Maximize battery life on Curve

Anything that isn't a bug or feature request goes here

Maximize battery life on Curve

New postby scloughley on Wed Aug 12, 2009 5:53 am

I wonder has anyone come up with a "one touch" (or at least, fairly simple) way to disable everything on the BB while playing podcasts to maximize battery life?
My thought:
Disable the wireless services and then maybe change the profile to one that has everything "off"? I guess the only thing that's then taking power is the screen while it remains illuminated....
How about the BB inbuilt speaker - does it save much (or anything at all) to use headphones instead?

If anyone has done all of this, does it make much difference to battery drain rate? I've left everything on (bluetooth included) and I notice that after only 5-6 podcasts being played the battery is down to about halfway - on a brand new fully charged battery too. seems like it drains quite fast.
scloughley
 
Posts: 14
Joined: Tue Aug 11, 2009 1:26 pm

Re: Maximize battery life on Curve

New postby arkolbus on Wed Aug 12, 2009 6:23 am

A length of time is probably more relevant than a number of podcast episodes. Podcast episodes can range from about a minute to a couple hours or more.

The most power-hungry parts of any phone are the radios (cell, BT, Wi-Fi). If you really want to maximize battery life, disable these. Alternatively, you can disable BT, Wi-Fi, and data services, which would still allow you to send/recieve calls over the voice network.

Being in a weak cell signal area hurts battery life on all cell phones, since the device is trying extra hard to be discovered by towers.

The radios use some power just by being on and by transmitting and receiving control messages. However, based on your information, I don't think that all of the radios are idle. My hunch is that something is sending or receiving data, and that is draining your battery. Is PT downloading podcasts? Is Viigo updating RSS feeds frequently? Some other application you have running updating data frequently? Check and see what apps are running. Just in case you don't know: When the device is sending or receiving data, there are blue arrows in the upper-right corner of the screen. Try setting PT to only download while charging, and scroll through your app switcher to see what else is running and take a look at the data consumption of those programs.

Using corded headphones--especially small ones--will save some power over using the speakerphone. Both are better than BT.

While cell radios have been around for a while and have been designed to use as little power as possible when idle, I'm not sure this is the case for BT. Even though you might not be connected to another BT device, the BT radio might be consuming a bit of power. Even though I own a Curve, I haven't experimented with the BT power consumption. I leave it on all the time, since I use BT a lot and my BB is usually plugged in anyway. The only time I turn it off is when I know I'll be going days without using it.

You might already know some or all of the above. I don't wish to insult your intelligence, I'm just trying to give you as much information as possible as I don't know your level of expertise.
HTC Droid Incredible 2
Verizon Wireless
Android 2.3.3
Podtrapper 3.0.20
arkolbus
 
Posts: 235
Joined: Wed Mar 04, 2009 2:57 pm
Location: Southwest VA

Re: Maximize battery life on Curve

New postby scloughley on Wed Aug 12, 2009 7:02 am

I am not insulted at all - thank you for your comprehensive reply. You are confirming what I already suspected which is almost as valuable. ;)
scloughley
 
Posts: 14
Joined: Tue Aug 11, 2009 1:26 pm


Return to General Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 10 guests

cron