HTC One and 4G

[Lazimutha]

I've had a the HTCone for a month and found the battery life terrible. I mean, it would last less than 8 hours. I used it quite frequently to and from work and then then whatsapp with the occasional internet search during lunch. I didn't think this was excessive as I don't play games etc. Looking at the history, the power fell rapidly even when the screen was off! I then got a task manager to switch various things off, changed the brightness to low whenever I could and put the thing in power saver mode. This helped a little, but only perhaps 10%. Again, just a guess, but that's what it feels like.

However, I noticed that 4G reception was poor at work and the phone kept switching between H, 3G quite regularly and then 4G every so often. I then found there is a network mode that disables LTE and only uses GSM/WCDMA. The change was amazing! I can now go through the entire day and still have 50% left on the phone. Looking at the power history, the phone only uses battery significantly if the screen is on. Which is what I would have expected.

So my thoughts are the phone is trying to switch to 4G whenever it can and this switching is draining the battery, even when the phone is in standby. Is this something it should be doing and if so, is there anything that I can do to reduce this effect. Other than by manually changing the network mode. Cos it kinda sucks to have 4G and not use it all the time (I'm forgetful :whiste. Anyone else had this problem? Thanks.

 

[Crono]

Try Snapdragon BatteryGuru and Greenify.

Unfortunately LTE uses up the battery on any device more than anything except the display and processor intensive gaming, and it's compounded by not having a stable connection. I don't know if there is a fix except to not use 4G whenever the signal is bad.

I haven't had a problem with battery life, and I run my phone on max brightness much of the time and use it frequently throughout the day. My connection is fairly stable throughout the day, though.

 

[zaydq]

I've had a the HTCone for a month and found the battery life terrible. I mean, it would last less than 8 hours. I used it quite frequently to and from work and then then whatsapp with the occasional internet search during lunch. I didn't think this was excessive as I don't play games etc. Looking at the history, the power fell rapidly even when the screen was off! I then got a task manager to switch various things off, changed the brightness to low whenever I could and put the thing in power saver mode. This helped a little, but only perhaps 10%. Again, just a guess, but that's what it feels like.

However, I noticed that 4G reception was poor at work and the phone kept switching between H, 3G quite regularly and then 4G every so often. I then found there is a network mode that disables LTE and only uses GSM/WCDMA. The change was amazing! I can now go through the entire day and still have 50% left on the phone. Looking at the power history, the phone only uses battery significantly if the screen is on. Which is what I would have expected.

So my thoughts are the phone is trying to switch to 4G whenever it can and this switching is draining the battery, even when the phone is in standby. Is this something it should be doing and if so, is there anything that I can do to reduce this effect. Other than by manually changing the network mode. Cos it kinda sucks to have 4G and not use it all the time (I'm forgetful :whiste. Anyone else had this problem? Thanks.

I had the exact same problem. I work out in the rural areas and at times I would have little to no reception. The phone would drain itself trying to establish the connection. I was pretty good at knowing to turn it back on when I knew I would get some sort of reception as I made a habit out of it.

But most of the time, I finish my workday with 40-50% without turning the lte off... When I did, I finished my work day with 60-70%

All in all, I love the battery life on my HTC One. My iPhone 5 would only last about 10 hours off the charger at work and I barely touched the thing. Likewise, it would piss battery power away on trying to establish any/all connections. On average, my phone comes off charge at 5:30AM and doesn't see the charger until 10:30PM with anywhere from 15-20%. I do use it quite a bit when I am home and at work I use it for Google maps and to communicate with my dispatcher and just some text messages and emails.

 

[cronos]

Confirmed. I don't know how it is with other phones, because the One is my first LTE phone, but the battery drains difference between 'GSM/WCDMA/LTE Auto' and 'GSM/WCDMA Auto' is like night and day.

With my usage pattern, the battery drains difference between the two settings is about 10-12 hours on average (~30 hours LTE vs. ~40 hours no-LTE). And I get full bars of LTE pretty much everywhere I go, too. I can only imagine it's so much worse when the phone keeps switching back and forth between modes.

 

[Qbah]

Identical for me. I observed the same switching behavior (LTE signal is poor here too, 1-2 bars tops). On LTE I can barely get through the day with little use. When I forced 3G, I can go for 2 days with average use if needed. I'm usually down to ~60% after a day of 3G only (no WiFi) - reading the news, watching a few vids, checking email and messages, updating an app in the background, reading Flipboard, a few calls, etc.

Night and day difference in battery life with little speed difference for the LTE speeds here.

 

[cousin]

My sister bought HTC one yesterday, oh! I will tell her about the existing problems with battery. I will write here later about her case with HTC one. I do not know the functions, apps and parameters, but its design is wonderful.

 

[Lazimutha]

I'm glad to hear other people find the same thing. Was wondering if it was just me.

I have been trying out this app called 'Llama', which is location sensitive and allows you to turn things on and off depending on where you are. Yes, including LTE. Seems to be based on cell towers. After walking around like a zombie letting the app work out where my 'home' and 'work' is, I created some settings like 'turn off wifi' when I leave home and 'turn off LTE' when I'm at work. There is a bit of lag, but my one day experience is that it's not bad.

However, the down side is that the phone only lasted the day...barely. And this is with the power saver thing on. I'll probably try it again tomorrow, but I wonder whether it will just be easier to have 4G turned off, and then have it turn on when I open something like Skype or viber.

Anyone have any crazy tricks to boost battery life? May have to resort to getting one of those battery packs. The solar ones seem !

 

[zerocool84]

Yes, any phone that has a weak signal, doesn't matter if it's LTE or 3G, will drain the battery faster. Oh and don't use a task killer, they drain more battery as well.

 

[Bateluer]

Shrug, my TMO One can easily go for 24hrs on hspa if I'm careful. 12-15 if I'm not.

 

[cronos]

Shrug, my TMO One can easily go for 24hrs on hspa if I'm careful. 12-15 if I'm not.

This HSPA setting you have on TMobile is exactly the same as the WCDMA setting on AT&T, so it's the one that does *not* drain as much battery (~40 hours for me as I mentioned in my post above). The premise of this thread is that the LTE radio drains battery so much faster.

Do you have TMobile 4G-LTE in your area? Try switching to LTE Auto and see if your battery drains is wildly different.

I did test the AT&T GoPhone LTE speed for a month last month, but I currently use a prepaid line without access to LTE (H2O Wireless) so I'm back to the excellent battery life I was used to on my HTC One :thumbsup:

 

[Bateluer]

This HSPA setting you have on TMobile is exactly the same as the WCDMA setting on AT&T, so it's the one that does *not* drain as much battery (~40 hours for me as I mentioned in my post above). The premise of this thread is that the LTE radio drains battery so much faster.

Do you have TMobile 4G-LTE in your area? Try switching to LTE Auto and see if your battery drains is wildly different.

I did test the AT&T GoPhone LTE speed for a month last month, but I currently use a prepaid line without access to LTE (H2O Wireless) so I'm back to the excellent battery life I was used to on my HTC One :thumbsup:

Phoenix does have TMO LTE, but I pretty much lose LTE signal when I enter most buildings. Its kinda spotty, but I get 3 bars of it at home . . . . where I have WiFi.

Back in July, I did set the phone to only use HSPA, but didn't notice any difference in battery life. I've no doubt that if I was consistently on LTE, the battery life would take a significant hit. Fortunately, I doubt I'll have the HTC One when TMO gets coverage that good here.



Edit - At home, when the One is on WiFi, it'll go 3 or 4 days pretty easily, but that is with pretty minimal screen on time. Damn Galaxy Nexus couldn't even do that.

 

[Lazimutha]

So Llama was a bit hit and miss. It couldn't turn 4G on or off, so that was a waste, but it is pretty good with the wifi setting. I think there are other things it can do, but I haven't really delved into the little functions.

I've basically turned off 4G for the moment as I don't really need it and prefer the extra battery life. At the moment, I'm also trialling the battery saver mode, which seems to work quite well to be honest. No significant slowdown and reasonable battery life.

 

[kyrax12]

I don't know how come the HTC one don't have the battery that that DROID RAZR Maxx has.

 

[Red Storm]

I recently switched back to enabling LTE on my One when I noticed I get full bars now instead of just two when it first launched. The greatly improved latency is nice, especially for web browsing.

As for battery life, I haven't noticed a major dip.

 

[Rio Rebel]

There's always the charging case:

http://www.amazon.com/i-Blason-Power...owViewpoints=1

Doesn't completely solve the problem but it helps.

 

[Red Storm]

There's always the charging case:

http://www.amazon.com/i-Blason-Power...owViewpoints=1

Doesn't completely solve the problem but it helps.

I would think about getting one of those if not for the fact that come October I'm selling this baby for a Note 3.

 

[Rio Rebel]

I just bought an S4 this weekend. I went back and forth for a week between the HTC One and Galaxy S4...I actually left the house intending to get the One and came home with the S4.

In the end, each has its strengths and weaknesses, but one of the biggest strengths for the One - that it simply looks better, feels better, and is more durable - is irrelevant to me since I would be using a case anyway.

Good luck. Gorgeous phone.

 

[Skott]

There's always the charging case:

http://www.amazon.com/i-Blason-Power...owViewpoints=1

Doesn't completely solve the problem but it helps.

Hour many more minutes/hours does this thing give generally speaking?