The Palm Centro is my first PDA phone (well technically second if you count my work phone, however that thing is larger than a brick with incredibly slow internet). Now coming from a long line of regular flip phones, I am accustomed to having a phone that will go the extra mile and last me two days without charging. With the Centro, I expected my battery consumption to be relatively more than a regular phone.

I don't know if maybe it's just a problem with my phone, or if it's completely normal, but it seems my phone's battery will literally drain completely within a 4-5 hour span. I could be texting for maybe 20-30 minutes with a full charge, and then look at my battery and it will be at 43%! Now that's just rediculous if you ask me, I can't enjoy the phone without having it plugged into an outlet! The battery seemed to last a little longer when I first bought the phone.

I'm sorry for the long post. I guess my real question is, what is the BEST way to maximize battery life on this phone. I already have the car charger on the way from pocketsolutions.com. I put the screen brightness down low. What else can I do? All help is appreciated and I'm glad to join this community. TIA.

Okay, so I wake up this morning and look at my cell phone, 68% charged, and extremely warm! What the hell, when I went to bed it was at 100%! (i leave the thing charging overnight). Do I need to get my phone checked out? This can't be normal.

No, it doesn't sound like your experience is normal at all. there are a number of posts about similar problems on other forums like treocentral etc. some have ended up having to return their phones.

I use "power hero" by hobbyist software and it works great for me.

under normal usage I cannot see your centro lasting more than a day...in fact, it may not even happen if you don't use it.

depending on what you use the centro for, you could see it ending up with a 20-30 percent charge or 10 percent at the end of the day. I use mine for heavy data usage with push email and text, and the battery, while drained at the end of the day, has never failed me (okay I've had it a week...).

one thing you should realize is that the centro is a pda phone just like the treos, but unlike the treos the battery is probably a quarter of the size (and actually a lot closer to 40percent smaller than the Treo 600). you can't expect miracles from 1100mah.

but with all that said -- there is something wrong with yours. maybe the charger is bad?

*posted from a centro

EDIT: I mean the battery is 25 percent smaller, not 25 percent of the capacity of the treos.

do you think if i take it to sprint, they may be able to replace it? i didn't purchase a warranty on it or anything

You can send it to sprint to have it checked out. Sometimes that weird thing with the battery drainage during charge happens due to apps on the phone. What I did when it happend to me was a hard reset. That fixed it for me. Dont forget to back up . And make sure you get Power Hero. Its amazing!!!

does your Centro have poor signal where it is charging ? (searching for signal killls the battery)

do you have Bluetooth or IR on all the time ? (you should shut those things down).

also extensive use of networking (EVDO) also kills the battery (do you have the Centro constantly polling your email ? you should minimize that). SMS/texting shouldn't be a problem, though...

I get pretty decent signal in my home, however I do believe that it is constantly polling my gmail account through a program called Sprint Mobile email. Should I delete this program altogether? I have the bluetooth option off, what is IR?

How do I delete programs? I don't have very many applications, maybe one or two.

Its the constant polling, then that is killing your battery... tell it not to poll... or only rarely, maybe every 4-8 hours...

IR is infrared (beaming)

You can't delete programs that are burned into the firmware.

Programs that you have installed, you can delete from the home page, menu, apps delete.

Okay, thanks for all of your help guys. This morning I downloaded the trial version of Power Hero, and I had a number of my settings changed. So far, so good, the battery is holding up better. I tried to take my email stop from constantly polling (couldn't really find the option under preferences, but I changed some things around). I think Power Hero is really helping.

Once again, thank you all for being so helpful, I really appreciate it. Just out of curiousity, is this the end all be all of PDA forums? I'd like to be an active member of a PDA forum and am trying to choose wisely

I am having the same problem, I just got the phone yesterday, how do you tell it not to poll?

If you go into your email, Menu, Settings, Preferences, (top right corner) set to Schedule and make your changes. I have mine constantly getting messages from Hotmail and I still get an easy 9-10 hrs. out of a battery. 12 hrs. of steady (but not constant) use would be pushing it, but I always charge it while sleeping and have only had to put it on before then a time or two.

I've found that I get a better charge if I plug in the wall charger. The USB connection doesn't completely charge the phone overnight.
The fact that a charge only lasts one day still sucks.

I usually get 3 days between charges and sometimes 4. I find that several things can help. Keep the bluetooth off except when you are using it. Keep the IR off. Go to Prefs and disconnect the internet if you aren't going to be using it (I don't have the email poll at all, if I want to check email I do it by hand, nothing is that urgent). Music and video can definitely suck the battery dry so if you are using the music a lot or Youtube or other video sites then you will be charging more often

I have a potential suggestion. Try downloading Linkstart (Search Downloads - mytreo.net/downloads) a free program which allows you to remove certain programs from running permanently on your Palm in your ram all the time. Many programs contnuosly run though they are closed. It also allows you to use programs from your SD card as if its in internal memory.

I just did this, and the Palm got faster when I freed up more ram.

I suspect that my battery life improved as well though I have yet to measure it scientificaly yet.

Try it, and let me know how you it affects your battery life.

-Limit

IMO, this is the best of all - but it can be useful to belong to more than one - and it's free!

"Just out of curiousity, is this the end all be all of PDA forums? I'd like to be an active member of a PDA forum and am trying to choose wisely "

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I keep the brightness level lowest to save the battery.

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