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I shared some of my recent Android experience here, with the two leading phones, Verizon’s HTC Incredible and Sprint’s EVO now it’s time to share a trick (actually two) that makes or breaks your experience with these two mobile powerhouses. Matt Burns @ MobileCrunch loves the EVO but considers the battery a deal-breaker:
Simply put, the battery sucks. It’s a deal breaker. I’m really sorry to say that, too. In fact it hurts me because I wanted this phone so bad, but the battery life is horrible. The phone will lose a third of its battery sitting overnight with the GPS, WiFi, and 4G turned off. Even with Advanced Task Killer set to aggressive and auto killing apps every hour, the most I can get out of the phone is about ten hours.
I know – been there, done that and could not believe how bad it was. In fact with everything (Wifi, GPS, Mobile Data) off and without activity, in Sleep mode the battery died in 6 hours. So why have a Smartphone if I have to turn everything off to be able to make a few calls? I refused to accept it, searched, searched, experimented, and found the two tricks that can dramatically improve battery life. They are actually simple: start with more, and don’t lose it 
Start with more juice
No, I don’t mean buying a bigger battery pack. Get more out of what you already have. Charge with Power OFF. Seriously. If you charge your phone turned on, it will reach full charge status very fast. The problem is, it’s not really full, only Android thinks so. Turn it off, and recharging will last hours longer, but it will truly be full. Since it appears to be a software glitch, we can hope an OTA update will fix it … one day.
Don’t lose your juice
Keep your Apps under control. Reduce the frequency of background updates. And some apps simply don’t belong on your EVO. No, Task Killer and similar tools won’t help, some programs do get restarted no matter what you do. Here’s what you need to check: After power on, keep the phone in Sleep mode for a few hours, then check battery usage stats. If Uptime and Awake time are close to each other, or even 2:1 3:1 ratio, you have a problem. An application does not allow your phone to go to sleep. Keep on trimming your App list (and I don’t just mean shut down, but full uninstall) until you’ll see awake time less than 10% of uptime.
With these tricks, your phone should last 2+ days in Sleep mode, and otherwise it will obviously depend on your actual usage.
Oh, and I am switching from the Incredible to the EVO
Update: See photo proof here .
Question about charging with the Evo powered on. Does it stop charging when it reaches a “false full” or will it continue to charge until actually fully charged? I am interested in the Evo, but can’t see myself being happy powering down completely just to get a full charge.
Dave,
My experience is with the Incredible, although I assume they are in many ways identical.
I *think* it stopped charging, i.e. the led changed from red to green. Definitely got a lot more mileage out of it charged in OFF state.
But if it’s software, we know it’s fixable
If you want to know exactly what program is keeping your phone awake you can go to the battery history in android. To do this on my HTC Hero you can go to the phone and dial “*#*#4636#*#*” and after you press the last star it will automatically come up with a list of options. From that list select battery history, then click the top drop down bar that says “other usage,” or at least that’s what it starts at on mine, and select “partial wake usage.” That should bring up a list of applications with bars across the screen. Anything with a bar more than barely visible is probably using more than it should be-try uninstalling it or changing some settings on it.
If you dial that on the phone and it doesn’t do anything try going to the market and downloading “spare parts.” that will give you the battery history option and then you can follow the directions above from there.
This process, while it might seem a little complicated, should save you a lot of time uninstalling apps, just guessing which application is using your up time, this way you’ll know exactly which application(s) is(are) keeping your phone awake.
Seth, the EVO gives a lot of history, with very detailed stats. My impression was that I got a little less detail on the Incredible (or I have not discovered them).
However, the program which in my case was a major culprit (OK, a suspect) did not show on the list, it just “silently” kept the phone awake.
i can’t use trick number 1. My Droid turns on automatically when it is plugged in. I was told this was to regulate the current. Is that true?
Hello Dave123,
can you tell me which smarthphone you have.
I need a Smartphone with this functionallity and with Android OS.
I hope you can help me
Could you go ahead and tell us which programs are the guilty party so we can narrow down faster? Thanks.
Nice article! It’s nice to see someone actually try to offer a real solution other than complain. Looking forward to trying this solution on my own EVO this Friday!!
The task killer you want is Automatic Task Killer. It extends my EVO battery so much without user intervention!!!!
Try it, and you’ll see.
I tried checking my battery stats, its not showing any apps running to keep my phone awake. And yet my awake time is 100% I’ve had the phone about a week, and it was fine till 2 days ago. I even deleted all my apps I’ve downloaded, still nothing… any ideas?
@scott082 i have the same problem. Battery life is significantly reduced over the last few days. Awake time is 100%. I wonder if the recent OTA update contributed to this…?
Scott08. I have the same issue. Just over the last few days the battery life fell dramatically. Charged all night and down to less than 50 percent by mid morning. 100% awake time! I wonder if the recent OTA update did something to cause this?
I really don’t understand the second part, Like where would I go to find out this wake and such? I’m sorry I’m really bad with tech. and any apps you know for sure that are a no no on the evo? Thank you so much
Talking Battery is the first Android application that informs you about the amount of available battery energy via voice messaging. don´t fix the problem but helps.
Hello Dave123,
can you tell me which smarthphone you have.
I need a Smartphone with this functionallity and with Android OS.
I hope you can help me