OT: Help!! Any HTC Desire users out there?

MadammeMarie

Loving the new phone, but what's with the battery life? 7 hours, after charging for almost 24, and the battery ran out!!!! Also, phone is a bit warm.

Obviously, will go back to the shop, but has anybody experieced this?

Please do not reply with "should have got the iPhone". I chose HTC for a number of reasons.

Thank you!

WesternWay

for what it is worth, my HTC hero gets hot if I have "everything on" wifi/blutooth/gps no screen saver etc.


I do find battery life not fantastic on it, but it is the best phone I have owned.

Kieran_Burns

If it's brand new, you need to run through a few full battery charge cycles before you get full life out of it

http://androidforums.com/htc-desire/574 ... ption.html

Kieran_Burns

Oh, and my HTC touch HD is up for upgrade in 2 weeks... I'm deciding which HTC to go for next. I like good phones, not over-hyped proprietary nonsense

Finbar Saunders

What features do you have switched on? On my HTC Hero I usually have bluetooth off, use 2G only for data, wifi on and looking for connections, and GPS off. There was a great free app called Locale that would manage your settings based on location either determined by GPS or by cell signal. It's a pay app now and not exactly cheap but it did help keep power consumption down.

lardboy

You need to get JuiceDefender, and to let it run through a few cycles. You'll still have to charge every night, though.

The major culprit of eating battery is the screen, so stop playing with it and it'll live longer.

Kiblams

You would be amazed at how much bettery life things like Data connection, WIFI and GPS use, whenever I go to Dublin for work I turn off data roaming and just with the data connections disabled the battery lasts at least 3 times longer.

When you have had the phone for a while you will find the battery lasts longer just from your usage of it calming down

I recently installed Android on my old HTC Phone, and can boot into either when I please. WM6 and Droid2 on one phone...Bliss!

Mark Elvin

Stop it with the HTC talk. Youv'e got me looking at them instead of iPhone now,

londonbairn

Battery life at the start is pretty poor, but it gets miles better over time.

pst88

Also turn the screen brightness right down.

dav1

I have been able to push mine out a bit since getting it.

Turn off GPS when not needed, turn off wifi and bluetooth also. There are several free widgits in the market that make all of this easier.

I have noticed that it improves over about a week though, I think because im messing with it less, the battery has had a few cycles and it needs to do less syncing now everything is set up.

And no you shoud't have picked an iphone. IMO the desire is much better

notsoblue

+1 to all the above especially the charge cycles.

There are some handy HTC widgets built in that allow you to toggle Wifi, Bluetooth, GPS, Mobile Network etc... I've just added those to one of my home screens for easy access.

nich

londonbairn wrote:

Battery life at the start is pretty poor, but it gets miles better over time.

^ This (I'm assuming yours is new?)

Mate at work has one and he noticed a good improvement after a week or so. His phone is still borked though for other reasons.

My Hero is still plodding along nicely too 8)

lost_in_thought

So, should you let the battery run all the way out then recharge? Or charge regularly when it's getting a little low?

nich

I don't think you need to fully discharge modern batteries these days.

This is a good site:

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Your-Cell-P ... ast-Longer

It actually suggests discharging fully is bad for the battery. Who knows!

Paul E

Lithium Ion batteries like being used, running them down past a certain point actually kills them. There is usually a circuit in the cell to stop that though. Taking them down to 30% or just under then charging back up keeps them happy.

jonginge

One thing I've noticed on my Nexus is that some processes can go into spin mode and eat battery life*. The email client can sometimes do this.

I look at the Battery Use page under Settings > About Phone quite a lot and if Android OS is top of the list I know something's up.

Another thing that can send the droid rogue is using a usb charger not attached to a PC. There's something amiss in the mount/unmount code in the OS and it spins on the lookup of the usb server

* i use technical terms, me

tailwindhome

What are you people talking about?

lost_in_thought

Paul E wrote:

Lithium Ion batteries like being used, running them down past a certain point actually kills them. There is usually a circuit in the cell to stop that though. Taking them down to 30% or just under then charging back up keeps them happy.

Ah groovy. Ta for that! I shall stop running it out then...

I have advanced task manager that I use every time I'm done with the phone to kill all but a few vital tasks, seems to help with battery life a bit.

JonGinge wrote:

Another thing that can send the droid rogue is using a usb charger not attached to a PC. There's something amiss in the mount/unmount code in the OS and it spins on the lookup of the usb server

Oh really? I have that arrangement at the moment - USB cable into a plug... maybe that explains why my battery's suddenly only lasting until 3pm...

milan_ns

Screen and data transfer are the the power hungry bits - GPS (e.g. SportyPal app) & listening to music no so much

Has anyone experienced the bug where music starts skipping randomly when using headphones while cycling/running? - It's so annoying!!

Paul E

milan_ns wrote:

Screen and data transfer are the the power hungry bits - GPS (e.g. SportyPal app) & listening to music no so much

Has anyone experienced the bug where music starts skipping randomly when using headphones while cycling/running? - It's so annoying!!

Bloody hell, if i really use my 3GS it lasts well past 3pm without charging and skipping music, I wouldn't put up with that, I will stick with apple I think, at least the ipod side of it is near enough perfect.

jonginge

lost_in_thought wrote:

JonGinge wrote:

Another thing that can send the droid rogue is using a usb charger not attached to a PC. There's something amiss in the mount/unmount code in the OS and it spins on the lookup of the usb server

Oh really? I have that arrangement at the moment - USB cable into a plug... maybe that explains why my battery's suddenly only lasting until 3pm...

Ditto. My proper charger is at work but i charge using usb/plug at home. The battery life can be really short sometimes. Check the Battery Use, if Android OS is top then try turning it off, turning it back on again

Edit: just noticed there's a new series of the IT Crowd starting soon...

brownie1111

notsoblue wrote:

+1 to all the above especially the charge cycles.

There are some handy HTC widgets built in that allow you to toggle Wifi, Bluetooth, GPS, Mobile Network etc... I've just added those to one of my home screens for easy access.

Same experience here over the month I've had my Desire, battery life improves over the first week or two and use the on/off widgets.

As suggested, also turn the brightness down by 20%, you don't notice the difference in normal use.

dav1

ANother thing that meay help is an app called "advanced task killer". It will let you stop any running programs that you do not need and thus reduce power required.

One doenside with the way droid works is that most apps keep running in the background rather then shutting down when you exit them.

davis

JonGinge wrote:

lost_in_thought wrote:

JonGinge wrote:

Another thing that can send the droid rogue is using a usb charger not attached to a PC. There's something amiss in the mount/unmount code in the OS and it spins on the lookup of the usb server

Oh really? I have that arrangement at the moment - USB cable into a plug... maybe that explains why my battery's suddenly only lasting until 3pm...

Ditto. My proper charger is at work but i charge using usb/plug at home. The battery life can be really short sometimes. Check the Battery Use, if Android OS is top then try turning it off, turning it back on again

Edit: just noticed there's a new series of the IT Crowd starting soon...

Is that a 3rd party charger? It might well be that the phone's expecting a positive voltage on the data lines (which tells it it's attached to a plain old charger), but the 3rd-party charger isn't providing that signal.
I've hacked a few chargers for iPods to defeat this kind of device stroppiness before. It was merely adding a couple of resistors 'twixt some lines.

anyway, I appear to have had beer, and an eye's decided to play silly buggers. I'll give up for the evening, I think

brownie1111

Dav1 wrote:

ANother thing that meay help is an app called "advanced task killer".

In particular on the Androidforums there has been a shed load of problems reported with the task killers, the Desire and Android 2.1 by design are supposed to have applications running in the background. They are not recommended, for example alarms get killed off.

Mr Sworld

Paul E wrote:

Bloody hell, if i really use my 3GS it lasts well past 3pm without charging and skipping music, I wouldn't put up with that, I will stick with apple I think, at least the ipod side of it is near enough perfect.

Well if you want to stay with Mr S. Jobs then fine. I'll be able replace my battery, upgrade the memory card, get free apps, customise my phone, load music from anyone I choose, multi-task, use Flash and not have Apple tell me what I can and can't do.

Each to there own fanboy I guess....

Paul E

As soon as I see the word fanboy I tend to stop reading and switch off, I am no fanboy, I happen to like things that just work, I get my music from a lot of places and never had a problem loading it onto an ipod or iphone, my phone now multi tasks with ios4 (yes I have it on a 3GS) never had any battery problems to have needed to replace it and have a choice of many free apps.

From keeping up with stuff ont he android side it all seems a bit of a mess with certain phones being upgraded, others being promised and not getting an upgrade from the carrier etc etc, so you get some on 1.5 still some on 1.6 some on 2.0 and some on 2.2.

As for flash, it's a cpu hog and is unstable so no thanks, never ran into a site that not having flash on my phone stopped me from doing what I needed to do.

If being a fanboy means i get a phone gets updated every year and just works then I am one.

Sorry for the rant but I buy the phone that suits me and works well, I'm not nerdy enough (almost but not quite) to go for a android flavoured phone just yet till they sort out the problems I read about everyday.

Mr Sworld

Paul E wrote:

As soon as I see the word fanboy I tend to stop reading and switch off

Obviously not.....

Have I hit a nerve?

Mr Sworld

Paul E wrote:

IIf being a fanboy means i get a phone gets updated every year and just works then I am one.

Yes.... However you have to buy a new phone to get the new OS. Android gets a new OS free..... :P

dav1

brownie1111 wrote:

Dav1 wrote:

ANother thing that meay help is an app called "advanced task killer".

In particular on the Androidforums there has been a shed load of problems reported with the task killers, the Desire and Android 2.1 by design are supposed to have applications running in the background. They are not recommended, for example alarms get killed off.

THis is true. I really should have added that this app must be used with care and only apps that you are cirtain you no longer need to run should be killed.