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Google Nexus 4 battery drains quickly

J

JumBie

Golden Member
Full charge this morning, made 15 minutes worth of phone calls, about 20 minutes total browsing, and the phone is at 30%. Looking at the battery menu this is what i see.

Screen 24%
Voice calls 23%
Hotmail 15%
Phone 6%
Phone Idle 6%
Android system 5%
Cell standby 5%
Android OS 4%
WiFi 4%
Maps 3%

My lord...this phone sucks on battery. I even set hotmail to only sync when pushed no change in percentage. I lowered the brightness on the screen all the way to 0, and changed the background to a plain not live wallpaper, the number hasnt changed for that either. I cant find any option for google maps not to constantly sync. I have no idea how the battery dies so fast.

EDIT: Turned off the sync location for google maps, no change.
 
Probably doing a lot of sync stuff at the beginning. If it's still acting like that after a week, you could have issues.
 
I read through XDA sometime ago and there was a post where people were getting much better battery life after flashing their phone with the AOSP rom for some reason.
 
Strange, I haven't had that problem. Today is the 2nd time I forgot to charge the phone overnight and again I made it through the day without compromising.

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It really depends on what your phone is doing. Comparison is not impossible, but there are too many variables to consider per different usage. I can definitely see that my new Nexus 7 3G/HSPA drains battery quicker than WiFi-only model. And I think* the Nexus 7 3G's default CPU governor is 'interactive' while WiFi model's governor is 'ondemand.' But even watching Internet video on T-Mobile's HSPA (which has been very satisfying for me, compared to AT&T), Nexus 7's battery has been way better than any phone that I have owned. (edit: Yes, I know it's bigger)

Does Optimus G suffer short battery life as well? I am curious whether anecdotal testimonies of Nexus 4's short battery life lie on hardware side or on software side. (or combination of both, situationally?)

*I am not sure about it but that's how my system management apps read them.
 
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How many total hours of on time was it? I'm left at around 30% (from 90%) after a day of use from 8am to 6pm. That's also with around 3hrs of screen on with browsing and exchange email and gmail syncing.

In the browser, turn off the setting for tilt sensor. Turn off Google Now sync unless you really want it on. The Play Music app also have some sync settings that I turned off.
 
My numbers on Android ICS are a lot like Rick James Astley's. Your voice number seems absurdly high if you truly only talked for 15m. And hotmail is being terrible.

A lot of people here recommend Better Battery Stats, which is basically just a tool for pinning down wakelocks. I have come to really like GSAM Battery Monitor for more general stats. They are more accurate and more detailed than what you get with the stock battery tool.

You get overall usage, app usage, and a battery life graph. With those three and a little intuition, you should be able to figure out what's causing any excessive drain.
 
Okay i downloaded GSAM batter tool, any reason my screen should be taking up 23% of the battery?

Also anyone else notice that the time on the missed call list is inaccurate? It will say i missed the call 3 hours ago, when really it was 5 or 6 hours ago. And it does this with every missed call, they are off by HOURS.
 
phucheneh said:
My numbers on Android ICS are a lot like Rick James Astley's. Your voice number seems absurdly high if you truly only talked for 15m. And hotmail is being terrible.

A lot of people here recommend Better Battery Stats, which is basically just a tool for pinning down wakelocks. I have come to really like GSAM Battery Monitor for more general stats. They are more accurate and more detailed than what you get with the stock battery tool.

You get overall usage, app usage, and a battery life graph. With those three and a little intuition, you should be able to figure out what's causing any excessive drain.
Click to expand...


My experience of that App is similar.
 
The screen is simply always going to be a large battery draw. My phone has mostly been idling since I unplugged it ~2.5 hours ago, and the screen is at 16%. The only things you can do to reduce it are to make the screen turn off faster (either by lowering the timer or hitting the lock button as soon as you finish using the phone) and reduce the brightness.

Don't know about the missed call thing; may be phone-specific. I don't have a Nexus and am just offering general advice for Android.

GSAM works best when it has a large sample of time. Significant charging will reset the stats. It will probably help most to look at it after a day's use with no charging, and see which apps are using the most battery.
 
You're probably suffering from the wakelock bug which is stopping your phone from sleeping. You can confirm this with Better Battery Stats. This issue should be fixed in the next update, or with a custom kernel.
 
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JumBie said:
Okay i downloaded GSAM batter tool, any reason my screen should be taking up 23% of the battery?

Also anyone else notice that the time on the missed call list is inaccurate? It will say i missed the call 3 hours ago, when really it was 5 or 6 hours ago. And it does this with every missed call, they are off by HOURS.
Click to expand...

The screen on time is generally the largest drain on battery, for me it's usually either that or voice calls. How long was your screen on time at 23%? I generally got around 2 hours on the stock ROM/kernel if I wasn't doing much else.
 
thecapsaicinkid said:
You're probably suffering from the wakelock bug which is stopping your phone from sleeping. You can confirm this with Better Battery Stats. This issue should be fixed in the next update, or with a custom kernel.
Click to expand...

Even with the wake lock bug (msm_hsic_host, right? ) I get much much better battery life on my nexus 4. As mentioned, if something else isn't amiss, and op keeps getting such terrible numbers, I think there might be something wrong with his phone.
 
Mines coming in today. as long as its better than my galaxy nexus im happy. But after ready some peoples results with franco kernel i might try it. i want around 3 hours screen time with 4g . Hope thats doable.
 
I'm able to get around 3 hours (usually a little more like 3.5 or so) on franco's kernel, but to me at least I notice a performance decrease. I went back to a different kernel and everything seems quite a bit smoother.

For the OP though the first thing I would do is get rid of the hotmail app, that's using an insane amount of battery for what it is. Can you setup hotmail in the default email app?
 
VashHT said:
For the OP though the first thing I would do is get rid of the hotmail app, that's using an insane amount of battery for what it is. Can you setup hotmail in the default email app?
Click to expand...
Oh yeah, I hadn't noticed that. Best way to sync hotmail is to add it as a Corporate (EAS, haha, see other thread) account. Settings here.
 
I was planning to buy Nexus 4, but after this I need to think twice.
What do you think friends, should I go for Nexus 4??
 
i can get through a day with light use, easily. if i only use the phone when I actually need to, it can make it 24+ hours without charging.

if I use it heavily, it will die in 15 hours with at most 3-4 hours of screen time.

if you work somewhere where your phone can just be plugged in at your desk most of the day, it's a non-issue as it is for me.
 
sadek said:
I was planning to buy Nexus 4, but after this I need to think twice.
What do you think friends, should I go for Nexus 4??
Click to expand...

As the watchdogs were keen to point out, I use my phone in optimal conditions with nearly constant wifi access. After mygmail was hacked from China, I changed and forgot my facebook so there is less battery drain without fb. At work I rarely call, use power hungry apps or play games/videos but I do text and browse a lot with moderate screen time, ~2 hours. Today was an atypical day, dropped off a friend at a dealership that I used navigation on for ~40 minutes and about 30 minutes of talking on the phone more compared to average days.


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I know some are saying they get terrible battery life but for me it's been ~70% better than HD2 and ~15% better than GNex. I don't think I saw anyone report worse battery life than GNex, so the battery complaints about the N4 are IMO a little exaggerated.
 
But 15% better than GNex isn't impressive when the GNex is officially crap according to most people.

Look, the Nexus 4 isn't terrible in battery life, but it could be better. The reason it's not terrible is because of its 2100mah battery. There's a reason it scored pretty poorly on Anand's battery tests.

It's a night and day difference between wifi and 3G for battery life. I can tell you that. When I put it on wifi only at work, only then does it match my iPhone 5 idling on LTE. In 3G? Forget it. We're talking just idling and syncing in the background only.
 
Rick James Astley said:
I don't think I saw anyone report worse battery life than GNex, so the battery complaints about the N4 are IMO a little exaggerated.
Click to expand...
Don't think you can compare accessible and sealed batteries straight up. If it's sealed it should at least hit i5 life... if not MAXX HD.
 
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