Android jelly bean 4.2 came out with new nexus family and recently rolled out to Nexus 7 as well as Galaxy Nexus. I’m really impressed with the new features it offered even though they are kind of fancy. However primary expectation in Android Jelly Bean 4.2 is improved battery life.
Previously I ran a battery life test for Android Jelly Bean 4.1 on my Galaxy Nexus and result was impressive. It could last a full day with heavy usage including gaming and HSDPA connectivity. Once I see the update notification for Android Jelly Bean 4.2, the first thing came to my mind was even better battery life. But in reality, it’s not the case. Here we go with the battery life report for Android Jelly Bean 4.2 on Samsung Galaxy Nexus.
Battery Life Snapshot
During this test my Wi-fi was always on and HSDPA was not used. The cell reception at my office is great and fills out all 5 tabs. My usage style is not significantly different from previous test. Mainly I was using social media, web browser, Angry Birds, Gmail, Evernote and Calendar. Throughout the test screen brightness was set to automatic and environment was artificially lit indoors.
Here we go with the screen shot I got when battery life reached 4%. It’s hopelessly low 12h 53m compared to 1d 3h 58m in Android Jelly Bean 4.1.
The main battery consumer, massive display was on for 3h 24m.
Other than display there was no significant battery consuming processes recorded in battery power consumption log.
What Could Be the Reason?
Android Jelly Bean 4.2 is mainly optimized for new Nexus 4. It has bigger 2100mAh battery and power saving Snapdragon S4 Pro platform. So it could be a reason for it to have a very low battery life in Galaxy Nexus. However this is only a part of the reason, not all of it!
I said that because new Nexus 4 also has the same poor battery life problem though it’s not worse as in Galaxy Nexus. So it has to be something to do with the OS background services. They have added many new things and they could be half baked. It makes sense since many people have noticed that significantly higher power consumption when phone is idle.
If you have enabled NFC, you will notice it’s a major contributing factor to drain the battery out. However it could be temporary solved by disabling it.
This is not the only issue in Android Jelly Bean 4.2. There are some problems with screen auto brightness adjustment, stability inconsistencies, Bluetooth audio issues etc.
All these says that we can expect Android Jelly Bean 4.2.1 really soon.
Tags: #Android #Battery #Jelly Bean