Nexus 4 Battery Life Question

strausd said:

I'm new to Android so a lot of this is foreign to me. My battery life has not been that great lately. And I noticed that like every 30 seconds or so, even if I'm not doing anything, my phone will be accessing the internet. I took a screenshot and attached it. I'm guessing that whenever those arrows pointing up and down shoe up, it means I am using data. This shows up constantly on both WiFi and cellular. Could that be why battery is going down so fast? And what could be causing it to continually access the internet even when I'm not doing anything?

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Android has a reputation for using a lot of battery. Try ending processes and look into your battery settings to see which apps/processes are using up the most battery.

cnguyen0320 said:

Android has a reputation for using a lot of battery. Try ending processes and look into your battery settings to see which apps/processes are using up the most battery.

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It's better to not use task killers. You could end up killing services that are needed so you could actually waste battery by killing services and having them start up again. Unless you know which services are not needed, it's best to let the OS manage memory.

strausd said:

I'm new to Android so a lot of this is foreign to me. My battery life has not been that great lately. And I noticed that like every 30 seconds or so, even if I'm not doing anything, my phone will be accessing the internet. I took a screenshot and attached it. I'm guessing that whenever those arrows pointing up and down shoe up, it means I am using data. This shows up constantly on both WiFi and cellular. Could that be why battery is going down so fast? And what could be causing it to continually access the internet even when I'm not doing anything?

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Post a screenshot of the battery usage breakdown and the graph for it.

You can also check what is using the data by going to Data in settings and restriciting the background data for the offending app.

dalbir4444 said:

It's better to not use task killers. You could end up killing services that are needed so you could actually waste battery by killing services and having them start up again. Unless you know which services are not needed, it's best to let the OS manage memory.

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I meant opening recent apps and closing them down. I don't own an Android but that's what I've heard.

cnguyen0320 said:

I meant opening recent apps and closing them down. I don't own an Android but that's what I've heard.

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In that case, I suppose it would depend on the application. Since the list doesn't actually show the apps that are running, but just the recent apps, swiping an app may not actually do anything since it's possible that it has already been closed.

But in the case of swiping apps, I don't think they would harm battery life.

Definitely check the update intervals of your apps, especially ones that have social updates. For instance, Facebook by default sets their update intervals to something like every 5 minutes.

strausd said:

Ok. This is only the second day I have been using it so it may be too early to tell. All I have to compare it to is my iPhone 4S. And after just ~20 minutes of the phone being off the charger and me only sending a few texts, batter dipped to 89%. Ever since, it just seems like the battery has been draining pretty fast. And considering that the battery has a much larger capacity than the 4S, it seems like it should last longer, even with a larger screen.

Could JuiceDefender help?

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No, don't get JuiceDefender. It's not worth it.

I would try just using the phone until it really goes to zero just in case it is just a battery calibration issue. Your "Awake" looks good in the graph, indicating there there isn't much that is keeping your phone from sleeping.

One thing you could try is going into Google Maps -> Settings -> Location Settings -> and turn off location reporting and turn off automatic check-ins.

Turn off Google Now and all the unnecesary cards. Found most of the cards useless.

Heard it sucks battery because it's contantly checking your location, scanning your emails, and retreiving data.

You should be getting better, even with Google now turned on. I would let the battery run down fully and then recharge it fully, thats what I did for a couple of times. You should not have to turn off functionality to make your battery last an acceptable time.

Screen has been on 1 Hour and 21 minutes, I have Google now, Location services, Bluetooth and WiFi permanently on.

Edit: what does that 61 in a circle on the top left of your screen mean please?

^ it's a battery power notification.

I have had many Android Devices and iPhone 4/4S and now 5. All iPhones have much better battery life than Android(Razor Maxx and Razor Maxx HD the exception). I just moved from a Galaxy Note. One of the reasons was horrible battery life. What you are experiencing is very common. Apps are the usually cause. For me Facebook was a killer. After every time I used Facebook it required that I manual end process. Without that it would drain my battery.

I modded my phones. No matter the Rom it happened. JB on my Note was the worse by far. Native ICS seem to be the best fit despite the lack of custom options.


Now the Nexus 4 is not LTE so that wont be an issue but with my Note it only exasperated the issue. Being a HSPA+ only device you will see a better than normal. At the end of the day you will want to get use to having a charger with you at all times. Jumping on a 20 minute call and frequent email or text reply will kill the battery quickly.

strausd said:

Should I turn off Google now as a whole or individually turn off all the cards?

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I say turn Google now off as a whole if you are able to. See if there's an improvement in battery life.

I find Google Now pretty much useless for me. Most cards are about traveling and going abroad to another country.

I'm sorry, I dont know what the media thing is, I too often get that down arrow on my wifi indicator, I assume, like you that it is when my phone is connecting for some reason, location services maybe. If you have Dropbox try disabling that, I noticed that for me it was using quite a lot of battery when it was syncing with my phone. Other than that I would look at the apps that you have installed and delete them one by one starting with any that you think could be used for streaming, they can always be reinstalled if they are not the culprit.

Couple of things I have copied and pasted after a google search.

I've noticed this as well, and it seems to be related to google music syncing. If you go into your google account in settings and uncheck music it seems to help quite a bit.

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This is a good link that may help identify the problem.

http://www.connect-utb.com/2012/07/buggy-android-mediaserver-draining-your-battery/

This one describes the same problems.

http://androidforums.com/samsung-galaxy-s2-international/477810-media-server-battery-drain.html

http://androidforums.com/motorola-droid/15784-mediaserver-what.html

Hope this helps.

Try recalibrating your battery to seebif that helps. You can find free battery calibration apps in the Play Store. You just have to charge the phone fully, then hit calibrate. You should see a difference in 2 charge cycles.