If I had a nickel for every email I get from a friend asking how to manage battery life on a mobile phone… The HTC Incredible has an ultra slim battery but there are ways other than being tethered to a computer where you can stretch the life of the battery. Here is the email I got from one of our readers
Rod,
Do you have any suggestions for conserving the battery on the HTC Incredible. Fully charged this morning, probably 20 minutes of phone time, not very much email or Internet, and the battery is almost dead – BAD
These emails just make my spider sense dance. Here are my suggestions if you are realizing poor battery life with the ultra slim battery in the HTC Incredible.
What is Draining the Battery?
Before trying all the common solutions to battery draining issues, lets first determine what is draining your battery. The moment you notice your battery is low or draining too fast open up this built-in battery utility.
Menu | Settings | About Phone | Battery | Battery Use
What I am looking for here are applications that you have installed, as we can hopefully make changes to lessen the impact on the battery going forward. Next, I want to see if the Display, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth are sitting high on the list of apps impacting battery life.
Historically WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, and display brightness all greatly impact battery performance. With Android 2.1 another feature that can kill your battery are the Live Wallpapers. If you’re using Live Wallpaper just turn if off or don’t complain about battery life.
Conserve Battery life around Display usage
Adjust the Brightness of the display (Menu | Settings | Sound & Display | Brightness). By default it is set to auto adjust but you can manually adjust it down. I do this all the time on my laptops before a flight, so if I am trying to get marathon battery life I always adjust the display brightness down. As a note, I know that Brent never sets his brightness above 20%, ever.
Consider adjusting the display timeout (Menu | Settings | Sound & Display | Screen Timeout). The default value is 1 minute but you can reduce it to as low as 15 sec but 30 seconds does the trick for me. Another thing to consider is getting use to clicking the power button to put the display to sleep the moment you don’t need it any longer. Also, consider a utility like Screebl, which will allow you to set the timeout to 15 seconds, EXCEPT when you are holding the device upright, when it will not go out at all. The best of both worlds!
Screebl Lite
Get (and keep) your Screen on! Screebl is an application that controls power saving features based on orientation. Never have the screen turn off again while using your phone, and SAVE BATTERY too. It’s possible with Screebl!
Vibrate when Typing
By default your HTC Incredible vibrates every time you press a key. It is a nice feature that drains the battery like there is no tomorrow. Turn it off by un-checking the box ‘Vibrate when typing’.
Menu | Settings | Language & Keyboards | Touch Input | Text Input | Vibrate when typing
Manage your Notifications
If Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Email, App Updates, or many other things are constantly popping notifications, consider turning some of them off as notifications do impact battery performance. This is done in each app but it is worth it if you really don’t care about the notifications.
Common Issues
If you are someplace where WiFi is available, then use it. Otherwise, turn it off as the search for WiFi access points impacts battery life heavily. Use the built-in widget to make toggling Wi-Fi on and off easier. The same applies to Bluetooth and GPS; if you don’t need them for an extended period of time, just turn them off. One thing to note is that if you are on Android 2.0 or higher, you can usually leave the GPS toggled on and it will not be used unless an app needs it, and in that mode, it draws no power. The downside is that occasionally an app will go crazy with the GPS and then you can see the battery plummet. You will know this is happening because you will see the GPS icon in the Notification area. If that is on more than a few seconds, take a look and see what is hammering GPS and hence the battery.
There are a couple of options for this. The Android Power widget includes Bluetooth, WiFi, and GPS. Or you can have the HTC shortcuts for each of them individually. Personally I like the Android Power control as it is a one stop shop. If you don’t want to take up a lot of space, but do want a bit, also consider Beautiful Widgets, where you can choose individual toggles.
To use the Android Power Widget
Press and Hold on the screen or Click the + button
Widget | Power Control
Press and Hold on the screen or Click the + button
Shortcut | Settings | Wi-Fi or Bluetooth or Location
The above changes will greatly improve your battery life. I personally use an app to download podcasts in the background 2x per day over Wi-Fi or 3G so I know that it can greatly impact my battery life. You can always consider using a task kill app like Quick System Info or Advanced Task Manager. If this does not help improve your battery life then next step is buying an additional battery or a portable battery charger. I just ordered IMP500-3500 Solar Powered External Backup Battery for $35 from Amazon and this will go with me on the golf course or business trips. We have a great post about portable battery chargers if this is a route you want to go.
Task Managers
We have not really reviewed Task Managers yet on SMR, and in fact, there is a bit of controversy surrounding their use on Android. Where they are absolutely essential on the Blackberry platform, supposedly Android takes care of this automatically. However, if you absolutely, categorically NEED to make sure that stuff is shut down to conserve battery, then this is probably the way to go. You will have to specify explicitly which apps should NOT be included in the “kill” list. Most will also let you determine how often you scavenge for memory or how aggressive they should operate. Make sure you carefully review their operating notes. The following are two of the best options for this on Android and each has it’s own specific strength.
Advanced Task Manager
End applications, speed up phone, and save battery!!
1) Terminate Apps and Services
2) Auto-End Apps Service
3) Show Memory Info
4) Bulk select and exclusion
5) Widget form for one-click end all
6) Bulk-quick Uninstall
Quick System Info
Quick System Info is an utility application for quick access of the basic system information for your Android platform, including information for CPU, memory, SD Card, running processes, network states and installed applications.
You might also think about this and decide that the whole point of having a mobile device is to use it and what’s the point of having it if you spend all your time managing the battery? In this case, you might look for a Slim Extended Battery, which will give you 40% more battery (1750 mAh) but in the exact same form factor. Or you might consider an Extended Battery, which is double thickness and will double the depth of your device, but will give you nearly 3 times the battery capacity (3500 mAh). You can find either at Seidio.com.
If you have other battery saving tips let me know but I think these will provide the best improvements without impacting the phone experience. Let us know how you mileage varies with these tips!