BlackBerry® Storm™

[Westof405]

I read a thread from last year about battery problems, but I still have some questions.

I have had my Storm for about 2 weeks. I charge the phone overnight each night, but yesterday, with minimal use-1 phone call, checked voice mail once, sent 1 email and spent about 5 minutes online, the battery was flat dead aftet 8 hours. So, I have these questions:

What causes this massive power drain?  My old LG phone could stay on standby for days without a charge so having a dead phone after a few hours is not exactly what I expected.

The specs say 315 hours of stand by and 6 hours talk time. What does stand by include? Does that mean I have to turn off the bluetooth and make sure the Internet connection is turned off as well? Does talk time include time spent online or reading and sending emails or do those things take up a lot more power than making calls. I don't see anything in the book that talks about how much power emails or using the web uses.

Should I charge it with the phone off? Does that make a difference?

Should I turn off the Internet connection until I want to check my email? If I do, does that mean I won't get emails if the phone is off (I don't understand how that works exactly)?  

Is there anything else I should turn off?

The books says to delete incoming emails after responding.  I have a bunch of old emails on it.  Is that part of the problem?  I have now deleted all of the emails on it.

Any help is appreciated.

[JSanders Resident Expert · Accepted solution]

You very likely have some application running in the background like the browser, or something, draining the battery.

The browser should be closed after use (Menu > Close) not by using the red end call key.

Whether or not the device is on or off during charge does not matter.

Bluetooth is not an extraordinary drain, I only turn mine off on the weekends when I don't use the BT as much.

Having the internet connection on, if you mean the data, doesn't drain the battery.

Having old emails on the device does not cause battery drain.

Here are some good charging tips, please read and you'll see that many of them will apply to you.
http://supportforums.blackberry.com/t5/BlackBerry-Community-Post/Power-Saving-Tips-for-your-BlackBer...

[cortecds]

The BB as is out of the box probably last: 315 hours of stand by and 6 hours talk time.

The problem is usually the apps.

I found the one that was killing battery was two apps.

Weather Bug and Youtube.

Youtube is fine if I use it and i make sure I use the BB button and choose "Exit" from the menu.

That forces the BB to sever the connection to YouTube.

Otherwise it must keep looking for featured videos, etc.

Because I have found it drains the battery and my screen won't even go black.

Weatherbug is fine as long as I do not allow it to update every 15 minutes and i do not allow it to put info on the icon.

These are features you can adjust in the apps options settings.

Basically any app that checks every so often for updated info may be draining your phone.

There are two ways for an app to get info automatically.

1) Like these devices where the app itself is checking for info.

That means that the app has to come one every 15min, 30min, etc. and check for an update to the information it uses.

Even if you do not see it it may be doing this.

I think some apps (or maybe all of them that use this method)  can't do this when they are holstered, so as soon as you pull it out of the holster to use it you may see the busey icon.

2) The other option is pushed info.  The app like email, actually has an outside source contact it and tell it the info is updated.  This is how the facebook app works as well.  These types of auto-updates do not seem to drain the battery as much as the app is only activated when the info is pushed.  So if you get a lot of messages by email or facebook you still may be using a lot of battery.  But I do not think that Facebook does a pushed update for status changes of your friends.

Only messages - this can probably be changed in your FB account.

Remember you can't get something for nothing.

If your BB is receiving info from somewhere automatically then it is using the battery.

So check your apps.

Hope that helps.

[Westof405]

Thanks, not sure I credited both of you properly for your solutions, but both responses are appreciated.  I had it on all day today and it seemed to be a lot better.  You may be right, I may have left the browser on by mistake.  I will also make sure YouTube is off.

[kentonvannatten]

Another thing that kills battery is searching for service.  If you are in an area with little to no service, the battery will drain trying to keep a signal.