HTC One S Battery Drains quickly after Jelly Bean upgrade [workaround]

I was very happy to see that the Jelly Bean upgrade was available for the T-Mobile branded HTC One S smartphone. I promptly downloaded and installed. Little did I know I would be having battery drainage issues.

A few days later, when I lost very important calls due to the lack of battery, I decided to ask for a replacement phone. This was after I read mixed reviews which made me think that I somehow had a faulty device (I read somewhere else that the upgrade should be performed with a battery almost fully charged to avoid a “memory effect” from the new OS – haven’t proved that it’s true though).

I opened a support ticket, and fortunately some folks have found certain work-arounds to reduce the battery usage. The same ticket was featured on the TMONews blog.

There is no official fix, however this is how I managed to reduce the power utilization (thanks to several folks that contributed):

  1. Completely Disable Wi-Fi calling.
  2. Disable Google Now, updates and cards.
  3. Disable Google now location report.
  4. Reboot your phone.

You can optionally tailor the background sync of your applications to reduce battery usage. For example, I allow automatic sync for Gmail, contacts, calendar and tasks. The rest is disabled.

It’s disappointing that Wi-Fi calling needs to be disabled as it was working flawlessly on this version; allowing me to go around the house and not losing a call.

HTC One S Battery Usage after the work-around

HTC One S Battery Usage after the work-around

Someone else has suggested a workaround that avoids turning off Wi-Fi calling. I have not confirmed a power saving effect yet though:

  1. Disconnect your phone from Wi-Fi (mobile network only).
  2. Go to Settings > More (under Wireless & Networks header) > Usage…
  3. Make sure “limit mobile data usage” is checked (set the data limit to whatever you’d like), and “show wi-fi usage,” as well.
  4. You will find IPService and IMS Service in the list of apps/processes using Wifi data.
  5. Open each process and enable “restrict background data” on both of them.
  6. Since Wi-Fi calling is by definition is on Wi-Fi, these processes don’t need background (mobile) data. The user hasn’t had any problems making calls or checking voicemail with Wi-Fi calling so far.

I expect T-Mobile/HTC addressing these issues and work on a patch to reduce power consumption. Funny this update was being beta tested since December of 2012.

Update: Seems that T-Mobile has acknowledged the problem, and is working towards obtaining a resolution:

 

Battery Usage right after the upgrade:

From Palm to Windows Phone to Android

I have been a hardcore Windows Phone user (formerly Windows Mobile, and CE) for several years, mainly because it was very easy to  synchronize directly with Outlook and Microsoft Exchange. The GUI has been pretty nice since the first releases and resembled Windows in a way.

Windows Phone let me transition from a Windows CE PDA (Toshiba E335) which was a great jump from the Palm m125; years 2006, 2003 and 2001 respectively. By the end of 2005 I wanted a true PDA/Phone that wasn’t as bulky as the HP iPaq. T-Mobile launched the SDA (HTC Torando) which to me was a godsend. It had Wi-Fi (WPA-PSK support) and bluetooth,  running Windows Mobile 5.0. It could play MP3s, Video and synchronize with Outlook/Exchange. The form factor was similar to a dumbphone. It was one of the best phones I have ever owned and prompted me to create a web page with streaming broadcasters posted here.

In early 2007 I bought a T-Mobile Dash (HTC Excalibur) and was able to live with it for 2 years running several cooked Roms (thanks to XDA forums). I had the opportunity to run Windows Mobile versions 5.0, 6.0, 6.1 and 6.5. The latest was the most stable one and the fastest considering the outdated hardware. Many people thought it was a Blackberry.

In 2009 I bought the HTC Touch Pro 2 (HTC Rhodium) Runing Windows Mobile 6.0. I wanted to keep it stock as much as I could for warranty purposes but  had problems with the clock and was never able to sync up properly. I decided to go ahead and install a cooked ROM. Since then It as been running different releases of the Energy Rom. I was happy about the capabilities of the phone but had too many OS reliability issues. A reboot every day was not out of the norm, and in some cases several of them on the same day.

Last week I decided to pursue the Android route; T-Mobile just delivered me a brand new HTC G2. The phone is by far the fastest and the most intuitive phone I have ever owned. It is running Android 2.2 and integrates seamlessly with Exchange, Gmail, Facebook and Twitter. There are tons of applications for Android and includes Text-to-Speech directions integrated within Google Maps. Android is light years ahead of Windows Phone 6.5.

I still will try a Windows Phone 7 device and have very high expectations about it.

Next post will be about the Android SDK and how to root the phone to push an application.