yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Captivate General] alphadog00:
The phone radio is a huge consumer of battery - especially in weak signal areas. The bars are not that accurate either. that coupled with 3rd party apps that don't always behave nice, can equal rapid battery drain.

Putting the plain in Airplane mode is good way to see what battery life is like without the Cell radio always doing its thing. It is not a fix, but it can show that the battery/phone are not broken. There probably can be improvements and tweaks made by samsung, but I don't think the phones are defective.
[Captivate General] TimF:
This is what you would call a trade-off ;) I like the bright screen also but I like having longer battery life more.

The screen is still pretty bright on it lowest setting and you gt used to the lower brightness after a while.

how are you using your phone? What apps are you running, are you using any emulators.
[Captivate General] brandonb81:
There's an app called Spare Parts, which will show you what is using your battery when the screen is off. Open it up and choose "Partial Wake Usage" from the drop down to see.

My Captivate appeared to drain battery very quickly, but with moderate to decent usage throughout a day I was trying to kill the battery it lasted me over 13 hours. I think it's a matter of the battery reporting taking a good while to calibrate properly.
[Captivate General] starwolf256:
I've had an issue twice now with absurd battery usage. Both times I charged the phone to full and disconnected it; after doing that the phone would lose 10% charge every hour sitting completely idle! Using the phone during that time drained it even faster. Both times powering the phone completely off and back on resolved the issue.
[Captivate General] ConceptVBS:
In AMOLED, black pixels dont use power. This is different from LCD where even black pixels still use power.
[Captivate General] ConceptVBS:
Have you guys tried fully charging, then fully discharing then repeating this step 3 more times? It helps with the battery life tremendously.
[Captivate General] eatkabab:
You gotta do a factory reset. Many people as well as myself had the same issue. For me, a side effect was also that the att start up swoosh was stupidly loud.
[Captivate General] TimF:
I only did the discharge thing once, last week, and today I am going on a 21 hours with 28% left.
[Captivate General] travisryans:
2g app

I was told there is a 2g / 3g application. Has anyone tried this? Apparently it puts the phone in 2g when no data connection is needed and then updates to 3g when a data process is required...
[Captivate General] Lucke:
i'm on day two of not charging mine... and i'm at 25%...

i unplugged it from a full charge yesterday (monday) morning before i left for work and today (29 hours later) i'm at 25%... this is with advanced task killer auto killing tasks when screen is off as well as being aggressive about it. i've been listening to music from my sd card, browsing facebook and taking some pictures (and uploading them to fb). i guess i'm either super lucky not to have any problems with GPS or the battery, or i'm a very light user.
[Captivate General] eatkabab:
I dunno what happened to the main battery thread?

I just got a new phone two days ago because of the restart issue. This one has the same battery issue. Drains 2-4%/hour just being idle. I have nothing beyond launcher pro and google voice installed. Everything is on lockdown in terms of batt usage. The only thing I haven't done is turn off the cell antenna.

I've tried the tricks I knew: factory reset, calibration trick. These didn't help at all. My last phone just needed a factory reset and it was all good. Now I'm sad again :-( will it just improve itself when the phone "learns" the battery or something? I wish I could teach it
[Captivate General] TexUs:
Several things you can do.

1) Use WiFi if you can use it, it uses less power. If you don't have somewhere to use WiFi, leave it off.

2) Same goes for BT- leave it off if possible.

3) Use this to get rooted and remove all the ATT crap that sucks battery life. Applying the lag fix also means you spend less time with the screen on, so that can also help you out.

4) Use Auto Brightness

5) Disabling haptic feedback and the tapping sounds (I find it more annoying regardless)

6) Use a static black wallpaper- or something really dark. IMO it looks great black and plus the AMOLED... Black doesn't use power.

7) Use Advanced Task Killer. I have mine on Aggressive and Moderate security every half hour. This will make sure hung apps, etc get killed and apps you haven't ran. Make sure you whitelist the apps that run your widgets and such though.

That's the best things to do to.

Edit- above all, remember this is a SMART phone, not a feature phone like the iPhone is. The simple fact this full blown SMART phone can even begin to rival just a feature phone like the iPhone speaks volumes to how much more efficient it is than what you think it is.
[Captivate General] KGB ate my bread:
I too have had issues with battery life but quickly realized what had been causing the issues, twice it had been snesoid not closing down all the way after use, and this combined with an app that was hurting battery life (word feud), I realized what my problem was.

I leave the brightness jacked all the way down. I believe the lowest it goes on the stock rom is like 15%, but there are ways to go lower than that.

I've not used my phone much the past two days since charging it, and i'm currently down to 35%, but most of my battery use is cell standby, with display being 3rd or so on the list.

You can always use a program like tasker to make the phone go into airport mode between certain hours of the day (IE: while you're sleeping) to help conserve the battery life.

There are also tons of other good tips in this thread.

And trust me, the phone can last; i've managed 3days on one charge
[Captivate General] k2snowboards88:
Go into the battery usage pane and see if "phone idle" is using up excessive battery power. If it is then download "spare parts" from the market. Use it to check partial wake usage. Applications showing up here are keeping you're phone from sleeping.
[Captivate General] mterrence5:
I restored my phone this morning (second time). Did all the battery charge things. Have no apps installed (except battery status pro which is not running but I turned it on to check the %). Brightness at lowest. No wifi,blue, or gps.

I am down 14% in 5 hours. Sounds great except only thing I have done was send a text at about 7:30, Check my softball scedule on the web and go to mobile facebook two or three times.

Most I have gotten is 17 hrs (from 630am til 11) until my phone died completely and I was trying not to use it. I think this phone should be able to make it 24hours but I dont see how until there is some defective batteries or models floating around.

Also my GPS worked and would track me while driving until I did the first factory restore.
[Captivate General] TexUs:
15% in 5 hours is going to net you well over a day of usage like that.

I would not be complaining about that.

If you truly need it to last 24 hours (and while working at your desk or whatever you can't plug it in), than buy an additional battery. In the accessories forum there's a new post with a link to two batteries for $13 off ebay, and it comes with a Charger and stuff, too.
[Captivate General] mterrence5:
That isnt normal usage. I don't even have anything syncing. No email. No social networking.

Typcailly I would have about 10 text or so maybe a little more web, receive/delete some emails and 10 minute of solitaire.Then the same on the way home. my battery would be near dead by 7pm (about 13 hours). That is crap battery life.

I dont think I should have to charge the phone when its sitting next to me idle at my desk it shouldnt be draining the battery. 3GS and Blackberry Bold can get better battery life with more usage.
[Captivate General] TexUs:
3GS is a featurephone and the Bold doesn't have near the capabilities. You aren't comparing Apples to Apples here... Again, as I originally said, this is a full fledged SMART PHONE- people expect miracles.
[Captivate General] eatkabab:
I completely agree with mterrence5. That is NOT normal phone usage. texUs calls the bold an iphone "feature phones" as if they have some sort of super battery feature. This is not the case. I had a bold before and the batt was as good as the iphone, which was as good as my old Cliq(shockingly). My old Cliq running android 1.5 gets better batt life than mterrence5 AND my phone.

I just replaced my phone due to the auto-turn off issue and am now having terrible batt life problems. With the previous phone, it would drop like 1% every 3hrs of standby and I could surf/text/video for what seemed like forever without taking a significant batt hit. Not the case with this new phone.

a solid 3% drop/hour during standby. I've tried the factory reset (NUMEROUS times) and the "calibration trick", none of which did anything. On other phones there is a "wipe batt stats" function in the recovery mode. I can't find it on the SGS. Does anyone know where it is or if it exists?
[Captivate General] k2snowboards88:
How long is the screen on during these anecdotes? Without knowing that, I don't see how anyone can make any judgments about the battery life you are getting. The phone will tell you how long the screen had been on in the battery usage pane.
[Captivate General] babi_gurlx:
I seriously think there is something wrong with the first batch of captivates. The ones dated for 7/29 and later seem to be where its at. I exchanged my phone twice before getting my current one due to extremely poor battery life and super sluggish performance. Now with this one I can easily get 16 hours out of it with moderate use. Depending on whether or not I use wifi and gps, I'm telling you 24-30 hours on a single charge! As a matter of fact its been getting better within the past week. My phone has been unplugged since 5pm yesterday and I still have 36% left after surfing, texting, and calls. I think you should exchange it if you can and make sure the date is 7/29 or later. I read another thread about someone getting a new phone dated 7/29 and they seem to have a better experience also.
[Captivate General] tytdfn:
I agree I found that most of the o other factors don't really say how much I used the phone. I would be able to gauge how much I used the phone on the number of hours the display was on. for example: I would think that 4 hours of display is decent and 2 is horrid and 6 is unheard of. At least for me
[Captivate General] eatkabab:
So both of the Captivates were produced in July. Both have had horrible batt life problems. The first one kinda corrected itself with a factory reset, but still wasn't giving me more than about 4.2hrs talk time(or any other function for that matter).

I know that I can check the manufacturing date by going to the registration page on the Samsumg website, but is there a way I can tell from the phones box? Its kinda annoying to keep switching phones and I don't think they'll let me use their internet in the store cuz they're stingy like that...
[Captivate General] TexUs:
No, they don't DO as much.

Your Bold doesn't have a 4" Super AMOLED multitouch touchscreen display.

Your Bold doesn't have a PowerVR SGX 540

Your Bold doesn't have a Hummingbird 1Ghz processor

Likewise the iPhone, with iOS4 now at least, teetering on the edge of becoming a smartphone at least but lack of any true multitasking I'm hesitant to call it one. Before iOS4 it firmly was not however now it is.

Regardless, the iPhone battery life sucked compared to the Bold as well (I've carried both as well) for most of the same reasons above but will excel above a full blown smart phone due to multitasking ability as well as underclocking, etc that Apple does.

First I've heard of that... Might be a good email to write to Samsung to ask them if they've changed manufacturing processes or something.
[Captivate General] alphadog00:
These phones are not flashlights with a flat or linear power discharge. There are many external factors:

Signal strength being the biggest - and don't go by the bars. In a weak signal area, your phone is boosting its radio to stay in contact with the tower. An easy way to see the impact of the cell radio, especially when your battery runs down very fast, is to put the phone in airplane mode, and then monitor the battery usage.

Additionally, there are all kinds of apps that are poorly written and can cause a host of problems, including battery drain.

I have worked in a few buildings where my phones would drain from full to empty during the course of a work day. At home, I would get double the battery life.
[Captivate General] smokestack76:
If you flash to one of the newer firmwares batt life improves a great deal. That or hold out until next month when its supposed to go OTA. Batt life will improve alot. I know mine did with both new versions.
[Captivate General] eatkabab:
Yo I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to attack you. Yes the bberries do have the best batt cuz all they're good for is BBM and that don't require much beyond powering the tiny screen. But my Cliq, with 1.5 would be considered a smartphone and it had batt life that matched the iphone and almost the bold too. I think its safe to say that the Cliq wasn't known for its battery life no matter how much optimization it had...

Not to mention my old windows 6.?? HTC Tilt phone had similar batt life to the bold/cliq as well. It did have an enormous battery (and size) though.

Both the captivates that I have had don't come close to the Cliq. With airplane mode on and only wifi running, the batt lasts maybe 4.5hrs while just reading news with the lowest brightness and most batt optimized settings. (I was actually on a plane) Judging from the many many reviews out there, it should last upwards of 6 hours(they report 7.4hrs of avatar playback) if just reading text or even playing a small sized video.

http://goo.gl/49Z3

http://goo.gl/amGl

Based on those figures, you have to agree that some of our phones definitely have a problem beyond just closing background programs and turning down screen brightness. I don't understand why the myriad of people telling us to do so in this thread don't see that.

2-3%/hr drop on standby (with FULL reception and NOTHING else running) = 40-45hrs standby with ZERO use. Significantly less than the somewhat optimistic 300hrs standby reported by samsung.
[Captivate General] derek4484:
Those suggestions may work to increase battery life, but the OP is correct in that as battery life pertains to this phone it is a complete fail. Whats the sense in having a nice 4" S-AMOLED screen if you have to run a plain black background and turn the brightness down, just to get through the day on one battery charge??

The S-AMOLED screen is a battery hog. They touted this tech as more energy efficient because there is no backlight, but seems to me LCD screens are better, and especially the new S-LCD's.
[Captivate General] TexUs:
IDK dude..

Throwing all the phones I've used together, for the capabilities of this phone and the size of the battery: you can't expect miracles.

I remember I carried an HTC Mogul for awhile. That battery was the size of the entire freaking back of the phone, it was huge. This Samsung battery is probably 1/3 the size and does better than that.

After doing all the little tricks to improve battery life, there's not much else you can do. The Android OS itself is still the biggest hog (screen obviously aside) of battery... Froyo should help with that.

Maybe you're right about some being worse than others because I haven't had an issue with my battery life running out aside from one time (and I was at home anyway in the evening).

Super AMOLED still most efficient by default design... S-LCDs are definitely a step forward but they'll still suck 100% power at all times, weather you use that part of the screen or not.
[Captivate General] alphadog00:
I Think i read that AMOLED uses more energy then LCD when displaying white images. It averages less energy use overall.
[Captivate General] TexUs:
For the love of God man, I was talking about battery life within that context.

Which is directly tied to hardware.

:rolleyes:
[Captivate General] l7777:
The captivate and its variants are very nearly full computers in your pocket. Do you really expect it to have a week's battery life? In addition, why does it need to last more than ~16-17 hours? Do you sleep somewhere with no power so that it can't be charged overnight? I've had a flavor of smartphone for years and simply plugged them in when I went to bed, I've rarely had a problem of running out of power before then. If you want a phone that doesn't have to be charged daily, you need to go back to a phone instead of a computer.
[Captivate General] mterrence5:
I never said anything about a weeks batter life?

I charge it every night. I must have an active life compared to all of you and am insane because I would like my battery to last from 6am til midnight without having to charge it. Perhaps like last weekend when im up at 8am out on my friends boat fishing and then out for some drinks after til 1am. I shoulda broke out the charger in the bar instead of letting it go to red. Or when I went to a concert and took my phone off the charger at 10 am and was dead by 10pm .....must be fortunate not to have gone home with that redhead or the walk of pride in the morning woulda been an actual walk home cause I couldnt call a taxi.

God forbid I actually am away from a power source for more than 17 hours.

My Tosbiba T-135 labtop gets about 6 hours of battery life. Maybe I should just carry that around with me and charge it twice a day insted of a phone.
[Captivate General] TexUs:
Sounds like you want a PHONE and not a mobile computing device in your pocket... Seriously.

If you find a smartphone that can do everything this Captivate does that lasts 18 hours then by all means let us know. The dumbed down iPhone can't even hit those numbers.
[Captivate General] lilo777:
In my experience Captivate can easily go two or three days without re-charging with limited usage. This is as good as it gets with all existing smartphones, in fact it is probably better than most of them.
[Captivate General] l7777:
Apologies, when I said "you" in my post, I was intending it to encompass all who were wanting two days or more battery life. Your expectation is not unreasonable but I'm surprised you're not making it. I am a heavy user, sync four e-mail accounts, two push, two imap, weather updates, football score updates, web browsing, remote desktop, wifi, bluetooth, and maps with and without GPS. It is still a rare day when I can't make it from 7 AM to 10 PM and still have ~30% of my power remaining. I'm also not a battery miser, I don't do black backgrounds, task killers, or other trickery to get there. The only thing I do is leave the brightness all the way down unless I'm in an exceptionally bright area. If you're not able to make it through a 16 - 17 hour day then you have an argument for something not being right.

Long battery life with limited usage is pointless. I could put my phone in flight mode and turn the screen off to get better battery life, but then it isn't going to be very useful is it? I might as well just turn it off, then I should be able to get months of battery life!

A final note, I have seen the excessive battery drain, just this morning my phone sucked down 30% of its battery in about 45 minutes. A power cycle seems to have fixed it. I have seen the same thing one other time and it took a restore from rom manager to fix it. There is indeed something that will go schizoid and suck down power without reason but I haven't been able to track it down yet.
[Captivate General] tytdfn:
l7777, can you tell us how long your display is on for with that kind of usage at the end if the day?
[Captivate General] mterrence5:
As an FYI this is on samsung captivate support website for continious usage times for the Captivate

http://ars.samsung.com/customer/usa/jsp/faqs/print.jsp?SITE_ID=22&AT_ID=291355
[Captivate General] TexUs:
7 hours using LCD...

So like everyone sane here has been saying, don't expect miracles.
[Captivate General] l7777:
Probably 4 - 5. On my lighter days I've seen 50 - 60% battery at the end of the day but I'm obviously not using the phone then.
[Captivate General] k2snowboards88:
I7777,

When you get you start losing excessive battery and a power cycle doesn't help, the program "spare parts" will tell you which application is to blame. Then you can just uninstall the offending app (possibly re-install also). This can usually save you a refresh.
[Captivate General] 8525Smart:
I haven't own all that many smartphones in my life. So far, the number remains at five (including the Samsung Captivate), but from what I see, the Captivate's battery life is pretty typical for a smartphone.

Of those five smartphones, four of them only lasted roughly 6-7 hours under heavy usage (consistent web surfing, texting, Youtube, Pandora, and etc). The Samsung Captivate seems to last roughly the same length. CPUs may be getting more energy efficient and the super AMOLED screen may supposedly be very energy efficient too, but energy efficient tech is obviously not improving quick enough to improve average battery life on smartphones.

And, if anyone is wondering, the last smartphone whose battery life was different is the Nokia E71, which lasted far, far longer than any of the others I've owned. The reason for that is pretty clear, though. It was a 2008 phone that had a small low-res screen, low power CPU (only 400Mhz), and an operating system wasn't as complex as other smartphone OS.

But to get to the point, the TC's Captivate does seem to be drawing a bit more battery than normal. Losing 15% in five hours when it is off most of the time with only a few minutes of text/3G usage (I'm presuming checking the softball schedule and using Facebook didn't take much longer than that) does seem a bit excessive.

Nothing to be concerned about, in my opinion. Going from 100% to 85% in five hours for a smartphone doesn't seem too far out of standards and people have already recommended programs to see what is using up the battery to make it even more efficient, so things does seem alright from my end.

P.S. As a side note, sorry if I offend, but the claim that the iPhone is a 'featurephone' and not a smartphone can be counted among the most ridiculous things I've heard in a long time. It is, by definition, a smartphone and it is universally considered as such...even by those who despise Apple and the iPhone.

The Motorola WX295, LG GD550, or Samsung S5530 are all perfect 2010 examples of a 'featurephone'. Again, my apology, but it takes a special kind of bias to put the iPhone in the same class of phones as the aforementioned three.
[myTouch 3G Slide General] TomorrowSpace:
http://www.tmonews.com/2010/08/mytouch-slide-software-update-coming-tomorrow/
[myTouch 3G Slide General] acejoker25000:
Froyo probably isn't in the near future because the sense ui is customized for this phone only which probably has it on the back burner
[myTouch 3G Slide General] lviv73:
Damn it,i always get screwded with phones first Behold 2 now Slide,thinking bout getting Vibrant since it probably will have good support but than again its Samsung so you never know.
[myTouch 3G Slide General] TomorrowSpace:
Yes it does because whenever it's released we're going to have to incorporate it into new ROMS. I meant it as a heads up. Also as notice to keep your ears to the ground for when we can get a leak.
[myTouch 3G Slide General] nerdcorerising:
No, it doesn't. This is not a post about android development. This is a post about an update to the stock software.

This isn't the "Things kinda sorta related to android development forum".

As a separate note, even if this was the correct forum, it's already been posted:

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=742908