[Vibrant General] tacomaguy20:
My Battery life

Had this posted on another website but it seems relevant for this thread.

The battery on my phone has been pretty good I would say. It's was on yesterday for 17 hours and when I was ready to plug it in it was still at 37% I didn't use it a whole lot yesterday but was texting and made a few calls. Played with the apps a little and searched the web and app store for a few. I have the screen set to black wallpaper and the brightness turned all the way down on the screen... kept the brighness on the web browser normal though. I don't know how much battery these other features use but I'll tell you how I have it. I have bluetooth on, GPS on, keep the wifi on but turn off the "use wireless networks" feature unless I need navigation or something. My email is set to check every 30 minutes and I'm using a facebook and news/ weather widget. I have the screen on 15 or 30 seconds can't remember but never changed it from default. I didn't use my phone much when I was at work yesterday but I did check to see how much battery it used all day when I was there and in a 9 hour shift it only used 30%.

Then as an experiment, I tested to see how long I could use the phone this morning doing whatever I could trying to kill the battery. I charged the phone to 100% and then turned the live wallpaper back on. Full brightness, unchecked the change level automatically. Put full brightness on the browser as well. Unchecked power saving mode. Turned the screen timeout to 30 minutes. started downloading shows, streaming music, playing games, surfing the web. ect. The battery was dead in just about 4 hours. 9am to 1pm. This fast kill of the battery clarified what a lot of people already had noticed, that the battery icon displays inaccurate. Well not so much innacurate as probably just a dumb design. I think it actually works the way it is supposed to. Let me explain.

The battery drops in different percentage increments and always appears on the battery icon to be the fullest of the range that its in. For instance, the battery icon looks full between 100% and 80% and only changes once it goes to 79%. So the phone can be at 80% battery life and will still look fully charged. After studing the battery icon, the battery changes increments at 79%, 59%, 39%, 24%, 14%, and 4%.

Or to clarify a different way...

at 80% the phone looks 100%.

at 60% the phone looks 80%.

at 40% the phone looks 60%

at 25% the phone looks 40%

at 15% the phone looks 25%

at 5% the phone looks 15%.

Under 5 percent the battery icon flashes.

I downloaded a battery app which shows up on the left hand side in the notification area and it actually displays the percentage number and I've been keeping track throughout the day. Its accurate to one percent and matches up when you go to battery status in settings. The app is called battery indicator for anyone who doesn't like the way the normal battery keeps track. Its free from the marketplace and rated good. Overall, the battery notification is annoying because of the wierd increments but this can be easily fixed with the app and as for the actual battery life, I'm pretty happy with it with the settings turned down. As long as it lasts me the whole day I'm happy. Hope this helps for you guys frustrated with the battery.