Recently I wrote about the problems with my Samsung Galaxy i7500 and the problems with Ram2 service center. Over the New Year holidays I’ve had time so I decided to finally find out what seems to be the problem on my brand new Android phone and why the battery drians out so quickly. By reading a lot of forums with posts of users with similar problems I downloaded and instaleld the application Spare Parts. It’s a useful tool with lots of features, one of them beeing battery info (Run Spare Parts, go to Battery History, select Other usage and Since last unplugged, select Running). The software shows the total time without sleeping after disconnected from the charger. This was crucial information in debugging what was happening.

I decided to measure battery use and sleeping with different scenarios when locking the phone:

• I left the browser open or closed
• I locked the phone while on middle home screen or left home screen
• I locked the phone while folder on left home screen was opened
• I turned wi-fi on and off

I always left the phone running like that for an hour and then compared the total sleeping time. If the phone was sleeping, I knew there was no problem. If the phone was not sleeping, something has caused the problem.

In the meantime I also read a lot of forums and found out about another measurable option: whether the phone was in the pouch that came with the phone or out. I measured this as well and the results were surprising! I found out that when in the pouch the phone doesn’t sleep and when it’s outside (for example, on the table), it sleeps just perfectly. This seemed very uncomfortable – the pouch was designed and shipped by samsung, how is this possible? But even if it was uncomfortable, it was reassuring. I saw a bright light at the end of the tunnel – maybe the phone isn’t broken, maybe the battery isn’t bad, maybe I will be able to use the phone like I should in the first place.

I digged more into the forums and have found out, that when in pouch, one of the keys gets pressed (shutter release for the camera). The phone has a weird habbit of checking for pressed keys even when sleeping (the unlock button for unlocking it, the volume button for changing volume). This of, course, when a key is pressed (all the time), makes the phone check the key all the time. Hence no sleep mode!

I’m glad that I found that out. Now I leave my pouch at home every morning and have stopped using it completely. Now my phone works for almost 4 days without charging. Wow, compared to less than a day before, this is a major breakthrough!

I see no reason why the software would not disable key checking for the camera key when the screen is off. I see no functionality in it, so maybe it should be excluded from checking in a new version of phone firmware.