Why is our battery being wasted by cell standby?

I have a wifi only Acer iconia A500 yet today 12% of my battery was wasted on cell standby. Mind you I even had my tablet in airplane mode the whole time. Why do you guys think this is. Its using more juice than my wifi connection.?

 

Anyone have a link to e-mail acer tablet support. I'll e-mail them and ask them.

Thanks

 

Acer Support. You'll need to enter the "SIND" code which is located on the product packaging, near the barcode. (Or the tablet's S/N, though I don't know where it is on the device.)

 

20% used for cell standby on mine. LOL, pretty big oversight for a tablet that has no cell modem. I'm sure this can be fixed either manually or in a future update.

 

It's located on the door cover where you put in the SD card.

 

Ok thanks I'll send them the question tonight

 

FYI: I found out there is no reader in the A500. With the screen light on, you can see where a reader would be soldered to the board. I think if you were to slide SIM card in there, you'd have to take the until apart to get it out. Looks like it would just fall into the belly of the tablet.

Odd that something is using power that is not even there...

 

Holy moly, so once this is turned off we should see a big difference in battery life then? That's cool! I really didn't want to get rid of my live wallpaper... it's so purty.

 

One program that you might want to try is called "timerific". It's free on the market. I use it to turn off certain processes on my phone when I'm at work (sound, etc) and turn them back on when I leave automatically. You can program wifi to turn on and off also. I am trying it now but only downloaded it last night, so can't see a difference yet.

 

I just wanted to throw in my 2 cents here as I think this is an important issue with the tablet right now. I talked to ACER about this issue through their online chat help. They got nowhere and had no clue what I was talking about. They gave me a case# and forwarded me to their actual phone support line (1-800-571-2237) where I spoke with another individual who had no idea what I was talking about (apparently no one has actually seen or used an A500 on their support team and their database of issues is slim since its new). Finally I got transfered to a manager, and described the problem. He called me back about 20 min later and said that at this time it is a core system process and there is no way to remove it (by unmodified means I'm sure, rooting may be an option). He said that it may be addressed in a future update, but could not offer any time frame or whether they consider it a priority issue.

I recommend everyone call in and voice their concern over this issue so not only is it in their database, but they see that the users view this as a problem that needs to be addressed. Currently the "Cell Standby" process is using up about 40% of my battery even when in sleep mode. I see that as a huge opportunity for an increase in battery life.

TL : DR Called them, they said it can't be removed currently as its a "Core System Process". May be dealt with in a future update...

EDIT: Just want to mention that their support was great overall. Even thought he first two individuals had no clue what I was talking about, they were still very friendly and professional and did forward me on the the right people in a timely fashion.

 

I am making a call now. Geting this prioritized is important. I wondr if xoom users also have this issue.

 

Keep us posted. Also let us know how you experiance with their support is.

Sent from my A500 using Android Tablet Forum

 

I'll give them a call as well tomorrow, during the day, while I'm off work. I tried enabling airplane mode, but it turned off my wifi, but after I turned my wifi back on the airplane mode remained on. I was hoping that would fix it, but after a couple hours it's still showing the cell standby taking up 10% of the power, it actually spiked to 26% while I was outside with it. strange...

 

Another A500 owner on android central noticed the same thing, but thinks it might be something else taking up the battery life and it is being mislabeled. I'm not sure what it could be though.

 

I didn't get a clear answer... they said to put it on airplane mode and test it that way. I told them that I had already and it didn't matter... then he said that cell standby may refer to processes running in the CPU that are untracable by the software...

Almost makes me want to find Google support. I definitely wonder if wifi xoom users experience this too.

I am OK with background processes using 3% per hour... that's 33 hours of nothingness while on and asleep. The reality is i turn it off and recharge more often than that, but not knowing where the battery is going doesn't sit well with me.