r/Android • u/AutoModerator • Oct 15 '14

How to find the root cause of your Android battery problems.

Hey, we get it. Your phone gets awesome battery life and here's some screenshots to prove it. But not everybody does, and not everybody may be willing to compromise certain features. Or they may not understand just what is it that causes all their battery woes. As Android devices become more sophisticated and feature packed, it seems like it's more difficult to have excellent battery life.

In this thread, share your best tips and tricks on how to solve any battery problem. Any apps you use? Things to disable? How to diagnose problems? List it all.

Please note that this thread will be archived in the wiki and linked in the sidebar. Any off-topic or unhelpful comment will be removed.

Suggestions and comments on how to improve this thread are always welcome!

Join our IRC channel #android on irc.snoonet.org for anything-goes discussion on Android! Click here to chat!

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22

u/Kampfbiene Oct 15 '14

One of the worst battery drains on my N4 is plain and simple: mobile signal quality.

I have very weak 3G coverage at home, but of course the phone always favors 3G as long as it is available. Switching my phone to 2G only can nearly double my battery life.

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u/[deleted] Oct 16 '14

1

u/bodnast Oct 16 '14

A+

thank you for this

2

u/Testiculese Oct 15 '14

How do you switch that? I've no need for 3G 80% of the time anyway.

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u/Kampfbiene Oct 15 '14

Long way: Settings - Wireless and Networks - More… - Mobile Networks - Preferred network type - choose 2G

Short way: some ROMs can toggle or have a shortcut to the network mode in the Quick Settings drawer

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u/Testiculese Oct 16 '14

Found it, thanks. It shows WCDMA only, GSM only, GSM/WCDMA auto, and GSM/WCMDA/LTE auto. I'm guessing that is 2G, 3G, and LTE is 4G? I changed it to GSM only. I can see the difference when I tested loading GMaps.

Seems to be helping, It's been two days and I'm at 20%.

1

u/Kampfbiene Oct 16 '14

Glad it helps.

Your assumption is correct; GSM = 2G, WCDMA = 3G and LTE = 4G

1

u/[deleted] Oct 16 '14

If you use a Google voice account for all your calls and texts, you can airplane mode and then turn on wifi and save all the battery the cell radio would use.

1

u/Vyonix Oct 16 '14

Sorry but does this only help if you have a data plan? I only use call and text.

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u/Kampfbiene Oct 17 '14

It should, the difference is also there if wirelesse is enabled for example.

It works on the assumption that 3G signal is on average weaker than the 2G signal and that to keep the connection the phone will have to use less power.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 17 '14

I'm sorry, but does switching to 2G change voice quality when talking on the phone? I'm on T-Mobile's $35 unlimited Talk&Text with no Data.

2

u/Kampfbiene Oct 17 '14

Not noticeably, no. They use the same voice encoding technique as far as I know. Some providers offer HD Voice on 3G connections, if both handsets support this.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 18 '14

ok sweet. haha

1

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '14

Thank you.