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Verizon Galaxy Nexus Poor Battery Life Is Unacceptable

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Last week, Verizon finally released the Samsung Galaxy Nexus on its 4G LTE network. Yesterday, I gave you five reasons to think about buying the Galaxy Nexus and five reasons to pass on it. One of the reasons I gave for not buying it was the fact that the phone’s battery life is atrocious. Our own K.T. Bradford has touched on the horrendous numbers in the past, and today I wanted to bring it up again and see how the rest of you are faring.

For me, the battery life, by far, is the worst part about this phone. It has honestly got to the point where I am no longer having an enjoyable experience with the Galaxy Nexus.

For the past couple of days, I have been using my Galaxy Nexus as my main phone, doing all of the things I used to do on my iPhone 3GS.

Making a phone call here and there.

Sending a few text messages a day.

Checking sports scores and fantasy teams.

Using Facebook and Twitter.

And playing the occasional game.

Galaxy NexusIf you thought I was a power user, you were wrong. I am simply the average smartphone user putting a phone through, in my opinion, average use. Don’t get me wrong, I knew 4G LTE battery life was bad, but to be perfectly honest, I was not expecting the experience to be this bad.

For four days, I kept a close eye on my Galaxy Nexus’ battery life. Friday and Sunday, I used it without the extended battery and on Saturday and Monday I used it with the extended battery on board.

Without the extended battery on, I was able to pull down somewhere around 10-11 hours of battery life. With the Galaxy Nexus extended battery on, somewhere around 13 hours.

To me, this is unacceptable.

This is a phone I paid over $400 for. That price included the cost of the phone itself, the extended battery and a bunch of tax.

At this point, I should not be paying that kind of money to be a test subject in Verizon’s little 4G LTE rat race. I touched on not wanting to be a lab rat over the summer and I thought that Verizon and the manufacturers would have solved this problem by the end of the year. 

Guess not.

I thought that they would have been solved in the two month gap between announcement and release.

Guess not.

The Galaxy Nexus is not the first 4G LTE device to hit shelves. Nope, that accolade belongs to the atrocious HTC ThunderBolt that needs an extended battery the size of a brick just to hold an average charge.

That’s unacceptable too.

Both instances are making Apple look extremely smart for not pushing out an LTE iPhone in 2011.

So, like any normal person, I’ve gone in search of a way to improve battery life, beyond my own knowledge. One trick I saw was to switch the phone to 3G and use it on Verizon’s 3G CDMA network.

Look, if I wanted a 3G phone, I would have bought the Droid 3 or the Droid X2. I forked over and will continue to fork over a ton of cash to Verizon for 4G LTE. I want to use those speeds without them destroying my experience with the phone.

And again, I am an average user.

Now, it’s possible that this is going to be fixed with an update somewhere down the road. There are whispers of a kernel issue that keeps the phone awake, even when the screen is off.

Maybe that’s the case.

But at this point, while the Galaxy Nexus is a home run in the world of Android, it’s more like a double or a triple in the world of smartphones.

I would understand if I were a power user seeing this kind of battery life, you know, using Netflix or playing a game every second of the day, but at the end of the day I’m not.

I’m just someone that would absolutely love to get a full day, maybe even 20 hours, out of his smartphone and at this point the Galaxy Nexus doesn’t give me that.

And to me, that’s unacceptable, especially when this is a device that has a $300 price tag and the Nexus name attached to it.

So I’ve got two words for Google, Samsung and Verizon, two words that have probably crossed the minds of those who just bought the Galaxy Nexus:

Fix it.

How has your battery life been, folks?

98 Comments

98 Comments

  1. rebretz

    12/20/2011 at 11:18 am

    My battery life has been average but my phone is always plugged in at my desk at work or in my car during my drive to and from the office. Saturday when i had connections problems the battery drained fairly quickly.

  2. WhySoSerious?

    12/20/2011 at 11:24 am

    If you’re getting 11 hours, you should be considering yourself lucky. 

    • new_to_boston

      12/21/2011 at 12:22 pm

      I hear you. I get about 6 hours with almost no use. Using it somewhat steadily it’s more like 3 hours.

      • Kevin

        01/11/2012 at 8:20 am

        Completely agree.  I would be SOOOO happy with 10 or 11 hours.  I get 6 with almost no use and 3-4 with nominal use.  I hate it.  I want my old DROID back!

  3. Italiansauce88

    12/20/2011 at 11:26 am

    Coming from my blackberry the battery is gargbage aand it used an 1150 size not the 1850 in the nex. Have to baby it for 8 hours of use meaning never on 4g and no fb/words auto sync. Pretty disappointing….

  4. BrianB13

    12/20/2011 at 11:27 am

    Have you tried Juice Defender?  It turns off your 3G and 4G when the screen is off.  You can schedule it to re-connect periodically.  Even when you have them off, you can still get voice and text messages.  Haven’t tried it on the Nexus yet but have downloaded it.  Has been successfully used on the Thunderbolt.

    Battery technology is lagging however, a battery that can last 10 times longer than today’s battery should be out in the next couple of years and then there is a battery that never needs charging which gets electricity wirelessly (the Vortex Theory by Dr. Russel Moon).  That would really be cool.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z89lzfLwfk  

  5. J_Dav1

    12/20/2011 at 11:36 am

    I doubt we will see truly good battery life on LTE until 2013 or so when Verizon starts using voice and data over LTE and shut down the cdma radio in these phones. I’ve heard they want to do away with the cdma network completely by 2014 in most areas.

  6. Rick church

    12/20/2011 at 11:52 am

    Ten hours is great for a smartphone who are you? (run on sentence IDGAF)

    • Roger

      12/20/2011 at 7:33 pm

      Thats what i was thinking when i was reading this. I barely got ten hours out of my OG or my DX so to get about the same life out of this beast is pretty good. I’ve also noticed after fully charging and discharging the phone a couple times, battery life seems to be much improved.

      • kramer

        12/22/2011 at 5:27 am

        I know. I can’t believe what I am reading here. I’m perfectly happy with the battery life other than the ridiculously high discharge rate while doing nothing (will be fixed). I’m coming from an Incredible which was half the size and 3G, where if you used an upsized 1700mAh battery you might be able to go 8 hours on a charge. The GN goes longer, so I am happy camper.

  7. John

    12/20/2011 at 11:56 am

    Droid Bionic w/ Extended battery FTW!!!! Gives me 14 hours :) I’m happy!!!

  8. Anonymous

    12/20/2011 at 12:04 pm

    battery life will suck for all LTE phones that verizon pumps out…until they rework the radios, i’ll live with it.  not very happy but i’m ok with 15 hours off my thuderbolt (using the rezound battery).  the extended battery gets me about 30 hours but it’s so damn big i rarely want to use it.

  9. Alex

    12/20/2011 at 12:09 pm

    For God’s sake, this article is the literary equivalent of Captain Kirk.

    Can you please

    get some writers

    who don’t talk

    two or three

    words at a time?

  10. Anonymous

    12/20/2011 at 12:30 pm

    Dude, seriously, you are complaining about 13 hours after normal use? This is pretty normal. Don’t forget you are also paying for a 4.65in 720p display…

  11. Joekomm

    12/20/2011 at 1:35 pm

    Like you, I am a light user. With 45 minutes of talk time and maybe 20-30 min of internet, my standard battery will last 8-10 hours. That is with bluetooth off, wifi off, location services (GPS) off, email updating off, and the screen on dim or automatic.

    With everything on, the battery will last about 5 hours without using the phone. That was my mistake on the second day of owning this phone. The Nexus got hot just sitting in its case and shut down without being used.

    I am experimenting with widgets that might help and am hoping for a Samsung or Android solution.

    • new_to_boston

      12/21/2011 at 12:24 pm

      Well as I said up top, I get just a little over 5 hours with everything off (except 15-minute email pulls, since I need that) and almost no phone use. It’s ridiculous.

  12. Anonymous

    12/20/2011 at 3:52 pm

    Exactly as you mentioned, I believe that it is a kernel issue that keeps the phone awake.  I, too, am having battery issues with the Verizon Galaxy Nexus.

    Last night, I charged the phone to full capacity.  I played a game for about 15 minutes and read a book that I have downloaded on the phone for about 20 minutes.  No web access.  And, if it had been accessing, it was using WiFi.

    As I said, the phone was at 100% and I used it for less than an hour.  I put the phone down.  It went to ‘sleep,’ but I didn’t completely power it down.

    This morning, the charge was at 44%…

  13. Anonymous

    12/20/2011 at 4:33 pm

    Seems like battery life is far more important to you than 4G. So you buy a phone that goes against your own priorities and then throw a fit when it doesn’t meet your expectations. Just wow.  Oh and wait.  Not only that, you buy a bleeding edge device as soon as it comes out which is certain to have issues.  Then you compound the problem by refusing to do anything of significance to help make the situation livable until a patch happens purely out of principle. I hope you are not expecting anyone to feel sorry for you.

    You can always switch to the iPhone. In fact, I insist. 

    • Jamie

      12/20/2011 at 5:15 pm

      I’m sorry, did you just mention the iPhone as a paragon for battery life?  I remember a few articles about iOS 5 issues recently… :)

      But you’re right about a bit of patience.  No point in getting too worked up about it.  If you really want to fix it immediately for yourself, then root, flash a new ROM and Franco’s kernel (mentioned below.)

      @Adam – Since you wrote the article, perhaps you might like to write a follow up with Dev Community options if one is so inclined (maybe try a few out and see which ones you liked…and what your experiences were with them)

      • Anonymous

        12/20/2011 at 6:00 pm

        Did they not fix that yet?

    • new_to_boston

      12/21/2011 at 12:29 pm

      I hear you, and in fact I’m strongly thinking about returning my G-Nex for this reason. Which is a shame because it’s basically a perfect phone, in my opinion, otherwise. (By the way, when I switch to CDMA the phone simply disconnects entirely until I reboot.) What I actually find irksome isn’t the battery life so much as the overly-generous reviews that constantly talk about how ‘you should be able to get a day’s use on a charge’ and similar claptrap. Rubbish, it’s no where even close to that. (I’d be happy with halfway!) Tech community, I implore you, let’s please be honest with each other. We can handle the truth. And we won’t be able to solve our problems until we own up to them, ha ha.

      • Anonymous

        12/21/2011 at 5:02 pm

        My HTC Flyer got stuck in a boot loop for the second time in 9 days.  The only way to fix it is a factory reset and destroy all my data. It worked fine for 8 months and now this.  It all started happening after they released some small update for it.  I spend 30 minutes on the phone only to be told their is nothing they can do.  And no they can’t undo the patch.  So pretty much the only way I am going to make this stable is to root it and install a custom ROM.  And I was trying so hard to keep it stock until the official Honeycomb update came to the US.  How’s that for being honest? My mobile future will probably be WP7 and Windows 8.  Getting burned out on Android.

    • Greg Rosenheck

      12/28/2011 at 2:23 am

      Wait a second dude.  I had the droid razr and returned it twice.  The first time was because it didn’t play the older games correctly and the 2nd time was because of a fast draining battery 10% per half hour and a hot phone to the face.  If it was just a little hotter I’d have burn marks. The same problem is from what I’m seeing in this phone. 

      Dude you pay $300.00 or outright up to 800 for this phone.  People buy a product because of the Bells and Whistles.  But there is also a standard of which the phone should operate.  If it’s going to have the Bells and whistles it should work properly.  your not paying for singal loss, your not paying for teahering issues, your not paying for a hot phone in your face, and you shouldn’t have to turn off all the features just to use the dam thing.  I think it’s sick people are willing to accept such a low standard of quality just to have the Bell’s and whistles.  It kills me.  I wanted the razr but I’ll be damed if I’m talking to a customer and I can’t wait to get off because the phone is too hot.  How would you like it if you brought an xbox and then you brought some super mario’s game.  When you put it in it doesn’t work then Microsoft says oops sorry will fix it sometime down the future.  I mean it’s pathetic. 

      If you are going to release a product be responsable enough to test it and have it work properly.  If they can put a man on the moon, invent medicne to cure diseases, have satalights that can pinopint where you are why the hell can’t they make a battery that doesn’t melt or better yet that can last a 14-15 hour day (the avg time the population is up)  The sick part about this is the stupid population accepts this for what so they can have a high contrast screen, watch netflix.  man I’d be pissed if I’m watching porn on my phone while driving and just before the climax the battery dies.  LOL

      • Anonymous

        12/28/2011 at 4:22 am

        Dude, why would you try to play a Super Mario game on an Xbox?

        • Gordonthefree33

          02/01/2012 at 6:41 pm

          He was using a metaphor…. don’t be so fucking literal

        • Anonymous

          02/01/2012 at 7:24 pm

          Look up trolling, Gordon.

      • Ycare

        01/12/2012 at 9:31 am

        AGREED !! Thank you for a “Common Sense” reply..IT SHOULD WORK!! PERIOD !!

    • Gordonthefree33

      02/01/2012 at 6:36 pm

      Hey to be fair, I own this phone and turn off the 4G when ever I am not using it, and turn off wifi, and account sync and location services, This thing will still lose about 30 percent battery life idling over night, that is sad considering my HTC evo with all services except carrier turned off only lost about 4 to 5 percent, and it was a 1200 mAh battery versus the 1850 of the galaxy, something is not right here.

      • Anonymous

        02/01/2012 at 7:34 pm

        Have you visited XDA yet?  Anybody there have a clue as to why this is happening?

  14. Jamie

    12/20/2011 at 5:04 pm

    Definitely a Kernel issue.  I found this for better battery life at xda:

    https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1367341

    • Jamie

      12/20/2011 at 5:09 pm

      Oh, and the kernel I referenced is based on 4.0.3, which the developer says is great for battery life.  So one might surmise that whenever we get the next ICS update, battery life should get better.

  15. Tim Hutchinson

    12/20/2011 at 6:20 pm

    I only just got mine so I haven’t got too much in the way of battery life numbers to compare with. I would suggest (as long as its ICS compatible, I haven’t seen if it is or not yet) checking out JuiceDefender. I’ll probably put it on mine, but I want to get an idea of what my battery life is without it before I try it out.

  16. Guthrie

    12/20/2011 at 7:54 pm

    Yikes, too bad you said anything you despicable unsatisfied phone user.

  17. Moonunitx10

    12/20/2011 at 8:00 pm

    Im getting through a full day of moderate use no problem. Quit bitching that you dont get battery life comparable to the iphone. Im just happy with giant screened awesome ics device that lasts a full fay (13 to 15 hours)

    • Gordonthefree33

      02/01/2012 at 6:45 pm

      How the hell are you getting 13 to 15 hours!????? My battery is down to around 44 percent by mid day around 2pm on a full charge from 6am and near dead by 4! That is WITH my data off, wifi off, location services off, blue tooth off, GPS off, and account sync off. And sending the occasional text and turning on LTE for about 15 mins 2 times a day one once at 30 mins for lunch, but thats it ….. I don’t see how you can possibly be getting 15 hours to 13 hours of use.

  18. Pch44

    12/20/2011 at 9:02 pm

    I got 16+ out of the regular battery today on 4g all day. Streaminf music for an hour and a few phone calls and texting and surfing the web. Before today my battery was lasting maybe 8 hours with about the same use. What did i do? I turned off nfc. Maybe coincidence with conditioning my battery. The only other thing different that i did before today was use the charger that came with the phone. Was using a older charger i had. Turn off nfc and see if it helps you. I was pleasently suprised today

    • new_to_boston

      12/21/2011 at 12:32 pm

      Ooh, now there’s something I had not thought to do, turn off NFC, thanks for that. (I’ve done just about everything else possible.) I don’t even know how to do that, let me look…there it is, Settings–>>Wireless & Networks, right where it belongs. Wow, here’s hoping, if it can do anything like what it did for your battery life, I’ll be one happy camper! cheers.

    • superj

      12/27/2011 at 7:45 pm

      This has helped so much! Thanks for posting this! I guess bluetooth users with mobile to mobile will use more battery when they are intsa sharing, but it makes sense to turn it off so its not bad at all. Thank you again, saved me from buying the extra battery!

  19. Dmlxbox

    12/21/2011 at 2:21 pm

    I’m getting on average 24-28 hours on the stock battery doing exactly the same thing as the TC. Phone is not rooted (yet) either. There are a lot of things you can do to extend the battery:

    1. Turn off auto-brightness.
    2. Turn off location and gps. Enter it manually.
    3. Reduce the email and facebook synce interval or turn to off completely. Fetch your info manually.
    4. Don’t use live wallpaper.
    5. Setup auto-kill when the screen turns off. You need an app for this.
    6. Use wifi instead of 4g (if possible).

    You’ll see a drastic increase in battery life.

    • Tony Fuentes

      12/25/2011 at 2:12 pm

      Whats the point of having a smartphone when you have to practically render it useless just to keep it alive?

    • Ryan Patrick McAvoy

      12/26/2011 at 6:56 am

      Task Killers have been rendered very bad for you phone by Google since android 2.2 came out. It causes more harm than good. Stop using an auto-killer.

  20. Theiceter

    12/22/2011 at 12:52 am

    I have the original droid and I get 5 hours with barely any use….
    I jizzed in my pants when you said 11 hours. Shutup and stop complaining.
    You guys are so spoiled.

    • Ryan Terry

      01/03/2012 at 2:20 pm

      Only 5 hours on the original Droid?? You must be doing something terribly wrong, so I wouldn’t be so quick to tell everyone to shut up and stop complaining. Sounds like you need to buy an OEM battery, I bought a replacement (non-OEM) battery on eBay and it didn’t work for shit compared to the original.

  21. Anonymous

    12/22/2011 at 10:52 am

    All of you people who are willing to accept poor battery life and jump on this author rather than the device manufacturers are complete idiots and deserve what you get.

    Less than a full days use IS totally unacceptable.

    As long as you pay for crap….someone will sell it to you.

    • Ryan Patrick McAvoy

      12/26/2011 at 6:56 am

      That’s not true at all. Have you ever used an Android phone? None of them last a full day unless you aren’t touching it. Technology just isn’t up-to-date. You cannot expect so much battery life out of a phone that uses so much power. The Galaxy Nexus has much more high-performance parts than an iPhone, and is able to do a lot more. Android just has much more possibilities. It’s a phone meant for someone who wants a lot of choices. If you are someone who likes a more limited, simplistic device, then go for an iPhone. Enjoy your lack of Flash player and mediocre app market that blocks everything from you.

  22. Adam Truelove

    12/22/2011 at 11:31 am

    I wouldn’t blame the 4G entirely.  I don’t live in a 4G area and I even have the 4G radio turned off and I still get pretty bad battery life.  It doesn’t really matter to me though because I work at a desk and can have it plugged in all day.  To be honest, I wouldn’t even blame the phone, I would blame battery technology, it simply hasn’t been able to keep up with technology.  Our devices require more juice these days, we need a power solution that works for those devices.  Where are my LiPo batteries and mini-fuel cells?

  23. Anonymous

    12/23/2011 at 8:44 am

    I get 5-7 days out of a charge on my Samsung Fascinate with about the same usage as the author. I only turn stuff on when needed. For instance, I turn off mobile data, wifi and GPS when I am sitting at my desk at work. I mean I know where I am, and I have internet access right in front of me. When I am out and about and want to use data, check email, or GPS I turn it on. When I am finished I turn it off. I dont know why people leave all that stuff on when its not in use.

  24. Anonymous

    12/25/2011 at 5:16 am

    I thinl i got a bad extended battery. It tops out at a max charge of 98%. I’ve only had it for a week.

  25. Livings14

    12/25/2011 at 8:58 am

    Yesterday I unplugged the phone in the middle of the night after it had fully charged.  When I got out of bed in the morning (about 6 hours later), it had used 53% of its capacity without me touching it.  Clearly the phone is very active even when it is sleeping.  

    My extended battery lasts only 5-6 hours if I am using it a good deal (especially web surfing).  I bought a spare battery charger and now I leave the house with 3 charged batteries (one extended and two regular).  I think that’s what I need in order to get through a day of heavy use.

    • Tony Fuentes

      12/25/2011 at 2:16 pm

      Thats crazy. I think corporations do this.to milk us for money on batteries and chargers.

  26. Anonymous

    12/25/2011 at 1:57 pm

    In this article: tears from a guy who’s never used an Android or 4G phone before.

    The problem isn’t the phone. The problem is battery technology.

    And yes, battery life will be worse than your 3GS. Because you’re using a device capable of doing 1000 times more than your 3GS at 1000 times the speed.

    If you don’t appreciate that part and just want to make calls, send texts, and maybe check your email once or twice a day, then you don’t need this device in the first place. Stick with your iPhone or feature phone.

  27. MIKE K

    12/25/2011 at 3:26 pm

    horrible battery life. im returning it after 7 days of use.  I also find ICS to be not asfriendly as gingerbread.  Calendar no longer can you just add a contact in the time slot, you have to go to a whole new screen (like iphone — just more steps) — and they added the stupid dialing the minutes/hours instead of being able to just type in hour and minute or click the default half hour deviations… Just too time consuming.  also, the stupid task manager.. i dont need to see a preview of the application..just the name and an END button is needed. So dumb.

    going to get a s2 and keep it on gingerbread..no ICS for me. I do not find it an improvement..

  28. Ryan Patrick McAvoy

    12/26/2011 at 6:52 am

    In what world is 10-11 hours of battery life bad for a smartphone? That’s pretty normal, if not very good, battery life for a 3G-ONLY device, and this thing has LTE! My Droid Incredible probably lasted about the same, if not worse, and that doesn’t have 4G. My Thunderbolt? That thing will be dead within 6-7 hours on 4G LTE. 10-11 hours is a long time. You cannot tell me you’re away from a wall outlet for THAT long. A smartphone is like a laptop in your pocket. Expect for poor battery life. They don’t last 3 days like our old phones did. Have you EVER used an android device?

    Also, Android phones just DO MORE than any iOS device, and have a lot more high-performance parts. Go back and get another iPhone if it’s that terrible.

  29. Ryan Patrick McAvoy

    12/26/2011 at 6:58 am

    Also, try juice defender, shut off NFC, shut off GPS when you aren’t using it, and turn off “always-on mobile data” if that is a setting in Android 4.0. There are a lot of unnecessary settings that run in stock Android. A quick Google search of battery consolidating tips for your specific phone can give you hours more battery life. I learned that with my last two phones.

  30. Rs3nyg

    12/26/2011 at 7:18 pm

    I just got my galaxy nexus 3 days ago. I use my phone frequently. Facebook, texting, browsing the web and my battery life has been exceptionally good. From 6 in the morning to about 7 at night, ill be at around 53%. Im thinking about getting the extended battery.. idk if an extra 250 mah is worth 30$ lol

  31. Jnorlock11

    12/26/2011 at 9:27 pm

    Battery life is horrible beyond belief. The phone is cool but i barely used my phone at all on christmas and it couldnt last from 1pm until 1130pm and it wasnt being used. This needs to be fixed asap, as possible….

  32. Kbwalker87

    12/27/2011 at 12:52 pm

    I’m lucky to get 5 hours out of mine, and I’m not exaggerating. It’s terrible and I make sure to have all processs killed and the brightness is al the way down. Even if I dont touch it it will only get 7 at the most. Going to pick up the extended battery ASAP. Hanging in there for the updated radios the will hopefully ease the pain.

  33. superj

    12/27/2011 at 5:15 pm

    Cry mor plz. Want an extra large screen thats thin and light? With 4glte? Its half as thick as the iphone4s, so half as big battery. Its REALLY hardto make everything perfect the first few weeks. So stop bitching like they did this to you, wake up from your ignorance and wait for your precious tech that YOU didnt make to get fixed.

    Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

  34. Anonymous

    12/27/2011 at 5:41 pm

    To stare at this big beautiful screen I’m willing to give up some battery. I usually get 12-14 hours from the regular battery and just bought the extended.  For me it’s more than adequate.

    Also now that I’ve bought the extended I have a spare on hand. Can’t do that with an iPhone and quite frankly, I’m spoiled by the bigger screen. I’m sorry but there’s no way in hell I’d spend even half the money I spent on this Nexus, on an iPhone. The tiny screen is pure torture and while it might get slightly better battery life (let’s face it the 4s battery life isn’t the best), it just can’t compare.  Sorry folks but the iPhone is old outdated news.

  35. Gabe

    12/27/2011 at 10:01 pm

    I am a thunderbolt owner that has been waiting for a phone that can last all day like my iPhone 4. I switched from my thunderbolt back to my iphone just to make it through a day not being married to a plug in. I just shelled out $300 +++ for the Nexus to try and fix this problem, and i am seeing worse performance than the Thunderbolt. WTF. How could they go backwards in battery performance? I am not a power user. Emails, surfing a bit, and phone calls. I’m set to 3g only because I’m in a 3g only area. I’ve seen better battery reviews for the razr. Unbelievable. I get about 4 hours of normal use and about 11 in standby. Sad, sad, sad.

    • Anonymous

      12/27/2011 at 10:57 pm

      I’m a power user and get 12+ hours on the Nexus. So….maybe you’ve got to do some adjustments regarding your settings or you have an app that’s using up the battery. Either way, 4 hours is not the norm, unless you are watching full-length movies.

  36. Swagner4

    12/28/2011 at 7:28 am

    i am a heavy but typical user. Droid 2 used to last a full work day or more. New Galaxy Nexus with standard battery is onyly getting 4-6 hours. Guess i might have to finally convert to the iphone.

  37. alexander card

    12/28/2011 at 8:00 am

    yes you should totally convert to the iphone and then watch your internet speeds go down 90% – you have to pay to play – the 4.03 or 4.1 update already has leaked radios for better network switching ect and I am sure sedo or some other company will be along with a battery doubling case.

  38. Hades-flame

    12/29/2011 at 10:58 am

    I got the Galaxy Nexus for the Christmas and have had an even worse experience. I’m no power user either. In the time it took me to wake up, make a six-minute phone call, and do about fifteen minutes of browsing and finding this article, my battery shows only 69% remaining. This is with LTE disabled, only a total of fifty minutes off the charger, twenty minutes of use. This thing’s battery life is ridiculous and I am on the verge of returning it.

    Also I only have the LTE off because despite living in the heart of an LTE coverage zone (as indicated on Verizon’s Coverage Locator) this phone never receives 4G service at home. Like you said, unacceptable.

  39. Notpepsifan

    12/30/2011 at 4:16 pm

    I have the new nexus and not a power user. Also the phone isn’t using anythong higher than 3G. Battery life is terrible, max 8-10 hours.

    Iam very unhappy with this phone, should have bought an iPhone.

  40. Xxzz

    12/30/2011 at 10:43 pm

    I agree

  41. Gregstcyr85

    01/03/2012 at 9:40 am

    Couldn’t have said it better myself… I just got the Samsung Galaxy Nexus for Verizon and the battery life is atrocious! It’s so bad that it casts a shadow over the awesome qualities of the phone! Other than that though, it is blazing fast and I pretty much love everything else about it. I’m typing this on it right now, infact!

  42. Ryan Terry

    01/03/2012 at 2:18 pm

    Sounds like you guys need to get the Juice Defender app. I have no problem with this thing lasting all day using the OEM standard battery, though getting the extended is a good idea either way. Juice Defender has more than doubled battery life with the only small drawback of a momentary lag when it reenables data/wifi upon screen unlock. In any case, everyone knew (or should have, if you’d done a second of research) that the battery life is always a trade-off when it comes to 4G, so this post is nothing more than an uninformative whine-session.

  43. allenall

    01/06/2012 at 1:51 pm

    With nearly every feature on the phone off it is down to 15% power in 6 hours. I don’t know who to include in my Small Claims court fraud case, Verizon or Samsung and Verrizon.

  44. No

    01/07/2012 at 2:08 pm

    Preach, brother, preach.
    I have one of those weak energizer battery expansions on my key chain, only gives about an hour of charge, for emergency use because of the terrible battery life. The only issue aside from the signal problems that are driving me to the point of punching an infant in the face.

  45. Sri Harsha Akula

    01/08/2012 at 9:06 am

    It’s ridiculous! As a normal user who uses about email every now and then, internet for about 45 mins at some random times, NO games at all, calls for about 15-20 mins; this phone’s battery is the WORST so far. I come from Apple and I am completely shocked at how bad this battery is. I get about 5-6 hours at most on a full charge.
    A fully charged battery at night drains out with out using by morning. NO EXPLANATION! Highly annoying. There is no way that Android/Samsung can go on with this. Either you lose customers or you lose your brand value. Fix it before it’s too late.

    • Anonymous

      01/16/2012 at 8:43 pm

      Totally agree. My can go forever with my iphone. This phone gave me 4 hours of battery life. It was the worst thing ever. On other websites people keep telling me ” i must be doing something wrong” I laughed.

  46. Shaddrach

    01/09/2012 at 2:11 pm

    I wish I got anything close to 10-12 hours of use out of my Galaxy Nexus. I am also an average user, and I get around 5 hours if I’m lucky. If I’m doing a lot of gaming/videos/online usage, it drops to 3-4 hours. I have to charge several times a day and it’s ridiculous. I won’t even go into detail about the problems I’ve been having with sending texts or my non-existant 4G service. I was really excited to get my new phone, and it has been one huge disappointment. Talk about buyer’s remorse.

    • Anonymous

      01/16/2012 at 8:41 pm

      I had the same experience.

  47. Kevin

    01/10/2012 at 5:22 pm

    The battary is just simply put, awefull.

    • Anonymous

      01/16/2012 at 8:40 pm

      Yup. It’s terrible. It’s actually the worst i’ve ever experienced. My droid X had a better battery than this thing.

  48. Bailey Runzer

    01/11/2012 at 12:22 am

    just got my new samsung galaxy nexus google today, and i let it fully die, and charge all the way, downloaded some apps played for 5 mins and my phone as already at 85 percent i charrgeed it all the way again my phoen said i had 1hr 36 min 23sec of battery time. what is that!!!

  49. Dude

    01/13/2012 at 11:54 pm

    Im getting about 12 hours but thats still too bad for such an expensive phone

  50. Anonymous

    01/16/2012 at 8:38 pm

    I couldn’t agree more. This was the worst battery experience i have ever had. I’m shocked you got 10 hours. I could only get 4-5 hours with very light use. They are robbing people. $300 plus dollars for this phone and you can’t even use it. I’ll never use a phone that isn’t an iphone. I don’t even have to think about my iphone having a battery.

  51. Anonymous

    01/16/2012 at 10:43 pm

    I’m sorry, but you should know that LTE phones have bad battery life and be skeptical about any new phone – even if it’s from Google (or Apple for that matter). Let other people buy it, test it, and find out how the battery life is before you do. Read reviews, etc… LTE speeds are amazing, but they come with an obvious trade-off. If this isn’t for you, don’t complain about it. That’s just being a stupid consumer.

  52. Giovanni Gaccione

    01/18/2012 at 12:50 pm

    Worst battery life. Today I went to new York for a day to meet with some customers. Unplugged phone at 7:30 am. Turned off lte and had it on airplane mode for the train ride over. Phone was dead at 11:30am

  53. Ashu_2001

    01/19/2012 at 12:01 pm

    The phone’s battery life is really horrible. I was on
    blackberry from T-mbile(3G).  the battery
    used to last for at least 15-16 hours and I will charge it in the evening.

    Battery drain happens when the phone spends more time in
    catching the signals – that’s my experience. It seems Verizon/Samsung fooled
    the customers very well saying that 4G/LTE consumes more battery. No doubt
    phone is really good and the Android Sandwich is a good Operating system but
    the battery brings down all the positive aspects of this phone.

    I returned my first set and got another one-but even that is
    having the problem. I have been asked by Verizon customer service to reduce the
    screen brightness to the bare minimum, switch to 3G(even when I work in Jersey
    city which has so called good 4G signals), stop the data connections etc…but
    then why I should buy a $350 device and live with compromise. With normal
    use-the battery lasts for 3-4 hours irrespective of the place where you are.
    And in standby mode the battery drains within 6 hours. I have to charge it at
    least 4 times in a day to make use of the phone.

    Every thing else in this phone is superb except battery life

  54. Mlieber2

    01/21/2012 at 7:36 am

    I go through two to three batteries a day and pretty much use like you. If I turn LTE off I go from 4.5 to 5.5 hours but If I use WIFi goes down to 4 hrs. I’m not a happy camper. I’ve carried a monorprice brick to make sure I didn’t run of out power during day.

  55. RiujinZero

    01/21/2012 at 2:08 pm

    Hardware uses a certain amount of power so battery life can only be extended so far by verizon and samsung. They do not make the batteries and current battery tech can only provide so much power. Sure apple might be waiting but at some point they might have to jump on board with 4g before battery tech catches up

  56. David

    01/21/2012 at 5:57 pm

    Im getting 14 to 18 hours on moderate to heavy use. Thats with stock battery too. I dont pay extra to have 4g, maybe cuz i grandfathered my unlimited data, so i have no guilt with turning of 4g. Plus i use wifi whenever i can anyway.

    Try signing out of google talk or turning off some syncing from ur google account that yiu dont need.

  57. jmski

    02/04/2012 at 1:56 am

    I agree 100%, FIX IT. I got the phone for my wife, and it lasts her about 4 hours.She talks a lot and texts a fair amount. I should have known better when Verizon offered the extended battery for 50% off for the month of February. As an electrical engineer I will be performing limited tests/observations in an effort to find a way to improve. According to the battery usage info, it states that the display is taking up the bulk of the power by a factor of two to one. I have already cut the timeout to 1 minute and will next try to reduce the brightness. The Oled type display in general is supposed to be a very efficient type of display so I was somewhat surprised when she told me her battery was low and the usage indicator says the display is responsible. If the battery life indicator is erroneously reporting, I have several areas to investigate. Some additional factoids: My cell coverage is thru a Verizon network extender which is a few years old(I live in a bad fringe area.) It is possible the phone is spinning its wheels looking for a 4G connection that does not exist in my neighborhood. She uses WiFi when she is home so I suspect there could be an issue here. I will examine the advanced WiFi settings.
    Bluetooth disabled so that should not be an issue. It will take me a few weeks to have more meaningful data since I can only use a “hunt and peck” approach to finding some limited improvement. I have the Droid incredible 2 and get a full day plus of usage with the standard battery when at home. While I don’t talk anywhere near as much as she does, I do suspect I surf more. The battery on the Samsung nexus is so poor I almost suspect a defective device. I have not talked to Verizon yet. If the world is experiencing poor battery life, I would suspect a software upgrade in the not too distant future.
    In general things that suck power include big bright displays(the nexus is huge in both departments), super fast CPU processing power (another huge check box for the nexus), blue tooth, WiFi, and of course the cellular network. All of these items however can be managed with intelligent power saving algorithms. Not knowing any inside engineering poop, I can only speculate what type of job they might have done in these areas.

  58. Max_O

    02/07/2012 at 3:06 am

    I mist my iphone 4… i use to get 2 days of battery life… and now with the nexus, i finished the day with 3%.

  59. downBeat4_

    03/03/2012 at 5:48 pm

    It’s bad…Killer phone, shit battery. I’m going through 2 extended batteries a day (unacceptable). My screen is on auto and I’m connected to Wi-Fi 90% of the time…I don’t get it. That update needs to happen or I’m (hold my head down) getting the Maxx.

    • Rowan

      07/07/2012 at 2:46 am

      “Connected to Wi-Fi 90% of the time” – that’s the problem.

  60. Kssgill

    03/05/2012 at 2:27 pm

    Battery life is horrible on my nexus. Thinking of returning it.

  61. Raw2u

    03/07/2012 at 12:45 pm

    We just went from 2 iphone 4 phones to the nexus due to cheaper plan.
    After 4 days now i can say the battery is junk.
    I hsve to charge mine 4-5 times a day.

    Well have a few more hrs of talk time to deside if we want to keep them……

  62. Vernon

    03/20/2012 at 10:05 pm

    I’m a very atypical user, but for some reason I’ve had excellent battery time on my Galaxy Nexus with the regular battery – way beyond even the most optimistic battery estimates.  I’m a pretty light user overall, under an hour of talk time a day and very little data usage, and I turn it off at night and during work hours.  My record for battery time on one charge has been over 50 hours of actual “on” time (!), admittedly mostly on standby, over a period of 4 days.  I’m not sure if this matters, but when I first got the phone, I cycled it through a few complete charge/discharge cycles.  Some sources actually recommend against doing this, though.  Just my experience!

  63. CentrinoSpy

    03/29/2012 at 10:34 pm

    Battery Life is still a major issue for me. 
    Can barely last through half a day compared to my Nexus One which is quite ridiculous. Use to be that my Nexus One can last throughout the day without hiccups.  I have to bring my charger with me when i use the original battery
     Wish 4.0.4 update will address the battery issue here as this is becoming unbearable.  In the meantime, i am using an extended battery which addresses the issue for an bit of extra thickness to the phonehttps://www.amazon.com/QCell-Verizon-Samsung-Extended-Compatible/dp/B00746TQVM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1333084783&sr=8-1

  64. mike j

    04/28/2012 at 4:01 pm

    well im at 15 hours snd still have 30% left. Making yourself aware and change some settings that will vastly improve your battery life. Like syncing email i dont need my gmail synced at all times when i do i turn it on or the screen brightness i adjusted as well and i make sure only one app or two is running to be honest these phones are jot faulty our expectations of what the phone whould do and still get great battery life are. An iphone doesnt get great battery life either my gf charges hers once or twice a day the new razr max with the huge battery still gets people a little over a day. I mean we have these doing more than a laptop and yet we expect better battery life from our phone then we do from the laptop thats ridiculous. Im fine with 24 hours of battery life i am use to it the icredible, tour and thunderbolt all did the same or worse.

  65. Greg

    05/06/2012 at 5:02 pm

    I agree 100%. The battery life is non-existent when in 4G mode. This is the best 3G phone that 4G money can buy. It’s completely unacceptable and the robots at the Verizon store have no ideas, except for me to purchase an extended battery or return the phone and pay Verizon a $35 restocking charge. Like I’m going to reward them for selling me this phone. It’s really sad that buying a phone these days is just as frustrating – and just as much of a crap shoot – as buying a new car. This is my first and last Verizon or Samsung product unless they solve this, for free, pronto.

  66. Jim Holt

    05/16/2012 at 8:30 am

    for the first week my battery life was 10-12 hours. Now today within two hours it was down to 15%??? Nothing realy changed with my use. Checked to see what items or apps using and screen was 60% of it. But the screen times out or closes within a minute. No clue what to do?

  67. VJNNC

    05/20/2012 at 8:10 am

    Aside from the incredibly annoying lack of battery life (even with as big as a 3500mah battery) this is the best phone I’ve had to date. I ditched the iphone 4S for this device. I have to say that the ginormous extended life battery doesn’t extend enough to warrant the bulky change it makes to the phone.

  68. bitoy

    07/02/2012 at 4:28 pm

    “For me, the battery life, by far, is the worst part about this phone. It has honestly got to the point where I am no longer having an enjoyable experience with the Galaxy Nexus.”

    This is so true. I mean I work 7am-3pm and armed with a 100% fully charged phone but by the time I get off my batt life is at 10% and dead by 4pm. SERIOUSLY?? Imagine your self at 4pm outside of your home with a dead phone. The main reason I bought this is because of the 4GLTE capability and ICS. But sad to say the battery life ruins the enjoyable experience of this phone.

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