Getting better battery life out of your HTC Evo

Yes, I am nerdy. And I'm okay with it. So, when I read the specs on the HTC Evo that was to be released on Sprint in June, I knew (since my contract was up) that I was going to preorder, and then upgrade.

I mean, let's be honest, these specs rock.
Display - 4.3" screen - 800 x 480 resolution
Processor - 1 GHz Snapdragon
Size - 4.8" tall, 2.6" wide, .5" thick
Weight - 6 oz
OS - Android 2.1
Storage - 8GB MicroSD included
Camera - 8MP in back, 1.3MP in front for video conf
Video Recording - 720p @ 25fps
GPS, Compass, accelerometer, ambient light sensor, proximity sensor

And it's worth every penny. I'm not naive though, and I'm not blind to its' shortcomings. That said, here are my issues with it:

- The screen size is gorgeous, but the resolution could be higher without losing much of anything.
- The screen is a fingerprint magnet. Thank heavens for Boxwave anti-fingerprint screen protectors. Check them out at here.
- Battery life. It's not nearly as bad as some reviews make it seem, and comparing it to the iPhone's battery life is downright stupid, considering that you can do true multitasking on the Evo. Of course the iPhone has better battery life, it allows one thing at a time. That's another rant.

That said, I have made a couple small tweaks and have been able to get much better battery life out of my phone. I mean consistently unplugging the phone around 7-8 AM, and not plugging it in until 10:30-11 PM and still having 40% battery life. And the best part is? I didn't stop using my phone at all. Some reviews I've read advocate that restricting phone use will save battery life. Duh. I didn't spend $200 on a paperweight. So, here are a few of the things I've done:

1. Turn off the GPS. It's on all the time, and it's a battery suck. Anything that needs the GPS (like Google Maps, for instance) can turn it on automatically anyway, so there's no reason to leave it on all the time. They have a bunch of widgets for these, so tap the + button and then go to Widget / Settings and find the one for the GPS. Then turn it off.

2. Turn off Wifi and 4G. Similar to above - especially if 4G isn't quite up or is spotty in your area. If you leave these on, they'll constantly be scanning for networks. For instance, I can get 4G at work, but not home. So the only time it's on is at work. There are widgets for these in the same place as the GPS one above.

3. Disable "Always On" mobile data. I have no idea what this does, but haven't noticed a single problem/issue with turning it off, and my battery savings jumped with this one. Go to Settings / Wireless & networks / Mobile networks. Tap "Enable always-on mobile data" to uncheck the box.

4. Turn off the background updates/sync. There are a lot of things that sync of update on a regular basis, like Gmail, Facebook, News, Weather, etc. You should either turn these off, or turn back the update time. For instance, I have News and Facebook set to not sync, weather is set to 3 hours, and Gmail is real-time (I like getting email as soon as it comes in). This is changed in Settings / Accounts & sync. Your accounts will be listed here. Tap the "Account Settings" box once in an account to change this.

5. Use an App Killer. This is a sensitive subject for a lot of people, as there are many in the Pro-AK camp and many in the Anti-AK camp. I think, if used wisely and correctly, AK's can work well. I use Advanced Task Killer, only have it set to auto kill the random Sprint Apps (like navigation, TV, stocks, etc) that I know for sure I don't want, and then only have it auto-kill when I turn off my screen. I would not recommend auto-killing any services or apps that you aren't sure about, as you can royally mess things up. For instance, when I had my HTC Hero, I unknowingly killed the SMS service, and it took me 2 days to wonder why I wasn't receiving any texts (and none were going out either).

6. Run an app like OverclockWidget. This one is complex, because it requires rooting your phone (another post in and of itself), but once done, this widget can actually slow down your processor to any speed when the screen is off. I have my 1GHz processor slowed down to 200MHz when my screen is off.

Additionally, there are some more obvious things like lowering your screen timeout, removing the sync-heavy widgets (like FriendStream) or other things like that, but those have all had a minimal battery impact. The ones above (for me) had by far the most impact.

Good luck!

Review: Sprint Mogul vs Sprint Touch

Over the summer, we switched to Sprint and got new phones and I played with the Palm Centro and the HTC Touch. I decided on the Touch for a number of reasons, the main one being that it was Windows Mobile (read very customizable and hackable). As used it and got more comfortable with it, I quickly realized I needed one more thing - a real keyboard. I just couldn't get used to the software keyboard, and despite promises from other Touch users that I'd soon be as good with it as with a real keyboard, it wasn't happening. So I looked for alternatives.

Since I wasn't anywhere close to qualifying for an upgrade, the new Touch phones (the Touch Pro and the Touch Diamond) were out of my price range, so I was left looking for one of the older models or a steal of a price. Of course I could look at BlackBerry's, but the specialty plan I'm on with Sprint doesn't support the BB data, so those were out.

One of the phones I found was the HTC Mogul - technically it's the PPC-6800. It has most of the features of the Touch (the PPC-6900), but it also has a sliding keyboard.

Here's the spec comparison between the two phones (not sure why the HTML is placing so much space between this and the table):

	Sprint Mogul (PPC-6800)	Sprint Touch (PPC-6900)
Installed RAM	64MB SDRAM	128MB SDRAM
Installed ROM	256MB Flash	256MB Flash
Processor	QUALCOMM 400 MHz MSM7500	Texas Instruments 201 MHz OMAP850
Display type	2.8" TFT active matrix	2.8" TFT active matrix
Max Resolution	240 x 320	240 x 320
Data Speed	EV-DO Rev. A	EV-DO Rev. A
Dimensions	2.3 in x 0.7 in x 4.3 in	2.4 in x 0.6 in x 4 in

So the Mogul has less RAM but a faster processor, and about everything else is the same.

To make things better, I have a friend that runs a cell phone shop who had a like-new Mogul on hand that he gave me a steal on - and I picked it up.

So, after a week of playing with it, here's my review:
The Good:
The keyboard is awesome. Look you can talk all you want about how you'll get used to using a software keyboard, blah blah blah, but I couldn't. And after 4 months of playing with it, I'd had enough.
It's also WM6.1 (like the Touch), so the learning curve from the Touch to the Mogul was nil.
It's got Wi-Fi. Yeah, it's cool. In addition, its got a switch on the side so it doesn't kill your battery if you're not using it.
It's got a scroll wheel on the side. That makes it a lot easier to scroll websites and email and such.

The Bad:
It is a little slower than my Touch, which I'm sure is because the RAM is less.
The touch screen is slightly (about 1/8") depressed from the housing, which makes it hard to get to the X in the top right corner or any of the other functions on the edge (like scrolling).
No TouchFLO (I can add it as an app from xda-developers) so no easy access to the 9 most used contacts like the Touch. I'm sure I'll be adding this soon.
It seems to be thicker, although not by much, it is.
The housing is hard plastic, not rubberized plastic, which means it's slippery (yeah, I've dropped it already once).
The GPS is slower to connect than the one in my Touch.

Overall:
I like it. The keyboard alone makes it more than worth the upgrade. Well, that and including the fact that I got taken care of by my friend.



That said, anyone that needs or is interested in a cell phone in the Salt Lake Valley, be sure to stop by the Wireless Giant store at 7200 S State St in Midvale and talk to Pieter. Tell him I sent you and he'll take care of you as well. No, I don't get anything from referring you, but I just like to make sure people that take care of me get rewarded.

Other reviews can be found here:

CNet's Review of the Mogul

CNet's Review of the Touch