SMARTPHONE: Poor battery and even poorer SPRINT customer service

[madmax12]

Wye guy, I too have had issues with data turning off. Even in Columbus where I work...and full bars of 3g signal, I can be browsing and all of the sudden the bars will go grey and no internet. Two minutes later... They turn blue an it works again.

That sounds like the Sprint network issue I had when I relocated. Coworkers had no issues with competing carriers. My phone had worked flawlessly in the big city area, but came to a more rural area and nothing but trouble. Some of your trouble may have little to do with your phone model.

 

[LD1]

That's a good point. Fringe 4g areas will really drain the phone fast. My old phone did LTE but live in very spotty area. The phone would try really hard to hook up and you could just about watch the battery drain right before your eyes. Turned it off on the phone and the battery would last much longer. The other thing about "smart" phones, is they are changing so fast, especially the android ones, that the people that sell them don't really know them as well as the old phones.

I have NEVER seen 4g on my phone. It is supposed to be 4g capable but there is no setting or option to turn it off. And I doubt that my batter issues is related to things like this anyway. This phone does have really good battery statistics. It breaks down everything. Some examples...

Voice calls, Screen, phone idle, cell standby, apps (broken down to specific ones but I dont feel like listing all of them), android OS, Android system, etc.

From what I have read, those who have battery issues with constantly hunting for a signal, it shows up as android OS or the android system.

That sounds like the Sprint network issue I had when I relocated. Coworkers had no issues with competing carriers. My phone had worked flawlessly in the big city area, but came to a more rural area and nothing but trouble. Some of your trouble may have little to do with your phone model.

Not a rural area at all. Actually when I notice it the most is at work. Which is in columbus ohio. A very big city...



Sorry, I dont know how to capture screen shots, but as of right now, my battery sits @ 50%.

Screen...35% with 35 minutes on time
Voice calls 25% with 24 minutes of use
phone idle at 17% for 10 hours.

So in 1 day, and 35minutes of screen time and 24 minutes of calls, I have used 50% of my battery.

 

[LD1]

Just checked the wifes phone.

Her battery is at 28%, With 59% screen time of only 1 hour and 8 minutes. Pathetic.

 

[wyeguy]

I got an extended battery after market. Otherwise, I'd have the battery problems you are. On Amazon it wasn't too bad.

Coincidentally, Google/Verizon pushed a system update to my phone 5 hours ago. The signal reception is MUCH worse, for some reason. And there's strange display issues. This is the 3rd phone they've tried to make work for me. A serious waste of money. I can't afford to replace this phone.

 

[sailfast]

I have NEVER seen 4g on my phone. It is supposed to be 4g capable but there is no setting or option to turn it off. And I doubt that my batter issues is related to things like this anyway. This phone does have really good battery statistics. It breaks down everything. Some examples...

Voice calls, Screen, phone idle, cell standby, apps (broken down to specific ones but I dont feel like listing all of them), android OS, Android system, etc.

From what I have read, those who have battery issues with constantly hunting for a signal, it shows up as android OS or the android system.

Not a rural area at all. Actually when I notice it the most is at work. Which is in columbus ohio. A very big city...

Sorry, I dont know how to capture screen shots, but as of right now, my battery sits @ 50%.

Screen...35% with 35 minutes on time
Voice calls 25% with 24 minutes of use
phone idle at 17% for 10 hours.

So in 1 day, and 35minutes of screen time and 24 minutes of calls, I have used 50% of my battery.

That is terrable. You need to install the Green Power Free app to start.

Turn of location reporting. Different than GPS

What android version is on there?

 

[SPIKER]

LD1 sorry about your luck, I been using Samsung Flip Phones for 10+ years when new it is common for me to get 10 days to 2 weeks between charges. I dont talk often but take a few photos and such but is still common for me to go long time between charges. I left mine on for the last week and took a half dozen pics today and it beeped at me needing a charge after the flashes. The ones we are using now are Convoys (Military grade ones) as I'm a bit hard on phones lol... I still have the previous version phone also Samsung that we upgraded away from after 3.5 years use their battery life was down to 2 days which we didnt like lol. The one prior also Samsung Flip Phone only broke AFTER I dropped it and it popped open and I stepped flat on it. it was almost 4 years old too.

I been thinking about a smart phone but data plans are pretty expensive and we are rarely away from a network & laptop. I'm glad you mentioned this here as I had not heard anything bad about the Samsung Smart Phones. My Daughter-N-Law has Motorola Droid which also has a poor battery life on Verizon network she texts a lot and screen on a lot with a nightly or so charge required.

Mark

 

[94BULLITT]

LD1 sorry about your luck, I been using Samsung Flip Phones for 10+ years when new it is common for me to get 10 days to 2 weeks between charges. I dont talk often but take a few photos and such but is still common for me to go long time between charges. I left mine on for the last week and took a half dozen pics today and it beeped at me needing a charge after the flashes. The ones we are using now are Convoys (Military grade ones) as I'm a bit hard on phones lol... I still have the previous version phone also Samsung that we upgraded away from after 3.5 years use their battery life was down to 2 days which we didnt like lol. The one prior also Samsung Flip Phone only broke AFTER I dropped it and it popped open and I stepped flat on it. it was almost 4 years old too.

I been thinking about a smart phone but data plans are pretty expensive and we are rarely away from a network & laptop. I'm glad you mentioned this here as I had not heard anything bad about the Samsung Smart Phones. My Daughter-N-Law has Motorola Droid which also has a poor battery life on Verizon network she texts a lot and screen on a lot with a nightly or so charge required.

Mark

Check out virgin mobile. They offer affordable smartphone plans.

 

[crazyal]

To turn off 4g you need to go to the settings page and select "more...". On that pager select mobile networks. On that page select Network Mode. The two options are LTE/CDMA (that's 3g and 4g) and just CDMA (3g only). On the settings page select "battery". On the battery page you can touch the battery graph (where it says how much time is on the battery) and it'll bring up a new page that will show what your phone is doing. It should show the graph and a time line below it. There will be blue ticks where the phone was doing something that required battery use.

This morning I got a notice that the phone has an update so I let the phone do the install. The first thing I noticed was they changed the clock and now you don't have the option to drag the circle to the camera. Now no matter which direction you drag the circle it always goes to the main page. To get to the settings page you can just put your finger at the top of the screen and slide it down. There was a symbol you can tap. The update changed the symbol to a box with a face in it and some smaller square boxes on one side and the bottom. Instead of going to the settings page now you have more options. It seams like after the update the battery life is better. The battery page has also been updated and the timeline below the battery graph is changed. Before I would see lots of blue ticks and now there's only a couple.

As of now on my GN my battery is at 85% after 8h 35min. That's with 18 minutes of voice time and almost no data use.

 

[LD1]

That is terrable. You need to install the Green Power Free app to start.

Turn of location reporting. Different than GPS

What android version is on there?

Location reporting is off too. Been off. And the versions is 4.2.1 And while the green power app "may" make things better.....I should NOT have to download a 3rd party app to get the phone working like it is supposed to.

To turn off 4g you need to go to the settings page and select "more...". On that pager select mobile networks. On that page select Network Mode. The two options are LTE/CDMA (that's 3g and 4g) and just CDMA (3g only). On the settings page select "battery". On the battery page you can touch the battery graph (where it says how much time is on the battery) and it'll bring up a new page that will show what your phone is doing. It should show the graph and a time line below it. There will be blue ticks where the phone was doing something that required battery use.

This morning I got a notice that the phone has an update so I let the phone do the install. The first thing I noticed was they changed the clock and now you don't have the option to drag the circle to the camera. Now no matter which direction you drag the circle it always goes to the main page. To get to the settings page you can just put your finger at the top of the screen and slide it down. There was a symbol you can tap. The update changed the symbol to a box with a face in it and some smaller square boxes on one side and the bottom. Instead of going to the settings page now you have more options. It seams like after the update the battery life is better. The battery page has also been updated and the timeline below the battery graph is changed. Before I would see lots of blue ticks and now there's only a couple.

As of now on my GN my battery is at 85% after 8h 35min. That's with 18 minutes of voice time and almost no data use.

I found the 3g/4g setting. Thanks. But wouldnt it have been a whole lot easier to just call it 3g or 4g:confused2: I hate these acronyms. And I also doubt that is the issue, cause it would show up in the battery usage screen as android os or android system. Which have both been under 5% usage everytime I have ever looked.

LD1 sorry about your luck, I been using Samsung Flip Phones for 10+ years when new it is common for me to get 10 days to 2 weeks between charges. I dont talk often but take a few photos and such but is still common for me to go long time between charges. I left mine on for the last week and took a half dozen pics today and it beeped at me needing a charge after the flashes. The ones we are using now are Convoys (Military grade ones) as I'm a bit hard on phones lol... I still have the previous version phone also Samsung that we upgraded away from after 3.5 years use their battery life was down to 2 days which we didnt like lol. The one prior also Samsung Flip Phone only broke AFTER I dropped it and it popped open and I stepped flat on it. it was almost 4 years old too.



Mark

Shounds just like I used to be. I always had the mil-spec rugged phones. I was really impressed with how durable they were and how long the batteries lasted. My last 3 phones (in reverse order) were the sanyo tahoe, i580 and i530.

 

[crazyal]

The last time I had Verizon I had a moto flip phone. For the first two years it worked well (other than the stupid plug on the bottom of the phone to charge the battery). But it didn't have service at my land where I was building a house. Verizon gave me a number to call that would do an update to the software and another to update the list of towers. I did the tower number first and it didn't make much of a difference. I tried the software update and it made the phone terrible. When making calls it would transfer the signal to towers way off in the distance. It would go from a full signal down to one bar. That would drain the battery, my guess is the phone had to boost the signal up. It would also cut out often. After about a year of this they came out with a new update that made it connect to distant towers all the time. I would have to power down the phone then power it back up and make any phone call immediately because it would find the towers close by first and within about 30 seconds it would transfer to the distant towers that wouldn't allow the call to be made. Since I was going to move into the new house soon I wanted to wait until after to find new service.

I don't think it was the phone but the service. I suspect that carriers like Verizon add their own programs to the phones to force them to connect to towers based on how busy each one is. They also decide how often the phone gets handed off to other towers. I think the customization that the carriers do is part of the reason why two identical phones on different carriers give vastly different experiences. My GN has been on now for 1 day 3 hours, has over an hour of phone calls on it, downloaded the weather (including the radar) 3 times and still have 57% battery life remaining. My phone and battery are about 14 months old now so one would think the battery life is not as good as it would be if new.

 

[pwright]

Screen...35% with 35 minutes on time
Voice calls 25% with 24 minutes of use
phone idle at 17% for 10 hours.

That seems like a lot of screen time unless you were doing some activity that requires the screen to be on i.e. web surfing, texting, watching a video....

Certainly turning the LTE radio off will save battery life as the LTE radios on these first gen LTE capable phones are battery pigs. Columbus doesn't have LTE.

 

[DT86]

I did not read all the prior posts, but here are my thoughts on Smart Phones and Sprint.

1) Insurance is a JOKE.
2) Some stores are corporate owned and others are independent. In my experience the CORPORATELY owned stores provide better customer service and if I have a problem I travel an extra 30-40 minutes to that store.
3) If one uses their Smartphone for anything other than a phone, keep that charger handy.
4) Insurance is a JOKE.

 

[OKnewguy]

I did not read thru all these post, but there are some things to try out. First this nexus is a "developer" phone. This means that most carriers do not have a ton of crap on it, and it is close to pure android. The carriers put there skins on the phone and the nexus ones have either no skins or very little. For geeks this is great, and means that it is well supported with the geeks. You can go over to xda developers and search for the phone. You can find all sorts of things that will help out your battery performance. They even have battery performance roms that really can help. If changing roms is to difficult, they can help you with your current settings to get the best performance with what you have. These phones are great for a tweaker, but often need some patience to get the phone just the way you want it. This is the beauty of android and also an annoyance. They are HIGHLY customizable and some of the settings can make a huge difference.
Off the top of my head, it sounds like your phone is not going into deep sleep. This can be caused by your setting in google now, and other setting with your apps. Apps that poll need to be set to poll manually. BTW some task killer apps actually are worse because they keep the phone from going into deep sleep.
Good luck and here is the forum for the phone on xda
Sprint Galaxy Nexus Android Development - xda-developers
Dave

 

[wyeguy]

OKnewguy- sounds great, except I know just enough about this stuff to be dangerous. I'll lurk on the site you posted and see if it makes any sense to a neophyte. But this phone has been such a PITA, I don't want to make it worse. I do appreciate the advice. Maybe someday I'll make some progress....

 

[crazyal]

I did not read thru all these post, but there are some things to try out. First this nexus is a "developer" phone. This means that most carriers do not have a ton of crap on it, and it is close to pure android. The carriers put there skins on the phone and the nexus ones have either no skins or very little. For geeks this is great, and means that it is well supported with the geeks. You can go over to xda developers and search for the phone. You can find all sorts of things that will help out your battery performance. They even have battery performance roms that really can help. If changing roms is to difficult, they can help you with your current settings to get the best performance with what you have. These phones are great for a tweaker, but often need some patience to get the phone just the way you want it. This is the beauty of android and also an annoyance. They are HIGHLY customizable and some of the settings can make a huge difference.
Off the top of my head, it sounds like your phone is not going into deep sleep. This can be caused by your setting in google now, and other setting with your apps. Apps that poll need to be set to poll manually. BTW some task killer apps actually are worse because they keep the phone from going into deep sleep.
Good luck and here is the forum for the phone on xda
Sprint Galaxy Nexus Android Development - xda-developers
Dave

The problem with that is most of the information over at xda looks like Greek to the bulk of smart phone users. For them they have to rely on Google to update Android and wait for a software upgrade. Another thing is depending on how much you tweak your phone you could void any warranty (or help) that your carrier will offer. Before I had good 4g coverage I noticed that the phone was always waking up and staying awake for noticeable periods of time. Now it seams like the data transfers are much quicker so the awake time is much shorter. I've also disabled as many of the apps that I can't remove that I don't use. I've also turned off automatic updates for most of the apps. It seamed like every day there would be about a dozen that got updated. Some of the updates turned a simple good app into junk. Airdroid was a great free app that would allow you to use the phone to connect a laptop to the internet. The last update limited how much data you could transfer before you needed to decline an update to a paid app.

 

[LD1]

Just an update:

Things aren't looking good. I am waiting on one final call from sprint today.

I currently have an overdue bill for $321 that I won't be paying unless they resolve this issue. It looks like I may be a Verizon customer before long. I like the specs and good reviews of the droid RAZR.

 

[sailfast]

Just an update:

Things aren't looking good. I am waiting on one final call from sprint today.

I currently have an overdue bill for $321 that I won't be paying unless they resolve this issue. It looks like I may be a Verizon customer before long. I like the specs and good reviews of the droid RAZR.

I don't understand your problem.

You wont take our advice to improve the battery life ..

And it is working exactly as it should be.

Not paying your due bill wont help your credit.

Its all your own fault.

 

[LD1]

I don't understand your problem.

You wont take our advice to improve the battery life ..

And it is working exactly as it should be.

Not paying your due bill wont help your credit.

Its all your own fault.

WHAT??

What advice did I not take?? Installing apps? or new kernals? or hacking the phone? As a consumer I shouldnt have to do that to get it functioning as advertised.

And I'm sorry....1h38m of talk time before my battery is under 10% (just tried this about 3 days ago) certainly is NOT working like it should be when it was advertised to have a 7.5h talk time battery

Phone is in my wifes name. Sure she, (and maybe I) will take a ding on our credit. But I dont forsee taking out anymore loans in my lifetime. And as of currently our credit is stellar. 790+. So I am not too worried about that.

I fail to see how you think its all my fault. I got a device that didnt work as it should. I disclosed the issue to them within a few days. They couldnt offer me a SINGLE solution that didnt involve paying more money. Just flat out unacceptable in my book.

Anyway...Just ordered 2 verizon phones. Sprint just lost a happy customer of 7 years (until now) and never a late payment.

 

[Gator6x4]

WHAT??Phone is in my wifes name. Sure she, (and maybe I) will take a ding on our credit. But I dont forsee taking out anymore loans in my lifetime. And as of currently our credit is stellar. 790+. So I am not too worried about that.


Anyway...Just ordered 2 verizon phones. Sprint just lost a happy customer of 7 years (until now) and never a late payment.

Cell Phone Companies are nasty people when it comes to money. Look to start receiving calls from a collection company.

 

[sailfast]

WHAT??

What advice did I not take?? Installing apps? or new kernals? or hacking the phone? As a consumer I shouldnt have to do that to get it functioning as advertised.

And I'm sorry....1h38m of talk time before my battery is under 10% (just tried this about 3 days ago) certainly is NOT working like it should be when it was advertised to have a 7.5h talk time battery

Phone is in my wifes name. Sure she, (and maybe I) will take a ding on our credit. But I dont forsee taking out anymore loans in my lifetime. And as of currently our credit is stellar. 790+. So I am not too worried about that.

I fail to see how you think its all my fault. I got a device that didnt work as it should. I disclosed the issue to them within a few days. They couldnt offer me a SINGLE solution that didnt involve paying more money. Just flat out unacceptable in my book.

Anyway...Just ordered 2 verizon phones. Sprint just lost a happy customer of 7 years (until now) and never a late payment.

You bought a phone intended to be modified. Didn't even bother to install an app that greatly extends battery life. Didn't use it as intended, and complained about its performance.

You will never be satisfied with battery life on a smart phone. And the idea that you don't need to make changes to extend battery life is ludicrous.

Now you are going to blow your wife's credit in the process, possibly costing you $100s more in the long run.

You showed them!