Re: 3G off fixed my battery life!
 

Thank You. Not trying to be too melodramatic, but without this post, I would not be a returning N900 user.

I got my first unit during the first days of delivery in the US. However, no matter what I tried to turn off, I could not get anywhere near a complete workday of charge out of my phone. This combined with an inability to get any voice signal in my most recent work assignment location forced me to return the phone.

However, I kept reading this forum and saw this post in particular. I’ve messed with a few Android phones since my first return and found that each has it’s own issues with items working inconsistently. So when I saw this post, my thoughts were if this improved my battery life issue, I’d rather work through the other issues on the N900 as it was by far my favorite recent phone. Obviously it has. In 2 days of use, I’ve been near 50% battery life by the end of the day with all functionality turned on including Exchange email, IMAP email, Skype, Bluetooth.

Thanks for collecting/presenting your findings here.

Re: 3G off fixed my battery life!
 

I use only Edge for internet access on my N900 with no Wifi, I noticed that by leaving my 2g internet connection off and manually connecting only when needed increases battery life dramatically. That means no widgets updating automatically and sadly no IM running throughout the day. It has however given me a large increase in battery life that I can use to browse the web etc.

Would have been nice to have msn running all day like I did with my e71 unfortunately I can only use pidgin to get on msn, the haze/butterfly telepathy doesn't connect for me. Using such an app dramatically reduces battery life even when idel.

Re: 3G off fixed my battery life!
 

You should patent it:p

Re: 3G off fixed my battery life!
 

I'm curious what you mean ... working on something for that? Or talking about waiting for a Nokia update? This really poor battery life (I literally did not use my N900 at ALL yesterday and it was dead in 10 hours) is worse than any other device I've used.

Re: 3G off fixed my battery life!
 

I agree!! It's getting a bit frustrating. I've been charging twice a day and with very moderate usage (45min of browsing, 3 hours of 3G GPRS online, some SMSing and several calls a day) That's ALL. I really hope they come up with something for this in the FW update.

Re: 3G off fixed my battery life!
 

Maybe it would be better to give your running Widgets, connections and so on, to pinpoint why some users have such a bad battery life.

I have no issues with battery life (2 to 3 days depending how much wifi I use)
But then I mostly use 2G, bluetooth off, GPS Off.

I believe if your phone dies within 10 hours without touching it, you may have a wrong setting.

Re: 3G off fixed my battery life!
 

I primarily use 3G all day for calls and GPRS. 2G on my SIM card (China) is not great so I resort to keeping the phone on 3G since it's a 3G card. I've tried "dual" and "GSM" and it seems dual is the best setting for me. I also never, ever use GPS nor bluetooth and I dont have any widgets that connect or update. and my internet connection is set to Always Ask. I never use Wifi at all either, heard conflicting reports as to which uses more power (wifi or 3g gprs).
I'm guessing it has to do with the telecom towers here, maybe theyre not strong enough. 3G is a new service in my area....

Re: 3G off fixed my battery life!
 

I'm running with no widgets (as I know they are hogs). My only connection is Nokia Messaging (set to update interval of 2hour which is the max), under settings I have the brightness turned to the 1 of 5 bars (lowest), and conversations I only have Google Talk configured. The only thing I can think of is that this area is horrible on GSM and 3G (even though I pull -65 dBm on my other Tmobile devices sitting here).

edit: yesterday I was set to "3G only" and today I'm testing "2G only" settings

Re: 3G off fixed my battery life!
 

It really can. Did you test it on 3G only then?
When It switches (in dual) it takes a lot of battery power.
especially when traveling.

Re: 3G off fixed my battery life!
 

yep. Dual actually seems to be the best for me, dont know why (it switches to 2.5G when 3G isn't strong enough). I dont travel but China Unicom is known for not having the best service so that MUST be the main culprit. I really dont use the device as much as Id want to :(
will have to wait when I travel next to give it a fair trial. or maybe put in another SIM from another provider...