Comments on: A Look at the DROID Bionic’s Battery Life

By: Jayd

Jayd — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 16:43:00 +0000

My battery & Data manager shows Motorola Services on the top line and it is eating my battery. Verizon said they didn’t know what that was, can anyone tell me? My phone has been on for 3h 41m 27s on battery and it is at 30% with Motorola Services using 60% of that.

By: Benjams21

Benjams21 — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 00:55:00 +0000

I have the droid bionic and the battey life us HORRIBLE
I charge it all night i take it off the charger at like 10 min to7
By like noon it is already dead without me touching it because i cant be on at school

By: John

John — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 04:11:00 +0000

Verizon. Some Verizon tech reps (over the phone since they’re not in the stores anymore) say this particular problem (pick one) is a problem they are not aware of or is a known problem for which there will be a fix coming out in a matter of months. Until then, tough sh*t if you don’t work because you can’t receive/respond to emails and/or phone calls. The latter problem is one I’ve consistently had with Verizon. I’ve been promised numerous times that the problem has been fixed yet it seemingly never goes away. I had AT&T and it was much worse with their iDiot phone. I’m wondering if T-Mobile and Sprint could be any better?

By: Jay Be

Jay Be — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 03:10:00 +0000

Damn, that sucks, you must be pulling your hair out. I guess I got lucky with mine. What carrier is your phone on?

By: Johneusavage

Johneusavage — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 23:55:00 +0000

Anyone who owns this phone and uses it extensively knows that it has more problems than most cell phones. I’ve had to swap it out three times, reset it to factory settings several times, new SIM card… All within the first two weeks of owing it. One battery riddle involves adjusting all settings/features/applications/etc. to optimize the battery life, but after non-use for 15 minutes the data shuts down. Ergo, no more email until you use it again. Also, the disabling/uninstalling of applications whenever it feels like it, the device auto-restarting itself, losing the data feature when switching between 3G and 4G… I could go on and on, but simply put: Why hasn’t there been a recall, yet?

By: Jay Be

Jay Be — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 20:41:00 +0000

I was a devoted BlackBerry user and the Droid Bionic converted me. That says a lot right there.

First of all, I am not paid to give praise to this device nor the carrier. I am
just a customer who is so happy with my new gadget that I feel like a
kid on Christmas and I wanted to share my experience with others.

When I decided to try out the Bionic, I knew I could return it within two weeks if I didn’t like it, so I had two weeks to decide if I wanted to keep the Bionic or return it and get a different phone.

There were many things I was worried about:

-I was worried that without a physical keyboard, I would not be able to type well on the touch screen keyboard.
-I was worried that with the new OS, I wouldn’t be able to configure and tweak everything to get it working exactly the way I like it.
-I was worried about it being too big to easily fit into my pocket.
-I was worried that the battery wouldn’t last me through the day.
-And I was worried that the 4G LTE (which is one of the Bionic’s selling points) would not be available in my area.

Every single worry that I had was blown away and I am 100% satisfied with my Droid Bionic. I could not be happier with my purchase:

-The touchscreen keyboard provides a tactile response with both vibration and sound which made it much easier for me to learn how to type on a touchscreen keyboard (if you don’t like the vibration and sound, you can turn them off). Within four days I was already proficient with the touchscreen keyboard.
-Android has matured a great deal since I last tried and Android phone (about two years ago) and now the settings have all the options I desire so I can configure and customize the phone to my exacting standards (some might call them obsessively exacting standards but that’s just the way I am).
-The Bionic is bigger than my previous BlackBerry, but when I slid the Bionic into my pocket (no “That’s what she said” jokes), it fit perfectly and I have so far never had a problem with the Bionic being too bulky in my pocket; I don’t even notice that it’s there.
-Regarding battery usage: these days, every single smartphone on the market that has a large high resolution display and 4G data capability is going to have to contend with massive energy consumption, there’s just no way around it with current battery technology. So when I compared the Droid Bionic to several of my friends’ smartphones (Android, iPhone, and even Windows Phone 7), the Bionic was slightly better. They were all very close and I think it comes down to how you use your phone. There are many battery-saving settings on the Bionic that you can customize till your heart’s content. So the bottom line is that considering what the Bionic is, it does not hog battery, and in fact with the right settings it can make the battery last for a very long time.
-I’ve tried all three of the US’s major carriers in the following order: AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon. Granted, different phones will produce different results, but when I got my Bionic on Verizon, I was blown away by the speed. It might have also been the Bionic’s hardware, but whenever I was in range of 4G LTE, the speed was blazing fast: better than any other in my experience. However, when I was with Sprint, the ONLY time I was in range of their 4G network was when I was at the airport, and that was for about 10 minutes. With my Bionic on Verizon’s 4G LTE, I was pleasantly surprised to be in range almost everywhere, including where I live which is a notorious “Dead Zone” for cell phone reception. (P.S. Of course I use the Bionic’s WiFi whenever possible because that’s just common sense).

Sorry for the long comment, but I’m in love with my phone (I think I’ll marry it).

By: Cybertronian94

Cybertronian94 — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 02:50:00 +0000

This guy must not use his phone at all…

By: Mdoddbama

Mdoddbama — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 21:53:00 +0000

I bought the bionic the day it released. I also bought 3 extra batteries. I listen to podcasts on google music and the batteries last only 2.5 to 3.5 hours each. I understand that is a drain but that time is sad.

By: LeJester

LeJester — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 16:44:00 +0000

Update 2: Went on a road trip on Saturday. I unplugged the phone from wall power at 9:00AM. I drove for three hours in and out of areas with weak coverage. Then spent the day and evening out with friends. I used the phone off and on all day and into the evening. Facebook, web browsing and some HD 1080 video recording. The battery life continues to improve. I arrived home at 4:00AM and plugged in my phone. It still had 30% battery life remaining.
It really does seem that the battery life has improved a great deal. I am wondering if the suggestion in another post about the battery performance increasing over time is on the mark. Perhaps several charges and discharges could be conditioning the battery.
As for those who have reported problems with uploading data and with connections. My phone has been a real champ in that regards. It is very stable. You may want to contact Verizon if you are having issues with the network performance and the battery as well.
I am still running the Go Launcher EX and this has not caused any problems with the battery life. I also have severl feed widgets going as well. The WiFi radio was turned on the entire time as well.

By: John

John — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 03:22:00 +0000

Was this article written by Motorola? I’ve had the Bionic for a week now and the battery completely sucks. Period. With no WiFi, music, phone calls, video, Bluetooth, screen resolution on lowest setting… The battery lasts 4 to 5 hours. Tops. I’m considering returning it. There are other problems: one ring tone for all email accounts (my two year old Droid can do this!), inability to sync, problems emailing photos/video… There are about 8 settings to attempt to preserve the battery life that have to be consistently reset throughout the day (at least every hour) that does very little to preserve battery life. I have two batteries and the results are the same for both.

By: mab151

mab151 — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 02:51:00 +0000

I disagree I have one and the battery life seems to be awful. With LTE on, it maybe lasts 4-5 hours of limited use. Drains very quickly even when idle. Have set a lot of apps to auto turn off. It seems a bit better on 3G but v disappointing on LTE.

By: LeJester

LeJester — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 16:37:00 +0000

UPDATE:

The 4G has been rock solid. There is no back and forth switching between 3G and 4G. No obvious connection losses. I feel that something is not or was not allowing the device to truely go into ‘stand by’.
I have done some work on my phone since yesterday and their might be some improvement. I had a heavily configured desktop, some Widgets (CNN, Facebook, BBC News and the like), Go Launcher Ex and and Look Out Security. The desktop is now very minimal, removed Go Launcher EX and removed that Lookout Security. In days prior, I had been removing other applications to try and improve the battery performance.

I unplugged the phone from the wall at 6:30 AM. It is now 11:30 AM. I have been checking email and doing facebook here and there. I have 90% battery power showing! It is like a miracle!

If I had to guess, I would suppose a problem with the anti-virus software tanking the battery.

I love what the Go Launcher Ex does. So, I will try installing the Go Launcher EX and see if the battery tanks. Then if everything is OK, in coming days I will ramp up the load on the home screens.

I am now hopeful that I might have a handle on some of the issues with the battery performance. I will try and update this post in the near future.

Has anyone ever run into any battery performance issues with any of the above mentioned applications?

All the best!

By: LeJester

LeJester — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 14:02:00 +0000

I am having battery life issues with my Bionic. I fully condition charged it before bed. This morning I got up to find that in Stand By for 5 hours 20% of the battery life was drained. The day before yesterday, I had used the phone through the day off and on while charging part of that time. In the afternoon, with good usage, the battery was at 40%. I have an 30 minute drive home from work. I checked the phone for messages a couple of hours after getting home and the phone battery was flat dead. Perhaps, some program was sucking down battery power, but, the phone was in standby when I left for home. Yesterday, before leaving for home, I killed all apps, turned all radios except primary radio off and made sure that auto updates were minimzed. I checked the phone an hour and a half later, the charge on the battery dropped 20%.

This is all too bad. Otherwise, the phone is great. I love the things that it does. But coming from an iPhone 3G which with aggressive usage would run for almost two days without a recharge, this is frustrating at best.

By: LeJester

LeJester — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 13:51:00 +0000

I am having similar battery issues with my Bionic. I fully condition charged it before bed. This morning I got up to find that in Stand By for 5 hours 20% of the battery life was drained. The day before yesterday, I had used the phone through the day off and on while charging part of that time. In the afternoon, with good usage, the battery was at 40%. I have an 30 minute drive home from work. I checked the phone for messages a couple of hours after getting home and the phone battery was flat dead. Perhaps, some program was sucking down battery power, but, the phone was in standby when I left for home. Yesterday, before leaving for home, I killed all apps and made sure that auto updates were minimzed. I checked the phone an hour and a half later, the charge on the battery dropped 20%.

This is all too bad.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 15:06:00 +0000

I hate to say it but most of the commentators seem to be right. Even if the software is heavy on Phone idle and standby…that doesn’t explain the lack of application usage. Even if someone only opened an app for a second it would show up on the usage statistics. Judging by the way this was “used” they couldn’t have been doing anything more than playing with widgets and for a short time on gmaps. This is much more likely to be a very light usage/standby time. Which if switching from LTE to 3g and back isn’t bad.