Podcast: Play in new window | Embed
Mark told us about his problem: “I’ve been very disappointed in the battery life of my HTC One. I love the phone itself and the Android platform. But I’m wondering how engineers could sit around a table and actually come up with a horrendous battery life. And of course it’s a sealed back so I can’t even get an extended battery. And I find it odd that someone would make a Mophie pack engineered exactly for that phone right after it comes off the assembly line. I just find it very frustrating to have a phone that doesn’t last until 1:00 in the afternoon. I’d like your comments on that and maybe a solution to my problem.”
You may want to check your phone and see what is using up the battery, it may be something you can turn off and not a problem with the phone itself.
If you don’t find an app that’s draining too much battery, check your network settings, your phone may be looking for LTE in an area with poor coverage and constantly losing the network and falling back to 3G only to try again, that can take a toll on the battery life.
Overall, the latest HTC One – the M9 – is not really a fan favorite, it’s been called too slow, prone to overheating, the camera has been criticized in everything but perfect daylight, it’s been called “at best not a downgrade from the M8,” but the battery is not one of the usual complaints!
Your battery life should not be that terrible, the phone running out of juice by 1PM is not normal, check your setting and check your apps, there must be something overusing your battery without you noticing.
Your battery life should not be that terrible
We offer the usual battery saving tips in a case like this. Turn off Bluetooth if you won’t be using any Bluetooth devices. Turn off WiFi if you’re not going to be in range of a WiFi network. (This is a big one, having your WiFi search for networks in your pocket can be a huge battery drain.)
Also, if you’re someone who drives for work, or is otherwise very mobile for a portion of your day, watch how much you use your smartphone during those times of movement.
As a simple practical matter, how a smartphone connects and stays connected while moving involves a lot of battery drain. There’s a reason why people who sit at their desks with a nice strong WiFi signal to provide their data are the same people who say battery life is not a problem.
The Great Case Conspiracy
As for the Mophie case, you’re probably not looking at a grand conspiracy there, they have a case for the HTC One, they also have cases for LG models, for the whole Samsung S line since the S3, for every iPhone since the 4… it’s what they do, they probably realized the phone had a chance of having a following and adapted one of their battery cases to fit it. It’s just a company doing it’s usual business.
Consider upgrading to the HTC O2 soon
We should mention that while the M9 is technically a current generation phone, the “M10” is rumored to be released at some point this month, it’s just a rumor, but we may see it soon. HTC is expected break with the M[number] convention and name this one O2, but it will be the successor to the M9, so if you’ve had enough of the M9, you may want to take a look at the O2 soon.