Android Battery Life - Pt II

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was going to follow some of TechRadar's suggestions for increasing Android battery life...

So, yesterday, I unplugged my HTC Desire @ 8:15ish to see how the battery would fare having changed a few settings.

This is what I did:

1. Reduced the screen brightness from full to 1/3. This hasn't had a big effect on visibility, but must have contributed overall.
2. Changed updates for Twitter and Facebook to every 4 hours (instead of every 15 mins!). It's not so bad as you can manually refresh when you open the app.
3. Turned the data connection off when not in use. This has its implications, but if you're not waiting for an important email, it's not essential.
4. Only had WiFi turned on at home - from about 5pm until the end of the test.

In terms of phone usage, it looked something like this:

1. Sent a handful of texts
2. enjoyed a 16 minute phone call
3. browsed the Internet (not sure of time)
4. Used the notepad (with screen left on for about 30 minutes)

And the result? After 15 hours and 9 minutes of time since unplugging (yes, Android tells you that!) the battery life went down to just half. Usually, by the end of the working day, it's gone at least onto orange (which I think is a third) and sometimes to "less than 14% remaining."

This is by no means an accurate test, but it is a fair reflection of my daily use of a phone, albeit a smart one. It's impressive in that I didn't miss having 3G turned off - I have a widget to quickly toggle that - nor was I frustrated at having the social apps refresh on a slower basis (although they can't refresh at all with 3G off!).

Today, I have left my USB cable at home. I believe that, whilst at work, I have a battery saving set up that does require it.

Long live Android!