[Nexus 4 General] SkyBeam2048:
I got my Nexus 4 in December and I have to say that I am positively surprised by battery lifetime in my use-case. In fact I read a couple of reviews complaining about battery lifetime and even thought about buying some other phone (at least one which allows me to replace the bundled battery with something bigger; eg. the GNex).

But I am quite happy with lifetimes I get. My configuration:

Phone info:

16GB

CPU binning: Faster

HW VERSION: rev_11

Stock ROM

Settings:

2G networks only (don't have 3G at home anyway)

WiFi always on

Bluetooth on for phone calls (headset)

GPS off (only switched on when I need navigation)

Auto brightness (although in most conditions I think it's too bright for me)

Kernel:

Recently switched to _motley kernel for undervolting and clock/governor control

Custom Kernel settings:

Undervolt (faster CPU binning): 600mv for 304-1134MHz

Max clock limited to 810MHz (still sufficient for all my use-cases and even gaming)

OnDemand Governor

Usage:

About 30 minutes phone call per day

Messaging with about 1 hour screen on time per day

Just occasional Internet browsing

Occasionally I get freezes on my N4 as described here which was also my reason to switch to a custom kernel at no avail. Still getting occasional freezes about once every day. However battery lifetime in day-by-day use is about 3 days (see screenshot attached).

I am impressed by low power consumption of the phone in idle. It loses about 3-5% charge during night only. So mainly battery is drained when screen is on. Althought for me it's mainly important that the phone makes 2 days without a recharge (my personal go/no-go limit). Now with the N4 I am not worried at the end of a day that I run out of juice before I get home, even if I forget to re-charge it for a day.

I admit that I am not a very heavy user in terms of playing games or tapping on the screen the whole day. I am sure then you can run down the battery in 4-6 hours. This is one of the issues I see pretty often with modern phones. They are equipped with quite power-saving hardware in idle mode but on high load and usage the power consumption increases dramatically. So the gap between idle and full load is getting bigger and bigger with modern phones. So phones in idle/sleep will even stay connected on WiFi for a week, but when in use you can run down the battery in a couple of hours.

On the N4 I was a bit disappointed about the quad core CPU since I still believe for the moment there is no need for 4 cores and on load they take a lot of juice. I tried to compensate this by limiting clock rates to 810MHz which works quite well for me. The CPU is still sufficiently fast for everything I do with it. I was used to my old Galaxy Tab P1000 (single-core, limited clocks to 800MHz too) and of course due to the quad core CPU and new architecture the N4 responds much more quickly on same clock speeds. Should I really need 1.5GHz some time I just fire up Trickster MOD and change the upper limit.

Not using 3G might save some juice as well. For me 2G/Edge-only connections are sufficient since at home and at work I am using WiFi and on the road 2G is even sufficient for navigation and occasional messaging etc.

For me the N4 is a really nice phone with sufficient battery life time. I also like the shape (especially rounded glass on the edges). I love the bloat of technology Google/LG has squeezed into the device (Wireless display, NFC, wireless charging etc.). So for me it's a good reference phone.

Drawbacks for me are clearly:

Missing microSDHC slot (seems to be Google policy, shame on you Google, would nice USP)

Non-replaceable battery (unlikely to see bigger battery packs)

Would have preferred power button on top rather than on side. I am often pressing volume-rocker accidentally. Often It's difficult to find the power button in the dark since also the device feels quite the same on front and back side (both glass) so you even don't know which side you're looking at.