Mauriat Miranda     mjmwired

HTC EVO 4G Battery Life

I have read the most serious complaints about the HTC EVO 4G have been over battery life. I would like to offer my observations.

I got my EVO on May 19 with 1 free month of service till June 20. During that time I didn’t use the phone much. I switched my primary account after I returned from India. In doing so I found that in my absence an update was available. The points that caught my attention:

  • Improvements to Wi-Fi performance
  • Addresses Facebook sync issue which can improve battery performance

Until this update I was never using WiFi on the phone, and I don’t use Facebook for addresses (or anything else for that matter).

So it has been about less than 2 weeks of usage as a primary phone, and for the most part I think the battery life is completely acceptable.

My typical usage has been less than 1 hour talk time per day. At home I leave WiFi on (even through the night) and while at work I turn WiFi off. At work my 3G coverage is not great (3/5 bars) and often does data roaming (4/5 bars). I haven’t really used much BT or GPS. I haven’t even seen any 4G :( so that’s off. … I do minimal web browsing (only when I’m not near a computer). However I do lots of email. I have 4 email accounts setup (with push email) which seem to beep all day long. I usually don’t run the task killer to quit any background battery wastage. I have haptic feedback enabled, use a starfield “live” wallpaper and leave the default brightness. I don’t have very many apps installed and I don’t use any widgets that constantly update. However I do use auto-sync for Google calendar.

With that, I can go well over 36 hours before I hit the 15% battery critical alarm. If double the talk time or do equivalent surfing (as talking), that comes closer to 24 hours.

Yesterday I chronicled my usage in detail. I had the battery at 100% charge at about 3:30pm yesterday. I hit the 15% critical at 1:30pm today (22 hours later - 21:52:41 to be exact). In that time I have done:

  • 1:10 hours BT music streaming in my car (two 35 min trips, no GPS)
  • 1:30 hours talk time (WiFi on)
  • 0:15 min talk time with BT handsfree (WiFi on)
  • 0:20 min GPS navigation in my car (with some GoogleMaps looking for a place)
  • 0:30 min 3G web surfing (with some youtube)
  • 0:30 min of email

During the bulk of the usage last night there was a major thunderstorm and the signal was a little weak. I did have one dropped call (which is why I disconnected the BT hand’s free).

I’m not saying this is amazing (even though the EVO 4G has one of the biggest batteries on the market). However I don’t find this worthy of my complaint.

In contrast: I have a Motorola Droid (currently disconnected), which I only leave WiFi on. In less than 24 hours (with practically no usage) the battery is completely dead. Pushing the power button does nothing. Previously when I used the Palm Pre, I would have to be very careful at night. Randomly I would wake up to the battery at critical. I would usually have to charge at night. And I disabled everything (no WiFi and no email updates).

The one major need for power on my phone is that it should (1) last all day for my typical usage and (2) if the battery is not close to critical when I go to bed, it should not be critical when I wake up. Currently my EVO seems to do this much better than my other phones.

I do plan to monitor this further in the future.

_* Full disclosure: I got this device for free, but I was planning on buying it anyways. I do pay for service._

Posted in: Android, Devices, Miscellaneous,

2 Comments:

  • Mauriat on July 19, 2010 - 08:08 AM

    Weekend usage: 2 days, 15 hrs, 25 min and 24 sec between charges.
    1:20 BT audio streaming
    2:00 web, email and texting
    whole time WiFi enabled, accidentally left BT on for 12+ hours.

  • Jeff Schiller on July 20, 2010 - 11:11 AM

    My new routine is to just plug my phone in at night. That said, battery life on the Motorola CLIQ is pretty dismal (heavy data usage will kill it). I’ll report on how my DROID does when I get it (hopefully today).

    P.S. Upon first loading of this web page, I got some gibberish in your captcha (non-ASCII characters)