be on on this site--I haven't checked in a while).

[1812dave]

You ought to use an iPhone or Ipod touch for two hours solid.

what's your point? I have a Touch and can use it for more than 5 hours of video, or ROUGHLY 3.5-4 hours of internet usage.

[dannynixon]

My wifes Iphone battery is appauling. She has far less battery than my S2 at the end of the day and she is not a particularly heavy user. She asked me the other day why her phone says 3G in the corner...

[Arelunde]

I've been using a 2600 extended battery because the stock one would be down to 25 percent after about 4-6 hours of virtually no use. However, after I had some major brick issues, I deleted the Pocket Informant app that I've had for a long, long time. Lo! My standard battery now lasts and lasts and lasts! I'm stunned, because I didn't have the PI app running in the background. Who knows??

However, I'm not sure if it was the PI program itself, or the fact it apparently didn't load properly and I had two versions of the main program on my BB - despite several attempts to load it correctly. This turned out to be the cause of my bricked BB problems.

Just for the record, even with the 2600 battery, I have all apps off (that can be turned off), no GPS other than 911, no radio, and weather updates every couple of hours. I'm very surprised that there is this much difference without the PI, but it could have just been the bad download issue.

[1812dave]

I've been using a 2600 extended battery because the stock one would be down to 25 percent after about 4-6 hours of virtually no use. However, after I had some major brick issues, I deleted the Pocket Informant app that I've had for a long, long time. Lo! My standard battery now lasts and lasts and lasts! I'm stunned, because I didn't have the PI app running in the background. Who knows??

However, I'm not sure if it was the PI program itself, or the fact it apparently didn't load properly and I had two versions of the main program on my BB - despite several attempts to load it correctly. This turned out to be the cause of my bricked BB problems.

Just for the record, even with the 2600 battery, I have all apps off (that can be turned off), no GPS other than 911, no radio, and weather updates every couple of hours. I'm very surprised that there is this much difference without the PI, but it could have just been the bad download issue.

I've repeated myself many times that some apps (or their settings) are the primary reason for atrocious battery life on a Storm, and also that 607 is NOT the primary cause of poor battery life. Your post is another example of what I've been saying all along. I wish the tinkerer-crowd would "get it" that it's not the phone, the battery, or 607 that is at the root of their problem--it's all the junk they put on their phones.

[rafiks]

Had to work on a special project yesterday with 6 others. One has a Moto Droid, another had some HTC. I had my Storm 2 and another guy had a Storm.

The Droid and the HTC both had to go on the charger. Both the Storms did not.

I have some detail about how I used my phone. Ignore if you want but here goes.

Off the charger at 0430.
Turned off Bluetooth and WiFi.
Spent 15 hours in downtown Washington, DC with great cellular coverage.

You're very lucky . Big difference here. I live in rural florida and I also don't get a signal on the place I work in.

I am at home now and I am using my wifi for 3 hrs now and I still haven't made a dent on the battery . Thank god for wifi!

[EnergyPlus]

There is a MAJOR flaw in your recital. It's serious and I believe, requires some important reflection.

FOUR THIRTY IN THE MORNING? My heart isn't even beating at 4:30 AM....I'm getting worked up just thinking about it. This points to PHONE ABUSE! I believe RIM has laws about such things lol

Had to work on a special project yesterday with 6 others. One has a Moto Droid, another had some HTC. I had my Storm 2 and another guy had a Storm.

The Droid and the HTC both had to go on the charger. Both the Storms did not.

I have some detail about how I used my phone. Ignore if you want but here goes.

Off the charger at 0430.
Turned off Bluetooth and WiFi.
Spent 15 hours in downtown Washington, DC with great cellular coverage.
Took four photos. Posted one on Buzz and Facebook.
Read and posted on Buzz for less than 3 minutes.
Got about 20 emails. Sent none.
Got and sent about 10 TXTs.
Got and sent about 5 BBMs.
Got and viewed Facebook posts for about 10 minutes total.
Took or made about 10 phone calls averaging 1 minute each.

Until the the last 2 hours, I had 5 battery bars. During the last 2 hours most of the phone calls and TXTs took place. By the time I put my Storm 2 on the charger at home my battery was down 3 bars.

That is over 15 hours with no battery problem. Obviously the Droid and HTC could not do it. I don't know their usage details.

I'm on .607.

[rafiks]

I wonder if encryption also has an impact on the battery .I'll turn it off and see if it does.

Does anybody know?

[rafiks]

How about compression ? I bet this also uses CPU cycles ..Turning off!

[rafiks]

By observation and educated guess here is how I see power usage by major subsystem:

CPU - 60%
Cellular (Transmit) - 18%
Backlight - 10%
WiFi - 8%
Bluetooth - 3%

1%:
Audio (MP3)
Cellular (receive)
GPS
Memory
Screen (not the backlight)

If this is even close to right, we see we should;
Limit CPU.
Use WiFi instead of Cellular as much as possible.
Not worry about Bluetooth and audio use.
It is OK to run Google Latitude in the background only.

Right on,CPU and the 3G radio are the ones . It's not entirely the apps . It's only the apps that uses a lot of the CPU and the ones that does network status updates a lot.

So the thing with Hybrid OS improving battery is pretty much a none issue.

[1812dave]

How about compression ? I bet this also uses CPU cycles ..Turning off!

I have compression enabled and my battery life is fantastic.

[EnergyPlus]

I have compression enabled, bluetooth on (while driving or using my headset), GPS always on, several utilities, many apps/games/etc. and my battery life is acceptable. I wouldn't object to it being a bit better, but I can almost always get through more than one day on a charge.

[PossumPete]

I keep hearing different opinions on WiFi versus 3G. My understanding is that WiFi is faster for net surfing but worse on the battery. I don't surf much with my Storm so is there any use in having WiFi on it?

[rafiks]

I keep hearing different opinions on WiFi versus 3G. My understanding is that WiFi is faster for net surfing but worse on the battery. I don't surf much with my Storm so is there any use in having WiFi on it?

On my N95 before ,the Wifi was really horrible but on my storm 2 ,WIfi is unbelievably good to my battery. So i dunno,it's got to be the hardware.

[joe_fresh]

i have been using a new battery since last thursday ,, life seems to be alot better had heavy usage yesterday still made it all day...

[bad_boy321]

I've been having huge battery issues with my 9550. I rolled back .607 to .517 because I thought it was just the OS, but I'm still not having good luck. I'm going to do a clean install of .607 w/only a handful of necessary apps and watch my drain. I lose about 6% per hour doing nothing, but if I browse a few web pages for about 10 mins, i lose about 12%-15% in 30 mins.

This is exactly the same as mine. Pain int he ****.

[Mio_Ray]

I know what I did but I do not know which of the steps actually helped.
*turned off 3G.
*made total wipe and new install of OS. (.669 no Drm, but not really relevant as it was also horrible before. )
*closing Viigo on exit (not sending to background)
*using a theme without transitions.

Now my battery lasts 3 times longer.

Can anyone ellaborate on the effect on a clean OS install rather than an update on top of another one?

Also the OS seems faster. No lag and faster tilt response.

At least I'm storming happy now.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[rafiks]

I know what I did but I do not know which of the steps actually helped.
*turned off 3G.
*made total wipe and new install of OS. (.669 no Drm, but not really relevant as it was also horrible before. )
*closing Viigo on exit (not sending to background)
*using a theme without transitions.

Now my battery lasts 3 times longer.

Can anyone ellaborate on the effect on a clean OS install rather than an update on top of another one?

Also the OS seems faster. No lag and faster tilt response.

At least I'm storming happy now.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

I know ,the 3G ...

I am thinking of getting another battery now. Maybe a 1600-1700 mAh . As far as I know this baby eats a lot of juice and no matter what setting I turn off or on or how may hybrids I install it still gonna eat up the battery.

Right now ,I uninstalled all my apps and I am only using BBM and email and I still am losing battery fast. So I'm getting that extra battery right now. :-)

[big34dd]

Let me guess you belong to verizon. It is not your phone or battery. I have the sme problem nd so does my family. I go through 3 charges a day around my area it is a tower issue they deny it but my retailer knows thats the problem. I went to 2 different areas spent 3-4 days and use the phone just as much if not more and I charge it once the night I get there. Your phone is bouncing from tower to tower. It is a known issue but verizon denies it tghey are switching towers to 3G once that is done it should be better and is not just blackberry phones. If you are not with verizon maybe your carrier is doing the same. Period It took me many ???? until I found the answer myself by the trips I took BE PATIENT I know its frustrating but I repeat its not your phone