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I've had an HTC Desire HD with HTC Sense for about a year and I'm quite happy, except for the battery life. After upgrading to the latest version, it lasts about 24 hours with moderate/low usage.

I was wondering 2 things:

  • If I root it, will i gain some significant battery life?

  • After a phone is rooted, can it later be returned to the factory state?

I dont know much about rooting.

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Your phone is most probably not running Android 3.0, as it was released only for tablets. Please check your settings if you'd like to figure out what version you are actually running (Settings->About Phone). Also, 24 hours of battery life is about typical for smartphones nowadays. What are you looking to get from the battery? – eldarerathis♦ May 29 '12 at 12:53
Android version is 2.3.5, but the version of HTC sense is 3.0, which kinda resembles the way it works on tablets – Dbugger May 29 '12 at 13:01
Depends on what you do with the root. You can underclock and get dramatically better battery life. – Phillip Schmidt May 29 '12 at 16:39
@eldarerathis 24 hours is what I would expect with high usage. Moderate usage on my phone (An hour continuous at lunch, games while waiting for the train to/from work, and using it as my alarm clock, but rarely using it as a phone to talk on) gives me on average about 50 hours with Android 2.1 - you should probably also check that you don't have a runaway app that's draining some of the battery if that's what you expect to be average... – Izkata May 29 '12 at 18:06
@Izkata: The Galaxy Nexus averages somewhere between 3.5 - 5 hours of screen on time for one charge. 24 hours or so is very typical of today's high-end smartphones, especially ones with larger screens and 4G networking. Based on the fact that you have Android 2.1 I'm going to guess your phone is not 4G capable and probably has lower screen/processor specs than, for example, a GNex. My typical usage could probably run for closer to 36-40 hours without charging, but I don't see a reason not to simply plug it in every night, anyway. – eldarerathis♦ May 29 '12 at 18:41
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2 Answers

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The only way rooting can gain you battery time is if you can uninstall an app that's using a lot of power, and which you can't uninstall without rooting (i.e. it's something that shipped with the device). I don't know what is on your device, but judging from what I've seen on my Droid 3, there's not likely to be any noticeable change in battery life. On the plus side, if you root the device, you'll have the option to get rid of any junk that was pre-installed and thereby not have to see all the update notices for stuff that you'll never use and which wants more and more permissions with every update.

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If you are just rooting (not flashing a custom OS), it is usually better to freeze the problem apps than removing. If the carrier/manufacturer releases an update for the device they check for these apps and if missing will fail to update. – Dylan Yaga May 29 '12 at 12:44
Well, in the battery reports, none of the trash apps are on the top of the battery usage, so I guess I wont be getting any real advantage if I root. – Dbugger May 29 '12 at 13:03
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@jlehenbauer 's answer below is more accurate. You will save battery life by reducing the clock speed and voltages and if possible also reducing the no. of actively functional cores in newer multi-core processors. All that can only be achieved by rooting and then using a kernel that supports these features. – Sparx May 29 '12 at 16:37
@Dbugger Not completely true - some apps will hold a wakelock and prevent the CPU from sleeping. Those won't show up in the battery usage list since they're not actually doing anything during that time. Finding those ones is in my experience quite difficult... – Izkata May 29 '12 at 18:08
@Michael - I think you're forgetting the possibility to reduce the CPU clock frequency which can help battery life. Also, surely "Android System", "Android OS" and others could be tweaked in the custom ROM to improve life further? – Dan W Apr 7 at 12:47
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up vote 6 down vote

If you choose to root your phone, there are several options as far as installing custom ROMs and/or custom kernels. Some of these allow you change the clock speed of your processor, the governor controlling the processor, and so on, which can all positively (or negatively) affect battery life. If you are already rooted, ROM Toolbox gives some nice options as far as system manipulation that can help with battery life.

Juice Defender Ultimate also has some pretty cool options if you're root.

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