Need opinion on N900 battery life.
 

I have a N900 for about 3 months now. I have been reading posts about people's experiences with battery life and ways to improve it. I have been trying everything to improve it, but I can barely make it one day. Here is my config for the device.

T-Mobile service.
GPS is disabled in settings.
Wi-fi is disabled.
Bluetooth is disabled.
I have the switcher for 3G and 2G. I only use 3G when I go on the internet. Any other time I keep it on 2G.
I only have a data plan, so I do not make calls or text.

I only have 2 desktops enabled.
The only widget is the calendar widget.
I have shortcuts for address book, phone, Foreca weather, messages, and email.
My email is set to update every hour.
Foreca weather is manual set for update.

My screen is set to 2 out of 5 brightness.
I am running the black plastic theme, but that doesn't seem to make a difference.
I do not have a Micro SD card installed.

I usually charge it every night and take it off the charger at 7AM.
With maybe one or two hours of internet surfing a day. It is almost dead by 10PM.

Is this the same experience as everyone else? Or is it just me. I am starting to lean towards getting a new battery just to see if it will make a difference. How is everyone else configuring theirs for the best battery life? Am I missing something or is this normal?

Re: Need opinion on N900 battery life.
 

my battery life improved a lot when I overclocked, as the lower frequency is set to 125mhz rather than 250mhz . I left it on standby for about 7hours and it only went downs about 9%

I am not in anyway recommending that you overclock

Re: Need opinion on N900 battery life.
 

That's an interesting idea. I might have to try it. 7 hours and 9% is really good. One day I took it off the charger set it down for the whole day. Did not use it at all. When I came home and looked at the battery it was at about 1/4 left. About 14 hours with no usage. Makes me believe it could be something running in the background, but I can;t imagine what it might be. I don't have much installed on it.

Re: Need opinion on N900 battery life.
 

do you have battery graph installed?? if so does it show large cpu usage??

Re: Need opinion on N900 battery life.
 

my OC'd N900 lasts 2-3days with 1 hour internet and 3 hours music and standby on 3G (not connected to internet). it never lasted this long before OC.

Re: Need opinion on N900 battery life.
 

So i ran Battery Graph for a couple of hours. The CPU never spiked high at all. I will run it for a while and see if anything changes. As for overclocking, I might give it a try. Which way did you guys do this? I know a couple different ways, but I'd like to get opinions from people who have tried it. I would like to try a small overclock. Drop the frequency slightly just to see if I can improve battery life.

Re: Need opinion on N900 battery life.
 

We do it by trying all kinds of random things and screwing up our N900s and blaming Nokia. Then eventually we read

http://wiki.maemo.org/Overclocking

which gives simple instructions. And we live happily ever after.

"Americans always do the right thing -- after they've tried everything else first." Winston Churchill.

Re: Need opinion on N900 battery life.
 

I've seen the battery of my N900 perform like this:

• When using the default kernel and only GSM, no data connection of any kind and not doing anything on the N900, except for a few calls it lasts 4 days
• Like above, but adding around 30 minutes of wi-fi per day, it lasts 2 days
• Like above, but adding more wifi (total 1 hour per day, not continous), it lasts one day.

In general, if I stay a while (from 30 min to 1 hour) reading something or playing, the battery lasts just one day.

After upgrading the kernel to Titan's power kernel, but without any kind of overclocking (default settings), the max time I get is 2,5 days.

If I use the MStarDict application and forget to close it, the battery drains in a few hours.

Re: Need opinion on N900 battery life.
 

When you say wifi is disabled! what do you actually mean by that? disabled as in card is down or that wifi is not connected.

Also as your phone updates your email everyhour and if you receive a lots of email, I would say, keep on 3g only. 2g will just make things worse during the email retreival.
I goto 2g when my batter is has one bar and I dont have a charger around :P
Also I turn "off/down" my wifi card most of the times as I like to have full control over my fone as in.. " Hey phone.. I must tell you what to turn on n off and when to :D"

Re: Need opinion on N900 battery life.
 

Just to add , Overclocking will void your warranty ... In case you get excited and miss that line on the link given by geneven ;)

Re: Need opinion on N900 battery life.
 

Hello,
I had the exact same problem, the battery that my phone came with was terrible!! With absolutely no use, only gsm on, and everything else off, it lasted 16-17 hrs. If I started using Wifi, nd the screen wud b on for like 45 mins...The battery wud die!!! In 45-1 hr, fully charged to no power!!! And with light use, few mins camera use, nd stuff like that it lasted about 10 hrs. So i decided to buy a new battery, now i bought one frm ebay (the guy said he got it from Nokia retail store in Singapore, looks genuine), but anyways, now even with about 2 hrs of wifi use, couple of phone calls and messaging, lasts me about 30 hrs. And with no use at all, around 50+ hours!!

Re: Need opinion on N900 battery life.
 

Compare it less against the CPU and more against the times you have 3G active and are actually browsing the web/otherwise sending data.

While idle the N900 has plenty of battery, but once you get the 3G radio kicking (especially for an hour+ at a time) then you'll kill it in no time flat, made worse by the screen being active constantly and the CPU spikes as you navigate between pages or scroll.

Re: Need opinion on N900 battery life.
 

i'm doing pretty heavy usage, so experiencing pretty miserable battery. switch to wifi when I'm going to bed since that loses less power.

gotta OC and use some custom maps

Re: Need opinion on N900 battery life.
 

When I say Wifi is disabled. I mean that I use an app to disable wifi so it does not keep searching for access points. I also do not receive a lot of email a day. Maybe a couple, but even when I change it to every 12 hours or something really high it doesn't change much. I only use 3G for maybe between 1 to 2 hours a day. I am starting to think that it may be the battery.

Re: Need opinion on N900 battery life.
 

N900 changed the way we use phones, most of us use this gadget more than double of your old phone. So we can not expect the same battery life time. Check this post for some help.

:eek:

Re: Need opinion on N900 battery life.
 

this is the one I used, really simple and easy to follow

http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...&postcount=774

Re: Need opinion on N900 battery life.
 

So I followed the link and overclocked the N900. Well, I kinda did. I actually just lowered the voltage. I set the speed range to 250-600MHZ. I used the ulv profile. As of today so far, I have had it unplugged for 3 hours with very little usage. I am already down to 80%. I will see if it slows down over the course of the day, but I will see. I am still thinking of buying a new battery.

Re: Need opinion on N900 battery life.
 

Speaking from my experience with the n900, I'd say my battery life is excellent on standby. Here's how mine is currently

GPS is disabled in settings.
Wi-fi is disabled.
Bluetooth is disabled.
I do not have the switcher for 3G and 2G. I only use wifi when I go on the internet. Any other time I keep it on 2G.
I do make calls an d text.

I only have 3 desktops enabled.
I have any widgets, mainly desktop execution widgets and shortcuts.
The only widgets I have that constantly update it self is from desktop execution widget. I have the widget that shows battery percentage and battery mah, I also have calendar widget enabled, and mp3 widgets.

I do not have email widget enabled as I recently forgot my password accounts ;D.

My screen is set to 3 out of 5 brightness.
I am running the default theme.
I do not have a Micro SD card installed.

I usually charge it, urghhh, whenever I feel like...lol
I do maybe one or two hours or more of internet surfing a day.



Ok now to get down to how my battery performs.

I've never overclocked, hell the n900 performs uber fast on default kernel :/.

On standby my battery goes down exactly 5% every 9hrs, I know because I keep tabs on it.

Gaming, (I use pico drive mostly), It goes down 10% every 45 mins.

Listening mp3's, battery goes down 5% every 2hrs, although it is to note that my screen is locked using the side switch, and I use qwerty 12's "extended locker" to switch through mp3's. And I only use the default media player :/. Although I have media box installed.

Browsing the net, battery goes down 5-10% every 30 mins depending on how heavy the webs sites are. I use only the default web browser.

When calling, I'm not sure as I never speak long on the phone, hate having anything up against my ears >_>, but can't imagine the battery life being terrible there.

Things to note:
1) My cpu is about 4 - 10% on standby (mostly 4%).

2) Using the side switch to lock the phone seemingly saves more battery.

3) I have only one daemon installed (extended locker).

4) I keep one of my 3 desktops free of widgets, why? Because I noticed that widgets only refresh when you switch to their desktops, thus reducing cpu. So before I start any application, I switch to an empty desktop.

5) I took off my keypad lights to save battery, I switch it on during the evenings though.

Re: Need opinion on N900 battery life.
 

here's a screenshot of my battery usage when i'm not using it, as you can see the gradient is really low.

http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/c...reenshot15.png

Re: Need opinion on N900 battery life.
 

i use a lot of wifi and it makes it thru the day

Re: Need opinion on N900 battery life.
 

Have you tried completely flashing the device to the latest build?

That did wonders for me... my battery life in standby is amazing. with Light surfing over wifi(1 hour) and light texting(10 texts) it's very acceptable, probably drains about 20 percent in 10 hours. this always connected, email every 15mins, omweather every 4 hours, gv plugin always connected.

Re: Need opinion on N900 battery life.
 

Sounds to me that you can make it through a whole day with making calls etc. I can barely make a whole day with little use of the internet. You said you lose 5% in 9 hours on standby. I am close to 60% in 9 hours on standby.

Just curious, how many VOIP accounts do you have active. IE: skype, gtalk etc?

Re: Need opinion on N900 battery life.
 

here is a pic of my battery graph with light usage.

from 3pm to 12am I was at work with wifi always on, always connected, very light surfing and texting through GV plugin. email every 15, omweather every 4. gsm OFF.

at 2:30 am I switched to offline mode and went to sleep.

at 10am I turned back to online and turned on gsm, checked voicemail, then started using the N900 heavily transferring files etc.

the main drain culprits are usually gps,3G data,2G data.... wifi is not a big drain.

Re: Need opinion on N900 battery life.
 

Here is the graph for yesterday/today...
during my hours at work u can see I was doing heavy usage throughout the day, surfing and texting through GV plugin over wifi, with gsm radio on and off at times to check my voice mails...
All settings like in my previous post, but also I was always connected to two Irc channels, one of which has medium to heavy traffic.

1:30 am got home, switched off gsm, left xchat on with the same channels and all other settings the same... all on wifi.
woke up an hour ago, turned on gsm, made a phone call, installed an app, I'm reading the forums now, and sending these posts with images etc...

**EDIT** Failed to add my screen is set to 3 brightness, I have 4 desktops enabled, and I have vibration turned off. And I was also running the facebook chat plugin during this time.

Re: Need opinion on N900 battery life.
 

3G data connection (even when idle) is what kills mine the most. If I am connected gprs the battery will be dead in 5 hours...

This is really an "always-on" device, but if you use it that way you need to plan your day around charging the battery...

Re: Need opinion on N900 battery life.
 

I have none of those accounts active...the only accounts I have are hotmail and google talk, both of which I forgot my passwords for :/, so can't test my battery there. If I ever remember my password again I will report back and show how my battery is with my accounts active. Think I would also install battery graph and post a screen shot of my battery life.

Funny thing is...I had recently disabled *brightness filtering*, which should have increased my battery life, but instead made it worst :S, but I renabled it and now all is well again :D.

Dunno if you would wanna try it and see if it would have the opposite effect for you, (increased battery life). As loosing 60% in 9hrs is definitely not normal, (at least not for me)...Do you have smart reflex enabled?


To disable brightness filtering, you do this:

Go to mce.ini and look for this line:
Modules=display;keypad;vibrator;led;battery;filter-brightness-als;inactivity;alarm;accelerometer;callstate;camer a;homekey;audiorouting

Remove the word 'filter-brightness-als' to make it look like this:

Modules=display;keypad;vibrator;led;battery;inacti vity;alarm;accelerometer;callstate;camera;homekey; audiorouting

Restart the n900.

A bit of warning though, your screen would look a bit darker as the display would be using less power consumption, you can however turn your brightness up to max in 'settings' to help.

To renable it, you go back to mce.ini and re-add the word filter-brightness-als to the line
e.g

Modules=display;keypad;vibrator;led;battery;filter-brightness-als;inactivity;alarm;accelerometer;callstate;camera;h omekey;audiorouting

And restart the n900.

Re: Need opinion on N900 battery life.
 

Not sure if Battery eye is any better now . But I found that running Battery Eye reduced my battery life by 20 percent . Which really gave me quite a giggle. The thought that when you are worried about your battery life you install an App to check it and it re-inforces your worry. I get a day out of mine with bluetooth and wifi on all the time and plenty of use. You gotta sleep sometime , So I charge it then . Suits me fine.

Re: Need opinion on N900 battery life.
 

I listen to music at work so my phone is on for like 10 hours playing music and then texts/calls/facebook during breaks and when I get home I usually have about 20% battery life left, I use the 'ideal' profile of the power kernel if I don't use it my phone dies by 3 oclock as (I start at 9 finish at 7). Urm I leave my WAP on turn GPS off and have my brightness on its lowest setting, bout it really. Also MSN drains your battery really bad so make sure you're not 'avaliable' all the time.

Re: Need opinion on N900 battery life.
 

I had a look at battery eye code before, and I don't know how it would manage to reduce battery life by 20%...

Although I didn't look at the GUI, just the thing that sits in background and listens for messages from the battery subsystem

Re: Need opinion on N900 battery life.
 

haven't had that problem at all... as you can see from my graphs, especially the "light use" ones... I don't see any considerable drain whatsoever, and battery eye is obviously running.

Re: Need opinion on N900 battery life.
 

I have noticed after disabling a couple of VOIP accounts that my battery life has increased. I have two right now (skype, SIP). Those are my primary ones that I use. Yesterday I was about 80% after 7 hours. That was also mostly standby. Still seems like it is dying fast. I will try disabling the other two accounts for a day and see what happens there.
Also, does anybody know what the Ovi account is used for on the device itself?

Re: Need opinion on N900 battery life.
 

I disagree with WiFi disabled, at least if you have a wifi basestation where you can use the N900 in the strongest "powersave" mode for WiFi, because even 2G data connection sucks more juice than WiFi then.

Something that seemed to help my batterylife was turning off having Twitter in the IM client, which isn't so strange since Twitter isn't a push service, which means it would have had to poll it at intervals.

Also, I, like others, swere by the "AutoDisconnect" program, which automatically switchess off your GPRS data when you are on WiFi, and Switches between 2G and 3G based on bandwidth demands!


HAVING SAID ALL THAT, one thing I really dislike is the N900's inability to properly give me a current reading. My ancient N95 can give me a second-by-second milliamp- or milliwatt power consumption in graph form.

/Z

Re: Need opinion on N900 battery life.
 

Actually N900 is very capable doing that, requires exactly the same functionality offered by battery eye etc. those apps just calculate things differently.

So the problem is a lack of application (plus in second by second polling interval surely affects to your battery life....)

Re: Need opinion on N900 battery life.
 

the data source used by battery-eye isn't accurate enough to give you realtime current consumption data, and it's updated pretty lazily.

You can get a exact current reading every 5 seconds from the hardware fuel gauge directly, though there are no apps currently that talk to it.

Re: Need opinion on N900 battery life.
 

from tests i made skype is a battery hog, even if you don't call or chat with it it simply drains the battery.

The N900 battery can last for 3 days ONLY if you disable the dataplan (which would make it a useless gadget).