How to increase battery life on the Galaxy S II

[santhoshar]

thanks for this information.

[Max_C]

I had Nokia E71 before and could stay online for almost two days in 2G with 2-3 IMs (Skype, Nimbuzz, IM+ etc) in background. But My Samsung GS2 only lives 3-5 hours when i have IMs online. What is the reason? is it normal? I measured the power consumption -it is about 200-300 mA. Does anybody have the same?

[Duomaxwe]

What firmware should my phone be on, and how do I check it?

[mark22]

Go to settings and about phone. Kies might give you the latest firmware but probably not. Manually flashing the latest version (KF2) is easy enough but maybe voids your warranty. Read through some of the stickies to get a feel for what people do with there phone.

[Duomaxwe]

Yeah, I want to upgrade the firmware so the battery works better, I don't want to void the warranty though, and I don't think Kies is doing it because it says my phone is updated even though I just got it.

[mark22]

You wont void your warranty flashing a stock firmware using odin as described in the stickies i don't think. It doesn't really matter because you can always flash back to a branded version assuming there's one downloadable for your operator. I got an O2 one off of xda just in case or you could back up your own. Of course use caution though.

[Duomaxwe]

Yeah I'm with Vodafone, although this is my first smart phone so I'm not an expert at manipulating them, I think the firmware must be the older one though, because the battery goes down by 20% just for listening to the mp3 for half an hour which doesn't seem right to me.

[daviep]

turned off background data sync and use wireless networks in location and security and my battery life has went up from around 20 odd hours average to currently sit at 1 day 6 hours so far

[Duomaxwe]

What does the background data sync do?

[cata_adc]

It syncs your applications and receive data any time , apps like whattsapp/tango/facebook/android market/mail providers etc
I'm running now on lite'ning rom v1.5 xxkf2 and with all the info provided by soraxd i'm getting 2 days of normal use. far better than my galaxy s