T-Mobile G1 (Android) Battery Life
February 28, 2009 – 1:54 pmby Jake D
Problem: I recently got the T-Mobile G1 (by HTC) that runs the Android operating system. For the first few days, I was sorely disappointed in the battery life.
Quick Solution: I found that after a few days/weeks of normal use, the battery indications were more reliable and appeared to last longer. Possible reasons include power-saving practices and charging.
The Whole Story
The HTC G1 has a small Lithium-Ion battery. I was disappointed on the first few days because it seemed to have a small capacity and take a long period of time to charge.
About Lithium-Ion batteries
For consumers and users of these batteries, the important thing to remember is that Li-Ion batteries do not have a “memory” like some types of batteries do. This means that you can recharge the battery even if you have not already fully discharged the battery, and you battery will not “think” that it has a smaller capacity.
Continuing the Story
Even though the “memory” effect is not supposed to be a factor, I did find that after a few charge cycles (over a week or so), my battery seemed to last longer. The first few charges, I did run the battery until it was depleted (Android shut down).
Other factors include the fact that I was using Locale to do things like dim my screen from 6pm to 6am (because at night the screen is too bright). I also used Power Manger to be extra conservative when below 15% battery. As a default, I have GPS off, Cell Location on (so that I can use Locale’s geographic features), WiFi off, and Bluetooth off.
Conclusion
I am ok with the T-Mobile G1 battery life now. I usually plug it in when I sleep… otherwise I might get 1.5 days of light use out of it. Of course, it goes without saying that I want more than that.
Rate this article:
(1 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)
Loading ...
3 Responses to “T-Mobile G1 (Android) Battery Life”
Yeah I found the battery on the G1 is shocking. I’ve just setup locale to turn off wifi when I’m not around Access Points that I know.
You can actually buy extended life batteries. Look up the Innocell 2600 for G1′s. It more than doubles the life of a charge with the downside that it makes the phone 5mm thicker. I wrote an app which uploads my battery usage to my server and then graphs it using RRD. You can see hourly, daily and weekly graphs here:
https://secure.grepular.com/blog/index.php/2009/03/30/google-phone-battery-usage-graphing/
The graphs are updated once every 15 minutes.
Mike, I did actually buy the Innocell 2600. It has 225% the capacity of the original battery. It does make it a little thicker, but I can deal with that since now I can actually use my phone throughout the day and not worry about whether I will make it through my 16 hour days without recharging. This is a huge leg up over the iPhone… they have no way of upgrading the original hardware! I get 2 days plus on moderate usage. Thanks again for the tip. Cool graphs on your site, too.