[ubizmo]

Originally Posted by zimbu1234

Turn off GPS (when not using) and Wi-Fi (when not using) and you wont question battery life anymore.

First point: I have OS 4.6.1.250 and I find the battery life quite poor compared to the 8320, given the same usage patterns. I just posted a message about this in the thread on OS 4.6.1.250 in the "Beta You Than Me" section, in fact.

Second: I had Wi-Fi on the 8320 and never had to turn it off when not using, and I had excellent battery life. I didn't have GPS though. Is GPS actually "working" in the background when no app is using it?

Ubizmo

[E-Phone]

Originally Posted by ksc6000

I will try upgrading the OS, though from what I've read so far it was going from the one before 113 and 114 to those, that really helped most people, no? I mean from what I gather from reading all the forum posts I can about this, it seems that 113 and 114 were to have fixed the battery life issue.

Nevertheless, I will give upgrading a shot, but it seems like such a pain because the I have one of those clear cases which I'll have to pry open (and every time I open it I wonder if it's getting looser), and then take out the Media card (because that's still advised right? to take out the media card before upgrading the OS?), and then upgrade. *Grunts*

Oh and I bought Documents to Go Premium edition...will it get overwritten by the new OS's standard edition?

No OS will make your battery last forever. That technology does not exist yet. By changing your OS, you will not increase your battery life significantly more than what you have reported. Nobody lives 300 years because they eat healthy now (or change their heart by a surgery). That is the way it is now, we don't know the future yet.

[ksc6000]

To update you guys on my experiments with the battery life...

Upgrading the OS has seemed to help only slightly. Very, very slightly, almost negligible.

Turning off WIFI doesn't seem to have made any difference. (I'm not willing to turn off BlueTooth)

The biggest difference has come from this: I cut 2 little squares from the adhesive part of a post-it note, and put them on top of the LED light/sensor on the blackberry. So the screen doesn't get as bright, as easily. That has led to the largest battery life savings so far.

And I guess that's gonna have to do.

PS, someone mentioned that the GPS should be turned off...is that even on when no GPS using application is open? I wouldn't think so, but maybe I'm wrong.

[MidnightDraven]

Originally Posted by ksc6000

The biggest difference has come from this: I cut 2 little squares from the adhesive part of a post-it note, and put them on top of the LED light/sensor on the blackberry. So the screen doesn't get as bright, as easily. That has led to the largest battery life savings so far.

And I guess that's gonna have to do.

Or you go change the option to automatically dim screen.
this is controlled by the sensor by the LED.
i.e. the thing you are covering.

or even, change the screen brightness!

these things, including the timeout for screen->black are KNOWN to help improve battery life.

[ubizmo]

Battery life is my biggest disappointment with the 8900 so far. The battery on my 8320 was almost never used up when I'd go to bed at night, at 11:00 or so. Often there was over 50% left, but even on days of heavy use, it seldom got as low as 20%. My usage patterns and location haven't changed, but the battery on the 8900 is often exhausted several hours before I go to bed. It's hard to understand since, as I say, I'm not doing anything different.

Ubizmo

[tazeat]

So are you using the newest OS or not? I noticed a substantial improvement. I use my phone a lot and generally get two days before I get a dead battery. (But I generally charge it daily anyway when I go to bed).

[simulator]

Make sure screen brightness is down to 20% and dimming time is 20 seconds. You'll notice a major improvement in battery life with negligible decrease in performance.

[ubizmo]

Originally Posted by tazeat

So are you using the newest OS or not? I noticed a substantial improvement. I use my phone a lot and generally get two days before I get a dead battery. (But I generally charge it daily anyway when I go to bed).

Yes, I am using 4.6.1.250. Yesterday again I had a dead battery (from a full charge in the morning) by 9:00 pm. With no phone calls; just some emails and web browsing.

@simulator: I'll try reducing screen brightness. I had it at 80%, same as I used to on my 8320. I can understand that powering the higher res screen could cause increased battery drain, although I didn't think it should be this bad.

Ubizmo

[emtp435]

Ok, I'm new to BB and have the 8900 on AT&T. I've noticed the battery life really just sucks (to put it bluntly). Case in point: Left the house last night with a full charge to go to a concert. Took pics, uploaded to FB, made a few short calls, and sent some SMS messages. When I returned home 7 hours later, my battery was about dead.

I have upgraded the OS to .250 with no major improvement. I initially had WiFi on but turned it off after 3 days. I haven't been using a BB case with the built in Standby strip, but started placing it in the pouch until my OtterBox arrives. I try to use the 'Close' option when leaving an app (is this the correct way?). I'm not running GPS (that I know of). I just applied the tips above (reducing back light to 20% and on time to 20 seconds). I have also set auto on/off to shut down from 2300 to 0500.

Will using a case with the Standby strip really help? Any other suggestions?

[ubizmo]

Check the "battery stamina" thread. I don't know if you have Live Search installed on your 8900 (It's not a pre-installed program). I do, but what I didn't know was that every time I'd reset the device, it would load Live Search, and Live Search is configured to use GPS. So even though I wasn't actively using Live Search, it was apparently draining the battery by periodic GPS calls. Once I became aware of this, I manually closed Live Search (I still don't know why it loads on startup), and got much better battery life. If you don't have Live Search installed, this won't help, unless you have some other program going that is using GPS. Geotagging on photos, maybe?

Ubizmo

[emtp435]

Originally Posted by ubizmo

Check the "battery stamina" thread. I don't know if you have Live Search installed on your 8900 (It's not a pre-installed program). I do, but what I didn't know was that every time I'd reset the device, it would load Live Search, and Live Search is configured to use GPS. So even though I wasn't actively using Live Search, it was apparently draining the battery by periodic GPS calls. Once I became aware of this, I manually closed Live Search (I still don't know why it loads on startup), and got much better battery life. If you don't have Live Search installed, this won't help, unless you have some other program going that is using GPS. Geotagging on photos, maybe?

Ubizmo

I'm not running Live Search and I checked the GPS settings. I just turned off Geotagging and completely disabled GPS functions. Maybe that was it? All I know is if this thing doesn't start lasting more than a few hours, it's going back to AT&T for a different model. I'm not giving up on BB, but want decent battery life.

[ubizmo]

Originally Posted by emtp435

I'm not running Live Search and I checked the GPS settings. I just turned off Geotagging and completely disabled GPS functions. Maybe that was it? All I know is if this thing doesn't start lasting more than a few hours, it's going back to AT&T for a different model. I'm not giving up on BB, but want decent battery life.

Could be the GPS functions. I just know that when I stopped Live Search, the difference in battery life was huge, because I wasn't making it through a day on a single charge before. And I wasn't even using Live Search. I don't know for certain that it was the GPS that was doing it, but it seems like a reasonable bet. So if your device is using GPS in the background for something or other, that could be the trouble.

Ubizmo

[emtp435]

I think I may have solved (or greatly improved) the battery situation. With completely disabling the GPS functions and using my new OtterBox case, my battery is at 55% after being off the charger for over 20 hours and used a bit less than when I'm On Duty.

I don't receive the best cell signal where I live, so I'm wondering if my phone is burning battery looking for signal? I try to keep it where it receives 1-2 signal bars. I hope when I go back in to work, this will improve.

[ksc6000]

How do you disable GPS functions? I thought if you don't have any program like blackberry maps, or google maps open, the GPS isn't working anyway?

[segeln4me]

Originally Posted by ubizmo

Check the "battery stamina" thread. I don't know if you have Live Search installed on your 8900 (It's not a pre-installed program). I do, but what I didn't know was that every time I'd reset the device, it would load Live Search, and Live Search is configured to use GPS. So even though I wasn't actively using Live Search, it was apparently draining the battery by periodic GPS calls. Once I became aware of this, I manually closed Live Search (I still don't know why it loads on startup), and got much better battery life. If you don't have Live Search installed, this won't help, unless you have some other program going that is using GPS. Geotagging on photos, maybe?

Ubizmo

Thank you, Ubizmo

That did it for me. It was driving me crazy, since my battery all of a sudden was draining much faster than before, so I read your comments and I deleted Live Search (don't really use it) and wow, battery life has improved drastically!

Thanks! I love this forum!