# Did a test on the ROMs that are best on battery usage - here are my results



## Shayes (Feb 26, 2012)

http://shayessays.co...g-galaxy-nexus/

please leave a comment!

BIG EDIT:
the way i saw it was that regardless of the rom, the phone will drain a lot or a little depending on how much or how little you use your phone. but thats not a test on the ROM itself, which is exactly what i was curious about, but in fact a test on how often you use your phone. So, although at one point i tried testing the battery usage as a function of how long i did certain everyday tasks (e.g. Facebook, texting, Angry birds, etc..), i noticed that this did not do an accurate job of testing the battery use by the OS. And honestly, whatever little differences i saw in data between different roms for these types of tests could be considered a margin of error for the test itself. So theres no value in that data. Over time, i realized that the only way to accurately test a ROMs battery usage was allowing the OS (and only the OS) to be running, but making sure that no other battery drains were active, like the display being on, the radios changing towers, etc etc. So thats why i tested the way i did. It was just a test for those people who already have their own ways of increasing phone life (extended batteries, juice defender, undervolting, etc) but had no way of choosing the most battery efficient OS, because there was no way of finding out which ROM is quantitatively the most efficient.

As for kernels, i agree it would have been a better test to include kernels, but in retrospect, that would have taken way longer because the only true way to test for it would be to test each kernel with one rom, then test the best kernel with every rom. but then honestly, who knows if that would even be a fair test because who knows if a dev makes a rom specifically (or only) for a certain kernel. so that wouldnt be fair to the ROM itself. If you wanna test for kernels too, then go for it, but i aimed to only test for the ROMs that are presented to us by the devs. i didnt wanna do any more modding to the phone because i dont think most of us really care to go as far as to flash different kernels in addition to the roms. some people just wanna flash a rom and be done. and this test was done for those types of people.

As for stock rom, i really wanted to know how much better custom roms were on battery life, in general, compared to stock. But by the time i realized how to conduct this test the way i wanted to, i had already unlocked, rooted and flashed a rom. So, at the time, i either didnt know or didnt want to do the work to go back to stock, and i figured it wouldnt matter anyway, because nobody who cared about custom roms would have a stock phone anyway lol.

But if someone out there still has a factory set galaxy nexus LTE/CDMA, with no mods whatsoever, i would encourage them to carry out this test to as strict a setting as possible and report back the results with screenshots. Thanks.


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## doublea500 (Dec 22, 2011)

i suggest you try stock 4.0.4. google fixed the android os problem for the most part. now it takes up around 3%


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## hotshotz (Feb 20, 2012)

I can believe that. When I was using liquid smooth as my daily driver I had awesome battery life.

Now I switched to axioms crossbreed and battery life is still good but can't top liquid.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk


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## mentose457 (Aug 26, 2011)

If you are testing the battery drain from the _rom_ wouldn't they need to be using the same kernel?


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## mightybrick (Nov 2, 2011)

You should give BAMF a try. I'd like to see how it compares.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using RootzWiki


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## Shayes (Feb 26, 2012)

mentose457 said:


> If you are testing the battery drain from the _rom_ wouldn't they need to be using the same kernel?


this is what im not too sure about, so if someone knows about this, as i note in my article, please comment!


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## GRZLA (Aug 13, 2011)

Shayes said:


> this is what im not too sure about, so if someone knows about this, as i note in my article, please comment!


Your data is no good due to the fact that you didn't use the same kernel on each ROM. On top of that, Android OS is a reporting issue. It reports an incorrect number and has been a bug since Froyo or even earlier.

The problem with your test though is that with each rom you may be using your phone more or less, which can skew your results. Is this a test to see how much "battery drain" is coming from Android OS in battery or just battery drain in general?

What did you do with each ROM to determine their battery life? Was there a set of tasks you performed on each one or is this just with you using it whenever?


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## exarkun (Dec 4, 2011)

GRZLA said:


> Your data is no good due to the fact that you didn't use the same kernel on each ROM. On top of that, Android OS is a reporting issue. It reports an incorrect number and has been a bug since Froyo or even earlier.
> 
> The problem with your test though is that with each rom you may be using your phone more or less, which can skew your results. Is this a test to see how much "battery drain" is coming from Android OS in battery or just battery drain in general?
> 
> What did you do with each ROM to determine their battery life? Was there a set of tasks you performed on each one or is this just with you using it whenever?


Maybe you should read the link with all the details...

Regarding kernel, I would assume that Shayes used the stock kernel or the one that came with the rom.


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## akellar (Jun 11, 2011)

exarkun said:


> Maybe you should read the link with all the details...
> 
> Regarding kernel, I would assume that Shayes used the stock kernel or the one that came with the rom.


You assume wrong according to his response above.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using RootzWiki


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## Shayes (Feb 26, 2012)

akellar said:


> You assume wrong according to his response above.


no he assumes correctly. I made no changes to the kernel between rom changes, so the kernel for each one was just the kernel that the dev used in each of their roms.

consider this a test for those of us who wont be constantly switching kernels. then the battery comparison should just be between the roms as compiled by the devs.


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## Burbot (Dec 29, 2011)

What would help make your effort more easily interpret-able/peer review-able would be the inclusion of additional data (for overkill at the least, since you went so far to spend this amount of time conducting the tests): your wipe methods, order of testing these roms, how promptly after install your conducted the tests/did the tests begin directly after a reboot with nothing (or what precautions were) done to the phone to ensure each rom had the same conditions (I know you said all apps were closed, just not how you accomplished this.), etc. I would like to think that there is good data to be gathered from your tests, provided that they were done as rigid as you've said and if you could clarify some aspects of the tests; I certainly don't think your results are 100 percent "no good". Since I am still learning about the android environment, I do not know if this advice will provide help insofar as using what you've provided to sway "the great battery-life discussion", as the battery issue is such a complex matter that I myself wouldn't try to empirically step down that road; rather, I just tweak bit by bit to find what works for me. I think that you'd actually find a much different set of results if you conducted this with all possible combinations of kernels as well, probably a overall average could be calculated out of all of that.. but by this time I think it would be both downright strange and over-obsessive for one person to embark on such a tedious thing, you'd likely be labeled a basement-dwelling turbo-nerd or whatever lol.

I actually really appreciate your time and effort spent doing this, since so many people have put in 2 cents about roms/battery-life ("zomg, this release has horrible battery drain" etc.) without much effort in comparison to what you've done. So, thanks for the data, and maybe next time try one rom, many kernels, since that seems to be a almost over-discussed topic (rom/kernel threads..) that I'm sure could use some real data expressed in a organized way like you've done.


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## ronnieruff (Jul 27, 2011)

Shayes said:


> no he assumes correctly. I made no changes to the kernel between rom changes, so the kernel for each one was just the kernel that the dev used in each of their roms.
> 
> consider this a test for those of us who wont be constantly switching kernels. then the battery comparison should just be between the roms as compiled by the devs.


These kinds of tests are pretty much useless and a waste of battery haha

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk


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## joemagistro (Dec 19, 2011)

The kernels are still all different per what the dev uses.. This would have to be tested with the same kernel per each rom

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk


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## Ianxcom (Jun 29, 2011)

Thanks for the effort and testing. I think it would also be nice to have a side by side comparison of each rom with the stock kernel to compare.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk


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## grinch (Dec 25, 2011)

unless same wallpaper...brightness...network mode (3g,4g or wifi) kernel, etc...are used...whats the damn point??????


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## Burbot (Dec 29, 2011)

ronnieruff said:


> These kinds of tests are pretty much useless and a waste of battery haha
> 
> Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk


The tests being pretty much useless.. maybe, depending on what you mean (waste of time or non achievable standardization etc), but I don't think any usage of a device so long as it's what you want, and get satisfaction out of it is at all a waste of battery. It's just what he wants to do with his device. I imagine some people bought a Gnex cause it was new, and only to use it for calls, texts and Facebook.. which is my opinion of a waste of both a battery, and an awesome device lol.

It probably would have been better to break out a multi-meter or whatever could test the volts/amp hours/whatever; something separate from the device being tested for its battery consumption, if accuracy is what you're talking about..


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## Bendr0id (Sep 29, 2011)

Well, while we are on the discussion of battery life. Is the extended battery worth getting?


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## WhataSpaz (Feb 20, 2012)

I don't know why everyone's saying this test is useless, because it was actually done well. I've heard Liquid was great on battery life and this kind of makes me want to try it (which I will)


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## exarkun (Dec 4, 2011)

grinch said:


> unless same wallpaper...brightness...network mode (3g,4g or wifi) kernel, etc...are used...whats the damn point??????


Wow, you fail at reading...

_The above results are those of what I call an "idle test", where the phone was put in Airplane mode,_


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## Burncycle (Aug 6, 2011)

I would say that the tests are fine lol. Not everyone switches kernels. Sometimes you just want to flash it and go. The title does say "rom test" and nothing more. Roms include a kernel ya know?


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## BigJermZ (Jun 26, 2011)

I have to say, I'm running CodeNameAndroid and I don't even check the battery usage anymore, if I'm busy (like today) from 6am till 11pm I ended with 35% left, on a regular day I end up with a easy 20% after 12hrs.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus on CodeNameAndroid using RootzWiki


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## cantcurecancer (Jul 30, 2011)

Just because one rom's "Android OS" is "more responsible" for drainage than another does NOT mean you can multiply its percentage by the amount drained. Liquid isn't 5x better than Redemption just because "Android OS" has a higher percentage. Redemption and Liquid both only lost 3%, and that's the ONLY thing that matters when it comes to battery. That means they should be closer to equal on your scale. Battery stats may be misreporting, there could be drainage being reported as something else (and perhaps due to something else).

Testing battery life is so difficult because there are so, so, so many variables. Some of those roms include custom kernels, so giving the ROM total credit, in some cases, may not be appropriate.


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## exarkun (Dec 4, 2011)

cantcurecancer said:


> Just because one rom's "Android OS" is "more responsible" for drainage than another does NOT mean you can multiply its percentage by the amount drained. Liquid isn't 5x better than Redemption just because "Android OS" has a higher percentage. Redemption and Liquid both only lost 3%, and that's the ONLY thing that matters when it comes to battery. That means they should be closer to equal on your scale. Battery stats may be misreporting, there could be drainage being reported as something else (and perhaps due to something else).
> 
> Testing battery life is so difficult because there are so, so, so many variables. Some of those roms include custom kernels, so giving the ROM total credit, in some cases, may not be appropriate.


It is the ROM developers choice to include the kernel they include. So yes, it is an appropriate comparison.


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## akellar (Jun 11, 2011)

The comparisons are fine but they don't reflect any kind of real world use and that's why they are fairly pointless. Stop worrying about battery life, use your $700 device the way it was made to be used, and if you have battery issues then get a charger or extra battery. I don't understand why everyone is so bent out of shape about "poor" battery life? It was well publicized long before the phone came out that LTE phones get poor battery. If you somehow thought this wouldn't be the case on this phone, that's your error in judgement.


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## cantcurecancer (Jul 30, 2011)

exarkun said:


> It is the ROM developers choice to include the kernel they include. So yes, it is an appropriate comparison.


 No, you're falsely attributed battery gains or loses to the rom. He put up the chart to compare the roms, kernels are not apart of the rom. Just because the developer decides to include another kernel does not make mean the rom is any better or worse, because kernel performance cannot be attributed to the rom, and vice versa.


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## Shayes (Feb 26, 2012)

grinch said:


> unless same wallpaper...brightness...network mode (3g,4g or wifi) kernel, etc...are used...whats the damn point??????


the way i saw it was that regardless of the rom, the phone will drain a lot or a little depending on how much or how little you use your phone. but thats not a test on the ROM itself, which is exactly what i was curious about, but in fact a test on how often you use your phone. So, although at one point i tried testing the battery usage as a function of how long i did certain everyday tasks (e.g. Facebook, texting, Angry birds, etc..), i noticed that this did not do an accurate job of testing the battery use by the OS. And honestly, whatever little differences i saw in data between different roms for these types of tests could be considered a margin of error for the test itself. So theres no value in that data. Over time, i realized that the only way to accurately test a ROMs battery usage was allowing the OS (and only the OS) to be running, but making sure that no other battery drains were active, like the display being on, the radios changing towers, etc etc. So thats why i tested the way i did. It was just a test for those people who already have their own ways of increasing phone life (extended batteries, juice defender, undervolting, etc) but had no way of choosing the most battery efficient OS, because there was no way of finding out which ROM is quantitatively the most efficient.

As for kernels, i agree it would have been a better test to include kernels, but in retrospect, that would have taken way longer because the only true way to test for it would be to test each kernel with one rom, then test the best kernel with every rom. but then honestly, who knows if that would even be a fair test because who knows if a dev makes a rom specifically (or only) for a certain kernel. so that wouldnt be fair to the ROM itself. If you wanna test for kernels too, then go for it, but i aimed to only test for the ROMs that are presented to us by the devs. i didnt wanna do any more modding to the phone because i dont think most of us really care to go as far as to flash different kernels in addition to the roms. some people just wanna flash a rom and be done. and this test was done for those types of people.

As for stock rom, i really wanted to know how much better custom roms were on battery life, in general, compared to stock. But by the time i realized how to conduct this test the way i wanted to, i had already unlocked, rooted and flashed a rom. So, at the time, i either didnt know or didnt want to do the work to go back to stock, and i figured it wouldnt matter anyway, because nobody who cared about custom roms would have a stock phone anyway lol.

But if someone out there still has a factory set galaxy nexus LTE/CDMA, with no mods whatsoever, i would encourage them to carry out this test to as strict a setting as possible and report back the results with screenshots. Thanks.


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## mistywindy (Feb 23, 2012)

I wanted to re-post the reply I posted on your article here as well in case people don't check back to the actual article.

My first question would be why you used AOKP Milestone 3 instead of Milestone 4?

So I would like to correct a few things about your article. First off, as I understand it, any launcher can be used with any ROM. For example, I use Apex launcher with AOKP. All you have to do is download the launcher from the Android Market (I guess it's called Google Play now). If you want the benefits of having the launcher installed at the system level, you can simply push it to system yourself with either adb or by using a file explorer app such as Root Explorer and fixing permissions.

Second of all, you replied to another user asking which kernel you used for each test, and you replied that you used the kernel that came with each ROM. I believe this makes your study fundamentally flawed, as kernels have a much greater impact on battery life than do ROMs.

For example, let's take Liquid vs. AOKP. Liquid comes with imoseyon's Leankernel. I do not believe (someone can correct me if I'm wrong) that the ROM is "built around" this kernel; this is just the kernel that the developers chose to include because they like it, the same way that AOKP comes with Nova Launcher but can easily be used with Apex launcher instead. Now let's take AOKP. AOKP comes with the stock kernel because the developer have expressed that they would like the allow the users to choose whatever kernel they like. Many people run a variety of kernels with it successfully--- Trinity, Franco, Lean, you name it. All of these give people varying results in battery life. (Edit: and I think ANY of these kernels would give you better performance over stock kernel that AOKP comes with when it comes to battery life!!)

Here's the problem---- Some ROMs come with a custom kernel they built specifically for their ROMs (MIUI I believe is one?). Other ROMs come with the custom kernels the developers prefer, but did not build, and is easily available for use with other ROMs (Liquid). Others come with no custom kernel at all, just stock kernel, to let the user choose, and aren't built for any particular kernel at all (AOKP). These variances will greatly affect your results.

For example, I've personally run both AOKP and Liquid. If I were to run AOKP with stock kernel, which it comes with, I would get (and have gotten) absolutely horrid battery life compared to Liquid. If I run them both with Leankernel however (my preferred kernel right now), I actually see better battery life on AOKP. (That's just for me, everyone's milage may vary).

I think this experiment, to be done accurately, should be done with the same kernel on every ROM to eliminate battery life variances caused by the kernel. I would recommend using the stock kernel on every ROM that is compatible with it. This would only be unfair to the few that actually build their own kernel specifically for use with their ROM, which I think would be very few on this list, and those ROMs could just be left out of the experiment.

Disclaimer: I have written this to the best of my knowledge. If anyone with more knowledge sees a mistake, I'm sorry, feel free to correct me. But from my research and personal experience, this is the way things work.

Edit2: Fixed some wording and stuff to make the whole thing more understandable.


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