I have the AT&T Samsung Galaxy S II phone, and it is absolutely brilliant. Speeds are excellent - no lag. Screen is absolutely AMAZING. Camera is the best I've ever touched.
BUT, the thing that bugs me is the battery life. One of the selling points of the Galaxy S II to me was the "Amazing Battery Life" which has been praised. I have only owned this phone for two days (charged only one and a half times), but I have not seen this "excellent" battery life AT ALL.
Any tips or suggestions? I have read that the battery in this device "improves" after some time (a few charge cycles). Is this true?
Thank you
hey congratulations on your new samsung. I got mine when it first came out and had the same problems with batteries. My best suggestion is to familiarize yourself with custom roms and learn everything you need to know about flashing and rooting, and when you're ready look into installing a custom rom. Cognition v1.5.1 is a really good choice because of the fact that it removes a lot of the bloatware that automatically runs when you turn the phone on (which drains the battery quite a bit). Also some other ways of dealing with the battery life is to reduce the brightness as much as you can handle (the highest setting of brightness on any phone is never a good idea for battery life).
if you search around these forums you will probably find better help from people who know more about this stuff than me. However, as someone who went from never touching android in my life to learning it all with this phone I can say your best bet is to learn how to flash and mess around with the firmware. That coupled with basic battery tips will help a lot.
also one final thought. If you download battery calibrator from the market, charge your phone to 100% then take the plug out and run it, let it drain down to 0% then start the charge over that is the quickest way to fix the battery issues. (this would only need to be done once, or every time you flash a new firmware if you choose to pursue that).
hope I helped!
Related
How many charges before the battery is officially broken in.
Got my phone yesterdy and the battery life doesn't seem amazing as some other people have mentioned.
Im using Cognition ROM with the Kernel included with it.
Im guessing it takes afew charges for the battery to break in and reach its full potential?
I don't think the same.
For betterment of battery backup see the other battery related threads.
BBS is a must if you already don't know,
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1179809
Regards.
Yeah i used this.
Noticed something about GTALK_ASYNC_CONN
Other then that, everything seemed above board
it will take a few deep cycles for sure. i usually do a few days of deep cycles, then i start charging it whenever i feel like it and by the end of the week it is great. i keep trying the newest cognition roms (which i love) but i keep going back to cognition version 1.13 and then i flash a custom kernel cognition made and i get great battery life. your results may vary though.
Hi, I love my 3VO but my biggest issue with it is battery life.. I use my phone a lot for music, texting, facebook, etc.. and can't get it to last me a full day. I seem to get 8-10 hours out of my battery, if I back off on usage I probably get 12 or a little better. is there much to gain by rooting? my old phone was a rooted hero, which stock the phone hardly worked.. so root was almost required, and made the phone so much better. I've considered rooting the 3vo, but it's just worked well enough that I haven't made time to mess with it and don't necessarily have a reason to. any input for me?
For battery life, I run MIUI. Yes root it. De bloat it at a minimum. Toss a few ROMs and kernels around. I like my Evo4G more than this phone until it was rooted.
Eternity is a sweet sense ROM by the way. Not great on battery, bit it is a best!
E3D'ed... Booyah!
Battery
Hi
Root your phone, install clockwork mod recovery, flash clockwork recovery to save your rooted stock rom.
Next drain your battery until its dead, recharge to full and reboot into recovery.
From there you you will need to wipe your battery stats, found under advanced. Reboot.
Drain battery once again and charge to full.
useful links:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=669497
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=954107
If ur gettiing that good of battery life u should be happy. Thats pretty impressive for any phone in my opinion.
Sent from my PG86100 using XDA Premium App
Please use the Q&A Forum for questions Thanks
Moving to Q&A
Oops.. My bad.
I might have to give rooting it a shot, my friends with iphones and similar usage seem to get at least a couple hours more than I do. could just be the tiny screens they have to deal with.. but if I could make mine last longer with a different rom I might have to give it a shot. As of right now my phone has been on the fritz a little bit.. and I wanna get that taken care of before I try rooting it. I'm sure sprint won't be too quick to replace a rooted phone.
Installed synergy and with Virtuous_OC-PC my battery life has doubled compared to stock htc sense. It appears to manage turning on and off services better then the stock, as well as under clocking when it's asleep. I really notice it when the battery is low, the power save settings seem to really kick in there.
Yes, absolutely root your phone. Best thing I have done! Check out CleanROM by Scott at www.scottsroms.com. Great battery life - I average about 24 hours with light to moderate usage and 12+ hours with moderate to heavy usage.
Just try out a few ROMS and see which one you like and runs good on your phone. Even with the same ROM some phones have can have issues and others don't.
I don't have this phone but i have the Sprint Galaxy S 2 Epic 4g touch
I've seen some roms showing 80% battery life with 1 day and still going battery life and it got me curious.
SO how is your phones battery life? I know my phone lasts me a whole day and end of story...
You have a different phone as you already know, therefore a separate forum in which you can discuss about things like these.
Anyways, battery life is completely subjective to each individual. It depends on each phone even if they're the same model. Number of apps, how you use your phone, and so many things else need to be considered, not to mention the rom and kernel tweaks.
To get the most out your battery (apart from completely switching off the phone) you have to monitor all the above mentioned things and how they affect battery life. A good way to start is to install betterbatterystats available on the author's thread here (or play store version which you should consider if you find the free one helpful). It will tell you the wake locks holding your device from deep sleep and apps draining your battery and going rogue.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2
How often do people buy new batteries for their sgsII?
I've tried four different roms (4.0. 0+) with three different kernels & have seen very poor battery life even after the usual first couple of poor days.
I have had this phone for over 12 months & it's used for at least four hours plus on games/net usage a day, sometimes more.
I bow to your combined greater experience, would a new battery improve this greatly?
Thanks in advance for your help folks.
FoxForceFive said:
How often do people buy new batteries for their sgsII?
I've tried four different roms (4.0. 0+) with three different kernels & have seen very poor battery life even after the usual first couple of poor days.
I have had this phone for over 12 months & it's used for at least four hours plus on games/net usage a day, sometimes more.
I bow to your combined greater experience, would a new battery improve this greatly?
Thanks in advance for your help folks.
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I don't think so.
You can install an app, or maybe a setting on the phone, how much voltages a battery gives.
Try more different roms. Even the builds of a custom rom can decrease or increase battery life hugely.
Verstuurd van mijn GT-I9100
My experience says "YES". I thought JB was terrible on battery life until I replaced my original battery (1.5yrs old) with an original Samsung battery (the 2000mAh instead of 1650mAh).
Now after calls, internet in morning, reading RSS, photos, updating apps, texting, & email it's 2pm in the day and still says 76%. Plus I use NoLED which is not great on battery as it is. That's on XXMS1.
Previously it would've been about 40%, or worse if I'd been reading on the phone more, and I'd be topping up the charge with my charger at work.
Of course a larger battery gives you better battery life. It's just a case of your rom/kernel-combination, your app-usage, screen brightness, apps running on the background, gps, etc. etc.
Have a look at this thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1909996
It is very usefull and improves your battery life a lot.
I have been trying out various 4.4.x ROMs (CM, Resurrection Remix, SlimROM) and had varying levels of success but the one issue that I have had consistently with all of them on my SGS2 is battery. 4.4.x seems to devour my battery no matter which ROM I am using (and the different ROMS are using different kernels usual). CM11 has far and away been the most stable so I have stayed with that but it too as failed to resolve my battery issue. I have never had much luck with battery life before but half a day is ridiculous. I thought about trying a different kernel but not sure that would help as #1 I would think the CM team would know better than I what would be the optimal kernel and #2 I have been trying different kernels anyway when I have been trying different ROMS as I believe the different ROMS have all had different kernels. Has anyone else had this issue? More importantly has anyone had any luck resolving this?
I suggest you to replace your battery. Beaware from cheap ones!!! I have I9100 too, i also try many methods to increase my battery life but i reach maximum 10 hours. Then i buy new batteries. It is not original galaxy s2 batteries but i think better than the original one.(1800mAh buy from ebay) Now i use RR kit kat rom with stock kernel my mobile data is always on and I go to bed at %35 percent of batteries.
1. If your battery is quite old, replace it.
2. Check whether you are having any wakelocks. Does it go to deep sleep?
3. When you say battery life as half a day, what is your actual usage? Screen on time, Wi-Fi, 3g, calls etc?
4. Betterbatterystats and greenify are your friends.
ottoasd said:
I suggest you to replace your battery. Beaware from cheap ones!!! I have I9100 too, i also try many methods to increase my battery life but i reach maximum 10 hours. Then i buy new batteries. It is not original galaxy s2 batteries but i think better than the original one.(1800mAh buy from ebay) Now i use RR kit kat rom with stock kernel my mobile data is always on and I go to bed at %35 percent of batteries.
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Thanks. My battery is about 2.5 years old, its an Anker battery, 1900mAh that I bought on amazon (I honestly don't know what constitutes "old" for batteries, is 2 1/2 years old?). As for ROMS I was actually running an older version of RR but had serious stability issues (related to sdcard, never was able to resolve it) and battery wasn't great (better than now though) when I upgraded to the newest RR I had some lingering stability issues and battery issues too so just settled on CM11 this time.
banjara said:
1. If your battery is quite old, replace it.
Sorry, but what in your all's opinion makes for an "old" battery? 2, 3 years? or are we talking 4+ is there a way I could test my battery to see if it going bad perhaps?
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2. Check whether you are having any wakelocks. Does it go to deep sleep?
I am not totally clear on wakelocks and deep sleep, I have "Battery Stats" installed (guess its not the same as the betterbatteryapp but seems to give some similar info) but its not clear to me how to read it all. In this case it sayd the stat period is 3 hours 8 minutes and out of that it has been in deep sleep 1h 51m and running time 1h 17m and wifi time 1h 25m and my batter is down to 74%, I am assuming that is not normal? In terms of applications the hogs are defintely the two audio apps poweramp and dogcatcher (they are just at the top of the list, the numbers it gives don't really make sense to me)
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3. When you say battery life as half a day, what is your actual usage? Screen on time, Wi-Fi, 3g, calls etc?
Well I have a 3 hour idea of my usage above, I don't use 3 g, I have wifi on about a third of the day perhaps, and actualy screen time probably just an hour or two, I do use it quite a bit for podcasts and music though. But I had tried it with my audio apps uninstalled for a few days and it still drained fairly quickly.
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4. Betterbatterystats and greenify are your friends.
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Will take a look, I kind of liked the battery stats option to compare to stats that others have uploaded, but I haven't checked out greenify.
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Thanks!
If your battery is 2.5 yrs old, that's almost certainly the cause of your issues. Good advice to stick to original Samsung batteries; though there's nothing wrong with the 2000mAh genuine Samsung battery Vs the 1650mAh one - I used one of these for almost two years.
MistahBungle said:
If your battery is 2.5 yrs old, that's almost certainly the cause of your issues. Good advice to stick to original Samsung batteries; though there's nothing wrong with the 2000mAh genuine Samsung battery Vs the 1650mAh one - I used one of these for almost two years.
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Doh, was hoping I wouldn't have to replace the battery. Actually... that said. Should a 2.5 year old mostly unused 1650mah samsung battery still be good? I think I still have the factory battery around somewhere now that I think about it. When I purchased the Anker battery I seemed to remember it was mainly for price and reputation reasons, not that the Samsung battery had such a bad reputation but the Anker had such a good reputation and a pretty good price.
I will give another battery a try if you say 2.5 years is old, but I do have to admit that the battery drain was not nearly as much of an issue with the older ROM I was using (RR 4.2.x) before, it wasn't stellar but not like this so it seems to me its more than just the batter thats giving me problems here.
Anyway, my phone is still golden other than the battery issues so if i can squeeze another year and a half out of it I'd be a happy camper. Any other thoughts would be welcome (and appreciated!)
Batteries discharge over time if they're stored/not used, ideally you should charge it up to/keep it at around 60-65% every few mths if you're going to store it for that long. If you've not touched it at all in that time, it might not be able to take/hold a charge anymore because that wasn't done.
Only way you're going to find out is if you charge it & use it.
Yeah, if you ended up getting 4 yrs out of a smartphone you'd be rather happy indeed.
If you really want to satisfy yourself as to whether it is indeed the age of the battery you're currently using causing your problems, do a clean install of stock & test that for a week. If it does the same thing with stock, you'll know for definite it is the battery. I'd be very surprised if it isn't though; they're not designed to last much longer than what you've had yours if you're charging/discharging constantly.
MistahBungle said:
Batteries discharge over time if they're stored/not used, ideally you should charge it up to/keep it at around 60-65% every few mths if you're going to store it for that long. If you've not touched it at all in that time, it might not be able to take/hold a charge anymore because that wasn't done.
Only way you're going to find out is if you charge it & use it.
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doh, yeah haven't touched it; and the life lessons continue (didn't know that about batteries). will try it out, if its gone its gone, lesson learned.
Yeah, if you ended up getting 4 yrs out of a smartphone you'd be rather happy indeed.
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Yeah, I suppose I am pretty easy to please, I don't do games and don't really do video and don't feel that my phone is particularly slow (yet) so so far happy enough
If you really want to satisfy yourself as to whether it is indeed the age of the battery you're currently using causing your problems, do a clean install of stock & test that for a week. If it does the same thing with stock, you'll know for definite it is the battery. I'd be very surprised if it isn't though; they're not designed to last much longer than what you've had yours if you're charging/discharging constantly.
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Thats a good idea, given what you've said i don't doubt that a large part of my problem is the battery (like I said before, with the older rom it was better but not stellar) do you know where I can find a stock rom nowadays? (sorry on the ROMS page they all seem to be custom roms, or perhaps i missed something?)
Thanks!
Stock roms @ Samfirmware, get one for your carrier/country (not 4.0.4 though, anything else is fine), if there's only 4.0.4 for your carrier/country, any other stock rom will do really -I just tell people to stick to carrier/country in the first instance as these have modems bundled with them that should have been tested by the carrier to give most people on their network good connectivity most of the time.
Or, Wanam has a thread in one of the development sections (I forget which; do a search or have a rummage around) that has CWM flashable stock roms if you'd prefer to do it that way; haven't had a look at the thread for a while so not sure if links are still live, but Wanam is a very active dev & I'd be surprised if he doesn't still have them hosted somewhere.
Does it drain more at a locationw where you use a certain Wifi?
I'm asking cause wlan-rx drains are know Android phones in big open Wifis as the phones get bombarded with signals from other computers/phones and are not filtered and keeps the phone awake.
Easiest way to find out is using Betterbatterystats.