Nokia Lumia 920 Windows Phone experiencing battery life issues? [Poll]

There's a discussion going on over at the Windows Phone Central forums that has us a little concerned about the Lumia 920's battery performance. Some are seeing their batteries being sucked dry in a few hours while some aren't seeing any issues.

Our Dan Rubino refers to his 920's battery life as fantastic and I would have agreed up until today when my 920 barely made it six hours on a full charge. Oddly the back of my Lumia 920 became warm during throughout the morning. Made for a great hand warmer but I'd trade cold hands for better battery life any day.

Here are what other have shared in the forums.

Downhillrider reports,

"I unplugged my 920 at exactly noon today.by roughly 5-5:30 it was at around 32%. No games or music. Very moderate use. I hate to be that guy, but my iPhone would go all day and I wouldn't have to charge it until 8 or 9 in the evening. I'm hoping charging it to 100% and letting it drain completely for a few days will improve the battery charge. I only have a couple of apps that I let run in the background."

Irrationaljay adds,

"So I received my Lumia 920 (cyan) today, gave it a full charge. Now it has been 1 hour since my last charge and I only have 5 hours estimated left. I've already dropped to 77% is this normal? All I've been doing is listening to music and texting, no phone calls. And a couple rounds of angry birds.......anyone else having the same battery drain?"

However, two days later, irrationaljay updates things and reports that his battery life has improved after a few re-charging cycles.

Apoc527 shares,

"I got mine on Friday at around 11 am. After Friday, Saturday, and Sunday with suspect battery life (though it showed improvement on Sunday actually), today seems MUCH better. I haven't really changed much, except I'm through that "honeymoon period" of unreasonable usage amounts. Unplugged at 8 am today, it's now 1:15 pm. Used it for videos, installed Skype, took some pictures, a lot of texting, several email checks and some replies, some Internet. What I consider to be fairly normal usage, really."

Lastly, adebo offers this,

"I did a complete discharge of the battery yesterday. I waited for the phone to power off on its own and then I repowered it on and let it die on its own again. I did a complete recharge to 100% afterwards and my battery life has improved dramatically. I have had the phone off of the charger for over 11 hours with moderate use including downloading apps, games, browser, texting, and phone calls and I am at 53% at the moment."

Just scanning the nine pages of comments in the forums discussion, most who have had crummy battery life eventually see things turn around. The 920's battery may just need conditioning or breaking in before the Lumia 920's battery makes it past lunch.

So what has your battery life been like? Out of the box fantastic or has it been an uphill battle? Cast your vote in our poll** and add your two cents worth in the forums.

[**Editor's Note: We struggled to find an adequate way to word this poll e.g. by hours, emotion ("Are you happy?"), comparison ("Better than your old phone?" )vetc. and we finally agreed on hours. Granted, everybody uses their phone differently, so even that is far from an adequate way to judge things. Having said that, we agreed it was the best for this polling attempt.]

George is the Reviews Editor at Windows Central, concentrating on Windows 10 PC and Mobile apps. He's been a supporter of the platform since the days of Windows CE and uses his current Windows 10 Mobile phone daily to keep up with life and enjoy a game during down time.

218 Comments

Similar problems for HTC 8X users as well maybe a poll for that?
No mine ,it last me all day
Which version do you have? Hspa, LTE or CDMA?
Well, in tests the 8X HSPA+ got only 5.5 hours of continuous 3G and screen on. The LTE 7.5 hours in 4G. The CDMA I have not read any tests.
My 8X had really bad battery life in the first 2 days (had to charge twice a day), but now (9 days later) it is really good - 50% left at 9pm after unplugging around 7am.
This is why I'm getting the ATIV S. The largest battery capacity and it's removable if you wanna buy a spare.
I drained battery till it died itself and recharged it till 100%, well now it says in settings under battery 1 day and 12 hours till next charge
And off the topic, back in Europe every time you buy new phone every sails representative tell you to drain the better completely and then leave it charging for 10 hours for 3 times like that to have a good battery and it always worked, but here in states I was so hyped when I hot it that I just f it, didn't do it, that was my mistake
I'd like to share my experience of Nokia Lumia 920 battery life.
The first five days it was that poor I was sure I would bring it back to a store where I had got it from.
For example, the first day of usage, fully charged, my Lumia lasted only 7 hours. Even with all the connectivities switched off it was continuosly losing its juice with the speed of 7-9% per hour.
Eventually I reported the problem to Nokia via feedback function in the Lumia phone.
Next day I got an official Nokia message on my email ADVISING TO RESET THE PHONE BY FOLLOWING SETTINGS->ABOUT->RESET YOUR PHONE to try to improve battery prfomance.
What I actually did was:
(1) let battery be drained completely
(2) than let it get some juice just to get the phone started
(3) did the reset procedure as Nokia had suggested (with all the content synchronised in advance)
(3) IN ADDITION TO THIS did a HARDWARE RESET (press volume down and power key for more than 5 seconds)
(5) let the phone charge for 10 hours in a row
HAVING DONE ALL THIS I HAD THE FIRST TIME A RATHER REASONABLE BATTERY LIFE TODAY - now 16 hours has passed after the disconnection and the Lumia still has 30% of charge (moderate use during the day - 22 calls, automatic gmail box and calendar check via rather poor wi-fi each hour, several photos, getting 2-3-4 photos from skydrive back on phone, full size)
I willing to re-do charging cicles 0-100% up to two times more.
I'd like to share my experience of Nokia Lumia 920 battery life.
The first five days it was that poor I was sure I would bring it back to a store where I had got it from.
For example, the first day of usage, fully charged, my Lumia lasted only 7 hours. Even with all the connectivities switched off it was continuosly losing its juice with the speed of 7-9% per hour.
Eventually I reported the problem to Nokia via feedback function in the Lumia phone.
Next day I got an official Nokia message on my email ADVISING TO RESET THE PHONE BY FOLLOWING SETTINGS->ABOUT->RESET YOUR PHONE to try to improve battery prfomance.
What I actually did was:
(1) let battery be drained completely
(2) than let it get some juice just to get the phone started
(3) did the reset procedure as Nokia had suggested (with all the content synchronised in advance)
(3) IN ADDITION TO THIS did a HARDWARE RESET (press volume down and power key for more than 5 seconds)
(5) let the phone charge for 10 hours in a row
HAVING DONE ALL THIS I HAD THE FIRST TIME A RATHER REASONABLE BATTERY LIFE TODAY - now 16 hours has passed after the disconnection and the Lumia still has 30% of charge (moderate use during the day - 22 calls, automatic gmail box and calendar check via rather poor wi-fi each hour, several photos, getting 2-3-4 photos from skydrive back on phone, full size)
I willing to re-do charging cicles 0-100% up to two times more.
I'd like to share my experience of Nokia Lumia 920 battery life.
The first five days it was that poor I was sure I would bring it back to a store where I had got it from.
For example, the first day of usage, fully charged, my Lumia lasted only 7 hours. Even with all the connectivities switched off it was continuosly losing its juice with the speed of 7-9% per hour.
Eventually I reported the problem to Nokia via feedback function in the Lumia phone.
Next day I got an official Nokia message on my email ADVISING TO RESET THE PHONE BY FOLLOWING SETTINGS->ABOUT->RESET YOUR PHONE to try to improve battery prfomance.
What I actually did was:
(1) let battery be drained completely
(2) than let it get some juice just to get the phone started
(3) did the reset procedure as Nokia had suggested (with all the content synchronised in advance)
(3) IN ADDITION TO THIS did a HARDWARE RESET (press volume down and power key for more than 5 seconds)
(5) let the phone charge for 10 hours in a row
HAVING DONE ALL THIS I HAD THE FIRST TIME A RATHER REASONABLE BATTERY LIFE TODAY - now 16 hours has passed after the disconnection and the Lumia still has 30% of charge (moderate use during the day - 22 calls, automatic gmail box and calendar check via rather poor wi-fi each hour, several photos, getting 2-3-4 photos from skydrive back on phone, full size)
I willing to re-do charging cicles 0-100% up to two times more.
Mine lasts a day always. Slightly better battery life than Lumia 800 so i'm really happy.

Listening the discussion accross all WP8 devices it seems like there's some apps that are giving probs. Somebody reported timer app that heated 8X and Lumia 820, also it seems like there's option in maps that you might wanna check out.

Also always give it a week. of course if you don't have third party apps and on standy the device wont last a day, then there's a problem and you should exhance.
My black Lumia work very well.. And battery life is decent...no issues..
My battery "seemed" to be doing really weird things (for example, from 70% to 40% during a one hour jog)--until I ran the battery down to zero and did a full recharge. Now, much, much (much) better. No worries about running out in one day... In the backround I have:
Battery Level
BBC News
Bloomberg News
CNN
My Stocks
Nokia Driver Beta
USA Today
Weather Channel
NY Times Plus, I am updating two email accounts in real time, and another every 15 minutes...
yeah this was the case with my Lumia 800 as well. Thebattery life improved a lot after a week or two.
But like i said above if you have no 3rd party apps and the battery is out in ~16 hours on standby then you certainly have a problem on the phone.
I had to turn off NFC. It dramatically helped with battery live.
I have say i'm stunned by how good the battery life on this phone is. 13 hours since last charge, with moderate use (couple of calls, good number of texts, downloads, little bit of browsing and bluetooth on all day) and ive only lost 24%.

other phones (including iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, HTC HD7 and most recently the Lumia 800) would have practically been on their knees by now. for years, i have genuinely considered a full work day (up at 6am, bed at 11pm) without actually running out of battery a bonus.
I was about to write about NFC when I saw your post. After turning it off, I have seen good improvement. All day (10 hrs) usage brought my Lumia to 50%. Before turning off NFC, I would be charging my phone already.
TOn of issues, the battery drains when using anything. Before you say "well of course the battery drains when you use your phone", the issue i am having is if i am whatsapping, the % goes down a point every 30 or so seconds. If i am using the people app or using nextgen, it goes down quickly. The only way i can stop the phone from draining is not use it at all. Seems any app being used on the phone drains a ton of battery. I can get through the day starting at 730 through 5:30 easily and still have 40-50% left in battery with my 900 with the same settings. for my 920, i am at 25% here at 2 pm after starting at 100% at 7am.

Yes i turned off drive, i turned off some background tasks, i turned off bluetooh, nfc and i only have weather and battery saver app running in background.
Doesn't matter what app i use, it drains a lot. I am surprised i see people getting 24 hours, makes me think either my phone is bad or nobody is really using their phone.
I know nothing is really running heavy in the background, before i went to bed, the phone was fully charged, i unplugged overnight to see how much battery drained and in over 6 hours while i was sleeping, the % was still 100%. So the battery is great when on standby, once i started browsing using IE, people hub, whatsapp, or nextgen reader, you can see hwo fast the battery drains after only a few minutes.

HOpe there is some type of fix, but i will probably exchange this phone to test out another. The 900's battery which wasn't that great had respectable performance.
by the way the stimated time left fluctuates extremeley, from 2 hours left to all of a sudden 10 hours left. i understand its based on usage, but that is way off, i never seen flcuations like that on other wp7 phones. Also, nobody seems to answer this, but i dont see the battery saver changing the estimated time like it used to on wp7, does it change for anybody else?
Just change it out. My friend's 920 had a horrible speaker. He is dealing with horrible customer service at AT&T to get it replaced. They seem incapable of holding onto one and letting him know to come and get it changed out.
I am surprised your having that issue, I have bunch of background apps on also use feed updates in my people hub, wpcentral like 3 4 times an hour, listen to music web browser and its really good, I this morning listened to about an hour of music from offline playlist in Nokia music battery went down 2%
Ya it sucks, i've reset, let it die and fully charged twice, turned off most of the apps in background. it just a monster drain...It seems to me the phone gets warmer on wifi than on data, i turned off wifi and doesn't get nearly as warm as it does on.

I will probably just get an exchange.
i'm having the exact same problems as you. as long as i don't use the phone then i'm fine, once i use anything the battery percentage plummets! the only background app i have running is Weather. i also have my gmail account sync setting on 'as items arrive'.
not sure what else to do at this point, i have to recharge multiple times a day and i'm constantly worried about how much my battery will drop the next time i check it. i've had the phone since Friday (launch day) and i think i'll give it one full week of charge cycles, but the situation looks dire.
My 920 seems to be doing fine. I can make it from 7am until about 9pm before it goes into power save mode. And that's with some pretty heavy usage.
I have had to carry around my 900 because my 920 can't seem to hold a charge. I am getting a few hours of use per full charge. I have to admit though I can't keep my hands off it and people keep asking to play around with it.
So far I'd say the battery life is just ok. I think I could make it through a day as long as I don't play any games. Playing angry birds star wars for 30 minutes does drain the battery by 50% though.
I'm really curious about this issue. I've found that my LG Quantum overheats pretty quickly when playing things like Wordament and the heat seems to have damaged the battery. I know I can replace it easily in the Quantum, but how do you replace the battery in the 920 if it goes? Can the user do it?
I found angry birds to be a huge drain on my titan. Pretty much the numbers you said. Haven't tried it on my 920 yet. (This is a reply to cgold1 and this is my third try so if it is in the wrong place I am leaving it.)
Lame
It was great Saturday and Sunday, sucked yesterday, and has been great today. Yesterday I was in a mall back hallway though... working and lots of calls in a poor signal area in an LTE area. I had Skype installed and signed in too. I uninstalled it last night and back to normal today. Have used GPS (Drive+) a lot since I'm traveling in Indiana this week.
I just had a 50 minute Skype Video call using WiFi. My battery went down from 68% to 28%. I am not sure what normal battery usage would be. Is this normal usage?
received my lumia 920 on friday and i did notice that the battery was going down faster than i would have anticipated. in fact the clearest image is from sunday night ... went to bed around 1030pm with about 79% battery remaining ... was woken up around 1am due email notification going off (getting to learn my new WP8 - lol), saw battery was at 48% and the phone was definitely warm ... woke up around 730am to find 920 had turned off with empty battery. that type of standby (idle) battery drainage seems rather incongruous to what i would expect. reading the article, perhaps i need to do a few full charges and see what happens.
Could it be at&t cellular
Would be interesting to know if there is some common lot number or date similarity that could tie together those reporting bad battery life. Is there some common identifier? Battery and\or phone.
After 8 hours my Lumia 920 shows 99%. Downloaded an app, talked for 5 mins, browsed a little bit. In short, the battery life seems excellent.
how on earth are you getting times like this, mine lasts about 2 hours, hits 99% then after the dsrop to 99% it seems to die rapidly, lasting about 8 hours before its dead, this is just from moderate use too, texts, quick internet broswe and checking th eapp store, and i have all my power saving options constantly on to maximise battery life,
Sorry, but I've been experiencing this with my Lumia 900 (yes, 900) for several weeks. On some days, battery life is excellent, on others it sucks. There are no (visible) background processes running. The active radios are always the same (gps, Bluetooth, wifi). There's nothing I can do to influence the battery life.
I've had no problems at all
Friday and Saturday, great battery life. Sunday through today, pretty awful. I'm not sure what's different. Usage is about the same.
You'd be surprised how much data connection drains your battery, with all that stuff constantly updating and checking status.
While I'm rearranging my contract with T-Mobile, I don't have available data connection. Now, instead of recharging my Omnia 7 every day, it's enough to charge just two time per week, may be three times if I use it a lot.
I have not had any problems with the battery, however I have had constant restarts when using my bluetooth headphones. It seems that I am not the only one from the forums and as much as it saddens me, I have started using corded headphones again until this problem is fixed, hopefully I can go back to my wireless ones soon. Gotta fix this shit Nokia!
If I use the included plug, charging is hit and miss. If I use mu old iPhone plug it charges find no problem so I think the charge plug for US at least my be defective. And as far at battery life it up and down. To day I am 8+ hoist off the charger been listening to music and still close to 60+ percent but I turn my screen sensitivity off (does not seem to affect the sensitivity though, I can still use the screen through my sweater sleeve) and my brightness I'd on low & auto)
I honestly don't know. I am home a lot, so any time my phone's under 70% or so, I stick it on the charger. I had it go from about 1 PM to 10 PM and still be well-charged, but I also plugged it in between my class that got out at 4 PM and the next, which I left for around 6:30 PM.
My lumia 920 works very well. I used my Phone 17 h and 10 h still remain. I turned off NFC, bluetooth and 4G.
You can't turn off 4G, you can turn off data in general
Have they changed that? I can be done on my Lumia 900.
You can turn off 4g when you switch to 3g data as max speed, it will disable 4g completely in that config
Just to be 100% clear (i haven't even bought my 920 yet, waiting for all the November and December holiday pay), You can turn off 4G LTE and bump down to 3G?

If this is true.... Awesomeness, as i expect 4G LTE to really bog down as carriers push new devices and then for 3G speeds to start increasing as less people are on those frequencies.
Yes its true
Can u tell me how? Here i m referring to an att l900
Yes you can do it under Windows phone 8. Go to settings > mobile network > highest connection speed. Now you you can choose between 2G, 3G and 4G.
Well i mentioned ATT L900 :P We get nothing...
My 920 doesn't have Settings -> Mobile Network.
????
First off, whenever you purchase a new phone you don't plug it in until the battery dies completely. COMPLETELY. Then you plug it in until it is completely charged. This is for it to learn its limits. My 920 has great battery life so far, no problems at all. I'm talking a full day worth of charge with text, email, phone calls, internet, and slight gaming
Yea always have to drain the battery completely at least twice every 30 days.
I'd bet an entire week's paycheck that half these people were just too happy to finally have their phone and didn't do this... So stupid. You're supposed to do this for pretty much ALL electronics nowadays. Phones, laptops, mp3 players, etc...
For Downhillrider what is moderate use? You said no games or music, so texting? Phone calls ? GPS? What apps are you running in the background?
My 920 has had the battery overheating issue. It's happened when the phone is on charge and when it's not. The spot between the camera and the headphone jack gets really hot. Not seen any serious battery drain issues, but that heat can't be a good sign right? Does this justify a replacement?
That's not the battery
Near the top of the phone, slightly above and to the side of the camera (and taking up the bulk of the space on either side) is the CPU and the GPU. Sounds like your phone is working hard at something CPU intensive (especially if the screen is off, as that would preclude the GPU die), which could very well be pinging towers to find the best signal. My 900 does the same sort of thing when I'm bouncing between low 4G signal and good Edge or 3G. When that happens and I notice it, I simply force my phone into airplane mode, or force the lower speed if the connectivity is that important.
I can't of course say for sure that's what it is, but Munkeyphyst is right - that's not the battery (usually you get pretty even heat across the device, although more on the lower half of the phone than the top, if the battery is heating up).
I have a busy Samsung focus first generation, running weather, lot of news, multiple push emails and doing lots of whatsapp. Take 5or 6 calls. Battery lasts from 8 AM to 7 PM, where it goes to saver mode with heart symbol. Now, what is this Lumia 920 doing? One word, should I buy it or not?
I finally upgraded from a samsung focus 1st gen to a 920 and it is amazing.
That said, my focus would last anywhere from 6 hours to a full day on a charge - the strange thing is that it would last only 6 hours sometimes when I wasn't doing anything with it and other times would go a full day when doing a ton of stuff with it. So far with the 920 I go to bed with 75%+ left and haven't had any battery issues.
Great to hear. I'm still rocking my Focus, gonna get the 920 maybe next month or so. I'll sure be sad to let go of Old Faithful... :(
I'm still rocking the Focus as well. Bought a new battery for it a month ago and it's lasting the whole day (older battery wouldn't last a day).
The battery saver percentage and estimated time left indicator is not something to go by. It changes constantly based on how you used it most recently.

Also, when people get new phones they tend to tinker more, install more ect. My brothers 920 has been giving me similar life to my 900, which was easily a full day with typical business/personal use. Heavy days require a quick charge in late evening if planning on using it all night.
Everyone said the same about the 900. They need to configure the settings right
I'm also experiencing the quick drain issue, but I have not yet let the phone drain completely yet. So I'm going to do that tonight, then let it charge 100% them reasses the situation.
Im also not very pleased with the battery live. it's not much better than on my old DVP
I said 18 hours, but depending on use I'd put it 12-24. Much better than my focus flash.
Could be similar to the early software bugs of the 900... my 900 was painful at first, but is a slick efficient device now :-/
When I first got my phone I simply charged it all the way up and was playing with it during the day but the usage was fairly light. Then my wife was playing Angry Birds: Star Wars while I got my hair cut and when I got the phone back I almost no battery left despite having 70% charge and only about 23 minutes of regular usage on Angry Birds.
I let the battery drain all the way down and recharged it. After that process the battery life seems to be doing very well.
Angry Birds Star Wars seems to have this affect on all phones. My HTC One X had 77% battery before playing. I played all of about 5 minutes before having to get up and do something, and my phone dropped 10 percent. Rediculous.
My Lumia 920 has been doning fine for battery life. Now with that being said, when I installed the preview version of Skype and let it run in the background my battery drained in half within an hour or so. So I decided to uninstall Skype since I do not use it alot, and the battery use went back to being awesome. Better battery than my Lumia 900 had. I am curious if the problems people are having are related to Skype or another program running in the background?
I had a discharge of 30 percent in one hour with moderate use charged it full and now going 10 hours with 30 percent left. I did tryout the Skype app a little before it hit 30, might have had something to do with it.
I hope this is fixed when I get my yellow 920. :-)
Does anyone know if high contrast mode drains the battery?
LOL of course it does. I always keep my 920 on medium brightness, turn off location services unless you're actually needing them on, turn off NFC etc. All of those things really kill the battery.
Right now at 10 hours since last charge I'm at 77% remaining. No complaints here.
Is your data setting set to 4G, 3G or 2G?
Is you r data setting set to 4G, 3G or 2G
Is you r data setting set to 4G, 3G or 2G
Battery issues with my phone as well. If it doesn't get better in a couple of days I am going to exchange it for another one.
Try use the phone when the battery is 0% and shut donw itself. Then charge it till 100%. May be useful.
I have a red Lumia 920 and I get about 12 hours out if it where as I got a full 10 from my iPhone 5.
I was getting around 6 hours of battery life until I allowed it to drain completely, and then let it charge over night. Now I get about 12 hours of moderate to heavy use.
Same here.
I would almost guarantee it's the AT&T Microcell that is causing this.
mine is very temperamental, some days it will last a day easily, and then yesterday and the day before for example, it drained like there was no tomorrow, dead in less than 6 hours from a full charge.

what's weird is the apps are the same, usage pattern is very similar, and the network connection is very similar for all usages.

i'm point the blame at att's network as well though, they need to tweak it so that it hands off to hspa when idle faster so it's not connected to LTE when you don't need it to be.
After i got 920, but before full charge battery was going out very quickly, like 10 per hour of moderate use. It was like that for one and half day - in that time i charged battery few times, but never till 100%.
After that i charged my phone overnight till 100% and from then everything went normal. Now battery last more or less 36 hours of heavy internet+wifi use and many apps in background.
Sorry but that's a a lie. Heavy internet use would drain any phone throughout day.
After I charged it few times it got better. At the beginning the battery just last 6h or so, now its around 12h ...my iPhone4steve had much better runtimes :(
I just fully charged mine 100% and it says estimated time remaining is 6 hours... (Not that great) the thing is it won't last nearly that long. Maybe Nokia fixes this, I'd like to know in case I have to bring this back
I've the same battery issue as many describes. I pulled it off charger morning at 6am and battery was fully dead by 1.30pm with very low usage. No calls, no texts, 30 minutes of internet on LTE and 15 minutes of offline music in total. My Focus will stay at 95% with this usage even after 1.5 yrs. Either the device is faulty or a general issue with some common pattern.
Also, any one else has slow charging problem? I charged it from my desktop USB port for 3.5 hrs and it went up from 8% to 37%. WTH? My Focus and Blackberry Bold charges normally using the same USB port and cable and it takes less than 2hrs to go 100%. I really hate what is happening with the battery in my 920.
It's been 9 hours of the charger and I'm at 77% with 11 hours left. I'm pretty happy
I wonder if the "Battery Discharger" app can help fix the battery dilemma.
Its probably a 3g issues like 800 had. Turn off 3g and battery will last all day
I had the worst battery ever with my red 920, however. I let the battery drain till the phone powered off, and now it's fantastic, so far it seems even better than 900. I love this phone.
I got mine with my 2 roomates all got the 920 at the same time under a shared data plan. Mine is definitely defective. It takes 8 hrs to fully charge my phone and the battery life only last for 5. My 2 roomates have had their phones last a day and more.
It's so frustrating, because I'm the one that wanted the lumia desperately, and I got the bad egg out of the bunch. Oh well, I'll be exchanging it anyways for a different color.
So the non-existant battery issues that plagued Nokia Lumia 800 has rolled over to 920
try turn off Nokia Drive Beta.
It stays in background task even you close the program.....
Go to settings -> background task -> blcok Nokia Drive Beta.
After that, my battery last 2 days now.
Agreed. Drive killed my battery too. I didn't even know it was running in the background until I was driving down the road and kept hearing a beeping noise when I would speed up and slow down (speed limit alert!)
My phone only lasted 4 hours after a full charge. The phone gets very warm. I will try turning off NFC as suggested above. I only have 3 apps running in the background.
I was playing cut the rope at the dr. office this morning (8:30am) for myabe 15 minutes. Took a lot of my battery. I had maybe a little over 50%. Noticed my phone was a little warm around lunch still so I restarted it. Battery didn't seem to go down as fast but it still didn't last after 5pm....
I was streaming music because I cant figure out how to just play music that is only on my phone. They better get this whole music playing stuff figured out soon. It's frustrating!
I love my new Nokia Lumia 920. Nokia build quality is great, WP8 OS is very enjoyable, Antenna/Reception is great.
Battery life was not good at all until I turned off Nokia Drive beta and NFC. I'm now on hour 10 with moderate to heavy use.

Thx
Having no problems. Kills my Rezound. Black here.
I am not experiencing any battery drain issues with my att 920, except with heavy wifi usage. But i am having, what seems like proximity sensor issues. Where the screen wont go black on calls and i have to reset my phone to correct it. Also i have to reset on 3 different occasions because the screen wont turn off when i hit the power button.
Mine has been seriously bad since day 1:
Here you have it, 7hrs and I'm already at 24% with regular use and reporting only 1hr remaining, no different from the use my Lumia 900 is used to while lasting at least 14hrs before going into Battery Saver mode.
I have the Lumia 920 and my battery is ok. This is a dual core processors so I'm expecting it to drain a little bit more. + its using 4g/lte. For me the battery is way better than my Samsung focus 7.5. Last about 2 days but when heavy use it last about a day. My problem is the exchange when u move ur email to a folder it doesn't sync right away. The email still appears in my outlook. I have to click the sync button on my phone to sync in the exchange server. Has anyone have the same issue?
Not sure this poll is for standby time or not. My standby time is really good, only few percentage down over one night. These are what I did: 1. Logout all 3rd party apps, like amazon, eBay, metro tube, and etc. 2. Block background as much as I can. 3. Forward emails from all others to live email accounts so that I keep one email account. Battery usage is very good on standby.
I can only go about 5 hours on a complete charge if not using the device using airplane mode and battery saver. When I use my 920 and turn off airplane mode and battery saver, I get about 3.5-4 hours of use. It's absurd! My 900 could go 1-2 days on a full charge. Becoming quite disappointed with my 920. I pray that there is a ln update in the works like the 800 received! Ughhh!
This sounds like an issue I had with my HTC desire, problem was an app that wasn't shutting down properly after I upgraded to android 2.2. Wouldn't surprise me if it was something like that, as people mention the phone getting hot too, which is the CPU being used.
I personally have exactly the same apps as on my 900. Had the battery meter app and thought it might causing the excessive drain and uninstalled it. Didn't make a difference.
After I installed battery app I started with these issues. I uninstalled and will charge overnight to see if its the culprit. App was showing 1 day and 22 hours left after overnight charge at 530am by 1030am app said 3 hours on very low use and only to apps in background
Initially the battery emptied pretty quickly but definitely seems to be getting better. Unplugged at 5:30 this morning and it's at 55% right now 13 hours later though only a few calls and light browsing, no games or music so far.
I charged it overnight. Took the phone off this morning and tested the battery life on this bad boy. I turned off Nokia drive, location, WiFi, and turned up the brightness. I texted, emailed, surfed, showed it off and used the GPS and Nokia drive (turned on location services to do so and then turned it off). I also ran some apps, played games on it and listened to Nokia music on it. I got about 6 solid hours on my 920. I thought that was pretty impressive. It died and turned itself off. I recharged it and it is fine. I'm going to charge it and then Dee how long it lasts with moderate use tomorrow.
I've decided that I'm going to have whatever background tasks running that I want and use the phone the way it should. If I can't get more than 6 or so hours use out if it by Friday (one week of having the phone) I'm just simply returning it. I don't want to constantly check my battery.
I don't trust 3rd party background processes. I turned all of them off.
Stats from the phone tell me I have 12 hours left and it has been 10 hours since my last charge. This is better than what I have seen previously since I got the device last Friday.
I can tell from this comment that some people are new to this Os.There are app in the background that powering the life tiles,even when it's not in use.You guys should go to settings,application and then background tasks and manually switch off those app that way the live tile update when next the app is open.Hopefully that would help both the battery and data bill.
Im not new to the OS, i've been on the focus s and 900 and didnt experience battery drainage like this.
I dont even listen to music or make too many phone calls, usually whatsapp, people hub, IE, nextgen reader, wpcentral.
Bluetooh turned off, nfc off, only weather and battery saver app in background.
at 2 pm after up at 7am, the phone is at 25% and died an hour later. This is not a beginner issue, this is a battery issue. As you can see in the poll there is a ton of people with this issue. Just read the forums.
Leaving battery saver and turning off all backgrounds and live tiles is not an option either.
Naw, first gen Focus owner here. Always had location on, several live tiles, notifications, email, phone calls, surfing, and NEVER had quick battery drainage issues like I had when I got the 920 (accompanied by extremely slow charge times).

It was startling to find that the Nokia Drive app was still running after I had tested it out but I quickly disabled that background task on day one. It took several days for things to "get back to normal". Hard to say if others would have the patience before decideding that WP wasn't worth the trouble. Turning off every single service shouldn't be necessary though since this is a smartphone and "Live Tiles" will be dead tiles without these tasks/services.
Remaining battery: 75% Estimated time reminaing: 1 day 21 hours Time since last charge: 8 hours
That's with a lot of texting, taking a couple pictures, playing a game for about 15 minutes after downloading it, browsing Facebook and Twitter, playing some Youtube videos at full volume, apps running the background, NFC and Wifi enabled, and checking e-mail. I've had pretty great battery life since I got the phone on Friday so no complaints here.
That sounds amazing.
12 hours of moderate use and I'm at 50%. First few days seemed to tax it more but then again I was using it more. :)
I posted my comment less than 1 hr ago. It was at 24%, guess how low is it right now? 6%!! Between then and now I received 2 text messages, and 3 messages through WhatsApp. There is definitely something wrong with the battery life and the 920. Mine is the black color. And yes, the top part of the phone is clearly warm throughout the day, even when standing by.
My Black 920 started off horribly - Picked it up launch day and now, 4 days later and after a few full charging cycles, it is now performing @ 12 hours or better with normal use. I also just learned that the back button is your friend when attempting to kill apps running in the background, I had no idea thats how you did it.
My Lumia drained really fast the first two days but after that it has been good.
My battery sucks when using GPS but otherwise it's pretty solid.
Battery problems? Nope. I have had my matte black Lumia 920 since 9:05am launch day and use it very often. I am actually writing this with my phone which doubles as my getaway when I am not home. My battery lasts from 8am-2am daily. Yes, it runs for 16-18 hours before it nudges me for a recharge... Luckily with the free wireless charger coming in today, I think my phone will start to outlast my busy life. ..but then again, that's a good thing..... Unless you are an apple user. If you are, your iTrash dies in a few hours. (:
Same expirence here. My 920 runs 48 hours with normal usage. Some bckground tasks und pus mail for 2 email accounts.
8 - 10 Telfon calls.
I'm getting great battery life I unplugged at 7am is now 8pm and I'm still around 80 percent
Did you take your phone through any recharge cylces?
Yes. Let it die, then charge to 100%.
Give it few days it will be back to normal
Blocking Nokia drive made a huge difference on mine. It would get very hot at the earpiece & get only 2hrs of talk time on a full charge or last 1/2 day without calls. Now i'm going on 12 hrs with almost 80% left (light/moderate use). Very happy with it now.
After 12 hours with moderate use it still has 50% charge.
I'm one of the few who had horrid battery life for the first couple of days. Didn't have to "break-in" my Focus this much.

I was patient and went online to find answers but I can imagine first time WP owners saying eff-that, returning their 920s to the store and going iOS/Android. Sigh...

Now can we get a poll for the heat issue? It's really just when calling and skyping. Want a strong case before trying to exchange my portable hot-plate...
My stores haven't had any 920's returned so far. So far we have sold 12-15 and that would be about 10% of our sales mix.
Friends and I have figured out a main culprit. NOKIA DRIVE BETA. immediately go into background tasks and block Nokia drive from running in the background. Thank me later. After I turned this off I get home from work with 45% battery left.
Its could also be a bad battery. I had the same problem with my Lumia 900 when I got it and I got it replaced and it works fine now.
People panicking you need to give the battery 4 to 5 charge cycles to condition it
Not panicking. Didn't need 4 to 5 charge cycles for my first-gen Focus. That was like 1 or 2. Why should we give Nokia more slack. Why can't they run some charge cycles before these things leave the factory?
Maybe the wireless charging isn't as good as a direct connection. I assume you can stil plug in directly?
I had the exact same problem with my lumia 900. At full charge it said 6 hours remaining and the phone was warm even when not using it. But I got it replaced for another phone.
Yes, remember back when the 900 came out that there were massive reports of battery life issues... Until everyone realized the trick of discharging completely and letting the device die. Then, everyone reported pretty decent battery life. By the way, this is a good idea with ANY rechargeable battery. NiMH seems especially prone to this. Note that some manufacturers ship their devices with batteries that have undergone this forced-discharge. ;-)
Well, actually that's not true. Fully draining your battery is not recommended. Oh, and my L900 has probably never been down below 25% since April, and I top it off whenever I can. Battery performs admirably. Pretty sure the full drain/charge concept has placebo effect. But if you wanna believe, go right ahead. I'll never do it.
I am pretty sure lith-ion batteries don't need conditioning and don't have memory problems..
Actually, when you get a new battery it is recommended to discharge it fully for the first 3-4 cycles, after that and once you have good battery life, it is BAD for you to fully discharge it every time.
Wow... Im really holding on to my lumia 900
The Lumia 900 has so many issues i cant count the with one hand starting with the 3.5mm headphone jack and the battery drain problem. I got my Lumia 920 on friday red color. and I am really amaze with the product. I am Also a iphone 5 owner and the lumia battery is awesome. I turn off the email put it manualy, the bluetooth and wifi off, the screen to low, turn off the tap feature. and since 7am until now that in here is 10pm i am at 34%. this is good because i am a very heavy user. i work on diferent places on one day and the signal and battery are really great. It works better than the iphone 5, WP8 OS stability, speed, and many other thing that make it very productive. I am in Puerto Rico and the phone perfomance may vary depending on the area since we got many mountains.
Note, the actual battery status and estimated life requires usage before the software actually gets calibrated properly.
That means, until you have been through multiple charge and discharage cycles, and used the device and different battery load levels; it lies to you.

When you actually measure the battery supply, you USE the battery. Constantly measuring the battery is called shorting it, and would drain it in seconds to minutes!
So, you must poll it peroidically, use temeprature and other indicators to actuall battery life. And it just takes time for those algorthims to get all the data they need to work properly.
And yes, it is the same with all smart phones, do not idealize.
12-13 hours is decent for any smartphone now. And by now, shouldn't we all have portable chargers already? ;-)
so far Sunday I got about 8-12 hours from the phone (listened to a lot of music and took a lot of pictures at night to test out the pureview) then the next day I went the entire day without even waisting 50% of my battery (by the end of the night I still had "17 hours left") that day I mainly texted and checked facebook and IMDB while at the movies... I have a feeling that having "Dolby Headphones" on drains the battery more... More days needed to truly say how the battery is working
Kinda the same story with the 900 when it dropped. A bunch of people talking about less than expected battery life and I think, including me. After a few weeks of use it was all good. I expect the same will be true here too.
As long as I dont have Nokia drive running in the background(actively running), my battery is awesome. Even if Nokia drive isnt activly routing me, it will drain the battery. I dont have it "blocked" just have to fully close it out in the settings menu when not using it
First day I used it and drained quickly because it wasn't a full charge.. The following day everything turned out to be fine. We have both the Black and Cyan Lumia 920s. I'm amazed with the 4G LTE speed here in San Francisco and with tethering for my Surface RT tablet in a medium usage (web, app downloads, 8 patch updates), it only ate up about 15% of the battery in about 2 hours. So I'm quite impressed with how well it utilizes energy. My droid phones? Forget it...
I have been pleased so far until today I had the 920 in my suitcoat tonight and noticed it was getting hot. Only thing i have ued different was more xbox music andNavigon. I had 3 reboots and when using bluetooth radio in Ford Explorer (2013) it disconnected from bluetooth 5 times. Certatinly never saw this in 6 months with Lumia 900.....hmmmmmmmm!!!!
My battery is a disaster. I have a 100% charge when I left for work in the morning, periodically even placing it back in on charger during work. Rarely using it during work hours. By the time I got out of work I was at 70%, went to class, by the middle of class roughly 8 a clock, it was down to 29% so I put it on battery saver mode, by the end of class at 9:30 it was so low that I put it on airplane mode (Should have probably just turned it off at that point). I turned off Nokia Drive beta before so I know that's not the issue. I'm gonna have to take this one back. It just drops immediately.
I know the estimated time fluctuates but it's a bit ridiculous. When I woke up it said I had a day and change left on my phone. I didn't even use it as I was getting ready for work. After a 10 minute drive to work it at 99% but with an 8 hour estimated time remaining. The thing just doesn't seem to shut down power wise when no one is using it, and goes overdrive when someone is using it.
YCS
I have mine. It works great. With very sparing use you can go eight hours on 10%. Just turn stuff off when you're not using it... (Bluetooth NFC WiFi)
My battery life is really not that good was at 32% after 5 hours from 100% with moderate use. Just music really in a transmitter off and in in that 5 hr span. Kinda frustrating
Shut up!!!!!!!!!!1 no such problem with my 920. Its battery backup is best of any other samartphone i had ever used.
I remember the iPhone 3GS having this same issue when it was released... it would get really hot and the battery would die after a few hours... firmware update fixed it.
My initial two days could only go about 5 hours before getting below 35%. Now I've been off the charger for nearly 16 hours now and am at 50%.
I had this issue a few times with the Lumia 900 earlier on. One of the popular news readers in live tile mode was notorious for sucking down the battery. The other was in the xbox game configuration to make sure and turn off the friend game request feature. After I got rid of those two things, battery life was great and I can confirm it continued to get better as time went on.
Mine was the sane for the first few days but doing very good now. Obviously a conditioning thing, had the same with my iPhone just a little more extreme with the 920
I unplugged my 920 yesterday at 08:00 in the morning. I used it at day a bit, wrote at whatsapp, checked facebook from time to time in my breaks and stuff. At 18:30 I left work and went to a friend, played with my Lumia a bit more there, afterwords, I called my gf for 30 minutes. At 24:00 I had 35% left. I guess mine is fine then? :)
Btw:
I deactivate 3G & LTE via shortcut when I don't need it. BT off, Position-services off, NFC off...
I haven't received my 920 yet so I can't say anything about the battery issues but if it has some of the same settings in there as the WP7.5 has then one thing that I found drained my battery so fast is the "Find my phone" setting. Select only the lower setting check box and not the top one which is "connect to these features faster". This will drain your battery in a heart beat. Once I changed that setting I was getting 12 - 16 hours with moderate use at work all day. Granted with heavier use, such as gaming, it will cut it down rather quickly. So check this setting and if it's selected unselect it and give it a try.
I am quite sure some manufacturers choose a low capacity battery on purpose, as rechargeable batteries have only a certain number of recharge cycles before it becomes a piece of junk. It is not a problem to use a slightly bigger battery as Motorola could do that improving the user experience a lot. MS is known for forcing people to buy new hardware (look at its Directx 11.1 OS compatibility, MS Office 2012 compatibility, IE compatibility, Apollo being denied to Lumia 800/900 owners). I refuse to support such practices but am quite sure some fanboys would still be ecstatic if Nokia/MS used 900 mAh batteries claiming it makes their phones look better... As long as consumers do not put enough pressure on manufacturers we will get low quality and high prices. I don't want to be a part of that and am planning to get a nice, easily upgradeable Android phone with a huge battery when the time for my T-Mobile contract renewal comes.
maybe your point would be valid IF microsoft made the phone.. this is a NOKIA phone... and it has a 2000ma battery.. thats bigger than 95% of all phones batteries.. so all of what you said is hate speech agains MS for no reason... kthxbye
MS = Nokia basically
2000 is nothing special now
is directx11.1 compatible with vista?
MS Office 2012? IE10? facts, not hate speech
My battery was only lasting like 6 hours and once I turned OFF TAP to SEND its giving me over a day.
Same here. That made the big difference... :)
This is a good resource on how to treat your battery: http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries
TL:DR-version: Don't discharge fully. Keep the discharging as little as possible. Better to charge when at 40% than at 10%. Avoid heat.
78% - 6 hours remaining
Turned off Drive Beta and rebooted - 11 hours remaining
Iam happy now that I have mine lumia 710, 1.5 day is now problem for my phone. And if I don't use it a lot its working for over 2 days. So what's the point to have so advance phone if U can't use it normally because U have too worry for ur battery life all the time. The concerns should do something about batteries I think they have the technology but they want to make more money out off selling spare batteries or chargers ( wireless chargers for 920). I remember the time when I had my Nokia classic 6303i and it works on one charge for all week I wish the modern phones could do the same :)
Mine has been working great and lasting most of day with no issues. I would say better than my 900. I am very heavy user with music playing for a few hours everyday, often via bluetooth. I haven't turned off tap-to-send or any other settings, since I would rather use everything how I want, when I want. My performance would rank up up any of the current AT&T lineup and have been using since launch day.
No problems...coming from Android the 920 has amazing battery life...
Mine lasted a full day with me being on conference calls for around 6 hours. Right now I'm 45% after a few calls, 3 email accounts syncing every 10 mins and decent web use. I've only been charging it when the battery is as close to going dead as possible.
was too excited to fully charge the phoen the first time.. .i used it till it died... then i fully charged it... phone was great... then monday.. the battery was draining... WAY TOO FAST... full discharge and recharge... tuesday lasted the whole day... NOW today... at full charge... this thing is already at 44% it's only been 4 hours... i watched 3 HD videos about 20 minutes total... light surfing.. heaving group texting... BT off, NFC on, nokia drive off... going to do the discharge cycle a few more times this week... lets hope this battery is condition by then.. other wise i need to swap before my 14days with ATT
NFC is a big batter drain.. but i had it on all day since launch ,and the phone was fine... any ideas.. why the batteries are varying across devices? is their really a software upgrade to help condition it? is mine a lemon.. love the phone. but hate baby sitting...
Just to add some stats, here's my story.

I unplugged the phone last night at 9:30 with 100% charge (unplugged it overnight to test the battery). Woke up at about 5:30 this morning to 74% remaining. Played Angry birds Star Wars for about 40 minutes, used bluetooth for music in the car for about 15 minutes, and had 2.5 hours of talk time along with many emails coming in (3 push accounts). As of right now, I'm at 55% battery left. I'm not unhappy with that, although the idea that it lost 26% of it's charge while sitting around overnight is a bit crazy. I might switch off NFC tonight and see how it does.
Awesome battery life for 3 days...but today it has gone WAY down hill! First first 3 days, I had over 70% at end of day after moderate use (compared to half that with Lumia 900). Up through that point, I had only installed a few apps with Live tiles that were verified for Windows Phone 8 (ESPN, Weather Channel, etc.). However, added "Mystocks Portfolio Plus" last night (great app for WP7.5)... Today, i was down to 20% in 3 hours after almost NO use at all! Phone was hot all morning. I deleted the app (and turned off Nokia Drive background task) and things seemed to have stabilized, but i have NOT confirmed this is the issue. Is there ANY chance that WP7/7.5 Apps could be coded to continuously run in the background on WP8? versus setting of every 10+ minutes?
If so, this is a recipe for disaster! I know WP7 apps "can" run on WP8, but this issue and other compatibility* issues could make that claim less powerful unless they get this fixed!
*Try Elmos Calls, for example, which does not run correctly on WP8.
Just a heads up here.Draining a Li-ion battery is the worst thing someone can do.You should recharge your phone and any device with a Li-ion battery when it reaches a 20% level.Draining the battery and letting the phone shut off due to battery will damage a Li-ion battery and will make it lose its maximum capacity pretty quick.These practices were for Ni-Mh batteries.Li-ion batteries work totally different.
I have a Galaxy S3 too and I see the same things. NFC, signal strength, and screen on times are the biggest battery killers. I get only 1-2 bars at home and my Galaxy S would drain faster at home than at work where I would get 4-5 bars. I also see the same trend on my Lumia 920. I turned of NFC from the start on my S3 because it drained faster. With these big screens the amount of time you have them on will seriously kill the battery, even if brightness is set lower.
I would say the battery life is very similar to my S3 though it took about 3 days for the battery to break in. I'm getting about 16-24 hours depending on usage. I don't play games or watch videos, have about 6 programs running in the background, and 2 push email accounts.
Glad to see this topic and find out it wasn't just me. My battery life had been ok but not great, until it got much worse today. My 920 lost half its charge before noon, when it was sitting unused. By 2:00 it was ready to die, and I had only read some email on it. Turned off all the battery draining features when I set it up.

One thing that changed is that I got my wireless charging pad yesterday and charged the phone overnight on it. It showed a full charge this morning, but wonder if this has anything to do with the issue.
Glad to see this topic and find out it wasn't just me. My battery life had been ok but not great, until it got much worse today. My 920 lost half its charge before noon, when it was sitting unused. By 2:00 it was ready to die, and I had only read some email on it. Turned off all the battery draining features when I set it up.

One thing that changed is that I got my wireless charging pad yesterday and charged the phone overnight on it. It showed a full charge this morning, but wonder if this has anything to do with the issue.
I also have some very weird behaviour.
On weekend I used the new phone very heavy and battery seemed ok.
On Monday I was a work, barely used the phone at all and was shocked to see it going to battery saver mode at around 5pm (unplugged it at about 8am in the morning).
So I deactivated NFC and set maximum data speed to 3G (as I don't have LTE network coverage anyway).
Tuesday, battery life was really quite decent (at about 50% after 8am unplug until 7pm) so I was happy to may have found (or at least narrowed it down) the reason.
With the same setting today the battery dropped from 8am to 11am to 60%. (and yes, I noticed the phone was a little warm).
I did a quick restart and almost made it through the day then (from 60% down it went very moderate).
So something really is very weird here. It seem that some kind of service/background task is keeping the CPU busy in some scenarios.
Tomorrow I will try hard reset and resetting without even touching the "gmail" account. May this helps
(ATM I have gmail synced every 2 hours and I do not see it syncing all the time. But lets see...maybe some background task is faulty there).
After streaming pandora for 8 hours and 30 min of calling.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1676280/wp_ss_20121115_0001.png
Turning NFC off totally fixed my Lumina 920 battery getting drained quickly.
My battery drains real fast. I think its down to 2 reasons: 1.data connection speed is set to 4G. 2.Loads of background apps running.
I dont have 4G in my area so the phone is swithing to 3G sometimes even poor 3G signal which makes it go to 2G. so if its constantly switching network signals that will drain battery fast. my Lumia has no option to keep it only on 2G, but i can change to 3G or 4G. If i could change it to 2G i guess the battery would last all day with no problems.
turning off background apps can also help reduce battery consumption.
btw i have a Lumia 920 bought from Phones4u using a TMobileUK sim
[crossposted from the NFC thread]
I think the problem here is not poor battery life, but poor battery life software. I'll explain. I haven't had consistent battery performance since I got the phone on Nov 12. Yesterday was the worst, with the battery reporting that it went form 100%when I unplugged it to 72% *90 minutes later* with no use of it whatsoever. I recharged throughout the day and it still was reporting that the battery had 23% by the end of the work day and was plummeting. NFC was turned off, as was Bluetooth and just about everything else I could think of. I even did a reboot that morning to clear out any apps running in the background. My office is in the basement, with spotty cell coverage and flaky wi-fi, so that might be a factor, but on Wednesday the battery life was OK. Not so yesterday. Same office, same routine. So, last night, I decided to let the battery exhaust itself and recharge from there. Supposedly, this can help battery life. When it finally turned itself off from a "dead battery", it immediately restarted! It then showed that there was still 14% battery life left, after already being at 0% one minute before. After some Netlfix streaming, it did die and not restart. This morning, after recharging overnight, the battery was at 100% and ***3 hours later*** it sill shows 99% of battery life remaining. So, I don't think it's the battery life, but WP8's battery software, because, none of my experience so far makes *any* sense.
As a test, leave everything on but turn off the data connection in Setting>>Mobile network>> data connection OFF
try this for a day and see how long your battery last
I haven't changed any settings from yesterday, when my battery life was abysmal, to today. Usage is roughly the same and wi-fi and data are both on, as they were yesterday.

After being unplugged from the charger for over 8 hours, I'm still showing 80% battery life left. The only thing different between the days is that I discharged the battery last night. Something tells me that completely discharging once and re-charging calibrates the battery software.
New data point: phone was at 65% remaining after 11 hours off the charger, but most of the day was off AT&T and on wireless. Left work, went to the gym and the phone lost 15% in ~90 minutes.

Wi-fi searching or LTE?
I've followed all the advice here about discharging the phone etc But I've just noticed that there is something moving inside the phone and I think it might be the battery. Anyone else notice something similar? Is there something wrong with mines or do they all do this? It might be the camera lens but it feels like something heavy and nearer the bottom of the phone.
Also, it took me 2 hours and 30mins to give it a full charge. Should I return it and get an exchange. Or is this normal? Also, the phone lasts 12+ hours on HEAVY USE!
Exchanged my phone today for a like for like at phones 4 u. Apparently someone else came in with a yellow (same as me) with the same problem. You shouldn't be able to feel the battery or anything for that matter moving about in the phone. Seems obvious but believe me it didn't at the time. Worst thing though is that i've read that a few people have had the same issue. Factory defect which I'm sure is easily repaired but Nokia can't afford for such mistakes with the way things are. Good thing they have a 2 year warranty unlike some companies. The back up system in windows is not too shabby, lol. Shame I had to set all my live tiles again though, that would have been amazing, lol. Still, loving this phone. Shame about the camera not being as crisp as my N8 during the day. COME ON NOKIA, SORT IT OUT!!!
I was experiencing a battery drain issue after having the phone for a week and running it through full charge cycles at night. After 6 hours the phone would be on 20%.
I was really reluctant to do a phone reset, but after turning off various features and seeing little improvement, I went ahead and reset it. And son-of-gun it seems to have worked. I now am getting a days use out of it even though I still had the same settings. It seems really odd, but it looks like resetting the phone worked.
I bought a lumia 920 last friday and my battery life has been terrible. The battery drains 5-10% per hour even on stand by. I have no apps running in the background. All background tasks blocked. Wifi, bluetooh, nfc all off. Skydrive back up diabled. Screen brightness at low, high touch screen sensitivity turned off. Uninstalled nokia drive as some websites suggested. Did a factory reset on my phone but nothing helped. I am barely able to go even half a day with a single charge. I love the phone but such poor battery life is unacceptable. I am going to return this phone to ATT today.
The battery life is terribly low. 4.5 hours is the max what I could squeeze out of the phone. I'm talking about 4.5 hours of constant usage, of course, meaning that I turned it on, did moderate browsing (no video watching), a number of rounds in a simple (non-3D) game and that's basically it. After 4.5 hours of non-turning-off the battery died. You know, my laptop works longer and the performance is not comparable to the phone... I guess there is no solution to that except using a more powerful internal battery or an external battery. That would be nice if we would at least have let's say a protective case with an external battery installed which would be constantly plugged into USB and expose another USB port for charging both internal and external battery.
- Alex
Unplugged my 920 at 5am, 1 hour local music over Bluetooth headphones. Read a couple emails, Bluetooth connected to Sync in my car for 40 minutes, voice read a couple text messages, 845 am battery at 43%. Web search for Nokia 920 battery problems, found and read this forum and wrote this comment, 6 hours and now at 18. Disabled all recommended in this forum, great tips. I have found with other phones that the best way to extend battery life is to turn off your phone.
Limited a 920 battery life was much worse than my old titan. I shut off all background tasks and it made no difference. Reduced screen brightness from high to auto and very little difference. Discharged battery until phone shut off then booted it a dozen times or so until it refused to boot at all. Recharged to 100% and battery life is radically better, even better than my titan.
My battery life on my new Nokia 920 is truly shocking.
I left home at 8.50am with a fully charged phone, its now 10am and I'm down to 82%! In fact I lost 5% in the last 5 minutes and I havent even used the phone!
Definitely some issue with the battery or software on this phone. It's really inconsistent for me. Some days I can go for hours and hours and still be in the mid 80's. Other days it'll go down at what seems like about 10% per hour or more. When it''s good, it's amazing, when it's bad, it's horrible. I've read up on every tip and trick and haven't found the thing that makes it switch into quick drain mode or keep it in long life mode. Hoping this is something they can figure out and fix in an update.
On my phone Nokia 920 issues is my stocks portfolio app when live tiles running I hope this helps
All- I posted this in the nfc thread and am copying it here hoping to help as thus *seems* to have worked for me. Good luck. I have a red 920. From the start I was having the same issues. Very little use and only 6 to 8 hours of battery. I read through these and other forums. Turned off NFC, drained the battery completely, blocked all programs from background, etc. Nothing worked. For a week I got only 8 hours to a charge. Then I found a post from someone saying they spoke with Microsoft and they suggested deleting and reinstalling Skype and Facebook and reinstalling then. Apparently something wrong with tbd software that was looping something or other. It made sense with the battery draining and the heat issues I've heard about. So, I deleted both, let the battery drain down and gave it a full charge. I am now 20 hours since my last charge and 22% battery left with pretty heavy use including about 4 hours playing music via the phone's external speakers. Granted the battery meter has said 3 hours remaining all day but I don't care what it says as long as I get good battery life. I would assume this will fix itself as well. hopefully this fix lasts when I reinstall Facebook and Skype. Hope this helps some of the rest of you. Honestly, a software issue makes the most sense from everything I have read. Good luck to the rest of you.
Thank you, this seems like the most useful comment on the battery issue so far. I am having the same issue with my 920. I am going to uninstall the apps and let the battery drain. Please update this thread and let me know how the re-installation went. Thank you
UPDATE: I reinstalled Facebook and noticed a slight drop in battery life, but it was still better than it was prior to uninstalling Skype and Facebook. In the Facebook settings, I turned off all push notifications and am now experienceing the best battery life yet. Yesterday the phone was unplugged at 7AM and plugged back in before I went to bed at 1AM with 52% remaining. My "Hours left" percentage has been steadily increasing as well. (Again, I assume this number is based on learning; for example, the phone shut off due to low power, but I was able to get it to turn back on and it lasted another 2 hours before it died again).
I have yet to reinstall Skype, because I don;t have much occasion to use it, but eventually I will as I used to use facetime, until I got sick of Apple. The Lumia 920 and Windows Phone 8 interface completely outdoes the iPhone and ios.
it seems to me that when i browse the web, go on facebook or twitter this is when it runs hot and the battery really drains fast. once i back all the way out, it cools down and battery gets better. i test drove the 822 for a week and the battery on that was great. it would last from 7 am to after midnight with HEAVY use and still have 30 to 40% left. just wanted the 920.
I just got my Lumia 920 2 days ago and I had some terrible battery life. The battery was draining while I had it plugged in even. I thought I might have had to get it replaced but today after I put it to charge this time over night the battery problems are gone. Started using it this morning around 10 heavily. Listening to podcasts browsing the web downloading apps and now its almost 5 and I have about 48% battery. I think the battery just needs a good really long charge.
hi i bouth lumia 920 . i am facing many problems with this smart phone. my whole battery drains out with very normal use in 6-8 hours. ok fine but the most weird problme is if the battery drains out completly to 0% and phone switched off it takes 1-2 days to start up again i hate it never going to spend money on such phone ever :'(
bought*
My battery life improved after a weeks usage and a few charges. I did however disable NFC as I never use it.
Data, Wifi, Bluetooth always on. I suspect it having longer battery life when i'm all day on Wifi instead of 3.5G/HSRP
http://www.routerjanitor.com/2013/01/windows-phone-nokia-lumia-920-batte...
Nothing made a difference as far as settings go. Until...
I removed Skype; and restarted twice.
Then my phone went from fairly useless as far as battery was concerned, overheating and the auto brightness was concerned.
Now my phone performs like a rock star. It doesn't even get warm to the touch so far. And what would make it scream for the charger; a glove to wear(well almost), is at 78% battery. Auto brightness? As far as I can tell so far; no longer an issue.
Lumia 920
I guess "expirimental" is a literal in the description of skype.

Cheers!
My Lumia 920 runs for maximum 6hrs on 3g network. I kept my data connection on overnight with all the background apps blocked. I had gone to sleep with full battery at 12am and I woke up at 8am to find it drained to 64%. I dont think is normal. Can somebody try the same thing and lemme know..???
I'm on my second Nokia 920 after the first one - on airport mode - the battery drained from 100% to nothing, overnight with no usage. It did this within 2 weeks of ownership. All battery saving tips I believe had been set up.
The second one, after 4 weeks of fine usage has just done exactly the same. And meant I was late for work, as I use it as my alarm clock. It's made me pretty angry. I want nothing more to do with this phone.
Vodafone; my network, can't offer me a different phone - but will replace with same model or give me 130 quid to buy it off me that I can then put towards a new phone; but they refer me to Nokia who might know a fix, but as I don't even want the phone anymore, I don't care.
Any one else have this problem? Or advice?
Ta
Hi. I have nokia lumia 920. I did not charge it for 4 or 5 days and it said low battery and turned off, and i charge for 2 hours but it does not turn on. is it usual? Thank you.
My lumia 920 is drainig at a high rate and getting highly heated near the camera while playing high graphic games, such as real football 2013, and when i keep the phone idle swithing off all the background tasks its giving a longer life. I'm not satisfied with this kind of battery, nokia could have equipped the phone with a higher power battery.

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