Nexus to Nothing

One of the things I have noticed about using the Google Nexus One for more stuff is how awful the battery life is! I can barely get it to last the day, especially if I am using applications. As a phone and a portable wifi hotspot, it seems to be okay, but as soon as I start using Twitter or Foursquare then this seems to kill the battery life.

Yes if I turn off wifi, 3G and GPS then the phone battery does last a fair bit of time, but if I do that I might as well get a cheap Nokia phone which is just a phone!

My iPhone 3GS to be honest also has a pretty poor battery and as it gets close to its second birthday, the battery life appears to be getting worse! What is different though with the 3GS is that I have an external case which includes a battery, so I can usually ensure (even with heavy usage) that the 3GS lasts all day.

However the Nexus One has trouble doing even that!

My solution would be to buy a battery case as I have for my iPhone, but buying accessories for the Nexus One is not easy. Another option would be a spare battery, and I have considered that. I use to do that with an older phone I had a few years back.

My current solution is to carry the charger with me and I also have a car charger in the car too. As the Nexus One has a mini-USB port that does make life a little easier.

2 Replies to “Nexus to Nothing”

  1. I too had battery issues with the Nexus One, one thing that I have found is that if I have wifi on but it cant find any wifi access point the battery drains rather quickly. Likewise for 3G reception, the office I work in has terrible reception and if my phone is constantly searching for signal then it drains the battery.

    I also try and run the screen at the lowest brightness 99% of the time.

  2. I am not sure it’s the phone’s fault, James. Maybe it’s your battery that’s iffy?

    I have had my Nexus one for nearly a year now and it’s still the loveliest phone I have ever had. In terms of battery life, mine beats the iPhone 3GS hands down: I had both of those running in parallel at one point last year and saw how they performed. The Nexus definitely won the battery battle.

    When mostly on standby, my fully charged Nexus can last almost two days.
    Under normal every day conditions my phone lasts an entire day from 7am to midnight. Under heavy use, such as at conferences when I am constantly tweeting, taking photos, making notes and using email, my Nexus battery lasts around 5 hours.

    I do have a spare battery, which, I must admit, does not last quite as long as the original battery. The quality of the battery makes quite a big difference. But at least I can swap batteries out if I need to. No such luck with the locked down iPhone, of course.

    My battery saving tips:
    * The screen is by far the greatest battery eater. Use a simple black background and turn the screen to its dimmest setting. When available, use dark themes for apps.
    * Other than the Power Control one, do NOT use widgets.
    * If not in use, turn Wifi, Bluetooth and GPS off (easily done with the Power Control widget)
    * Turn background data off.
    * Check what’s eating your battery (Settings>About Phone), then minimise the use of anything that drains your power.

    Like you, I charge my phone via USB cable whenever I get a chance. I do it because I can and because it’s convenient to keep the battery topped up, but it’s not a necessity most of the time.

Leave a Reply