[T-Mobile LG G2x] schmit:
1) You said you're using ATK "a lot". This is adding fuel to the fire. ATK is not needed with today's android systems. These apps you see sitting in ATK are sitting dormant. It's like the task manager of a computer. I have 3-4 apps running in my system tray and around 20 other services running in my task manager.. They are all sitting dormant, using zero CPU. They have ram allocated to them. That's it. That's the same as the Android. They are sitting dormant, and they have memory allocated to them. The best thing about the android OS is that it will automatically shut down dormant apps on its own. A PC doesn't do that. So, look at it this way. Let's say I'm on my laptop's battery. I have 20 apps/services running, and they are dormant. They are doing nothing towards drainage of my battery. But, I decide to turn on my screen "a lot" during the day, and kill the apps. Boom... Battery usage for the CPU to turn the screen on, the screen takes away from the battery, usage for the task monitor to be running.. Then, there is a process to shut down the apps, that takes battery.. Then on top of all that.. When the apps restart on their own.. guess what, they have CPU/Battery usage. You're adding fuel to the fire.... a lot of it, imho.

2) Install Watchdog and Titanium Backup (pay the small fee so you can freeze the apps.. or you can learn how to manually remove them yourself. I like using the app). Now, just to prove the point.. Open up ATK... Then go into Watchdog.. You'll see the apps that are running in ATK are not using any CPU. But.. when they do start up/shut down, there is some usage going on that will contribute. So with Titanium backup, freeze the apps. The apps I have frozen: AppPack, Broswer (have dolphin installed instead), Car home (2 of them?), com.android.provider. applications, com.logmein.resecuesecurity and .rescue, email (using gmail instead), My account (2 of them?), nfs shift, nova, street view, tmo TV, tegrazone, telenav, videochat voice dialer, zinio reader, zsprovider. From there, you can see the apps running in watchdog and you don't need ATK.. But, watchdog also uses processor to "monitor" the usage of other apps.. So place the threshold setting at like 40%, and the frequency at 3 or 5min. This will keep Watchdog from using too much battery, but it'll also notify you if an app is running wild on cpu usage. Maybe for 1 day, put the threshold at 30% or maybe even 20%.. so you can see if 1 or 2 apps are using a lot of power. If they are system apps or apps you want.. just leave em be. If they are not, freeze them/uninstall them.

3) I have found that using wifi and wifi calling GREATLY increases my battery life. As soon as I turn on 2g/3g/4g... my battery starts to take a fast dive. Whenever possible, use wifi/wifi calling...

4) Screen down to the lowest brightness setting. Shut off screen manually whneever you are done, or set it to 15sec shut off. I only bump up the brightness when i'm outdoors.. The glare makes the low setting impossible to see the screen.

5) Shut off syncing, bluetooth, and gps unless you need it. If you're around a computer at all where you can get your email and such, there is no need to use the phone for it. I only use tmo's network and syncing when I'm away from work or the house... typically when I'm on the road.

Lastly, yes, some people want to use their phone... use the 4g service.. etc. I understand.. But also understand that if you're going to use the phone like a computer.. and you're going to get 8hrs out of the battery... I say that's pretty dam good. This post is not meant to say that there is nothing wrong w/ the battery... It's to help you out to determine if there is a problem in the first place. There was a guy complaining about battery usage left and right. When I got involved in disussions with him, he admitted that he's on his phone all day long... txting quite a bit. Well.. duh?

I don't doubt there could be some challenges with a bad app running wild, a bad battery, etc. But I also don't doubt there are people who are using the crap out of a dual core phone.. and are doing things themselves to add to the problem... and then they blame the phone.

That's my 2c....