yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] 8525Smart:
Before anyone accuse me of it, I did, in fact, look through the other battery threads on this forum (and other forums, for that matter), and I've already applied numerous tricks. I managed to get my phone to last roughly 9 hours from my typical usage, which now makes it comparable to other phones I've used in the past.

However, in about a day or two, I'm going to be getting a bluetooth headset...which basically means that I'm going to need to keep the Captivate's bluetooth on 24/7 (or, at least, most of the day). I really don't know how much battery this is going to cost me on the Captivate, so I'm trying my best to make things better now to make things smooth in the future. However, I appear to be at the end of my rope.

I have pretty much gimped the Captivate as much as one could reasonably take (more, I'd dare argue). I cut all of my volume down to half of what it was and I removed most of the quick icons. I also set a completely black wallpaper, I turned off all animation, and I turned the brightness down to its lowest setting.

I honestly don't know how to make it any worse. The SAMOLED screen is basically a meaningless PR term to me now and I'm actually missing phone calls from sheer lacking of hearing my phone ring...despite it being right in my pocket.

Going even further, I also attempted to switch to ADW.Launcher based upon recommendations by others that it increases battery life (I found that it had little to no effect). I also attempted to severely underclock my CPU (down to 200Mhz) based, again, upon other claims that it increases their battery life all the way to as high as 30+ hours on a single full charge.

Somehow, underclocking my CPU actually made the battery die out faster.

Furthermore, I attempted to use programs (SMODA, 2G/3G) which claim they allow me to switch to EDGE because, for some God-forsaken reason, Android doesn’t seem to have any toggle for doing it. Unfortunately, none of them seem to work; rather than switching to 2G, they all just completely disabled data, which, unfortunately, is completely unacceptable to me. So at this point, I only seem to have a few more extreme (from my perspective) options. Once I actually get the bluetooth, I plan to turn off most of the auto-updating apps (email, weather, twitter, etc), and just update them myself periodically. Furthermore, I plan to turn off the GPS location feature once I get my GPS unit.

Beyond the above, though, as I said, I'm at the end of my rope. Once I employ the other tricks, I figure I might be able to stretch battery life to 9.5-10 hours, but I would like to go even further. If anyone could offer me some help, I would highly appreciate it.
[Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] xatrekak:
if your gonna have a bluetooth headset on disable your ringtone completly that would be meaning less. if your near wi-fi a lot have it connect only though that.

also you can clock the cpu down to 100Mhz along with the GPU.

AND to force 2G/edge read my howto in general

oh the ext2 lagfix can also save you some battery life
[Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] 8525Smart:
I'm already doing the first sans disabling ringtone. I'm not so sure doing such a thing would be acceptable to me.

As for the underlocking suggestion, as I said, I underclocked the CPU all the way down to 200Mhz and the battery actually drained even faster. I doubt underclocking even further is going to help. Furthermore, I actually did try 100Mhz originally, but the performance was so horrendous that it was unbearable.

As for the lag fix, I already have it. Lastly, I knew about that 4636 technique to switch to 2G already, but, unfortunately, it doesn't appear to work for me. The setting doesn't save and 3G still remains.

EDIT: I actually found a way to make the above work. Simply dial *#*#197328640#*#*, then go Debug Screen > Phone Control > UE State Control > Change RAT to GSM. This will actually force your phone to use GSM only. This seems like the answer to all of my battery problems....except it doesn't work. Once you make the change, the INFO menu reports that it has been changed to 'GSM Only', but data appears to have been disabled. Restarting your phone makes data works again, but the INFO menu reported that data has been reset back to 'GSM/CDMA auto'. Yay.
[Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] fishgator:
If you haven't already, turn off GPS when you aren't using it. Use the Power Control widget to help. Make sure all of the things in the power control widget are off unless you are using it. And use advanced task killer if you haven't already.
[Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] roadrash7:
i say screw underclocking let run at whatever i dont think it makes a difference.

forget advanced task killer, i like auto killer.

leave gps off unless needed, and backround data

switch to 2g when you can.

no live walls of course use dark or black, no updating widgets

i dumped stuff like juice defender, cause with backround data off i dont think it does anything.

flight mode it at night (when sleeping) if not charging

ive been running jh3 (now jh7) with sre. get to work (i run 2g at work)at 9am listen to pandora all day through bluetooth (which is on for 6-8hrs) and wifi (6-8hrs) good amount off browsing bout 30 min of voice calls, some texts email checking, more browsing, some games. on average lately after being unplugged for 13-17 hrs at the end of the day with 20-30% life left,using bout 3hrs of display, 30 min voice calls, bluetooth doesnt use crap bout 3%, media server usually 15%, cell satndby i wanna say 10%, im pretty happy i guess, even though im always lookin for better results, tryin the new sre with undervolting, heard some good things.

still when that seidio 3200 mah battery comes out im gettin it, dont care how fat it makes the phone, things to dang thin as it is, and without some sort of cover its like a wet bar of soap!!
[Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] NotAppropriate:
What is your typical daily usage? I have fairly light usage (few games here and there a little music and a good amount of web surfing, app browsing and texting with a few phone calls using speaker phone) and I'm at 28 hours of use with 55% battery.

I have just the typical power saving tricks(gps off, bluetooth off, screen at minimum or 30% and my data doesn't sync automatically), no under clocking or anything. I should point out I'm running a euro galaxy rom and am not ever on a wifi connection.
[Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] shaxs:
Wow you are lucky. Yesterday I got 2 phone calls for a total of 3 minutes. I sent 7 text messages. I surfed the web maybe for 15 minutes. No games. Nothing else major. GPS off. Bluetooth off. Wifi on. Screen at 22%. Only background data I have is email which checks once every hour and a weather widget that refreshes every 6 hours. I got barely 12 hours in before my battery died.
[Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] 8525Smart:
Yes, I'm keeping GPS off, and I'm using ATK already.

Typical usage for me runs along this line: A lot of web browsing, perhaps 30-45 minutes of music, and plenty of IM. I also use Aldiko to read now and then. Calls do factor into this, but typically only two or three 10-15 minute phone calls.

Truthfully, I simply don't see how it is possible for you to use the phone for 28 hours straight and still have 55% battery. I could lose 30% battery just by leaving my Captivate on stand-by for 30 hours.
[Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ewingr:
I certainly understand the interest in having the best battery life possible.

Are you in a work environment where you cannot plug it to a computer for part of the day?

Fortunately, I am. And I always have it plugged in in the car.

I don't want to have a powerful phone with all the features turned off in order to keep it going.
[Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] roadrash7:
I dont see how you can get 28hrs @ 55% either, with the kind of usage he was claiming, i wouldnt exactly call that light usage
[Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] roadrash7:
28hrs @ 55% What firmware you runnin
[Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] 8525Smart:
Well, I do have a work environment where I can keep my Captivate plugged in, but only half of the time. Other times, I need to move. Aside from that, it kind of annoys me to use a phone attached to a wall socket. I prefer to keep my smartphones plugged in only long enough for them to fully charge (or at least charge to 80+%), then unplug them for usage. This is kind of tough for the Captivate considering it takes 3-4 hours to fully charge.

I also fully agree with you on the last point, which is what makes all of this so frustrating.

*Sigh* It's really too bad the Captivate is my first Android phone; it's been kind of a negative experience for me so far. Ironically enough, the one issue that hasn't been a problem for me is the one issue most seem to be having -- GPS performance.
[Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] NotAppropriate:
I am in class for most of the day so the phone is idle most of the time but i only play about 10 minutes of music with about an hour or 2 combined web surfing and games but my phone is still chugging at 39 percent battery life at 38 hours of usage. I guess that qualifies as light usage then.

edit: jm6 with unhelpful kernel and sre

also, you have let the battery die out completely and recharge completely with the phone powered off correct?
[Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] 8525Smart:
I'm honestly shocked at your usage. Am I reading right that in the 38 hours since you last charged it, you only used it for 10 minutes of music and a combined 1-2 hours of web surfing/games? I wouldn't call that light usage. I would call that hardly any usage.

Under such conditions, I can see why your battery life lasts so long.
[Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] alphadog00:
I don't see why you can't get a days worth of usage out of your phone. Cell phone calls use the most battery - that is why the phone is rated at about 5 hours of talk time. This would be in the best signal area. If you are in a lower signal environment (especially in a heavy building all day) you will see faster battery drain.

I am not sure why you are bothering with BT if you are only talking on 2 or 3 calls - but if you take 3 15 minute calls that is at least 15% of your battery - the only way to change this is force the phone to Edge.

I would not lower ringtone volume - that is not a big battery saver in the grand scheme of things and you are missing calls - not a good trade off. If you are doing a lot of web surfing, go WiFi instead and you will see big battery imrovements. 3G voice and data suck battery - it doesn't matter if you have android or iPhone.

If you put your phone in Airplane mode you can go for 5 days between charges with minimum use.
[Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] MikalCarbine:
The radio does kill the battery, I don't think the battery usage screen really depicts this. Since I've gotten my captivate my old BB Bold (at the time would only last 3 hours due to its degraded battery) lasts days on end with its radio disabled while sitting in my desk. I'd love to see native 3G toggle or at least a captivate catered app, I'd even pay for the latter
[Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] 8525Smart:
Well, that rating is probably the battery life if your decide to talk on your phone for five hours straight. I really, really doubt it takes into consideration the in-between times (games, apps, and, of course, web surfing). Phone calls undoubtedly takes the most amount of battery, but Internet usage is probably second place and, as said, I use that fairly often.

Lastly, I'm not planning to use my bluetooth exclusively for phone calls. I'm going to use it for calls, listen to music on the Captivate, chat on my PC, and so on. It's multi-usage.

Next, you're missing a lot of the things I said. As I said, I already tried numerous methods to force the phone into 2G; not one of them works (they either don't work at all or actually completely disable my data). I'm already using wifi as opposed to 3G as much as possible.

Lastly, I'm sorry, but using airplane mode to save battery is not acceptable. If I'm even willing to consider this, then I might as well just turn off the Captivate to save battery.
[Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] iamamp3pimp:
I just read something about an external sd card being another battery drain.

Took mine out and we will see. I was already getting through the day with about 20%left.
[Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] alphadog00:
I didn't meant to suggest that airplane mode was an alternative, just to point out that the cell radio for Voice and Data is your biggest drain.

If you are going to use the phone for almost an hour of talk time, heavy web surfing and BT connections for tethering then your battery life will be limited. If you are using BT to chat on your pc - then maybe tethering with USB would be better - you could charge at the same time.

Your other option is to get a spare battery.

And I did read what you had to say, I just didn't realize how much you were expecting your phone to do. The only numbers your provider were around talk time.

I use my phone a lot and I charge it every 24 hours - I am more then satisfied - but I know that if a spend an hour or more talking on it and bunch of web surfing that I will have to think about charging it as my usage increases.
[Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] camaro748:
There is a way to force the phone into 2G. It isn't very user friendly. I have tested this and it works great.

Enter the Phone app.

Dial *#*#197328640#*#*

Select [1] DEBUG SCREEN

Select [8] PHONE CONTROL

Select [4] UE STATE CONTROL

If you want 2G, select:

[3] CHANGE RAT TO GSM

If you want 3G, select:

[2] CHANGE RAT TO WCDMA
[Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Raleran:
Are those of you who are reporting 12+ hours of use syncing email accounts? Are you using the external sd card? I consider myself lucky if I approach 10 hours of use. (I have 2 gmail + 1 corp email accounts, I make a few calls a day, use feedr and xda, play a few games 30min-1hr, and maybe play a podcast for 30min-1hr).

I'm pretty much in the same boat as the original poster and find it incredibly frustrating when everyone in these battery threads say that they stream music through 3g for 12 hours of day and still have 30% battery after 24 hours. (okay, slight exaggeration but you get what I mean.)
[Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] MikalCarbine:
I'm in your boat, syncing gmail, facebook, private email and with moderate/heavy use I usually get 10-15 hours. However my brightness is never all the way down and I have a very colorful background. Usually my screen uses 70% of my battery on a given day and reports only an hour or two of actual screen time...
[Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Dani897:
ok extreme underclocking does not improve battery life, I know that. what you should do is install the new update jf7 and unhelpfuls overclock/under volt kernel. make a SMALL adjustment to the voltages, 50-100 mv under the presets. 100mv is a significant change about 10% voltage any more than that and you may see random restarts, freezing, or other instability. if you were to drop 10% voltage across a resistor the wattage would drop 19%(the difference is squared 90%x90% is 81%) across a transistor in theory it would be a much greater difference as resistance drops with increased voltage but in reality its way more complicated. any how dropping voltage can reduce cpu power consumption 10-25% if I had to give a number.

then maybe get rid of the 1ghz setting and definitely add a 600 mhz setting. don't use set cpu or other app. if you feel the need you can probably lose 800mhz but I don't know if it will do you any good. underclock the gpu to 166.75mhz.

download juice defender it intelligently manages data. no on/off manually its automatic.

get a task killer, or a task switcher and kill unused apps.

turn off gps, and use network location, don't use weather widgets,

turn off contact sync for facebook and gmail, if you don't use it turn off calender sync, and any sync that you don't use. this can be hard for social people. other than that keep a data cables any where you spend time near a computer, charge in your car to and from work. the battery life should be good on this phone but not outstanding, heavy use could be a problem but I find it better than the aria I had and way better than my friends incredible. it is close to my I phone 3g. after the under volt an using juice defender I ferrel that it is about 15-25% better and I haven't reduced the voltage for the main board at all.

these things let me enjoy the phone, I even have push email, live wallpapers and facebook sync (not contact) and google calender sync on. my phone is overclocked not under. I have the gpu undercloked at lower cpu settings and overclocked at higher settings and I let the phones internal governors work like samsung intends because they work(why underclocking doesn't help much).
[Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] 8525Smart:
No, the BT headset I got actually has a USB dongle, so I don't need to use the Captivate to connect to the PC to chat. I'm actually not aware of how to do that anyway.

I'm really not sure what you mean by "I just didn't realize how much you were expecting your phone to do"; I'm using my Captivate in the exact same manner I've used every other smartphone I've ever owned. Look, it seems pretty obvious to me that you're trying to brute force through the idea the weak battery is somehow my fault; after all, you've been insinuating it every post now.

Maybe it is my fault considering the other folks here claims tens of hours of usage. On the other hand, all I know is that I'm using my Captivate the same way I use all my smartphones, except the difference is that to get the 7-9 hours I've come to expect, I pretty much have to strip the phone bare of anything that even uses a bit of battery.

I'm not expecting miracles. The only reason I made this thread was for advice on how to save even more battery than I already am. If it can be done, wonderful. If not, I'll endure it.

Hmm, yes, this may be a step I would eventually have to take in the future. After the results with SetCPU, I looked it up, and another person mentioned the exact same thing. I hadn't looked into it with detail, though. Thanks for the recommendation.

As for the other things, I'm already using a task killer, already turned off GPS location, turned of syncing for email, and so on. I've disabled syncing on every viable app I could. Unfortunately, I looked into JuiceDefender already, and I can't really use it. Having a constant stream of data is too important to my usage -- I really can't use any trick or app that messes with that.
[Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Dani897:
you don't even know juice defender is there, but I guess it can slow down push email and other updates. I haven't tested its effect on my push emails. just be glad you didn't get an htc phone! those things are horrible with

batteries

also there is a known issue with battery reporting errors, I think deigngears sre rom corrects part of this but it also removes all bloatware and I use some of that stuff, yesterday my phone was reporting 9% battery and after shutting down completely and plugging in the charger the battery screen shows about half. boot the phone back up and I had like 49%. used it for a few minutes and it was really like 30% but certainly not 9% there is a way to clear batstats but I can't remember the thread.

you should be able to get 7 hours easy its not the hardware, its either a bad app running all the time, an unusually high amount of screen on time or a battery/battery reporting problem.

edit: if you cant solve your problem look into an extended battery, there were a couple threads on these. and they are quite nearly twice the size. it may be ugly but you might need it.
[Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] 8525Smart:
Hmm, strange. Are you referring to recent HTC phones? I actually owned two HTC phones before (HTC 8525, HTC Fuze) and their battery life were par for the course.

Anyway, about the battery reporting issue, I actually figure that may be a part of the problem. I noticed a few times that my battery life would go down 20% then it would suddenly last a lot longer than the last 10%, so the thought passed that the battery was being reported accurately.

I also figured there might be some sort of rogue issue that causing the huge battery waste, but at this point, I'm not sure what. I'm currently using an updated firmware and I had also hard reset the phone a few times before; battery life remained an issue, so I'm at a loss as to what it could be.

Hell, I actually tried taking out the SIM, so 3G wouldn't be an issue any longer. The battery life actually went down 2% in two hours on idle; it sounds good, but considering it didn't even have any cell service and it was on idle...

Meh, at this point, I'm ready to give in. Nonetheless, thanks for your help. In fact, thank you to everyone who contributed to my topic. I appreciate all of your responses.
[Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] pezx44:
Have you tried charging to 100% with the phone on, booting to clockwork, wiping battery stats, reboot, charge to full, turn off, charge to full (with it off - not not necessarily the same as when it's on), then turn it back on? After flashing some roms I have found that if I didn't flash at 100%, my phone would say its charged to full when on, but as soon as I unplugged it the meter would drop to the mid to low 90s almost immediately. Wiping the stats seemed to fix that. Since , but I pretty easily get 12 or so hours (including about an hour of GPS usage which I hear kills the battery as well as music, some video, sipdroid running constantly etc (though hardly any voice calls)).
[Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] 8525Smart:
^ No, admittedly, I haven't. I do not think it's really necessary anyway.

The battery reporting seems to be somewhat inaccurate, but I have actually let the phone drained to shut down twice (another battery-saving trick some claims work). The battery reporting is inaccurate, but the phone will most definitely not last 12 hours or anywhere close to it. Nine hours seems to be the limit I can get.

At this point, I think the only thing I can do to help battery life is to curb my 3G usage greatly or install a program that limits the 3G capability of the Captivate (e.g. JuiceDefender). Frankly, I just decided to switch to another phone.

Thanks for the advice, though.
[Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Dani897:
too bad for your experience. I get 14 hrs, and I can enjoy the phone. but after some bad experience you might get a bad taste in your mouth. after having what I felt was poor battery life on my aria I returned it and got the captivate. I could heave managed the aria but by the timed I figured out how I was sick of the phone.
[Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] 8525Smart:
^ Yeah, it is a shame. I had immense expectations for the Captivate (for multiple reasons), but it just didn't turned out the way I'd had hope. Still, it was an enjoyable ride while it lasted, and I did finally get to own my first Android phone. Now if someone asks me in the future, I can actually make a recommendation based on proper knowledge.

However, I am completely happy with my new smartphone. It just completely smashes every phone I've owned in the past (save for one) when it comes to battery life and it works like a dream. There is simply no way I can go back to the Captivate, but hopefully, Samsung will release something that piques my interest in the future.
[Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ewingr:
So what is your new Smartphone?
[Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] 8525Smart:
^ Huh, I'm not so sure saying what it is would be a good idea on XDA, but here goes: It's an iPhone 4.
[Captivate Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] gordon517:
lol, it is what it is. It's not like AT&T offers us many choices when it comes down to the droid vs ios4 right? I went the opposite route, and I'm kinda happy/kinda not happy with the new problems the captivate seems to have.