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Nexus One Battery Life vs iPhone 3gS/4G

Earlier this year, I was a huge Android fan. I had a rooted G1 with a different firmware every week. My Dream ended when I realized that the battery was lasting me not more than 5-6 hours, even with very light use. This was after swapping out batteries/phones. Also, for working out, I needed a good music player. Android's default one needed a LOT of improvements.
So, when my friend brought over his iPhone, I decided to give it a try. I bought an iPhone 3GS from craigslist. Jailbroke and Unlocked it. The battery was lasting me more than a day, even after watching more than an hour of TED.com talks, and listening to an hour of music. The ipod functionality was amazing with the volume/music controls in the earphones.
Then, I accidentally updated my phone to the latest firmware... which cannot be unlocked. So I'm back to using my G1.
So, the question still stands.. Is Froyo on Nexus One better in battery performance and iPod functionality of iPhone 3GS. Especially with the upcoming iPhone 4G, we can be sure that Apple will increase the battery life of iPhone (as they've done with all previous updates)?

I get a lot better battery life with Froyo then on my 3GS to be honest. Also, as far as the music functionality goes, why do you think its so bad? If you dislike the interface, then you can download a alternate option from the Market. But for me, as long as it plays the songs, view/edit playlists and browse the music I am good to go.

i got slightly less battery life from my Nexus with 3G turned off compared to my jailbroken 3GS.
normally ended up with about 10% less battery at the end of the day compared to my IPhone and similar usage.
the Nexus was stone stock.

Thanks for the replies...
To answer the question about music interface... I think the ipod interface is much smoother than anything i've seen in Android (please suggest something in case I might've missed it). As I mentioned before, I use the earphone controls A LOT.. and am not sure if Nexus One will offer the same functionality.
Battery life is a huge issue for me. As I said, my usage on iPhone was pretty heavy. Let me lay it out here -- this is with Edge.. Push On.. and Location On.
- 1.5 hrs music
- 1 hr video (Ted talks podcast)
- 1.5 hr phone calls
- 2 hr games
- 3 hr Wifi on
With this kinda usage, my iPhone would have 15-20% battery left by end of the day (midnight usually)...
Does your Nexus One match that or is better?
( I'd love to switch to Nexus, if battery is a non-issue... love the Google integration!)

Battery life is across the board on the N1 for some reason. People will have the same set up and get very different kinds of battery life. I know I've never been happy with the battery life of the phone.
A good music player is ³. Cubed. I like it. I recommend the Nexus One if you get the 2 batteries and external battery charger for 20 bucks deal off of eBay. Maybe life will increase but until then having an arsenal of batteries solves my problem.

Ok, I guess I'm back to 8th grade, basic math. Let's calculate. And because you could have just looked in the specs and done the math yourself, I'm not going to look there, and if I bring the wrong numbers - so be it.
1.5 hr of music is almost nothing. Music is optimized for very low battery usage - 20 hr of listening or so. Let's say, 5% off battery.
Wifi on is nothing. You can keep it on for as long as you like, you actually save battery - it turns off 3G/HSDPA and uses WiFi data.
1.5 hr phone calls out of ~6 hours spec ~= 25% battery off.
1 hr video out of 5 hr spec ~= 20% off.
2 hr games are quite destructive. Both CPU activity and display. Let's say, another 25-30% off.
You're left with approx. 15-20%. Surprised?
Oh wait... It figures, no? Do you think one of those systems is going to be significantly inferior in terms of battery life? You don't think Samsung and Qualcomm know their stuff well enough?
Ah, and the difference is going to show if you use Android power and load it with zillion auto-updating and auto-syncing widgets, that'll chew on your CPU idle time and use up your network power.
[edit] That's exactly the reason for varying battery life between users, as the poster above noted. People use their phone differently, and unlike iPhone, it can perform a lot of things simultaneously, without you even noticing (it's enough that you installed auto-syncing widget and made it sync once in 5 min with a good amount of data, for example) - and it'll cost you battery life. Control what you're running, and you'll get more out of the battery.

I came from an iPhone 3G to the Nexus One and the battery life does seem worse. it's always hard to compare because I do more with my Nexus One. My gut feeling though is even if my usage is similar to what I would have done with my iPhone, the Nexus One just uses more power. Part of that may be the higher res screen. Battery usage almost always shows the display as the biggest user of my battery.
I recently have been having worse than normal battery life. I'm not sure if it's due to upgrading to Froyo or if it is because I turned Latitude on. If it's Latitude, then it's really frustrating that the Battery Usage area doesn't list Latitude as using my battery. Kind of makes that a pointless feature if things just get hidden under names like "Android System".
I also agree with you on the Android music player. I use it, and it's not terrible, but the iPod app on the iPhone is just much easier to quickly get to the music you want to play. Also the Genius features are really well done. Someone suggested Cubed. I found it gives a really good first impression but once you use it you realize it's actually just flashy and it functions awful. As far as I can tell there's no way to quickly find and play a single song with it.

Battery life for 3gs is better than nexus..

For my usage the battery life on Froyo is about twice as good as the battery on 3GS. Granted, I listen to slacker radio while browse websites for about 2 hours a day and the multitasking on android is much more natural than the jailbreak alternative.

tantrix said:
Thanks for the replies...
To answer the question about music interface... I think the ipod interface is much smoother than anything i've seen in Android (please suggest something in case I might've missed it). As I mentioned before, I use the earphone controls A LOT.. and am not sure if Nexus One will offer the same functionality.
Battery life is a huge issue for me. As I said, my usage on iPhone was pretty heavy. Let me lay it out here -- this is with Edge.. Push On.. and Location On.
- 1.5 hrs music
- 1 hr video (Ted talks podcast)
- 1.5 hr phone calls
- 2 hr games
- 3 hr Wifi on
With this kinda usage, my iPhone would have 15-20% battery left by end of the day (midnight usually)...
Does your Nexus One match that or is better?
( I'd love to switch to Nexus, if battery is a non-issue... love the Google integration!)
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I am not altogether sure you aren't just trolling. There isn't any way to give a definitive answer to this question, but I'll give you my experience.
No new N1 user is going to say he gets good battery life. You won't want to shut the screen off for the first week.
Now, I can get a day and a half out of my battery on a stock rom if I don't sync absolutely everything frequently, I use wifi when it's available, keeping radios I am not using off and basically, being mindful of power use. I use it frequently, but not constantly. And if I am away from a charger, I have an inexpensive spare battery that I can change all by myself without any special tools all the while sending SJ a FU via ESP.

attn1 said:
I am not altogether sure you aren't just trolling. There isn't any way to give a definitive answer to this question, but I'll give you my experience.
No new N1 user is going to say he gets good battery life. You won't want to shut the screen off for the first week.
Now, I can get a day and a half out of my battery on a stock rom if I don't sync absolutely everything frequently, I use wifi when it's available, keeping radios I am not using off and basically, being mindful of power use. I use it frequently, but not constantly. And if I am away from a charger, I have an inexpensive spare battery that I can change all by myself without any special tools all the while sending SJ a FU via ESP.
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Thanks for all the inputs...
Lemme get first thing straight.. I have NO intentions of trolling No harm intended. When I bought the iPhone, EVERYONE I know was immensely surprised. I was (and still am) a spokesperson for Android. I love the apps. Maybe thats a reason that we all install so many widgets/apps which use data.... So many are available for free!! and awesome ones too.. for example.. I'd kill for the News and Weather app to be in iPhone.. but its not...
As I said in the original post.. a big chunk of my criteria is battery life.. second big chunk is music... I guess I'm sad that no Android phone yet can beat the battery life that an average iPhone user gets... I was hoping by releasing Froyo, google would change that (hence this thread)...
Trust me guys.. I live by my gmail.. would rather have everything centered around it... than having apple control my life... just dont wanna carry around extra batteries.. like i had to for my g1...

Intersectraven kernels with any nexus one Rom gives me the best battery. Rite now I'm on froyo and have lasted more than 20 hours with the kernel.
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Sent from my Nexus One

Now that I'm using my nexus normally, I'm getting good battery life. 12 hours of solid usage.

myplague said:
Intersectraven kernels with any nexus one Rom gives me the best battery. Rite now I'm on froyo and have lasted more than 20 hours with the kernel.
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Which of Raven's kernel are you using?
I have a iPhone 2G and it beats my N1 on battery but not considerably.. I read that the 2G is teh king while 3G is the worse of the three iPhones. 3GS is slight better than 3G.

. 34 925mV
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Sent from my Nexus One

Something that people keep mentioning but seems to keep getting overlooked when people compare any device running Android to the Almighty iPhone...
Multitasking. Takes. More. Power.
Being able to run 5 or so apps in the background (along with all the automated syncing that's happening on the network-data side of things) is going to drain the battery more than doing one thing at a time on Apple's product.
When your iPhone is able to effectively multitask, come back and then you can compare the battery life.
Quite simply, Android lets you do more than you could ever possibly do on the iPhone platform. It gives you the option (free will - unheard of on the Apple side of things!) to run a handful of apps simultaneously. This, naturally, uses more power as the processor is doing more. This is not rocket science, people. You choose to do more, so accept the power penalty. Or, you can be mindful of your battery usage and manage things appropriately to get a significant battery life improvement. It's your choice!
And if you still don't get enough battery life out of this more powerful, more capable device, as attn1 pointed out, there is absolutely nothing to stop you from getting an inexpensive spare battery that can be swapped into the phone in under a minute (INCLUDING the time it takes to shut down and power back up).
Trying to compare any recent Android device to Apple's iPhone is like comparing my gaming notebook to my old TI-84 graphing calculator - which did get much better battery life than my current Asus G72 notebook.

xzr3b0rnzx said:
Battery life for 3gs is better than nexus..
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For me it's nexus that wins 3gs easily. my iphone with small use 1 day nexus with hevy use 1 day.

Some backstory.
Paul's Froyo.
Tweaked Kernel.
Home++
Sync off
Widgets: Facebook (no notification), ³ medium, Google Search, Power Control, News and Weather (12 hour refresh)
Screen set to auto brightness
Went to bed with 98% charge at 11:30pm.
Alarm goes off at 5am. 93%
Check Facebook. Turn on sync. Browse xda on default browser. 89%
Get on the metro.
Browse the internet.
Read a few news articles in the news widget.
Listen to music with Bluetooth headphones for 20 minutes or so.
Browse xda some more.
Download the latest 925 cfs kernel from ir's thread.
By 7:14 I'm at 64% charge.
In 2 hours doing what I noted here I lose close to half my battery?! That's laughabad.

It's amazing how all over the place the returns are.
I have owned the following phones in the last three years :
iPhone 2G
iPhone 3G
BlackBerry Bold
iPhone 3GS* (borrowed for 2 weeks to see if I wanted to go back...)
Milestone
Nexus One
I, personally, got the best battery life out of the iPhone 2G - I got three days out of it, consistently. BUT, I did not have an unlimited data plan, I did not use it for mail, I always got apps from the store over WiFi, I never streamed music, video or anything else. I had no RSS reader. I listened to some music, played the OCCASIONAL game, sent some texts and made a few calls.
Next would be the Bold. I POUNDED that thing and ALWAYS got at least 2 days out of it. I would send dozens of SMS, read and reply to at least 40 emails/day, use GTalk with my wife for at least 50 messages a day. I'd read RSS feeds with Viigo.
After that, every single phone on the list requires charging every single day.
On the iPhone 3G, I would do a little surfing, maybe a little video, some emails and some text. Music on the metro coming and going to/from work. Charging every day was mandatory.
On the 3GS, with how App Store had better and better stuff, I killed it (as in forced shut down) 5 out of 15 days - all that with no widgets and no multitasking. I would read Le Monde, do some browsing, read tweets, read emails, make a couple of calls and texts. I started stocking the charge cable at work and in my backpack during my weeks with a 3GS, because it wouldn't make it through a day. Most friends and colleagues who have them do the same.
I received the Milestone in December. I loved it, and really started pounding a phone - 100 GTalks a day, some SMS, all email, NewsRob for RSS, Le Monde, News & Weather widget one we hacked that on there (following the Jan 5 release of the N1), twitter and facebook, browsing. App downloads, widgets left and right, plus CONSTANT dev work, image building, flashing, testing, etc. I would get a day if I took my foot off the gas, but if I pushed it too hard, I would kill it. There were a couple of battery killers that were avoidable but which I didn't avoid from time to time - leaving Qik, the browser on the google homepage (with autolocation on) the Camera or Maps open, then letting the phone go "idle" with the screen asleep keeps the GPS on and would eat the battery in an hour or two. This left me high and dry a couple of times, until I paid a bit more attention. The Milestone got better 3G than any iPhone and worse / less-consistent WiFi.
I picked up a Nexus at the beginning of March. It gets somewhat-to-significantly better battery life than the Milestone. I still have to charge it daily, but there seem to be fewer battery-death bonehead choices that drink the go-go juice and leave you without your electronic BFF. Most of that is probably Android 2.1 and the UV kernels - I noticed that the Milestone was better with 2.1 as well. It also gets 10dbm worse radio reception with the same SIM on the same desk on the same network in the same office. But it gets MUCH better and more reliable WiFi, and that is better still since FroYo. I use it a ton - RSS, chat, SMS, calls, LOTS of browsing, Le Monde, NYTimes in Newspapers Full, lots of games in spare time, Google Listen for Podcasts, Music, Movies, taking pictures and videos and posting them online with Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or Buzz, etc.
The Nexus has one MASSIVE problem, as far as bettery goes - charging it on any computer USB port, and many thrid-party USB charge plugs (AC or DC) is atrocious - hours and hours to get just a few percent. I don't know why - Apple can use 1A from anything, RIM / BlackBerry can come close to 2A. My Milestone would take at least 1A from anything. But the stupid HTC kit won't take more than about 400mA from a computer or a non-shorted USB charger. SOME 3rd party stuff will be exploited up until 1A, as will the charger that the N1 comes with, but if not, you're going to see slooooooow charging.
As far as the music player: I want 2 things - good sound and the ability to pause and skip with the mic button. Every iPhone does this, and so does the N1. The N1 DOES support headset buttons (it's own set comes with them), but I use my Shures with a simple mic adaptor. I almost never see the interface - I put on a playlist and shuffle it. DoubleTwist makes sure that I have the same lists on my iPod touch and my Nexus, so I really don't notice the difference.
If you use the interface a lot, well, then the player on an iPhone is the best there is. I just don't use the interface often enough to make that a selling point.
As far as sound - the Milestone got SIGNIFICANTLY more volume and better sound then any iPhone and a ridiculous amount more than an N1.
Froyo just rocks. I miss a couple of CM features, but there are sooooo many good things baked into Froyo - tethering, copy/paste in received GMail messages, SD card app storage, cloud-stored settings, Flash, incredible performance.
Your Mileage May Vary.

big_adventure said:
The N1 DOES support headset buttons (it's own set comes with them),
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Thanks for the VERY detailed post... And also for clarifying the controls thing... thats awesome that N1 uses the mic button for controls... I use it a lot while running to skip songs...
I'm on the brink with my G1 though... Flashed the latest 2.1 ROM from Cygo.. at first I thought it was fast.. but now its driving me crazy.. its not really the ROM but the phone itself.. will post a video of the experience soon..
So to summarize above posts...
- N1 can give same or better battery life than iPhone... provided.. that we use it well... no crazy widgets/apps which keep using data...
- The earphones button CAN be used in N1 to skip songs.. which is awesome for me...
I think I might order my N1 today itself.. as it's still being sold on google (surprisingly enough).. Who knows once only T-Mobile sells it, if they'll stop offering the unlocked option....
Thanks for all the input guys

Music app drains batterylike crazy

No matter what app I use it kills the battery. I think android need to work on it. Can't really listen to music on android phones without witnessing massive battery drain. How about you guys? Same issue? Any solution?
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App

Um well it uses battery yes but I wouldn't say its horrible.
Sent from my Sublime MoDaCo Nexus S running Netarcy's amazing kernel!

kenvan19 said:
Um well it uses battery yes but I wouldn't say its horrible.
Sent from my Sublime MoDaCo Nexus S running Netarcy's amazing kernel!
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loosing 20 percent per hour is not horrible? with nothing but music playing

In general, battery technology needs to get better, and cheaper.
It's a little absurd to have all these apparently advantageous features like widgets, live wallpapers, syncs, bluetooth, or in your case, an app like music, but not be able to fully use them without suffering major battery loss. If you want to use them, they have to be monitored or hedged in some way. You even have people needing to don black wallpapers to conserve battery.
I'm aware that that's just the technology of full screen smart phones, but it's about time battery technology made some gains as well. I love all these features, but I'm tired of not being able to use them fully or having to carry extra batteries or having to live by the charger.

2012iawait said:
loosing 20 percent per hour is not horrible? with nothing but music playing
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I was speaking to my case which does not have those kinds of losses. Dollars to donuts, you have something else causing the massive battery drain.
onthecouchagain said:
In general, battery technology needs to get better, and cheaper.
It's a little absurd to have all these apparently advantageous features like widgets, live wallpapers, syncs, bluetooth, or in your case, an app like music, but not be able to fully use them without suffering major battery loss. If you want to use them, they have to be monitored or hedged in some way. You even have people needing to don black wallpapers to conserve battery.
I'm aware that that's just the technology of full screen smart phones, but it's about time battery technology made some gains as well. I love all these features, but I'm tired of not being able to use them fully or having to carry extra batteries or having to live by the charger.
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Actually, its not the batteries that are to blame. One of the reasons a good friend of mine who loves java based development hasn't made the jump to Android is the battery life. Because it is open-source, there are no checks made against apps to make sure they are not going to cause massive battery drain, data usage, or any other negative side effects. If we lived in the walled Apple garden, things would be different.
Basically, what I'm getting at is that you seem to have a lot of issues with the Android platform as a whole. Don't take this as harsh but perhaps you should look at other options because you seem to be very (vocally) unhappy with your phone and the Android system as a whole. You should be happy with your phone, not at odds with it.

You didn't say how fast a drain you're seeing.
I see about 5-8% per hour battery drain with music on multiple android devices with multiple apps. That's 12-20 hours playback depending on the device. About half what Apple claims to get out of the iPhone 4. I don't think the iPhone would last anywhere near 40 hours Apple says it would, but I haven't used mine much.
One of the advantages of a 'droid over an iPhone is that you can swap out the batteries. If you're a heavy user, you're just going to have to get used to the idea of plugging in while in the car or at the desk at work or carrying a spare battery and swapping.
I think the Nexus S has amazing battery life compared to any phone I've owned, including the iPhone 2/3g/3gs/4. None of those would make it through a full day any better than my Nexus S.

distortedloop said:
You didn't say how fast a drain you're seeing.
I see about 5-8% per hour battery drain with music on multiple android devices with multiple apps. That's 12-20 hours playback depending on the device. About half what Apple claims to get out of the iPhone 4. I don't think the iPhone would last anywhere near 40 hours Apple says it would, but I haven't used mine much.
One of the advantages of a 'droid over an iPhone is that you can swap out the batteries. If you're a heavy user, you're just going to have to get used to the idea of plugging in while in the car or at the desk at work or carrying a spare battery and swapping.
I think the Nexus S has amazing battery life compared to any phone I've owned, including the iPhone 2/3g/3gs/4. None of those would make it through a full day any better than my Nexus S.
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He said he was getting 20% drain per hour. I find it strange however you got such horrible battery life on a 3GS. The developer friend I mentioned has a 3GS which she always gets at least two days use out of with very heavy use. I can't say if she listens to music on it (she isn't that big of a music person, to be honest) but she is always browsing the web, sending texts, emails and getting calls.

kenvan19 said:
Basically, what I'm getting at is that you seem to have a lot of issues with the Android platform as a whole. Don't take this as harsh but perhaps you should look at other options because you seem to be very (vocally) unhappy with your phone and the Android system as a whole. You should be happy with your phone, not at odds with it.
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@onthecouchagain, I drafted almost the exact same thing to you the other day in a different thread but hit cancel because I thought it wouldn't be well received, but I have to agree with kenvan19 here...
No one around here seems more unhappy with the Nexus S than you do. Multiple issues, multiple dissatisfactions, multiple frustrated-sounding threads. Why do you keep the thing? In the end it's just a phone; it's not worth all the frustration you seem to have with it. Go back to the iPhone; it's a great device with fewer quirks, albeit fewer freedoms.
Are we just getting the wrong impression of how you feel about the phone overall?

kenvan19 said:
He said he was getting 20% drain per hour. ...
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No he didn't. The original poster (flameinthefire) didn't say how much drain he was experieincing. Someone else said 20% per hour (2012iawait) in a later post.
@flameinthefire - how much drain do you get per hour? Have you tested that? Have you looked in the battery usage stats to see if there's a hint there?
@2012iawait - what music app are you using that drains your phone 20% per hour? If it's a stand-alone app playing local MP3 files, there's something wrong for sure. If you're using Pandora, or Stitcher, or something like that, don't forget that you're streaming off the net, which means a full time data connection has to be maintained and that will definitely drain your battery at that kind of rate.

distortedloop said:
No he didn't. The original poster (flameinthefire) didn't say how much drain he was experieincing. Someone else said 20% per hour (2012iawait) in a later post.
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You are correct. I did not notice that, I apologize.

2012iawait said:
loosing 20 percent per hour is not horrible? with nothing but music playing
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There is something wrong with the battery, apps, or how you're using it. 20% loss over an hour with only music playing doesn't make any sense.

Don't know what the op means by "crazy" battery drain. With the screen off and just playing music I only really see it drop about 5-6% an hour. When my phone is idle sitting on the table just hooked onto data, it's usually around 3-4% an hour so an extra 2-3% extra isn't too bad. With airplane mode on I'm sure I would see about 5% or under an hour for music playback. (Headphones, obviously. Playing over the speaker would use more battery)

kenvan19 said:
Basically, what I'm getting at is that you seem to have a lot of issues with the Android platform as a whole. Don't take this as harsh but perhaps you should look at other options because you seem to be very (vocally) unhappy with your phone and the Android system as a whole. You should be happy with your phone, not at odds with it.
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@onthecouchagain, I drafted almost the exact same thing to you the other day in a different thread but hit cancel because I thought it wouldn't be well received, but I have to agree with kenvan19 here...
No one around here seems more unhappy with the Nexus S than you do. Multiple issues, multiple dissatisfactions, multiple frustrated-sounding threads. Why do you keep the thing? In the end it's just a phone; it's not worth all the frustration you seem to have with it. Go back to the iPhone; it's a great device with fewer quirks, albeit fewer freedoms.
Are we just getting the wrong impression of how you feel about the phone overall?
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Both perfectly fair questions. I don't want to hi-jack this thread so I'll answer as briefly as possible. This is more or less what I've said in other threads...
I'm just disappointed by the promises of "stock Android" experience. Part of that is my fault for believing it, but part of that is also the misconception people continue to perpetuate. One of the biggest features that Nexus-lovers tout is not only that they get the latest updates, but they get the cleanest updates -- free of OEM skins that hamper the phone. Stock Android certainly has its advantages, and I would never defend OEM skins, but as it turns out, stock Android hampers the phone more than just fine by itself. The promise was that the lack of OEM skins would finally let the Android OS thrive to its fullest potential, but it's a farce, and GB is chock full of its own glitches and issues. (There are also oddities which perplex me. I recently discovered there is no way to organize bookmarks in the stock browser. I understand the most visited sites show up first, but why not offer the feature to organize the way I want it to as well? What happened to freedom of choice? Also, isn't that what the "Most Visited" tab is for?)
I realize no platform is perfect and I am generally a huge proponent of virtually all things Google (Gmail, Chrome), but I'm becoming more and more disenchanted by Android.
Having said that, I love and enjoy many things about Android, and my complaints are primarily voiced in the hopes to see Android continue to grow and improve (someone mentioned Googlers read, sometimes even post, at these forums). I am doing my part in submitting reports and feature-requests to Google and often link them to garner more support/stars. (my latest request: custom auto-corrections for the keyboard: http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=14420. Please star, I think it'll be a great asset to the keyboard). I am not sitting idly and complaining; I am criticizing, and there is a difference. About the iPhone suggestion, there were many things I disliked about iOS (I was just as critical! Heh). But I do mention the iPhone, especially when talking about keyboards, because clearly there are some things it does better -- and we should be able to admit that without being accused of fanboyism (not that such a thing doesn't exist). I am not quite ready to divorce myself from the Nexus line yet, despite becoming disenchanted by the OS, and will still keep an eye on the next Nexus whenever/whatever that may be. If the Nexus S and GB weren't so chock full of issues, I'd be singing a different tune. My hope is that as updates come, the issues will be resolved and the overall OS will be improved upon. Until then, what issues it has warrants discussion.
Lastly, many people here have helped me figure solutions to many of my problems, which I greatly appreciate.
Sorry. The post ended up longer than I intended. Back to batteries...

I have found that Winamp and Doubletwist seem to really kick my battery's butt. Cubed and PowerAmp do better. I don't use the stock Music player because when I get out of the car and unplug the phone it starts playing music every time and I can't stand it.

Thoughts on YOUR Atrix?

Delete.

i'm very happy with the phone. the only caveat i really have (which a lot of people don't seem to have) is battery life. i get about 13-14 hours with 3-4 hours of display-on time, while others have been reporting double that.
as far as motoblur is concerned, if you just get another launcher and use Titanium Backup Pro to freeze motoblur Home and other services, then you won't even have to think about it.

rdubyah said:
I should be receiving my Atrix for AT&T tomorrow, this will be a HUGGGGGGEEEEEE upgrade from my measly HTC Hero (Sprint CDMA) that I have modified to the ends of the Earth. I'm in need of more power and amazed at the stuff you can do with the Atrix.
My question to you all, has this phone met or surpassed your expectations? Did it fail to achieve those expectations? Tell me what you think of this phone, I have been reading so many reviews about the phone I feel like I know all technological aspects about the phone as well, haha.
How fast were you to get rid of MotoBlur?
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I think I can speak for a lot of people in saying that, as far as the Atrix goes, I am in love with the "potential" this phone has. But as far as meeting those expectations, well, that's something to be debated. There are areas where the dual core shines and other areas it seems it is not harnessing the full power. Then couple that with AT&T's network restrictions and Motorola's lockdown on the device, I'm going to have to say that I am disappointed in the Atrix as of now. That could change if there is a break through in the bootloader or if AT&T gets its act together and starts offering the "High speeds" we were promised. Only problem is though, my 30 days is almost up and I don't know if I can hold onto the phone in hopes of "potential".

Coming from a captivate I love this phone...everything works includi.g the gps. Most of motoblur is gone on my phone. The phone is amazingly fast but does have an occasional hiccup. An unlocked bootloader would turn this into the best available android phone but its one of the top
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App

live4nyy said:
...Only problem is though, my 30 days is almost up and I don't know if I can hold onto the phone in hopes of "potential".
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Click to collapse
I'm in the same boat. In terms of hardware, this phone is a beast. I can even live with the screen quality and the terrible camera. But software side, I am really hoping to see a unlocked bootloader or I might be very tempted to take this phone back...

bleuiko said:
I'm in the same boat. In terms of hardware, this phone is a beast. I can even live with the screen quality and the terrible camera. But software side, I am really hoping to see a unlocked bootloader or I might be very tempted to take this phone back...
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Click to collapse
Yeah, I'm high up on the fence because if I do return it I am going to switch carriers as well.

I'm really enjoying it... coming from a Tilt2, it's a major upgrade. Straight out of the box, it's very enjoyable... I'm not dissapointed at all.. it's only going to get better once they get this beast unleashed
Camera is quick and decent.
GPS is amazingly fast...
Browser is snappy and loads everything great
WiFi is a little weak...
and I actually like the screen.. It's not best screen ever made, but it's actually a very nice display.
I was getting terrible battery life, but somehow a hard-reset solved that problem, and i'm able to get more than a day of heavy use no problem.
Just picked up a second one for the wife (coming from an iphone 3g) and she's really enjoying it a lot as well

I like the Atrix. I upgraded from an iPhone 3G. I realize that it's not the best it can be as far as unlocking right now, but it is better than what I had. I only wish I could afford the webtop dock right now for times I'm on the road. Nothing a netbook couldn't fix though.

as far as the battery, it really has to do with what you're doing. I've seen mine go 39 hours over a weekend with normal use, or 16 hours when i'm streaming pandora constantly at work. My building for work also isn't great for signal, so the phone is constantly working for signal, which uses battery.
The other day i did ~5 hours of pandora at work, then fired up the GPS, which was on for ~1.5 hours guiding me, screen on, not plugged in. few phone calls and web use and it was almost dead after 15 hours.
This phone is miles better than the aria i had before it, and it will only get better as more things are updated to take advantage of the tegra 2 platform. Won't matter if this phone gets cracked or not, it will get better and better for a while either way.

cegna09 said:
as far as the battery, it really has to do with what you're doing. I've seen mine go 39 hours over a weekend with normal use, or 16 hours when i'm streaming pandora constantly at work. My building for work also isn't great for signal, so the phone is constantly working for signal, which uses battery.
The other day i did ~5 hours of pandora at work, then fired up the GPS, which was on for ~1.5 hours guiding me, screen on, not plugged in. few phone calls and web use and it was almost dead after 15 hours.
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Click to collapse
Wow... 39 hours. I get about 17 hours of use from it, which is much better than any other smartphones I've ever used so I'm happy... but I can't imagine hitting that number. I do have bluetooth and wifi on all the time.

I like my Atrix, the only problems i see is that the webtop is very limited, but some people over the developer section are working on that, and also the speeds which since T-Mobile was bought it definitely will become faster alongside with HSPA+ and LTE being utilized together. It has lots of potential to run REALLY great, but this is the first phone of its kind, it'll always have problems in the beginning.

bleuiko said:
Wow... 39 hours. I get about 17 hours of use from it, which is much better than any other smartphones I've ever used so I'm happy... but I can't imagine hitting that number. I do have bluetooth and wifi on all the time.
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Click to collapse
and that cuts the battery way down. powering all the radios is a large power drain. I never turn on a radio i don't need, so 90% of the time wifi, bluetooth, gps, etc are off. Mobile data is always on, and i i never try and tell it to revert to 2g.

cegna09 said:
as far as the battery, it really has to do with what you're doing. I've seen mine go 39 hours over a weekend with normal use, or 16 hours when i'm streaming pandora constantly at work. My building for work also isn't great for signal, so the phone is constantly working for signal, which uses battery.
The other day i did ~5 hours of pandora at work, then fired up the GPS, which was on for ~1.5 hours guiding me, screen on, not plugged in. few phone calls and web use and it was almost dead after 15 hours.
This phone is miles better than the aria i had before it, and it will only get better as more things are updated to take advantage of the tegra 2 platform. Won't matter if this phone gets cracked or not, it will get better and better for a while either way.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
see... i wish i had that same kind of success.

It's always hard to determine battery life from these posts because people's definition of "moderate" and "heavy" usage differ a lot. This is why it would be nice if the phone had gingerbread where the battery plot actually shows the wake time, wifi time, signal strenth, display on, etc. so people could quote their results rather than just guestimating. The best way to tell is really just display on time since that's pretty much the biggest draw.
Based on my limited testing I can get about 4-5 hours of display on time with auto brightness. The absolute best I could squeeze out of my nexus S is almost 4 hours which is to be expected since it's 1930mah vs. 1500mah. I MIGHT do some battery drain tests before I return the Atrix but I'm not sure... those take time. I know the Nexus S can go about 7-8 hours playing a video while in airplane mode so I'm wondering what the Atrix could achieve.

dinan said:
It's always hard to determine battery life from these posts because people's definition of "moderate" and "heavy" usage differ a lot. This is why it would be nice if the phone had gingerbread where the battery plot actually shows the wake time, wifi time, signal strenth, display on, etc. so people could quote their results rather than just guestimating. The best way to tell is really just display on time since that's pretty much the biggest draw.
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Click to collapse
We do have all those indicators in the Battery manager. I average about 13-14 hours with 3-4 hours of display, unless i'm doing something like streaming March Madness via flash, then it drops to like 7 hours with 2-3 hours of display.

Love it.
Honestly out of all the phones i've had this is the main one.
Screen great looking.
Speed is unreal and I mean like lightening fast :O
The games and apps that work just look and run crazy good!
Camera imo is great not going to replace main cameras but great for stills and videos, would be nice to see the 1080p recording update out soon though
Motoblur stuff which I like :O lol can be frozen and a custom launcher introduced without you even thinking about the motoblur lag.
Battery life is very good I can get a whole day at college 8:30 until 6 heavy usage and still get home with 30-40% left which is great to me
Fingerprint reader is also a great little feature that gets yours friends a little jealous lol
Only thing I don't like is the battery door creaks, I know its nothing major but its just a little annoyance other than that the build quality is great very sleek device!

I'm really bored with my Atrix there's no developement community. You can't do **** with a locked bootloader. Even the iphone is more open than this pos. It's going back tommorrow **** motorola.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App

@ Exador... Amen brother!!!!
Sent From My Atrix Using Tapatalk

I'm a firm believer in the "garbage in, garbage out" philosophy. Yes this phone has one or two legitimate issues (touch screen acting up after x seconds continuous touch), but for the most part is good. How many apps do you have installed? How many do you actually use? Every month i clean out my phone of apps that haven't been used in a couple weeks. I usually see a little bump in battery life each time since less apps are itching to use the data connection or other resources.
how many widgets are you running? I don't really notice it on the Atrix, but on my aria when i had 5 home screens riddled with widgets, it was laggy and slow. Drop it down to 2 screens with a simple setup, and it was snappy.
My point is, most of the time, little issues are probably user generated. I see it all the time with computers. But it's way easier to blame the hardware and software than look for the cause of your problem. again, i'm not down playing the few legitimate issues.
next time i pull a 39hour run i'll post specifics of what i was using it for in the battery thread.

I'm very happy with mine. I don't have much of a desire to put a custom ROM on, so the locked bootloader isn't an issue. The speed of this device is just levels beyond my Nexus One. I can't remember a time so far where I've had any lag. Plus, I don't have to worry about app space the way I did with the N1.

Nexus 6 very 'stuttery' & weak battery compared to my HTC One M8

So I just got the Nexus 6 on Thursday and have been using it for the past 4 days. I have everything set up the way I like it but I find the performance to be pretty sub-par. I'm coming from the HTC One M8 which was a buttery smooth device so that's what I'm comparing it to. So far, I find basic tasks to be slower and less smooth that the M8...Basic things like swiping left to the Google Now page have severe stutter and opening the app switcher has significant lag. Also, the battery seems to be much weaker than the M8. Yesterday I took the N6 off the charger at 8 am and had to recharge it TWICE just to get through the day (granted, this was a heavy usage and screen on-time day but I've never had to do that before with the M8).
I've read about encryption slowing down the device significantly but I'm wondering if that would be the cause of some of the issues I'm having. If so, do you people who have decrypted think it's worth it? Any M8 users have similar (or contrary) experiences with the N6 so far? I was really excited to get this device but so far it's been somewhat of a letdown. I'm hoping Google fixes many of these issues in a software update but I know that's wishful thinking on my part.

I would have to agree that it has some stutter, especially compared to my Nexus 5 on lollipop. That thing is butter.

Well its the first build of lolipop for Shamu so I hope Google fixes the bugs and irons out battery issues. I think everyone's battery life will vary but software should be able to fix this considering it has a huge battery.

PDP///M said:
I would have to agree that it has some stutter, especially compared to my Nexus 5 on lollipop. That thing is butter.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I actually have the opposite experience. My N5 had a bit of stutter that I don't have on the N6. Also, the battery life is *immensely* better on the N6 than N5 (I don't have an M8 to compare, but I'm looking at probably double what I had on the N5).
Yesterday I unplugged the phone at 12:30 (it was a rough Saturday night) and used it somewhat-heavily throughout the day (3 hours of screen on-time), and it was at 55% when I put it back on the charger at around 11:30pm.

Pilz said:
...software should be able to fix this considering it has a huge battery.
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Click to collapse
I REALLY hope that this is true. With the big deal made about "Project Volta" I was expecting big things from the battery life on this phone. I've been very disappointed so far. As for performance, they should have made encryption optional if that is, in fact, what's killing performance. A top of the line device in 2014 shouldn't have lag when swiping between homescreens....that's just ridiculous IMO.

NextNexus said:
I REALLY hope that this is true. With the big deal made about "Project Volta" I was expecting big things from the battery life on this phone. I've been very disappointed so far. As for performance, they should have made encryption optional if that is, in fact, what's killing performance. A top of the line device in 2014 shouldn't have lag when swiping between homescreens....that's just ridiculous IMO.
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Click to collapse
It's time to change your launcher. I have zero lag on Nova.
Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

Acrono said:
It's time to change your launcher. I have zero lag on Nova.
Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk
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Click to collapse
Why would Nova, with more animations, be smoother than the stock Google Now Launcher? Unless you have animations disabled? And do you have Google Now on the left most screen or is that disabled? I guess I should also mention I used the Google Now Launcher with my M8 and that had no lag so that shouldn't be the issue.

NextNexus said:
Why would Nova, with more animations, be smoother than the stock Google Now Launcher? Unless you have animations disabled? And do you have Google Now on the left most screen or is that disabled? I guess I should also mention I used the Google Now Launcher with my M8 and that had no lag so that shouldn't be the issue.
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Click to collapse
I think it's got to do with the launcher as well. I have Nova and it's super smooth. Unlike the official Google Now launcher that's stuttery.
Battery life is just ok. Probably it will improve after few cycles.

dvsk69 said:
I think it's got to do with the launcher as well. I have Nova and it's super smooth. Unlike the official Google Now launcher that's stuttery.
Battery life is just ok. Probably it will improve after few cycles.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't used Nova in a while. Out of curiosity, does Nova include Google Now on the left most screen?

I'm not sure what you have going or what you are doing with your phone, but I haven't found any of that to be true for mine so far. Granted, I've only had it 2 days now but I've found its as smooth as my n5 with kitkat, and battery has been better than the n5. I've never had the m8 so I don't know much about it, I know in tests it generally won most if not all the battery life tests so it's a high standard. I currently have 2 hours 20 mins of screen on time with 43% left, that's with gmail, Fit, calendar, chrome, music, and photos all synced. Also have dropbox set to auto upload pictures, and I have always on OK Google. Screen is set at about 75% brightness.
All I can say is read the battery life thread and make your decision.

kingston73 said:
I'm not sure what you have going or what you are doing with your phone, but I haven't found any of that to be true for mine so far. Granted, I've only had it 2 days now but I've found its as smooth as my n5 with kitkat, and battery has been better than the n5. I've never had the m8 so I don't know much about it, I know in tests it generally won most if not all the battery life tests so it's a high standard. I currently have 2 hours 20 mins of screen on time with 43% left, that's with gmail, Fit, calendar, chrome, music, and photos all synced. Also have dropbox set to auto upload pictures, and I have always on OK Google. Screen is set at about 75% brightness.
All I can say is read the battery life thread and make your decision.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If I could get 5+ hrs of screen on time I would be satisfied but I'm not getting anywhere close to that. I have the following services syncing:
2 Google accounts and their associated services
Chrome
Photos
Facebook
Dropbox (auto photo upload)
Fenix (for Twitter)
Press (RSS reader)
Weather app
That's really it.

Whatever. Go use an LG G3 for a few months, and then tell me about how the Nexus 6 "stutters".

I'm easily getting 5 hours SOT and around 18 hours overall with my N6. I am able to get this consistently. I also don't experience any stuttering. I have encryption disabled though.

skw5115 said:
I'm easily getting 5 hours SOT and around 18 hours overall with my N6. I am able to get this consistently. I also don't experience any stuttering. I have encryption disabled though.
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Did you try the device before disabling encryption? Wondering if you could comment about the difference.

I came from the M8 as well and while I do notice the occasional stutter on the N6, the overall experience is still awesome. I spent some time with the M8 again yesterday to help my wife set it up and I don't miss it at all.
In regards to the battery, the N6 has been right on par with the M8 in my experience. I got through a day and half with a little over 4 hours of SOT this weekend. I don't know what you're doing that requires you to charge it twice a day, but something's not right.

mountainman15 said:
I came from the M8 as well and while I do notice the occasional stutter on the N6, the overall experience is still awesome. I spent some time with the M8 again yesterday to help my wife set it up and I don't miss it at all.
In regards to the battery, the N6 has been right on par with the M8 in my experience. I got through a day and half with a little over 4 hours of SOT this weekend. I don't know what you're doing that requires you to charge it twice a day, but something's not right.
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Click to collapse
He's probably got it at max brightness non stop while gaming or streaming videos. People always push their phones so hard and then whine when they don't get 12+ hours of SOT.

bigkevbosky said:
He's probably got it at max brightness non stop while gaming or streaming videos. People always push their phones so hard and then whine when they don't get 12+ hours of SOT.
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Click to collapse
I don't game on my phone. Ever. I watch the occasional YouTube video but not more than 15 mins. And my brightness is always around 50% with adaptive brightness turned on. Pretty much the opposite of everything you just said and if that were the case I'd be smart enough not to question the battery life.

I think the stuttery stuff you're seeing is Lollipop rather than a particular phone. I felt the same way when my Nexus 5 got updated. I think all the pointless animations Google is adding causes what appears to be stutter. When I compared my N5 to the N6 both phones act the same though the Nexus 5 performs every action a split second faster than even an un-encrypted Nexus 6. I think that's because of the huge screen resolution on the Nexus 6. Both phones seem equal in terms of smoothness or rather lack of smoothness.
I have used the Nexus 6 encrypted and un-encrypted and noticed no difference. I left it off just in case there is a difference that I am not perceiving and may benefit me in some situation.
As for battery life my Nexus 6 gets twice as much screen on time as my Nexus 5 (Nexus 5 screen time went down with Lollipop). I get around 4.5-5 hours SOT now and the Nexus 5 on Lollipop was hitting about 2.5 after the Lollipop update. My brightness is 3/4 of the way up on Adaptive with the Nexus 6.

I think Google turned Project Butter into Project Stutter

NextNexus said:
Did you try the device before disabling encryption? Wondering if you could comment about the difference.
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Click to collapse
No I didn't. First thing I did when I got it was disable encryption and root it.

A brief comparison of popular phones

I had a Droid Turbo for 1.5 years that got great battery life. I am a power user, and averaged between 4 and 4.5 hrs of SOT in a 16 hour day.
For no good reason, I decided it was time to get a new phone, and I chose the S7e SD 820 model based on the reviews. While the phone is pretty, there were two dealbreakers for me. First, the Edge screen is too sensitive given the way I hold a phone, even when using a case. I'd constantly open apps on the left side of the screen by accident. Or worse, make weird typos in emails. The second, and bigger issue, is mentioned ad nauseum on this forum - the US version has major Android System battery drain that has not been addressed. I spent hours and hours trying to get in touch with someone who could help me at Samsung. I was promised callbacks, fixes, etc.. But when there was no follow through and I'd call back, they acted like nobody had ever reported the problem before. I then tried tweeting Samsung support, and they responded... By telling me that their customer service dept on Twitter has absolutely no way to contact someone who can solve the android system issue. Finally, after calling several times, I got in touch w a US based tier 2 tech support agent, who also told me the issue had never been reported. He had an S7 on hand, picked it up, and noted that there was definitely a problem. He put in a ticket but said it wouldn't be addressed until enough people complained to trip their system. Given the challenges of dealing w Samsung, and my big priority of having a long lasting battery, I finally gave up hope and returned my s7e to Verizon. This is the first time in 20 years of cell phones that I've ever made a return.
I wanted my Droid Turbo back, but unfortunately, I turned that in when I got the S7e. So, I decided to get a DT2. I'd call it a fine phone. Nothing special that differentiated it from the original for me. In fact, battery life for me averaged about 3.5-4 hrs SOT, less than the original. If I'm going to spend $700 on a new phone it has to be significantly better than my previous one in the category that's most important to me, which is battery life. I don't watch much video on my phone, but I definitely use apps intermittently throughout the day, including FB, Instagram, Bumble, TouchDown and Feedly. Since those don't need anything special in terms of graphics, my only goal was to get more device use time than the DT. Since that wasn't happening, I've now purchased a Nexus 6p.
From reading the forums, it sounds like Google is much more responsive to issues because this phone is running stock Android. While the processor is a generation dated from the S7e, I do appreciate that Google will update much faster than Samsung, who barely acknowledged a battery issue affecting 100% of US phones. I've now installed everything on my 6p, and am in the middle of testing it for "normal use" (meaning, how I use the phone, which may or may not reflect the norm). If this phone doesn't get better battery life than the DT, then I'm going to return it, call it a day, and purchase another DT on ebay.
I'm sure for many of you screen pixels, camera and processor speed matter, but I don't watch much video, find almost all cell phone cameras provide pixelated photos, particularly in low light, and I never had any issue opening FB or emails at warp speed on my Turbo. I can't justify getting equal or less battery life for a phone that costs $500 more than the original DT.
Anyway, I'll give an update once I've had a few days with my 6p, but feel free to post your experiences if you've had any of these devices.

You should be able to get at least 6 to 8 hours SOT with the SD820 Edge, just look at this threat and try it. Despite your bad experience so far this S7 should easily obliterate your DT and 6p. It's just a shame 800 bucks doesn't work great straight out of the box like most Exynos do and how it should be. But even Exynos isn't perfect, e.g. my standby drain is slowly creeping upwards from 2% per night on the first day till 4% now, 2 weeks later. Without ever changing a setting. Not complaining though This phone has potential like no other phone in market does at this point in time.

I'd strongly doubt that any phone could average 6+ hrs of SoT unless you're on wifi and using the screen continuously. But again, everyone uses their phones differently. For me, it was the terrible Samsung support that made me throw in the towel. I agree that the phone has potential, but potential is just that. If the people responsible for updating the phone don't pay attention to their customers than the phone will never improve beyond its potential.

Carterman32 said:
If the people responsible for updating the phone don't pay attention to their customers than the phone will never improve beyond its potential.
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Click to collapse
Touche