Motorola Droid And HTC Eris: 5 Tips To Improve Battery Life
If you were in habit of using cell phones and are new to Droid smartphones from Motorola and HTC then you will be surprised to know that these smartphones have serious battery requirements.
It may seem alarming for new Droid users that the device can’t survive the day without a charge. Smart phone whether it is the Motorola Droid or the Apple iPhone they will not be just sit as idle. It may be sitting on your desk physically, but it can still be made to do something else.
If you actually put the many functions of the Droid to use, your battery mileage will vary. The Droid, and other smartphones, do a lot of functions like downloading email, updating social networking feeds, or staying connected with instant messaging, require constant live connections to the Internet. Even when the device appears to be ’standing by’ it is really doing a number of things behind the scenes.
To improve the battery life of Droid:
- Change from settings the sleep options as with the Droid, the screen may be set to “Never Sleep”.
- Use the “automatic” brightness setting so the phone’s light sensor can make the determination of what’s appropriate.
- Have your Droid plugged in while using Google Navigator
- Droid Lithium-ion batteries need to be used for maximum performance. If you don’t use your device often, be sure to complete a charge cycle at least once per month.
- The battery stops charging when it’s full. Leaving it connected won’t charge it any more. It’s perfectly OK to leave it connected so it can charge overnight, for example.
Blackberry phones — including the diminutive Blackberry Pearl — poll for emails and text messages constantly throughout the day, “stay connected” for social networking. The Google Maps app provides rudimentary turn-by-turn navigation. Blackberry users talk on the phone, send and receive text messages, check websites, read the NY Times etc, and the batteries on these devices last a long time (I can go nearly 3 days before recharging my Pearl, and I’m a moderately heavy user).
It’s not that we’re asking too much of a phone by using these functions. I’ve been reading a lot about these problems the past few days, and it’s clear to me that this is a flaw and that the only “fix” is to return the phone to the Verizon store. (P.S. People who use Google Navigator as they travel on foot don’t have the option of keeping the phone plugged in while using it)
Jay,
I have owned every decent smartphone out there and I can conclusively say that barring battery life, phones like the pre, droid, and iphone kick the shit out of blackberry in every way. Nobody in their right mind would even attempt to surf the net on a blackberry. It is a waste of time and a pain in the ass. If you want a phone, get a blackberry. If you want a computer in your pocket, get one of the other aforementioned phones.
Unlike other phones, the Droid and Eris keep applications running in the background. This means that when you go “home” or click “back”, the application doesn’t close. Closing applications so that they aren’t constantly running will help to improve battery life. Try a free task manager app such as “Advanced Task Manager” or “Advanced App Killer”. The app killer is better for quickly closing apps, but the Task Manager has the added benefit of letting you uninstall apps.
Droid Eris is EXCELLENT. So far very happy, would recommend
.
Wow the Droid Eris is one of the best phones i have had, but having it for less than a week i have noticed the battery life is horrible. In turn i started look around on the internet for how to save battery life and i found this. I am running Advanced Task Manager so far i like it better than the Advanced App Killer and it has improved battery life. I recommend this app for people who own the Eris.
Check out thedroidgeek for more Droid battery life tips and tricks
I’ve had the Eris for a couple months and notice that when I turn the phone on, all of the apps are running. That’s why I agree with others about the advanced task killer app, it shows running apps & allows you to shut them down, saving some battery life.
I wouldn’t recommend task killer apps as they provide little benefit – oftentimes they actually do more harm than good, since they destabilize the way Android itself manages application lifecycles. Neither Android nor the apps particularly like this.
If you have an app that sits costantly in the background without doing anything worthwhile – and cannot be configured otherwise – consider uninstalling it.
A much better way to improve (dramatically) battery life is by taking control of the data connection.
(Shameless plug – I am the developer) JuiceDefender is a free app that does exactly that; see a description here:
There’s also a paid extension that enables more advanced features; however, the free app with the default settings already does an amazing job (just try it for a day and see for yourself!) without interfering with your normal phone use.
Im ordering this battery for the Droid Eris, it has a few more hours of life and it has the same size so no back cover needed.
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