Ok, I know everyone has been hitting the HTC Evo 4g hard with the poor battery life that the device suffers from. I was also one of those people as well, personally expecting 6-8 hours a day out of my Evo. Well I had been having trouble with my Evo running a bit sluggish, and performing poorly. I took the phone to my local Sprint store, as I was struggling to figure out what was causing the battery drain. It turned out, task killers and antivirus applications actually often do more harm than good on these devices. I didnt believe Sprint at first when they told me this, but after a hard reset, I noticed my battery life was greatly improved. This prompted me to begin my own test the other day. Of the past two battery cycles, I have managed to get my Evo to last 20.5 hours (pulled at 9%) and 20 hours (pulled at 8%), without any drastic measures. I even left wifi on for the entire first cycle. (I do not live in a 4G area, so obviously that was off) I used my phone a good amount, probably about the same an average user does during the day. Now on the 3rd battery charge, with about 50% remaining, I have had my phone running for just over 12 hours. Both the first and third tests have been performed with the stock HTC battery, and the 2nd test was performed with a 1800 mAh aftermarket battery.
Now here are a few things I have noticed over these tests:
1. GPS (particularly when used for navigation) is a big drain on the battery. Its ok to leave it on and enabled, but if something is constantly using it, you will quickly deplete your battery. GPS was used for navigation for about 20 min in Test #2.
2. Wifi also has a large effect on the battery. It can account for up to a third of your battery usage, although it does reduce the battery usage of your mobile network, so does not have a large net effect on overall battery life, if any at all.
3. Early results from these tests make the claim of 61 hours of battery life on one charge seem feasible, although not practical at all. (Link to post claiming this in title of article).
4. The HTC Evo 4G can be a pratical phone.
5. If you disable the setting "Enable always on mobile data" you will save battery life, with virtually no disadvantages.
So it is obvious that if we are careful, we can get the Evo to have good battery life. If you are having trouble with battery life, try resetting the device. In terms of preventing these problems, there is not much you can do other than be careful in the App Market.
Hope this helps anyone with battery issues!
*Note: Sorry I have not posted new articles as much lately, had a busy schedule with school about to start up. If you would like to help be an author for fun, and have some tech knowledge, please leave a comment in the section below.
HTC is reportedly working on its own app store, according to The Financial Times. HTC has been in contact with content providers in order to begin generating content to fill in its app store. HTC's apparent goal is to create an experience with their smartphones that is much more than the typical experience. They want to create an environment in which HTC is thoroughly integrated into the whole smartphone experience.
