[Touch Pro, Fuze Android Development] TheBrilliantMistake:
Power / Battery problems

Now, I just thought I would write this to help some folks,and answer some questions:

Q. My phone just went from 50% to 20% in next to no time!

A. OK, this is the MOST important thing to know before you read on....

Currently, you just can't trust the 'battery capacity' being reported in Android. The developers are aware of this and will get it working properly soon, but at the moment, Android is very likely to get the battery capacity very mixed up, and so it's quite hard to prove how long the usage is. Remember, Android can shut down when it THINKS there's low battery, so just leaving your phone and not touching it can still cause a shutdown with plenty of battery left.

If you REALLY need to know the capacity, boot into WinMo (although even this MIGHT be the wrong value if Android has messed up some charging history)... that said, WinMo is definitely reporting much more accurate values, and after a few charges of only using WinMo, the capacity reporting should get very accurate again.

Q. My phone doesn't seem to last very long using these Android builds...why?

A. Firstly, the developers are aware of this, and are working on it. Yes, we all know WinMo holds the power for a lot longer, but that's because they knew the hardware inside out and could get the system to sleep in well behaved ways.

Q. So why can't you just copy what WinMo does?

A. Well, in theory most of what WinMo does CAN be replicated, but the developers have to track down all the chipset information they can, and figure out what WinMo is actually doing to get long life from the battery. Also, Linux isn't Windows, and there ARE differences in how things behave, in some cases WinMo might be slightly better and in others, Linux slightly better, but overall, there shouldn't be too much difference once everything is ironed out.

Q. So what the heck could be eating all the power right now?

A. Well, there's a whole bunch of hardware inside your phone, like CPU, Radio chips (for phone), WiFi chips, GPS chips, accelerometer, light sensor, LCD and Backlight, FM radio, audio chips etc. They all take power if left running, or if the usage isn't optimised.

Slowly but surely many of these components are being supported fully, but at the moment, some of them are 'working' but perhaps not optimally. Meaning they MIGHT be working harder than they need to, or simply not being switched off properly etc.

In addition to this, it's possible that some processes (system, or user apps) might be running all the time and causing a lot of battery use. E.g. animated wallpaper, clock animations, google sync communication, wifi searching etc etc.

Q. My phones seems to get rather warm, why?

A. This has been noticed by many and seems related to WiFi and charging. When both are used together, it would seem that Androids high power consumption and heat generated from charging combine to make the device quite warm.

It hasn't yet been fully established why this is happening, and there doesn't seem to be any serious issue with it (yes it's warmer, but it's not red hot).

If you're worried, avoid using Android with WiFi and charging at the same time, and stick with WinMo for charging, or just avoid Android altogether until you hear about a fix. However, hundreds of users are using the current builds and no failures have occurred, so it would seem 'reasonably safe' to still play around with the builds... and your help and feedback will help to improve the situation a lot quicker!... the choice is yours.

Q. Will the situation EVER be fixed?

A. Yes, I am confident the devs will find a solution. This really isn't a 'can never be solved' issue, it's purely down to time and effort, so don't panic!