Database Develop

Battery life?

Dear all,
With a small 900mAh battery, What is the real world usage time? I mean making up to 2 hours of calls per day does it last at least 12hours before the need to recharge battery and this is assuming that 3G is on all the time. Thanks.

French network technical support say 60 hours with GPS on !!!!
I think it's joke.

Well, I've been watching the battery life on mine for a couple of days now in a reasonably scientific way and here are the early rather speculative results:
With just GPRS and nothing else on and very light use the battery drops from 100% to 80% very fast - less than an hour of light use.
Leaving it running on these settings will run it down to about 20% by the end of the working day - the drain seems to ease off aftert he first sharp drop
Powering up wifi and music for short time doesn't seem to make much difference.
Turning 3G on also doesn't seem to make the difference you would expect either.
So basically I would feel the need to take a charger with me if I left the house for the day, which will probably mean that I have to send the thing back. I've seen the coolsmartphone video review and mine isn't performing anything like that one - I would say I am loosing charge at about twice the rate.
Now the only issues that could be at work here is that I live in a lousy reception area. But could this really make such a difference?
What I would find really useful is a list of other tweaks you can make to cut power use so I can try them out. But at the end of the day it's looking like too many compromises would be needed to make this thing practical for me.

Reception would make a reasonable difference if normal network messages are being sent/received (general scans of BCCH channels, authentication with the network) - i.e. the radio isnt being used for data/voice, and only to keep registered to the network. But during those times the rest of the phone would also be in low power mode, so i would say an absolute max of 5 to 10%.
It would make a significant difference if you are transmiting data/making calls in a low reception area. I would say easily upto 20%.
It sounds to me like if you plan to use the phone much at all during the day you need a second battery. Then that turns into the hassle of how to charge the second battery every night, and i bet the desktop stand can't charge a second battery

My conclusions exactly. Impractical to say the least.
The puzzle then is why my last phone, a Nokia E51 with a 1050 mAh battery, under the same conditions, managed to last 2-3 days?
Is WM6 really that much of a power grabber compared to S60?

moonlanding said:
My conclusions exactly. Impractical to say the least.
The puzzle then is why my last phone, a Nokia E51 with a 1050 mAh battery, under the same conditions, managed to last 2-3 days?
Is WM6 really that much of a power grabber compared to S60?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Short answer - yes.
There's all these power saving features in new app processors like being able to leave the screen on while powering down the main CPU. You can use an interupt from the radio to wake up the processor etc.
Windows doesnt support half of these features, thats why find windows phones save all their power by turning the screen off. Other phones with screens just as big are alot less regimental about turning the screen off at any opertunity.
I was involved in a project once to design a smartphone and it was a really surprising how much difference there was between the windows version they suplied and an ARM version of linux.

I have HTC Touch Crouse and i have problems with battery (GPRS always on and Bluetooth) ... now with Diamond i have VERY BIG Problem. Battery Keeps less than one day ...

The experiment continues.
Disabling "GPRS auto attach" in Advanced Configuration Tool has made a big difference - still 90% after 6 hours now.
Now this is a surprise to me because I thought that you did this when you set the network seek to GSM only and not hunt for 3G. Or maybe I'm getting my GPRSs and GSMs mixed up...
Next step - leave this setting in place and turn push back on. Watch this space.

GSM digitises your voice and slots it into a time divided channel on a frequency, and marks it as voice. On the network side, it converts this back to voice and sends it on the PSTN network (for a landline call).
GPRS takes data you want to send and inserts it directly in the same time divided channel and marks it as data. On the network side the network transfers this onto the internet (or other network) through the GGSN (its essentially a router).
So GSM and GPRS use the same technology. Setting the phone to GSM only, just stops it connecting to 3g networks.
Anyway, when you turn your phone on, the tower tells it its capabilities eg GPRS. This give you a GPRS available icon. When you actually want to send data, you need to 'attach'. This is like logging into the network.
To do that you need to open a data channel and send your login details.
Normal phones will do that i.e. attach, and then go idle. The network will only log them off if they move to a new cell and do not reauthenticate.
Anyway, if you are not attached:
- When you send data, the phone will need to attach first (milliseconds delay) - unoticable.
- You will NOT have an IP address so incoming data can not reach you.
If you use pop3 with regular pull of email, it'll make less difference the more frequently you pull your email - because every time you do, the phone will attach.
If you use PUSH email, it'll make no difference because you have to remain attached (have an ip address) for push to work.
I'm sure most people didn't care to know all that but i'm sure some did!

Wow. Thanks. Impressive.
Let me try to summarise. With auto attach off the phone isn't trying to attach to the 3G network all the time which saves power. But it is also disconnected from GPRS and data networks. However this won't affect push email because it will attach when it needs to, ie when the network tells it that there is mail or I send something out. Is this right?
What about internet? Will the phone automatically attach to the data netowrks when I fire up Opera? Presumably to attach to 3G I will need to reset to automatically seek WCDMA.

moonlanding said:
Wow. Thanks. Impressive.
Let me try to summarise. With auto attach off the phone isn't trying to attach to the 3G network all the time which saves power. But it is also disconnected from GPRS and data networks. However this won't affect push email because it will attach when it needs to, ie when the network tells it that there is mail or I send something out. Is this right?
What about internet? Will the phone automatically attach to the data netowrks when I fire up Opera? Presumably to attach to 3G I will need to reset to automatically seek WCDMA.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're still a bit confused i think. Ok on a phone you have voice or data. Data covers mail, internet, weather updates etc etc, voice covers phone calls.
There are two distinct protocols here, and we need to talk about them diferently...
GSM:
With GSM calls are sent over 1 timeslot and singalled as voice.
To make a call you need to have a signal, that takes a very short few messages which are sent every 20 minutes or so, or if you move around between towers. The Radio in the phone can do this all by itself without waking the phone up.
If you want to send ANY data (emails, internet, anything) you need to use GPRS. GPRS uses the same channels but inserts data into them instead of voice. Before you can send or receive any data you need to 'login' to the network. To login you need to actually open the channel and make a connection. Logging in is called 'ataching'. When you attach you get an IP address and the network can send stuff to you and u can send stuff to the network. Attaching needs to wake up the phone.
Once attached the phone can go into a sleep mode saving power, but any data send or received will wake up the phone.
UMTS/3G
UMTS is different in that everything is sent code divided. There is no 'login' or attach as such. In this mode all your voice gets converted to data and sent across.
---
With auto attach on:
If you use 3G mode, every time you switch between a 3G and GPRS area the phone will atach (GPRS) again, this will drain power.
Every time you move out of GPRS and come back into GPRS the phone will attach, even if you have nothing to send.
With autoattach off:
The phone will only attach if it has something to send AND is on GPRS (no 3G available or 3g turned off)
The upside is that you save power when you move between cells. The downside is that you can't receive any data from the network untill you decide to attach.
For push email for example you would never end up detaching as it would hold the connection open.
Anyway i hope that clear, but i'm quite sleepy so it might not make any sense lol

That makes sense to me. When I get my Touch Diamond, I'm definitely turning 'GPRS auto attach' off, because I don't think I need it on.

someone1234 that`s really useful info.I guess autoattach off is the best option for me too. WHEN the phone arrives.

Thanks again senior1234. I'm getting there. But this is more complex that I thought so I've gone back and checked what really makes a difference to the battery life.
The big difference for me is having the phone band set to GSM only (phone, options). Disabling auto attach makes a difference but not as much as I thought. I had changed both of them at the same time, thinking that they were more or less the same thing. Sorry folks. Very unscientific.
But if you feel like trying these bear in mind that I don't move between cells very much and have awful reception. I'll leave it to others to explain whether this is important.

HTC told me that with the screen on full brightness and phone turned on the GPS would only last about 2 hours befre the battery died, looks like we'll need the extended battery or several normal ones!

moonlanding said:
Thanks again senior1234. I'm getting there. But this is more complex that I thought so I've gone back and checked what really makes a difference to the battery life.
The big difference for me is having the phone band set to GSM only (phone, options). Disabling auto attach makes a difference but not as much as I thought. I had changed both of them at the same time, thinking that they were more or less the same thing. Sorry folks. Very unscientific.
But if you feel like trying these bear in mind that I don't move between cells very much and have awful reception. I'll leave it to others to explain whether this is important.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
GSM will use alot less power, so that is whats definatly making the difference
Why? Well.. GSM uses time division, which means the phones in an area take turns 'speaks'/'listening' with the tower. This ensures that no two phones are talking at the same time, and the tower can 'hear' what was sent. Because of this the power the phone transmits with can be controlled to be just high enough for the tower to listen, but not too high as to waste battery.
The down side of this scheme is that even if a phone has nothing to 'say', the other phones will wait in case it does. This means you're wasting bandwidth - or time that could be used by another phone to send data. Bottom line, data throughput is slower!
With 3G, all phones can talk at the same time. The data they send is tagged with a code, so that the data doesnt get mixed up. The advantage here is no time is wasted waiting for phones that may have nothing to send. The down side is that you need to be 'talking' loud enough to 'talk' over other people sending. This is why the data rate over 3G drops off really rapidly as you move away from the tower.
The disadvantages are a phone far from the tower using 3G will use more power than one using GSM because its having to 'talk' louder to get over other phones 'talking'.
Also, signals that get lost because they were drowned out by other phones have to be retransmited, which doesnt happen with GSM as much.
Yeah 3G or CDMA based channel access methods are a real power hog!
As for Auto attach you would expect it to only make a real difference if you have programs holding channels open.
With regards to low reception, it will make a significant difference because power disipation is not linear. Like all radiation it follows the inverse square law. For every meter distance the power drops of by a square of the distance.

Don't forget, when comparing uptime with other phones, with the diamond you have 4x the amount of pixels. VGA (640 x 480) devices will always chew up more Battery that QVGA (320 x 240) . This is one of the main reasons that HTC and the others delayed shipping VGA devices until now.
If you want longer battery life, you are going to have to stop using the display so often.
There is no way a vga machine can compete with a qvga machine on battery life... when all other factors are equal.

I think if you discount 3G, the battery is a little too small for the phone. With 3G its wholy inadequate.
The screen does make a huge difference, but these screens are more efficient, and HTC have used every opertunity to turn the screen off - a bit excessivly if you look at how fast it turns off when you make a call.
I don't understand why they don't use the iphone method of turning it off when the light sensor shows its dark (in a call).. i.e. the earpiece is next to your head!

moonlanding said:
The experiment continues.
Disabling "GPRS auto attach" in Advanced Configuration Tool has made a big difference - still 90% after 6 hours now.
Now this is a surprise to me because I thought that you did this when you set the network seek to GSM only and not hunt for 3G. Or maybe I'm getting my GPRSs and GSMs mixed up...
Next step - leave this setting in place and turn push back on. Watch this space.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've disabled gprs auto attach and set my band to GSM. When i connect to net with opera will it still turn on 3G etc?

nokmond said:
I've disabled gprs auto attach and set my band to GSM. When i connect to net with opera will it still turn on 3G etc?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
good question.
i only use my phone for normal phone stuff ans sometimes for some internet browsing.
should i turn anything on or off?

just got 3G on my tilt and wanna know how to use it!

hey guys, finally switched over to at&t from tmobile, so i FINALLY have 3G! and to boot, down here in miami, we have HSDPA! so anyways, i wanted to know what are some ways you guys use it? as in streaming media, podcasts, etc.. any ideas would be great, cuz i'm brand new to the world of 800 kbs/sec internet!

Do yourself a favor and download a program called "advanced configuration tool". In the "buttons" area, put a button 5 called 3G.
Personally, I keep 3G turned off, unless I want to look up something on the web.
I get a lot better battery life out of 2G (Edge) than 3G, which eats up the battery. Only downshot is that if you are on the phone, you can't receive email
at the same time. Lots of other tweaks in the advanced configuration tool, you'll have to ask others on XDA what works best.

Hmm what to use it for? The same you'd do with EDGE but faster?
Personally I don't consider 3G as useful on the phone itself, but rather when tethering with the laptop.

How to keep IM apps running

How can I keep applications like skype, IM+, ebuddy etc running for any length of time? Even with settings for always on and no power save, they seem to disconnect after a while, either just after a long time, or immediately after I start using the browser or other applications. And then some, like IM+, wont conenct anymore unless I force close and restart.

kkhalil76 said:
How can I keep applications like skype, IM+, ebuddy etc running for any length of time? Even with settings for always on and no power save, they seem to disconnect after a while, either just after a long time, or immediately after I start using the browser or other applications. And then some, like IM+, wont conenct anymore unless I force close and restart.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you using Edge or 3G? As far as I know, without 3G or 3.5G, you can't talk on the phone and keep the internet connection live. YMMV.

Well I have 3G switched on, but the strange thing is that when no 3G signal is available, or it's weak and drops for a bit, then the phone switches to G (gprs) rather than E (edge), or does the phone just not display E?
Having said that, it disconnects the apps regardless of whether I'm using the phone or not

kkhalil76 said:
Well I have 3G switched on, but the strange thing is that when no 3G signal is available, or it's weak and drops for a bit, then the phone switches to G (gprs) rather than E (edge), or does the phone just not display E?
Having said that, it disconnects the apps regardless of whether I'm using the phone or not
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hey there)
firstly about 3G <-> Edge/Gprs switching. literally speaking edge is a piece of hardware equipment embedded into the base station. afaik not every base station has it, so in case you see G that means that either you are served by above mentioned base station or all the channels are occupied by other subscribers which rarely happens nowadays, because carriers expand the capacity of the base stations in order to provide full range of services to their subs. in other words if 3G is not available you would see G or E, you can't manually force your handy to use Edge only, it's an improved version of GPRS so to say
as for the im apps disconnets. i personally use Meebo and it never signs me off. it doesn't matter if i use the phone or switch to other apps. it runs in the background as a service until i choose to sign off manually. give it a try. if it keeps running in the background then maybe Im+ have an option to keep connection alive in its configs. otherwise it can be a bug in the ROM you are using.
Hope it helps

Thanks, I'll give Meebo a try. I guess I found the 3G/G/E thing weird cause the last 2 phones I had did change from one to the other in sequence, so I assumed that this one was skipping a stage, especially as it is slower than my last phone when browsing.

bjai said:
Are you using Edge or 3G? As far as I know, without 3G or 3.5G, you can't talk on the phone and keep the internet connection live. YMMV.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
edge/gprs (2G/2.5G) does not allow you to transfer data and to use voice service simultaneously. because it uses the same timeslots as voice does. but it won't disconnect you.

Thanks again for the recommendation, very stable and overall much better than previous apps I've tried for msn. The only few times I was signed off it signed me back in automatically.

Strange data issues. How to track down malicious apps?

Alright, I really need some help from the big boys here.
I have had my N1 since release. I have T-Mobile and no data plan. Everything I do is over wifi.
On Friday, I saw the 3g icon on my phone for the first time. It appeared out of nowhere and just flips between 3G and E since T-Mobile just blocks data for non-plan users. This was killing the battery life of the phone.
I called Google and they ran me through *#*#4636#*#* to disable the data connection. This fixed the problem for a while; However after a while the phone will give a message that there is no service provider and will reconnect to T-Mobile (it has never done this before outside of phone boots). When it is back up the 3G/E cycling starts again. Even worse the data connection still lists as disabled and will not re-enable. I have to pop the battery out while it is running to get back in to disable it.
Google thinks its an app but I have removed everything but Touchdown and K9 which I don't think are the problem. I have used Android OS Monitor and I do see connections to 64.15.75.218 and 209.44.107.13 which are hot beds for malware and when I uninstall any app these connections vanish temporarily. But they come back after a few hours.
Anyone seen this before or know a way to track IP connections to a particular app?

I have no solution for tracing 'malicious' software but it is possible to just disable all mobile data usage.
Settings/Wireless and network settings/ Mobile networks > "Data enabled"
If you unselect this there should be no more data transfer while on the mobile network.

I do not have that option. Google Rep said it was only in froyo.
Problem is I did the same thing for 2.1 but it keeps coming back on. Even with wifi the phone connects to these ips so who knows what it is doing.

3G isn't used only for data, you can do voice on 3G.
Could be T-Mobile expanding 3g into your are where you didn't have coverage before.
Call T-Mobile and make sure you're not actually using data.
As for tracking applications, you can use System Panel Pro of the market to monitor how much data applications are using.

I know I am not using data. The T-Mobile account page is pretty detailed and I am unable to do anything online when wifi is off. 3G has also been available for a while here as I know others that use it.
I will check out system panel.
Thanks.

UmbraeSoulsbane said:
I do not have that option. Google Rep said it was only in froyo.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is indeed only on Froyo, however, Froyo is out now, so install it and you'll instantly benefit.

A few more things:
Were you receiving or sending MMS (picture/video messages) when the 3G icon popped up? This is normal and doesn't usually come out of your data balance.
If you'd like to be triple-sure you're not using data, go into the APN settings. Edit the APN name - e.g. change tmobile.com to nomobile.com. Now it *really* shouldn't be able to access data.

Smarphones would be well to do to have a Zonealarm/little snitch type app for this purpose.
Id imagine ad based apps wouldnt be too happy about it. At the least an app that reports IPs times , and IN/OUT info.

I never use SMS or mms and have not gotten any during this time.
My concern is not related to getting charges but with unwanted use of my phone or data. When the data connection auto enables it will go through my battery in a matter or hours and who knows what the phone may be doing.
I know I can turn this off and make sure data is not used - in fact I have already done this. However when smoke enters room you don't just put a towel under the door and forget about it. I want to find the source of this and stop it because the behavior is not normal.
I agree something like zone alarm would be good. You should be able prevent or track an app activities for situations like this. If I knew what was connecting to these IPs and enabling the data connection I could stop it and report the app or submit a bug request. Right now I am just all alone.
I did try system panel which seems like a nice app but it does not give me good information on network usage by app. OSMonitor is better at connection monitoring but doesn't list by app. Why has no one thought to monitor network threads by app?

Try alogcat maybe? Any time you notice the icon suddenly appearing, save a copy of the logcat and comb through it.

alogcat may work. Figured out OSMonitor had something similar and filtered by app.
Now I just gotta wait I guess. Still not enough info to relate to IP though.

You should know that the data connection setting isn't an enforcement for the entire phone. It only acts as a notice to applications on whether or not to use data in the background.
Developers are supposed to respect those settings, but they are not enforced.

There is a free program called Network Statistics which is no longer in the market. I will backup the apk for you and upload it so you can use it. It shows the amount of data used by each app.
I too had a data hungry app issue and this helped me solve it immediately.
I'm just at work ATM, so I'll do it this evening. (Almost midday now here in Australia )
Cheers,
Ross

@JCopernicus
I am aware of this which is why I want to track this problem down.
@Ross
That sounds great. I appreciate the help. Not sure if tracking data usage is enough since I don't think the app is sending a lot of data. But I am willing to try anything.
I should be getting froyo soon so maybe that will help as well.

This is what I do when I want to ensure I don't use Data. Go I. To wireless connections. Mobile Networks, and then access points. Create a new one. I usually call it No Data. The for the apn, I just make something dumb, like no.data.com, and then save. After I'll select that as my apn.

The issue is not about the use of the data connection. I have done this and can guarantee the phone cannot use any cell data network. The problem is an app is trying to use it anyway even when it is disabled. Even if you ignore that as a concerning activity the constant 3G searching reduces the battery life to a mere hours.
I appreciate the help, but my issue is not with how to disable the data connection. Its about identifying malware on my device, and tracking an app calls to a specific IP.

Again,k 3g doesn't mean data. 3g is also used for voice.
If you only want to use "2g" switch your phone over to gsm only through 4636 or through the menu where it says "use 2g only".
You will never see the 3g icon again.
If you wan't to be 100% sure no app is calling an IP, then do a factory reset. Install apps one by one, monitor them through the various options given in this thread already.
You will not be able to prevent an application from "calling home" unless you modify the app itself. Apps use the data connection provided to them by the OS however they see fit.
Every app you install has a permissions prompt that will tell you it want's internet access.

JCopernicus said:
Again,k 3g doesn't mean data. 3g is also used for voice.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Android "3G", "H", "E" or "G" icon denotes data. It may also appear temporarily when making the connection necessary to transmit MMS. It does not appear when the phone is using voice over 3G without a data connection.

Actually, this may be a T-Mobile issue - they just enabled the ability to do "pay as you go" data on ALL plans without a data plan, so they may be the ones turning on the ability to do data. You'd still need to authorize it in your browser, and I think it costs about $1/1MB so it is totally not worth it.
May be worth looking into because it wouldn't surprise me if their new "service" is screwing things up.

I am aware of 3G voice but the 3G status icon is related to data flow. I have had the phone since launch and posted this because this behavior is not normal. Even Google was perplexed by what it is doing. And as I said it is not constrained by the 4636 settings.
And I disagree that an app can use the network connection as they see fit. Rights are given to perform its intended purpose; anything else is malicious.

[Q] Rogue Robots

I am on my second T-Mo LG G4. Both have exhibited a strange behavior that is rather annoying. I've disabled all automatic sync features and the like - in the same manner as I've done successfully with both a Nexus 5 and a LS990 G3.
So here's the issue(s):
1) Whenever I boot the phone - it automatically turns mobile on. e.g. as indicated by "Data Enabled" quick toggle or the Android Setup slider control.
2) Most times when I enable WiFi, the phone (or whatever) systematically turns on mobile data again - and it's damn repeatable e.g. at ~ 15 seconds after I tap the WiFi quick toggle.
3) Most times when I am running off of WiFi, the mobile data will randomly come on by itself even after I hammered it off that first time in response to manually turning on WiFi.
Zero technical assistance from the obvious sources. LG points the finger at T-Mo. T-Mo points the finger at LG.
I'm starting to think this is related to the Lollipop API change crammed down everyone's throat by Google.
I'm on metered service and have grown accustomed to living off of WiFi. With prior phones I was in full control of what I've been charged. With the G4, it's nearly impossible to manage ...
Any thoughts, shared experiences or recommendations ?

Hmm, there is a setting that can automagically use LTE if the Wifi is detected not to have internet access. I can't think of what it's called at the moment but it's in setting somewhere - possibly WIFI settings.
I would also be sure to disable T-Mobile's "diagnostics" setting in the T-Mobile app and attempt to turn off any other monitoring settings contained within. I think there is a setting that monitors the LTE signal strength and that could be making it pop on.
Other than that, it does seem rather annoying for you! You are on T-Mobile though, didn't you get the 10GB data pass and have the unused data rollover? Another note, why not setup the data limiter in Data Usage to automagically turn off the data after X GB usage. I know it isn't a direct solution but if data usage is a concern, it could work as a workaround!

Hey, thanks for the response and suggestions.
To be clear, I'm on Ting's GSM network - which is serviced by T-Mo.
I'm well versed with Android and prior to this phone I was on a Nexus 5 with 5 .1 .1 and it didn't behave like this.
I've tried all the buried settings to get in front of "enabled" data on two different G4's but nothing is panning out.
And yes, I did think of that T-Mo diagnostics app and it's not enabled - at least not on the surface.
And one more thing, my WiFi is solidly connected when data goes rogue robot.
Hadn't considered the data cap setting. Seems clunky but might help until a custom ROM is available.
rockerrock said:
Hmm, there is a setting that can automagically use LTE if the Wifi is detected not to have internet access. I can't think of what it's called at the moment but it's in setting somewhere - possibly WIFI settings.
I would also be sure to disable T-Mobile's "diagnostics" setting in the T-Mobile app and attempt to turn off any other monitoring settings contained within. I think there is a setting that monitors the LTE signal strength and that could be making it pop on.
Other than that, it does seem rather annoying for you! You are on T-Mobile though, didn't you get the 10GB data pass and have the unused data rollover? Another note, why not setup the data limiter in Data Usage to automagically turn off the data after X GB usage. I know it isn't a direct solution but if data usage is a concern, it could work as a workaround!
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