Re: Seriously disalusioned with phone and battery life...
 

Well, my battery seem like drain quite fast when I have my auto searching for connection. After I set it to only use my 3G connection instead of searching for any available connection and now I am still get 80% battery life since my last full charge last night. Compare to before that, I already have to start charging agin.

Re: Seriously disalusioned with phone and battery life...
 

With active usage, of course the n900 will be worse.. however..

The comparison to E71 is fair as the tests are done without screen on and with no apps running other than IM and mail (basically idle).

N900 is definitely not optimized for 3G/Edge data connection... Hope Nokia will look into optmizations similar to how E71 is optimized

Re: Seriously disalusioned with phone and battery life...
 

hi together,

thx for this thread i was set my connection on 2g and my battery wont go empty *jokely* but really after a day online with skype and email and sms writeing my akku seems to be 90% full.

best regards crown

Re: Seriously disalusioned with phone and battery life...
 

So in your case the update made things worse and not better? Odd.

Re: Seriously disalusioned with phone and battery life...
 

MintyBoost to the rescue. I agree battery life isn't great but then no device I bought and used the way I use the N900 had good battery life. The simple fact is that battery tech is lagging far behind.

I personally carry around a little altoid tin battery booster when I will be away from a home base for an extended period of time.

Re: Seriously disalusioned with phone and battery life...
 

Could not agree with this more, I found it odd that just leaving the 2G gprs connection on idle all day seems to drain battery. I assume this is also why IM such as msn drains fast when on 2G gprs. I always assumed that 2G gprs used less battery than wifi and 3G, which is one of the reasons why I only use 2G....

Saw a bunch of these chargers for under $50 I wonder if any of them will work with the N900 and more importantly if they are safe to use.

Re: Seriously disalusioned with phone and battery life...
 

Lately my battery consumption has improved while my usage has not changed.

however, I will charge the n900 at any opportunity.

I keep a retractable micro usb cable in my bag and I have a charger in my work and my car.

lately, I haven't had to charge it outside of work. I'll leave at the end of the day with 90-100% battery from work, then return to work the next day without running out of juice.

Re: Seriously disalusioned with phone and battery life...
 

Mmm, I don't know if it's correct that the thread starter expectations are too much. He complains that it won't last from the morning to the end of the work day. Any phone should last from the morning till you get back home from work. It's a "minimum use case" in my book.

That said, if he hadn't been using it for music, it would last.

I don't think it's fair to blame this on WiFi, either. My WinMo phone had WiFi and Bluetooth always on, and it lasted much longer than the N900. My N810 had WiFi and Bluetooth always on, and it lasted much longer than the N900, especially when idle.

I'd say this is a 3G thing, and as this is the first Maemo device with 3G ever, I expect there's some untapped potential for improvement.

I too keep chargers wherever I go. At work, at the bedroom and at my computer. Charging every night would have been a good use case for me, but I'll rather have it connected and, you know, turned on.

Re: Seriously disalusioned with phone and battery life...
 

i think this is normal for li-ion batteries, as they need to "adjust" to their working conditions.

it was the same with my 1080mah samsung jet li-ion battery.
when i got that phone, the jet would last around 3-4 days on normal usage until i had to charge again.

this month, i noticed the battery would last a good week of normal usage.

Re: Seriously disalusioned with phone and battery life...
 

Usually its off but while doing a screenshot I had to move the menu up , and I clicked it accidentaly. Didnt even notice that lol.

Re: Seriously disalusioned with phone and battery life...
 

Try this - https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6615#c119

Re: Seriously disalusioned with phone and battery life...
 

My only dissapointment with the N900 has been the battery life as well.

The second firmware update really made a difference, but battery life is still very low. I think a rule of thumb should be that the device should be able to run longer than I can. I think this should indeed be the minimun requirement.

The conversation about Nokia's choice of battery for the phone, well yes, I feel it too that its not powerful enough for the device. However, guess I should've expected this as the phone costs less than other devices from Nokia with equal or worse specs, so the money's always off something else, I presume. Also, I do feel that the N900 is somewhat of an experiment.

Re: Seriously disalusioned with phone and battery life...
 

My orignial battery - BL-5J - that came with the device, only lasts for about half a day.

I thought it was because I didn't let it charge for 24 hours with the phone switched off when I first got it.

So I bought another original Nokia battery, that was fully charged this morning after 24h with the phone turned off (I switched back to my N95 for that), not after I forecly drained it from 34% to 0% (by overloading the CPU with 30 apps open - that was pretty cool actually).

Disconnected the phone from the charger this morning, and guess what, battery drained after 7 hours of medium use.

Luckily I had my N95 with me so it saved me again. But this is not an acceptable scenario. My co-worker with an iPhone has 67% battery (unplugged phone at the same time as me), and my younger brother played games with it's iPhone with 10% battery left, for 2 hours!!

10% battery with n900 lasts for around an hour with no use, or 10 minutes of massive use.

And for whoever is referring to this bug fix, please explain it to me, as I don't want to apply any fixes without understanding what exactly they do, and unfortunatelly I'm no shell script master...

Re: Seriously disalusioned with phone and battery life...
 

My feeling exactly.

Re: Seriously disalusioned with phone and battery life...
 

What is the status on the extended battery for the N900? Surprised there is no options yet.

Re: Seriously disalusioned with phone and battery life...
 

the script, when put in /etc/network/if-post-down.d/, will be called every time a network interface goes up or comes down.

if it wasn't called during a "stop" event, do nothing (exit script).
if the network connection is neither a WLAN infrastructure nor WLAN adhoc, do nothing.

finally, really bring down the interface (ifconfig down).
at this point the interface must be a WLAN being disconnected, because all other possibilities have been ruled out by the two "exit" statements.

Re: Seriously disalusioned with phone and battery life...
 

Some people are blaming it on WLAN but I blame it on 3G - I created a bug report for it here

If you feel you experience the same please kindly add comments to it - and also try to reproduce

Re: Seriously disalusioned with phone and battery life...
 

This has not been my experience at all. It is quite irrational to compare with other devices without stating the settings of your n900 and others - wifi , 3g off/on etc. Be reasonable.

External battery pack
 

Well, for me, since I consider removing the back panel twice a day annoying, I have chosen external battery solution (true, this is relative for now I am hauling another gadget around :eek:). Beware though! Not all batteries work well with N900. For example there are reports that ZAGG Spark doesn't even begin charging (issue related allegedly to lower input voltage as opposed to standard 12V or what). However, PROPORTA'S LINE is reported to work flawlessly and you can find them locally on Amazon. Check out theirs USB TurboCharger 3400 World Pack which I consider the best companion to any N900 out there! No, I don`t work for them, It just works for me :D

Re: Seriously disalusioned with phone and battery life...
 

Thanks may order one of these if mugen's upcoming battery is too thick etc...

Re: Seriously disalusioned with phone and battery life...
 

You are correct Enyibinakata -

Both me & my co-worker's phone uses 3G connection to retrieve email messages every 30 minutes.
Both phones has BT off and WiFi off (no free WiFi at work :( ).
I have received 3 phone calles today which last about 15 minutes together, my co worker only 2, which last 10 minutes.

My phone was almost out of use except for the email checking and occasonal checking for the time (by unlocking screen), while my co worker's phone was used with different apps for total of, a rough estimate, 40 minutes for the entire day.

I hope that you see this response as more reasenable & rational, but I deeply dought it will help me improve battery life whatsoever.

Anyway, I'm glad for you this has not been your experience with the n900 device.

Re: Seriously disalusioned with phone and battery life...
 

Mine either. I use my N900 heavily for email, web and phone every day. For the hardware it's running, I think battery life is very reasonable. Very approximately speaking, at least on par with an iPhone 3GS and definitely better than the G1 it replaced.

As you said, user settings have a major impact on battery life. Also, location and coverage is a huge factor. If the signal is weak or intermittent, it will use up a lot of battery constantly searching for a signal lock. Because of these factors, meaningful battery life comparisons in ordinary use are hard to make unless settings are exactly the same and units compared have equally strong signals, preferably on the same provider.

Which makes my statement above comparing the N900, iPhone and G1 fairly worthless...except I have extensive experience with both the N900 and G1 in the same conditions and on T-Mobile. Limited iPhone experience. So take any such comparisons - including mine - with a grain of salt.

Re: Seriously disalusioned with phone and battery life...
 

I got mine a couple of days ago, on the second battery cycle with 3g connected, fluffing around customizing it and checking a few emails I got 10 hours...can only get better too, although I doubt it will best the4 days I got out of the n95 24/7!!!!

Pretty sure Nokia will release a bigger battery at some point if this continues to be a major issue - which I am sure it will for many.

People shouldn't complain about how thick it is...did you look at the phone before you bought it?

Re: Seriously disalusioned with phone and battery life...
 

I usually get 24-30 hours with wifi basically always on, aside from a couple of hours where I'm out and about without wifi access.

Re: Seriously disalusioned with phone and battery life...
 

OK, here's how my N900 fared today, with a standard 1320mAh battery:

things always on:
screen at 40% brightness
connected to WLAN, if available
connected to GSM/GPRS/3G where available
photo changing widget (every 5 minutes)
weather updated on the hour
RSS updated on every half hour
Mail for Exchange always in online mode
one IMAP account always active (different from MfE one)
application updates always on
no screen vibration, no screen or system sounds

6am:
off the charger, battery 100%
checked for application updates
installed 2-3 applications
mucked around a bit, dismissing e-mail alerts
read an ebook for around quarter of an hour

8am:
disconnect from WLAN, connect to 3G
during the journey to work a LOT of reselections between 2G/3G, etc
connect half a dozen IMs, with GPS on as well
Bluetooth on, connect stereo headset
Start music playback
until next time check below did the following:
music on all the time
watched a short film (~10minutes)
read and replied to a couple of e-mails
read an ebook for around 10 minutes or so
tracked a bus journey using Maep for around 15 minutes

9.15am:
stop music playback
disconnect IMs and GPS
Bluetooth off
connect to office WLAN, disconnect from 3G
check for application updates
install 2 applications, remove 1
dismiss half a dozen e-mail notifications
a 5 minute phone call
muck around with settings
spend 15 minutes looking for battery level widget
muck around with battery level widget

11:30am:
battery at 36%

Now, if I continued this usage pattern, I could expect total battery life of at least 8.5 hours. I know this doesn't sound much, but if you look at what was happening (WLAN on most of the time, almost 1.5 hours music/video playback, screen on a lot), that's actually not too bad I think. When my E71 was a new kid on the block and I used to play with it a LOT, the battery never lasted more than a day (usually around 16 hours, with listening to music, WLAN, installing lots of apps, reading/writing mails, etc). These days, when I have N900 to play with, my E71 can last almost a week, as I use it for SMS and an odd phone call.

So, in conclusion, 6h battery life definitely warrants a query with the shop, or an honest appraisal of usage patterns. ;)

Oh, and remember that E71 comes with a larger capacity battery to start with, 1500mAh v 1320mAh in N900, has screen half the size of N900, and runs an OS (S60) that has been optimised for power consumption for a much longer time than Maemo.

Re: Seriously disalusioned with phone and battery life...
 

a tip for batteries is to totally flatten then totally recharge it 3 times, this does make any battery hold its charge better, trouble is battery technology cant keep up with phone technology, should nokia not have developed the n900 just cos theres no battery currently available to give people 48hrs standby time? i think not, personally i would have still bought the device if charge only lasted for 1 hour, you all have the latest technology in your hand, be happy about it!

Re: Seriously disalusioned with phone and battery life...
 

A quick update to my previous post.

In the three hours after last time check I used the phone to dismiss a dozen e-mail alerts (i.e. not a lot), and then to (again) check for app updates, and instal around half a dozen (~3MB download). The battery level went down by 10% in that time, giving an approximate idle battery life of at least 30 hours, and that's connected to WLAN, and doing all the stuff it always does in the background (see the top of my previous post).

I'm happy. ;)

Re: Seriously disalusioned with phone and battery life...
 

with my n900 i would say i get roughly 1 and a half days battery life averagely, however it varies, sometimes it does 8 hours then its nearly dead, then other days it gives me more than 2 days.

3g for me is always on, i connect to wifi manually.

Re: Seriously disalusioned with phone and battery life...
 

How can anyone use the N900 at 40% brightness? Seems too dim even at 80%. Current UI for N900 does not graduate brightness very well, so either it is real bright or not bright enough- just with a tap down to 80%.

Not a defective unit for me, since the other two I had showed the same issue.

Re: Seriously disalusioned with phone and battery life...
 

40% is just right for me, 20% is too low though, I believe this is subjective everyone has different preferences....

Re: Seriously disalusioned with phone and battery life...
 

The battery life was horrible before the firmware upgrade. I used to get about 6-8 hours. Now I can go just about the whole day with normal use. Have you cycled the battery a few times (completely charge then discharge it) It will help. I read in another post that mugen is making a battery to replace the BL-5J.

Re: Seriously disalusioned with phone and battery life...
 

Yeah it comes out in February.
http://thenokiaguide.com/2010/01/11/...ry-on-the-way/

My main concern with that mugen battery is how bulky/ugly it will make the phone.