On 3/28/2013 9:34 PM, Xiaofan Chen wrote: > On Wed, Mar 27, 2013 at 10:29 PM, Joe Wronski > wrote: >> A solution to a problem that shouldn't exist. That is, in my opinion, >> phones should not use as much power as they do. I need to tweak the >> settings on my Android to get a reasonable mixture of synchronization >> and geo location features and battery life. >> > And what is that reasonable life? One day or two days? > Different usage pattern and different expectations may > make that reasonable life quite different. First off, I should refrain from simply throwing matters of personal=20 opinion out there with statements I can't really back up. But... I'm accustomed to the pattern of plugging it in at night, and expecting=20 it to last a day. It would be nice if it still had enough power left to=20 make or take a call if I forgot to plug it in at night I guess that's a=20 time when the charging mat would come in handy. It's a Samsung=20 Intercept M910. > > I am using a Motorola Atrix 2 Android phone (upgraded to > Android 4.0 from the original 2.3), I turned off data, WiFi, > 3G and Bluetooth, still the phone only has about 2.5 days > of idle time, quite bad in my opinion. But I seldom > use my phone other than occasional phone and SMS. > I did play with the phone at home a bit using WiFi > initially to know more about Android, but now with my > Acer Iconia Tab A210 tablet, I do not need to use it > for that purpose. I would like to have 3 days or more > in my usage pattern. I used to get 4-5 days with a "feature phone" that was used for voice=20 only. Now, I have a Samsung Android just for Android app development;=20 it only gets occasional use as a phone. It's on Virgin Mobile, and I'm=20 still grandfathered in to the $25 a month 300 minute plan. > > On the other hand, heavy users will turn on data and > 3G, and charge their phone every day and they seem to > be happy with that. > > BTW, iOS seems to have better power management > than Android. I need to explicitly turn on the airplane > mode on my WiFi only Acer A210 tablet to save > power whereas I just turn off (with smart cover) my > iPad 2 and iPad Mini to achieve similar (or less) > power loss during idle. > My typical usage is to have WiFi on all the time, GeoLocation set to=20 *not* use GPS, but to use wireless networks, so I can at least locate=20 myself to the nearest cell tower when using a Geo dependent app. Then=20 there's the syncing options. Some of the software (google play store)=20 needs to have Background Data turned on. When I left it on, the battery=20 would be consumed in a matter of hours. I think I've fixed that by=20 disabling auto sync of the K-9 Mail client accounts. I use iMap, and=20 don't carefully manage my mailbox folders, so the phone would be=20 downloading zillions of old messages. My complaint about "problem shouldn't exist" has more to do with the use=20 of technology than the technology itself. I think it's wonderful to=20 have touch-screen, GPS, and WiFi available on a phone. I don't like=20 the way marketing people try to exploit these technologies. Google,=20 Facebook, yelp, yahoo, etc all want you to have your GPS and auto synch=20 on all the time so they can peek at your contacts, post your location,=20 and other things intended to drive various social networking sites to=20 fulfill their ultimate purpose: advertising revenue. I also have suspicions about the power management for on-board hardware=20 like GPS, wifi, nfc, etc. But I can't confirm those suspicions without=20 digging into the Android source code, and further into the firmware for=20 the various modules. And I think that is out of my scope for this lifetime= .. Joe W --=20 http://www.piclist.com/techref/piclist PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .