Improved Battery Life on My BlackJack

[Mike Temporale]

Here's something I guess I kind of knew, but never really tested out too much. Last week while I was travelling through California (for work), I disabled data on my BlackJack due to the cost of data roaming. I expected to see a small improvement in battery life. However, I was shocked to see my device go from needing a charge every night to lasting 3 days without any problems! I would say that the voice usage was about the same as normal. The only real change was turning off my 2 email accounts which are usually set to check email once an hour, and I also stopped using Fizz Traveller. I'm happy to be home again and I have data turned back on. However, I'm missing the battery love I got when it was off.

So here's what I'm wondering; How much data do you use on a daily average and what is your battery life like? For me it's 50MB a month (without really trying) so that's about 1.6MB per day and I need to charge my device every night. It can make it through the day no problem, but not past 7:00pm. What about all of you?

[subzerohf]

I find that turning off 3G improves battery life significantly. Since I don't have an all-you-can-eat data plan, I can't benefit from 3G anyway, so I have it off all the time now, sadly. :( What a waste of talent!

[irishmikev]

If you crank the data down to GSM instead of UMTS/HSDPA then you get significantly longer battery life out of both the Blackjack and the Treo. I love the Treo, but if I really needed the UMTS speeds on constantly, I'd be lucky to make it 8 - 10 hours between full charges. Looking forward to seeing if the Windows Mobile 6 ROMs make any improvement in battery life.

[Tim Williamson]

Is there a way to check the data usage on T-Mobile for the Dash?

[stevew]

Did you get the free extended battery upgrade from cingular?

[Rocco Augusto]

I use anywhere from 100MB-300MB a month, depending on how much streaming video I watch. I usually carry my second battery around with me and plug my Blackjack into my computer for a quick charge during the day. :)

[dd-mj]

Oh the only way to use the BlackJack is to turn off the 3G (Auto) and use the lower speed GSM speed. I use Good Mobile messaging to get work email and so I am connected 24 hours a day. With the GSM speed, email is plenty fast enough and my battery lasts for a good 1.5 days or more.

With the full speed network turned on, I get about half that time (barely 1 full day). yes I did get the extended battery (thanks Cingular!), but I am not willing to live with the larger batter size and weight.

Now keep in mind that I do very little web browsing on my phone, so high bandwidth internet is not critical for me. When I do use the browser I check weather, movie times, and a few news sites and for that the web speed is plenty fast enough.

[Foxbat121]

Why do everybody assoicate 3G ONLY with speed? The biggest advantage of 3G HSDPA, IMO, is that you can have BOTH data and voice on simultanously. Without 3G, you can only have data OR voice, one at a time. Not both.

I use 40 to 50MB monthly and have to charge the phone everynight. I don't expect WM6 will change this, i.e. hardware limitation.

[subzerohf]

Is there a way to check the data usage on T-Mobile for the Dash?

I use Efficasoft GPRS monitor; it's the only one I can find that works on my BJ. It seems that everyone nowadays has unlimiated data, so GPRS monitor software is of little value.

http://www.efficasoft.com/gprsmonitor.html

[webe2623]

You can greatly extend the life of your battery on the blackjack if you kill the 3G connection right after browsing, checking email, etc. You can do this by selecting Cingular on the home screen, select menu, , then disconnect cellular data. When I do this, I can easily get 1.5 - 2 days with one charge on the extended battery even with a fairly decent amout of 3G web and email usage. If you have your phone set to constantly check email, this will not work for you.

[Agent13]

I lived it last week @ MEDC. I live in a non-3g coverage area and on average get 2 - 2.5 days on the Standard battery. In Vegas, I got about 6hrs before I needed to recharge. I like the fact that the BlackJack has the programs to make it possible to hard down the Data to Edge even when in a 3g coverage area.

[Mike Temporale]

Yeah, I know that I can turn down 3G and just use EDGE, but I like the SPEED! If I was going to do that, I would just switch to the Dash - it's basically a BlackJack without the speed. ;)

I wonder how bad my battery will be if I was to setup a 3rd account to send/recieve every hour? OR <gasp> hooked in a Direct Push account! Both of which are things I'm moving towards doing.

I currently don't have the extended battery. I'm not within the US, so the offer isn't something that I could take advantage of too easily.

[nutzareus]

For me it's 50MB a month (without really trying) so that's about 1.6MB per day and I need to charge my device every night.

I burn through your monthly quota in about 30 minutes using Slingbox on my BlackJack. :D Thank goodness I have 4 batteries (2 extended and 2 regular) that I regularly rotate throughout the week. Remember a couple of months ago when I reported burning through 4GB of data use? This past month I "dropped" down to 3.5GB... :wink:

Personally, disabling 3G defeats the purpose of getting this phone. With simultaneous voice and data a 3G-only feature, it's worth the battery drain since I can make calls while sharing Internet connection with my laptop and watch Slingbox at the same time. 8)

[Agent13]

While I appreciate the "Need for Speed", most of the time, the device is in my pocket trickeling e-mail. I asked the guys at Microsoft to see if there were any plans on intelligently switching radios based on bandwidth consumption. It was clear that they didn't have any plans (at least that they were willing to talk about :(

[JuhaN]

I'm planning to buy Samsung i600, the European model of Blackjack, to replace my Nokia E61. I'm quite satisfied with E61's hardware but still would like to have Windows Mobile 6. My normal usage is 3G/HSDPA active all the time, direct push active 18h/day, IM-software running in background 24/7, some web surfing, pim usage and very few calls... Some of the data usage would be through WLAN, but that's something you propably can't comment as Blackjack doesn't have it. So lots of data but not so much voice!

What kind of battery life I could expect to see with extended battery? I already know that I couldn't manage with standard one.

Share your battery life using the extended battery!

=)juha

[Mike Temporale]

For me it's 50MB a month (without really trying) so that's about 1.6MB per day and I need to charge my device every night.

I burn through your monthly quota in about 30 minutes using Slingbox on my BlackJack. :D

No, no.. You miss-understood. I have an unlimited data plan. I average 50MB of data used a month. If I'm using my Slingbox then it's way more than 50MB. ;)

[ctmagnus]

OT:

I have an unlimited data plan. I average 50MB of data used a month.

:drool:

Rogers or Fido? Which plan? How much/month? I just upgraded plans on Rogers, but I still managed to go over.

[Mike Temporale]

Rogers or Fido? Which plan? How much/month? I just upgraded plans on Rogers, but I still managed to go over.

Yeah, sorry. They don't offer the plan anymore. It's a $50 unlimited data plan on Fido. They pulled it a year or two ago. Now there's no good plans available from either carrier. :(