Anyone got the new HTC Diamond yet? - Page 10

Bassey · 23-07-2008, 09:26 AM

That's what I believed. Also, if connected over USB with ActiveSynch on, your screen stays on which uses a fair bit of power and slows things down. Plugging it into my PC at home, with the PC in "Sleep mode", the screen stays off and it charges a lot more quickly. Still not as quick as a proper 1A charger, but quicker than normal.

MikeL · 23-07-2008, 02:49 PM

I spoke too soon about the replacement phone having a better battery life. Today I made about 6-7 min phone calls, used the internet to check train times, checked my email, spent some time fiddling with the phone to get it set up as I want, used the radio for 2 mins to try it out. After 4 1/2 hours I got a low battery warning and about 1/2hr later it turned itself off. Very poor performance.

Regarding charging, I would expect it to take longer to charge from a USB, what surprises me is that leaving it overnight it does not fully charge up via USB. My TyTNII, which has a 50% higher capacity battery would fully charge in much less time. I never used the mains charger except when traveling, with the Diamond I'm using it every morning to get a full charge.

500mA is the maximum draw from a USB hub. In say, 8 hours overnight that is 4Ah, the battery capacity of the Diamond is 900mAh.

Bassey · 23-07-2008, 03:07 PM

Well then, that might explain why your battery is draining so fast. The device appears to be drawing around 400mA from the battery, which is why it won't charge - even if left over night!

I can't remember, did you say you had tried turning off 3G? That is usually the culprit for these things. If you live in a dodgy area, particularly on the overlap between two weak signals, the device could be constantly switching back and forth between the two and drawing massive amounts of power.

MikeL · 23-07-2008, 03:16 PM

Hi Bassey,

Thank you for your reply.

On my previous Diamond I did turn off 3G, it made no difference. On the replacement phone I have not turned it off. Where I leave the phone to charge the signal quality is good.

Today I was on a train, so would have been varying signal quality.

If it is drawing 400mA in standby battery life would be a little over two hours.

neilm · 23-07-2008, 08:19 PM

If turning 3G off made little difference, it suggests a problem, as the 3G radio is the biggest power drain. All the 3G devices I've had improve by 30-50% with 3G turned off.

Reports around the forums seem to suggest a significant improvement in battery life after the 5th to 6th charging cycle, so I suggest you still turn 3G off and give it a few days.

This new class of devices have a new low power chip, hence the smaller battery, but it may be things like the VGA screen and phone radio that continue to drain power.
Posted via Mobile Device

waveydavey · 24-07-2008, 09:07 AM

I agree, I've not seen as much as 50% extra battery life from GSM only but easily 30%.

MikeL · 24-07-2008, 05:37 PM

Neil and waveydavey,

Thank you for your replies.

Today I have made under 5 mins calls and not used the phone in any other way, and had bluetooth and WiFi off, so 5 mins calls, otherwise on standby. After 8 hrs 30 mins I have got the low battery warning message. The battery feels warm, despite having been on standby for more than two hours.

Even if turning on GSM only mode gives me another 50% that would give me a little over 12 hrs standby and 5 mins calls between charges. To me that is not adequate, and means never using the other facilities, such as WiFi, bluetooth and GPS.

waveydavey · 24-07-2008, 07:42 PM

It's funny though, it does seem strangely bad battery life. There must be some underlying cause. Have you added much extra software to the device? Something that may be stoping the CPU going to sleep?

neilm · 24-07-2008, 07:57 PM

Mine started at 6am today with 100%; Used it all day with Push Email over GSM/GPRS, 30 minutes of Blueotth file transfer, 20 minutes of Googlemaps with GPS enabled, about 10 minutes of phone calls and about 1 hour of 3G downloads/surfing.

It was down to 30% at 2pm so I topped it up with my Maplin charger to 100% and it's now at 60% . OK- not a full days' heavy use, but not bad considering the size of the package!

If this was my primary device, used like this every day, I'd probably invest in a spare high capacity battery, but as the Maplin charger took it right up in less than 1hr, that suffices for me

waveydavey · 24-07-2008, 08:03 PM

I'll let you know tomorrow how my day goes with the battery life.