yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] slowz3r:
Prolly like when phones when from 2.1 to 2.2 there was a major performance increase resulting in better battery life
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] XBOHDPuKC:
[Q] Battery Life: I am too spoiled by 2 years of Blackberry?

One of a few things that bothers me with this phone is its battery life. Coming from a blackberry I quite got used to be able to go 2-3 days without ever needing to plugging in the phone. With the Nexus what I observe is that with a few apps use and 15 mins of a phone conversation the battery went down by whopping 23% from a 100% to 78%. I'll observe it further, but from my last couple days observations I'll have to charge it my midday-early afternoon, otherwise i'll have to drive home at around 4-5pm with the phone off.

Is this a normal behavior? What's everyone else's experience with the battery life?
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] krohnjw:
It's a smartphone - you're going to need to recharge it nightly (or daily if you prefer) in most circumstances.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Kalimdor:
If you care about flexibility and time then buy another battery :)
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] XBOHDPuKC:
I don't mind nightly recharging it, the point being that it drains battery just way too fast for that casual use.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] krohnjw:
I don't see a timeframe on your 23% drain. But, for reference....

With 2x push email accounts and on wifi I see ~ 1% per hour when the phone is not in use. On 3G this is ~ 2% per hour (taken overnight when the phone is not in use).

Obviously apps that keep the screen on and are CPU intensive will drain the battery far more quickly.

If you start the day with a 100% charge unless you are REALLY using the phone a lot there's no reason you should have no charge by 4-5pm unless you spend the day in an area with a very weak signal.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] onthecouchagain:
I wonder what's going on with battery technology. Unless I'm mistaken -- and please correct/inform me if I am -- but it doesn't seem battery technology is advancing well enough?

I've read different things, like the future of batteries is not larger/longer lasting batteries, but faster charges, where one can charge their batteries to 100% within minutes? That would be quite something. Anybody know in general anything about where battery technology is going?
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] The Jones:
Generally a weak signal will drain a battery very very quickly. I have found that in a weak signal area it is best to force the phone onto 2G networks only if battery life is your concern.

Secondly, don't leave bluetooth on unless you need it. If you are not connected to a WiFi network, switch off your WiFi.

I have had my Nexus S for 2 days and have charged it 4 times! This is because I am constantly playing around with it - typical for the first few days of owning it for me. I generally find it takes about a week before my usage settles down.

For reference, on my previous phone, the Nexus One, I could get about 30-36 hours battery usage with moderate to heavy usage - that is some phone calls, 2 push email accounts, a good 2-3 hours of web browsing and listening to music etc. I expect to get at least the same from the Nexus S.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] rhca50:
There are so many variables that affect battery life, but none more than the screen.

Your blackberry had a screen that was half or less of the size, not to mention that it was less bright. That makes a significant difference.

I've stopped trying to measure total hours of off charger time, because usage, apps, syncing, etc can all make the total battery time vary too much.

Instead, I have started focusing on total screen on time. A fully charged battery seems to give me 4 hours of screen time.

Check your screen time and see how it stacks up. If it's less, try some basic tweaking. If more, tell me how you have your phone configured.

Sent from my Nexus S
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] The Jones:
At the moment, we just cannot get the energy density much better than it is although my Nexus S battery is rated at a higher capacity and is definitely smaller than my old HTC Hero battery, so it is getting better.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Kalimdor:
Right now solid batteries like LiOn etc. are done we don't know how to upgrade them more. For now we only can rise the capacity from 70% to higher. I believe limit is about 80%. Next step is miniaturized half solid with some kind fuel cell. For me i prefer kinetic/wireless (?) charging ;)
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] distortedloop:
Someone already said it, but it bears repeating. I don't know what model Blackberry you had, but most of them have much smaller screens, less bright, this is a big difference in battery life.

More importantly, I don't know what you do or where you're at all day long, but I learned several years ago, starting with iPhones, that for me to make it through the day I just had to get used to the phone by itself couldn't make it without some juice help.

Extra battery in your pocket or briefcase is one solution, but if you're near a desk, just buy a cheap wall charger and plug the phone in while at work. Buy a car charger for the car (get a 1-Amp one, it will last much longer). With the phone on the car charger you won't need to turn it off for the drive home as you mentioned.

Just learn to dock/charge the thing whenever you have an opportunity. This is a small price to pay in both dollars and convenience to get such an amazingly beautiful screen and fast device with so much power in your hand/pocket.

All that said, I've found the Nexus S to have AMAZING battery life! Compared to my Galaxy S i9000 this thing will actually make it through the day with 25-35% battery still left on it after 16-17 hours. I consider myself a "moderate-heavy" user. I have sync and location on, several apps updating in the background frequently (weather and twitter). It's unreal compared to the i9000 and Vibrant I've used.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] RogerPodacter:
This is just normal of android phones because they keep an open active data connection on all the time.

To prove this to yourself, one day turn off mobile data connection as a test. My phone lost 4% battery in 6 hours doing this. But as soon as I turn mobile data back on, even if I don't surf the web or anything, the battery starts to drain super fast again.

It's just a trade off we have to make to use android to its fullest.

Other OS's like symbian or black berry close the data session when its not in use or not needed. Android does not do this. I just learned to charge my phone during the day, and have a second battery.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] TheBiles:
I never had that mythical battery life with either of my Blackberries. I think the only people who get that don't use their device enough.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] LordLugard:
Android and "great" battery life never mix. 'Tis a fact I've come to live with.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] rocketragz:
Coming from a vibrant, the battery life on my ns is heaven.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Eliteranger12:
I had the same problem I went to best buy and exchange it now I'm getting way better battery life. old phone read at 62% @ 3 hours off battery new phone 91%on almost 4hours on battery
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] JOHNGAETANO:
try and adjust your screen brightness to 40%
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] csmall:
Battery Life Experience

So I've had my Nexus S since the launch date and have put it through light, moderate and heavy use. Based on my experience so far I have to say that it has the best battery life out of any Android device I've owned. I'm very pleased so far.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] nohcho:
Same here, awesome battery life. I am glad that samsung threw in 1500 mah battery. I had terrible battery life on my G2 probably because it only had 1300 mah battery.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ryude:
Just wait til you guys get an OC/UV kernel, my battery life doubled @ 1200MHz undervolted .125v (Captivate). You should also check to see if your wifi is set to sleep when the screen is off.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] rocketragz:
where is this setting?
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] B3arfruit:
How do u make wifi sleep
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] distortedloop:
Settings/Wireless/WiFi Settings...push Menu..Advanced...WiFi Sleep policy, click drop down and pick what you think appropriate.

Some say never sleep is better on battery if you have poor(er) cell reception, others think it's better to always sleep when screen off. This clearly one of those YMMV things...

edit: btw, this is mentioned in the FAQ that is stickied. ;)
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ryude:
If you have poor reception it is possible to disable network data altogether, you will still make/receive calls and texts, however you cannot send/receive picture messages.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] bcl0328:
so true man, today i used my phone since this morning and made phone calls, surfed the web, texted quite a few times. its now 10pm and i still got 74% battery left, pretty amazing if you ask me.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] TheBiles:
Your wifi sleep policy should be set to "never" since the wifi radio uses much less power than the mobile network radio.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] slowz3r:
Ive noticed slightly better battery life with Auto Brightness OFF.

my logic is that it isnt using resources to sample the light
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] TheBiles:
This is true.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] tommyz2kool:
wouldnt that mean that wifi and 3g radio would both be on all the time?
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] robstunner:
Wow. I'm no where near that.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] thepoetvd776:
Yeah me neither I wonder if he gets that using wifi instead of 3g.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] jthornton71707:
Nexus s battery life??? What am I doing wrong

From what ive been hearing everyone is getting great battery life... except me... I had a nexus one... went to an iPhone 4 and now to the nexus s, after configuring it it seems the battery life is the worse of the 3. I've even gone as far as turning off background data entirely and downloading green power battery app... and i still loose around 5% an hour wether I touch the thing or not... usually it's light use but after everyone else's rants and raves I don't think this is. Normal. 3g off (at&t).. using mostly wifi... but under battery useage it has cell standby as around 25%-35%... any suggestions, roms or kernels that could help??
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] madfarmer:
the last few days i've had somewhat the same problem.. In my case market has used the most of my power by far..
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] TheBiles:
No, the mobile data network disconnects when connected to wifi.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ViLANDER:
Then something is wrong. It's the display that should consume most power.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] DarkAgent:
Can we get some hard statistics here? I get about 4 hours of total screen time.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] tempera:
I got it few days ago and have to say it is alot better than the iPhone.

I'm worried about the battery life though, I only get around 6-8 hours from my battery on moderate to light strong use.

NOTE; I have only done 3 cycle charges.

Is this normal or does anyone get better battery life?
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] TheBiles:
I can usually get through the day (12-15 hours) with about 20% remaining with pretty good use. Here's some of my initial use on the stock ROM. I've switched to CM7a2 right now, so I'll report that when I test it out.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] IDtheTarget:
Yeah, I'm getting awesome battery life on this thing, I used my phone light/moderate yesterday for 18 hours, still had 33% when I plugged into the charger.

Phandroid had a good article on how the battery meter works and why it looks like our batteries discharge to 90% practically immediately:

http://phandroid.com/2010/12/25/your-smartphones-battery-gauge-is-lying-to-you-and-its-not-such-a-bad-thing/
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] tempera:
Something seems wrong with mine then, yesterday I used it light/moderate and lasted 9 hours.

No Widgets, No GPS, good network signal, maps off etc.. All settings have been checked.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] sinatosk:
I'm thinking this aswell with mine...

I know games will drain your battery fast but this is pretty much the same with or without gaming... I only just got that game ( Dungeon Defenders ) today

battery remaining when these pictures were took ( today ) is 33%

look at this...

...

...

...
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] tempera:
Yep exactly, I'm going to swap my phone tommorow maybe the phones faulty.

Anyone else with this problem? Everyone seems to be getting good battery life.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] tempera:
I am now on 35% battery left from a full charge and only have 4hrs 34mins usage. Its poor
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] sstang2006:
I was having the same problem with my first Nexus S. Battery life was the worst. Maybe it was bexause when i fist got it i didnt do a full charge up to 100 but instead i started using it and xharging it for 15 minutes and start using it again. Or because battery was defective. It will charge real slow and discharge real fast.

I went and exchange it at Bestbuy and did the right thing this time.

- charged it to 100% without interupting the first charge.

- once it was the charge was complete and turned off the phone and left it charging for half and hour

- after half and hour power it back on and left it charging for another 30 minutes.

Battery life is the best on this phone now, maybe because the first one's battery was defective or because of the fisrt charge technique but it is good.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] vberels2010:
Good day.

Did you run the battery all the way down before the first charge?

Sent from my Nexus S
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] sinatosk:
Yes sort off... It was at 42% the first time I turned it on... went down to 12% then charged it since.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] robstunner:
wow. Something must be hung up. What's your battery status saying for usage?
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] B3arfruit:
I ran mine all the way down than charge the phone while it was off. I've great battery life I also installed task killer and when using wifi I change my option to auto sleep when screen is shut down.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] B3arfruit:
Also I turn edge on when I'm not using 3G. Like at work or if on wifi. Also turn brightness on auto. Task killer is a must though
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] sinatosk:
Dunno... alot of people with good battery and some ( like myself) with crap battery life... I'll continue for another week... if not any better.... I'll replace it... don't want to do that :p
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] betabob26:
One of the other threads in this forum suggested leaving wifi on all the time, the theory being that 3G sucked up more battery life than wifi. I tried this out, and lo and behold it worked for me. When I first got the Nexus S I was disappointed to see that after 8 hours of idle time (while asleep) the battery would go from 100% down to 65%. But last night I left wifi on (via wifi sleep policy) and was pleasantly surprised to see this morning that my battery was at 86%! Some people are saying that you'll get excessive battery drain if 3G coverage in your area isn't good, but mine is usually pretty solid and my Nexus One never exhibited this behavior. Anyway, it looks like my one big grip with the device has now been solved.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] sinatosk:
my wifi policy was never set to "never"... ( I'm saying this because when your screen is off... your wifi turns off after x amount of time ) with that said... the majority of the time I've been using wifi...

soooo.... I'm still not sure on that really

I've always known 3G use more battery than wifi... I usually have good signal aswell... 3 - 4 bars on average... 1 - 2 in bad areas ( I'm in a good area now )

when I don't use wifi... I use 3G
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] jthornton71707:
I just realized my battery won't even charge to 100%. It says 100% while on the charger but when I take it off it immediately goes to 97%. What should I do here.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] benjar:
This is normal behavior to prevent damage to the battery. It's not a fault.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] RogerPodacter:
Wow you're getting that poor battery life and you're only on edge with ATT, not 3g? Totally baffles me what the problem is, it shouldn't be doing that.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] zeeklancer:
My battery is not great, but I do seem to have a problem.

Many times I will see maps, or google voice taking up %50 while display is in second with %20 or %30.

Anybody have any ideas?
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] jthornton71707:
now when im charging it its at 96% and wont go any higher... its been on the charger for about 2 hrs... when i turn it off however it still says its charging... is this normal???
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] jthornton71707:
Nexus S LED screen - Battery rant

I just dont get it... what is the point of having a beautiful SAMOLED screen... (one that IMHO is better than the Iphone 4's retina display) if you have to keep it on Auto brightness or low the whole time to conserve the battery life... anytime i have the battery over 50/60% it eats it up. This could be the deal breaker, for me at least. The phone is great and i love the screen... but i just dont see what the point of having this super sexy screen is if your unable to utilize it. :confused:
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] mmas0n:
Other than when using the phone in direct sunlight, anything higher than 50% is nearly blinding...

I'm just not sure I understand this complaint. What other display tech is there where using high brightness doesn't eat battery?
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ikon8:
I keep mine on 50% brightness all the time and get great battery life.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Anderdroid:
I do auto brightness and it's too bright. Had a migraine today and I couldn't even use my phone.

My battery is awesome. Will be even more awesome when we see some OC/UV kernels. Vibrant got 24+ hrs on a charge. Haven't timed or felt like timing the Nexus S. Long enough for me. I swap batteries whenever it's low. Got a Moment battery and external charger. Works nice.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] gogol:
I have HTC Desire with AMOLED display and I am using only 15% brightness :D

Well, probably I have a pair of good eyes?
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ZeroSX:
I -HAVE- to keep my phone at the lowest brightness. Anything more is too bright, lol. Auto-brightness is like staring at the sun.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] nxt:
Screen Filter is a must for this phone. I use it anywhere there's no/low light.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] AllGamer:
you can save battery power by using more BLACK THEMES on your Apps

like the black themed gmail, GPS software, market, XDA app, Browser, etc, etc.

whenever the LED is not lit, it doesn't use power

so by just only turning ON the LED to show letters, logos and other stuff, instead of the whole screen it will make your battery last very long.

you can still make full use of the SAMOLED for games Movies and other stuff.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Rawat:
iPhone 4/any other phone on high brightness only lasts a few hours too.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] kolyan:
I've been using my Vibrant on 0 brightness and for me its too bright at nighttime, very good at daytime, and even ok in direct sunlight. I also have anti-glare screen protector that I think helps alot.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] tmello56:
Where are these black themes you speak of?
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] unremarked:
So, on my first real non-vacation day with the Nexus S, my battery lasted just a little over 16hrs on a single charge.

This is with a lot of calling, e-mailing, text messaginging, a bit of wifi hotspotting, web browser, Pandora streaming, XDA app-ing, etc. during my 8hr work day. I would describe that as pretty heavy usage. Once I got home, I had around 32% battery left. After making a post in another thread around the 29% mark(14hrs give or take), I actively started trying to kill the battery before it died a little after 16hrs.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] xspyda:
One thing I have noticed is that on the ONE occasion I manages to get the phone to take a full 100 percent charge the battery seemed a lot better than when it takes only 96 percent - regardless of how long its left on charge.

I know this is by design that the battery never reaches 100 percent but I find it off-putting.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] nailerr:
Just throwing my hat in on the WiFi, since I set my Galaxy S to never instead of when screen is off the battery life has been dramatically better. I mean shockingly.

This relies on me remembering to manually turn off wifi when away from a network of course. But saying that, my Cellular signal is usually pretty strong.

I was dumbstruck by the improvement, though logically it makes some sense. I read that while on a 3G network and WiFi the phone is capable of shutting down the data element of the 3G modem and only using the Voice element. How true I do not know, but the improvement was real.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] onthecouchagain:
It's been explained by XDA (and later by Phandroid who posted the same story) that the battery will drain the quickest from full charge to about 90%, and that's a good thing. The discharge will start slowing down (depending on usage, of course) generally around 70 mark.

I notice this with my NS as well. It drops very fast, even with light use, from full charge tot he 80's, but beyond that, it seems to discharge slower.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] TheBiles:
Check out Wifi Auto Toggle on the Market so you don't have to remember.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] onthecouchagain:
How do things like "all animation" affect the battery? It's under settings/display/animation.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] rashad1:
I doubt that has much baring on your battery's lifespan.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] XBOHDPuKC:
After a few tweaks here and there i started getting a pretty decent life out of this battery. Now the only offender that is left is, surprisingly, Setting Profiles, which consumed about 20% of all the power, next only to the screen of course.

Some of the notable things i did were -

- forcing 2g when on wifi

- setting wireless to never sleep

- getting rid of the second gmail push account (along with synch'ing it all the time) - just redirect it to the first one and push that

- getting rid of immediate facebook / twitter etc notifications - twitdeck is pulling updates every hour or so and that's serves its purpose well enough for me.

With that, a couple quick phone calls, checking emails, lite facebooking and reading news I'm down to 78% in 6 hrs 6 mins since I took it off the charger this morning - quite a good result IMHO.

If I figure out the Setting Profiles issue I think I can call it a day on the battery ordeal for the NS.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] xspyda:
Sounds interesting, is this automated and is it achieved through settings or 3rd party software?

Anyone know what the mediaserver process is? Seems to be eating my battery on occasion.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] TheBiles:
When you're connected to wifi the mobile data network automatically disconnects. This is why wifi saves so much battery over mobile data.
[Nexus S Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] xspyda:
God stuff. Haven't had a sim in yet so haven't seen that.