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?
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subzerohf · Posted: Tue May 08, 2007 8:45 am Post subject:

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. Sad

What a waste of talent!

irishmikev · Smartphone Neophyte Joined: 18 Nov 2003 Posts: 7

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.

T-Will · Posted: Tue May 08, 2007 10:21 am Post subject:

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

stevew · Posted: Tue May 08, 2007 10:49 am Post subject:

Did you get the free extended battery upgrade from cingular?
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Rocco Augusto · Posted: Tue May 08, 2007 10:52 am Post subject:

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. Smile

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dd-mj · Smartphone Pupil Joined: 07 Feb 2005 Posts: 15

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 · Smartphone Ponderer Joined: 02 Feb 2005 Posts: 76

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 · Posted: Tue May 08, 2007 12:10 pm Post subject:

webe2623 · Smartphone Neophyte Joined: 27 Mar 2007 Posts: 2

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.