[TunaE]

I have been having trouble with my 920 battery, but I waited the two weeks for the battery to "condition" assuming there really is such a thing. And, now my son received his 920, and he is complaining about his horrible battery life, too. So, I decided to do a test last night while driving home, and this morning when the phone was fully charged & not used. Former about the recharge speed while driving, and latter about idle discharge.

**** This morning:

7:28am: Phone is unplugged off the wall, at 100%. LTE, NFC, Bluetooth enabled, but no NFC or BT connections made. Email set to "As Items Arrive". Nothing running in the background as verified by holding down the BACK button; only the START screen. The "background tasks allowed" apps are basically the defaults, including NokiaDrive; but none of them are actually shown as "running" when you hold the BACK button.

8:30am: 92%. During the last hour, the phone has not even been switched on, so even the screen hadn't come on. 8% loss in 1hr?! Only a few emails had arrived, but not looked at.

9:19am: 81%. Again, no use of the phone in the meantime. It has just been lying on the countertop. No phone/data features used except those used by the phone in the background. Almost 20% off in 2hrs!!

Basically, with the default features of the phone, after two weeks of "battery conditioning", while sitting on the countertop, starting from a 100% charge, not being used for anything actively, my phone seems to drain at 10%/hr.

In the meantime, my iPhone4 went from 100% to 100%.

**** Last night:

I was driving home for about 30min. Before plugging the 920 into my 1amp USB car charger, it was at 57%. At the end of my drive, it was at 59%. That is 4%/hr recharge rate while the phone is using 10%/hr!

**** Also:

Only anecdotally: It seems because of the difference between recharge/discharge speeds, when I use NokiaDrive while my 920 is plugged into the car charger, I still arrive at my destination with a *significant* battery loss. There were days when I left home at 100%, drove for 30-40mins, and arrived at 57%. Totally unacceptable.

**** NOKIA: Given all the complaints on the web & here on your own boards, I think it is time for you to announce something publicly, not just as a post here, but as a News article & email to all your registered users. Otherwise, you'll see many people switching away from your flagship phone. This is not just a few people running into the problem because they are doing this or that.

[TunaE]

9:54am: 71%. Again, with no phone use, since I was busy typing my report...

[TunaE]

11:59am 39%.

[rayhipkiss]

 A quick search on Google resulted in HTC 8X owners reporting similarly poor battery life as well as Lumia 920 owners. This suggests that it's probably a WP8 issue. Anyway, there are already several threads complaining about battery life with mixed reports from other users. My battery lasts somewhere in the region of two days but others are reporting less than a day.

Ray.

[botudi]

I've had battery issues as well. 3 complete discharge/recharge cycles and they are gone.

Last day I hit another record: 2days and14h since last recharge...with 14% battery left. I use the phone for emails (got 3 accounts set), calls and web browsing. If I don't do anything with the phone it goes down with aprox.6% / 10h.

 You could try this too and see if it works out for you.

[cjlim]

There are 2 aspects to battery life. 

First you have battery capacity. Anyone who has experience with lithium ion/polymer will tell you it takes a few charge cycles to achieve optimum performance. However this does not exclude the possibility of the odd faulty battery.

Second, you have battery consumption. This is therate at which the phone is consuming power. The display being on, thephone hunting for 4G/3G connection and apps running in the background are all things that consume a lot of power. 

Poor battery life could be due to the first or the second or a combination of the two. So not everyone having battery problems will have the same solution. To date, I think we have seen more of the first then the second here on this forum. It requires process of elimination to find the true cause. 

[botudi]

mine was draining too fast in idle...without doing anything with the phone or apps running ...that's why I dared to advise him

[TunaE]

And, 1:22pm: only 19% left, with battery save engaging automatically. So, basically 6 hours to almost nothing without doing anything with the phone.

[TunaE]

And, an hour later, as of 2:25pm, I found my phone dead with a depleted battery. So, less than 7hrs on full battery with no use other than the phone accepting emails, texts, and staying connected to LTE & WiFi. No calls, no apps, no anything obvious. That is really bad.

I guess this will be my first full recharge after my first full discharge. This is a horrible user experience for a flagship phone, both for Nokia & WM8.

[adrianhughes]

My battery was draining faster than anticipated, til i found that turning off the Location services in the Settings greatly increased battery life. Sometimes i am able to get a day and a half of moderate usage out of the phone, sometimes 24 hours. Have you checked the thread here on the boards for suggestions on how to maximise battery life?


IF you are still having major problems with battery life after trying everything on that list, then you can try performing soft reset, and if that doesn't work, then a hard reset (remember to backup all personal data first). If that still doesn't work, then you probably have a defective handset and will need to take it to your local Nokia Care for them to inspect.

locate Nokia Care: http://nokia.com/support

[TunaE]

Worth reporting: After the phone drained by itself very quickly yesterday, I charged it again on the wall to 100%. It actually charged somewhat quickly. I don't have numbers, but it "felt" like 4hrs to full charge.

This morning, over the first hour off the wall, under the same conditions as before (LTE, BT, NFC all turned on, no background apps running), even with slightly more phone/data usage than yesterday, the drain was only 1%. It went from 100% to 99% in one hour, even though I drove around with it in the car, not on a charger, thus moved from cell tower to cell tower, from WiFi to WiFi, receiving & responding to email & text, none of which was happening yesterday. In other words, it performed about 10 times better this morning after full drain & recharge, even in the face of slightly increased usage.

So, maybe there really is something to recalibrating the li-ion battery by draining it fully and charging it up again. Talking to my son last night, he also said that after his phone drained fully a few times, not on purpose btw, it is behaving better now.

Of course, why Nokia would ship these phones with less than optimally calibrated batteries is beyond me. It feels like that is something that should be done at the factory, before the phone enters the box and gets to the consumer, as opposed to being part of the user's initial out-of-the-box experience.

[cjlim]

Glad it is working for you. Btw, it is not advisable to fully discharge your battery to often either. Calibrate once every few months or when you feel the battery is feeling bloated  but you can do it by running it down low not necessarily fully. 

[botudi]

@TunaE

discharge your phone in a natural way....play games and stuff....and recharge for a long time ...don't unplug it when it says it's full. Use a minimum of 10h recharge time.

If you plug your phone as soon as it has turned off with 1-2 secs of waiting there is nothing that should prevent your phone (if it's not faulty that is) to restart after it's plugged in the outlet.

3 times did the trick for me...hope it will do it for you too,

[cjlim]

I recommend not waiting until the phone dies unless you want to take the risk of the battery falling below the critical level. I would prefer not to see you guys back here complaining about a battery that wont charge when plugged in. 

[botudi]

---

cjlim wrote:

I recommend not waiting until the phone dies unless you want to take the risk of the battery falling below the critical level. I would prefer not to see you guys back here complaining about a battery that wont charge when plugged in. 

---

not true. every lithium battery has a safety circuit that preserves enough internal charge (10% - 20% of total) to prevent the battery-ruining reaction. So if you wait only few secs after it has shut down there is no problem to power on when you connect it to the outlet.

[cjlim]

You are correct about the safety circuit but they are very simple circuits and not very accurate. Works most of the time but not all the time. We get prople here regularly who can't charge after a full discharge. Happens to any device if you try it often enough. Its a risk you take everytime you let the battery drain fully. I have had it happen to me a few times. The last instance was my HTC Sensation. A little easier to handle when you can remove the battery. 

It's your phone your choice but don't come here complaining if it happens to you. Battery warranty is only 6 months. Don't say you werent warned. 

[botudi]

if the battery is draining like mine was, it can go off in the middle of the night (like it happen to me once). Isn't waiting till the morning to plug for charging riskier than a controlled discharge ? We are talking about issues here...and I for one when I have a problem I try to resolve it. If nokia would have done a proper job we wouldn't be forced to do these things. Replacing phones is my last resort as I don't want to wait longer than I have already.

[cjlim]

Don't forget I have a Lumia 920 too. Only ever been fully discharged fully once and getting 2-3 days per charge easily. Lithium ion batteries only require calibration once in a while and not every charge. You only need to run the battery low to calibrate it. No need to completely drain. Sine you have already completed the calibration process you are good to go for a few months. 

[botudi]

wasn't planning to do it ever again was reffering to the OP that it might solve his problem

[cjlim]

It is more than adequate to discharge until the phone beeps low battery for battery calibration purposes. For normal charging, top it up as often as you wish.