AMOLED: Black wallpaper = Battery saving (experiment result)

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gogol

Senior Member
May 20, 2005
3,735
216
If you followed our discussion in this thread:
http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=657702

It is about "AMOLED: Black wallpaper = Battery saved?"

As I promised, I have done a simple non-scientific experiment:

(1) At maximum brightness, screen on for 15 minutes
- Default wallpaper will consume about 5% (from 36% down to 31%)
- Pure black wallpaper will consume about 3% (from 30% down to 27%)

(2) At brightness = 20+%, screen on for 15 minutes
- HTC Black wallpaper will consume about 2% (from 26% down to 24%)
- Default wallpaper will consume about 3% (from 23% down to 20%)

All the above experiments was done in this condition:
- Wifi OFF
- Mobile network OFF
- GPS OFF
- Bluetooth OFF
- Screen at home screen with default HTC clock (white background with weather)

* The HTC Black wallpaper is available by default when you choose HTC wallpaper. It is not pure black, but it is still black :D

So, conclusion, using black background will save you battery life. The above experiments were conducted at 15 minutes each and you immediately see the difference.

I would say at low brightness, 20% - 25%, you will get 1% up to 2% battery saving per 15 minutes, let say 1.5% per 15 minutes. For 1 hour you will get about 6% battery saving.

Of course, of course, I know, who will stare at the home screen for 1 hour? :D But who knows? In the course of the whole daily use with the phone, how long do you think you scroll left and right in the home screen?

Or imagine you are browsing XDA forums a lot, every day. It would be better using the Android XDA app by Tapatalk because it uses black background instead of browsing via web which uses bright yellow background!

Also see how the brightness affect the battery life. My eyes is happy with about 20+% brightness :D

Again, this is non-scientific experiment, but it should give you rough idea how much your amoled screen uses battery power :D

PS: Yes, I have nothing to do this afternoon :) Too much time, He he he ...
 
Last edited:

irkan

Senior Member
Nov 26, 2009
762
65
i said so :p

thanx for conducting the experiment, this proves to people that say "black bg doesnt effect and is not worth it"
 

sonyxperia2

Member
Nov 24, 2009
34
1
HTC DESIRE
Very very nice!! I am just using night mode on amoled screen using ebook reader with brightness off, i just say that energy save is uncredible.. Thank you!!
 

SkyWalker1726

Senior Member
Sep 11, 2009
428
19
The Black Color Keeps And Saves the battery longer cause they turn the display and the LEDs completely OFF , that's a LED Display characteristic to turn off the leds of the area it want to show BLACK color & the main advantage ( ithink ) over an lcd , since u''ll have a "pure black" and saving power , but on a lcd even how much the LCD is of a high quality it's always ... grey ( since there is always a BACKLIGHT :) )
 
Last edited:

kmetek

Senior Member
Jun 8, 2010
895
12
at night what's the best option to turn airplane mode?

i need alarm to wake me in the morning tho.
 

kmetek

Senior Member
Jun 8, 2010
895
12
at night what's the best option to turn airplane mode?

i need alarm to wake me in the morning tho.
 

hey69

Member
Mar 21, 2010
17
0
hold the top power button for a few secs.you will have the option to turn on of flight mode , data mode , power off etc.. ;)
 

kmetek

Senior Member
Jun 8, 2010
895
12
i know but for alarm to be active and same time conserve battery flight mode?
 

Afro Az

Member
Jun 13, 2010
46
0
Manchester
For the ultimate battery savings, turn your phone off.... If you have it on airplane mode it is nothing but a glorified mp3/alarm clock. Turn it off and the alarm will still activate in the morning (or whenever you set it to go off).
 

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  • 4
    If you followed our discussion in this thread:
    http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=657702

    It is about "AMOLED: Black wallpaper = Battery saved?"

    As I promised, I have done a simple non-scientific experiment:

    (1) At maximum brightness, screen on for 15 minutes
    - Default wallpaper will consume about 5% (from 36% down to 31%)
    - Pure black wallpaper will consume about 3% (from 30% down to 27%)

    (2) At brightness = 20+%, screen on for 15 minutes
    - HTC Black wallpaper will consume about 2% (from 26% down to 24%)
    - Default wallpaper will consume about 3% (from 23% down to 20%)

    All the above experiments was done in this condition:
    - Wifi OFF
    - Mobile network OFF
    - GPS OFF
    - Bluetooth OFF
    - Screen at home screen with default HTC clock (white background with weather)

    * The HTC Black wallpaper is available by default when you choose HTC wallpaper. It is not pure black, but it is still black :D

    So, conclusion, using black background will save you battery life. The above experiments were conducted at 15 minutes each and you immediately see the difference.

    I would say at low brightness, 20% - 25%, you will get 1% up to 2% battery saving per 15 minutes, let say 1.5% per 15 minutes. For 1 hour you will get about 6% battery saving.

    Of course, of course, I know, who will stare at the home screen for 1 hour? :D But who knows? In the course of the whole daily use with the phone, how long do you think you scroll left and right in the home screen?

    Or imagine you are browsing XDA forums a lot, every day. It would be better using the Android XDA app by Tapatalk because it uses black background instead of browsing via web which uses bright yellow background!

    Also see how the brightness affect the battery life. My eyes is happy with about 20+% brightness :D

    Again, this is non-scientific experiment, but it should give you rough idea how much your amoled screen uses battery power :D

    PS: Yes, I have nothing to do this afternoon :) Too much time, He he he ...
    2
    @SenK9 interesting chart and article.
    1
    I just changed my default web browser home page, from:

    http://www.google.com

    To

    http://www.blackle.com/

    They will give you the same search result :D but really different background color.
    1
    A new article and test results about black backgrounds on AMOLED:
    http://www.greenbot.com/article/283...interface-really-save-on-amoled-displays.html

    The chart above has a sample of the first 10 data points from each run, as well as the overall average power consumption of all 30 measurements. You can see pretty clearly that in this case, a black screen does indeed reduce how much juice the phone is using. Power consumption was 41% lower overall when using the predominantly black interface in Reddit Sync.

    So what does this mean for your phone's battery life? You can definitely make a dent in battery drain with predominantly black apps. If you use a device heavily, the display will be at the top of the battery usage list, so the impact can be noticeable if you keep to AMOLED-friendly apps most of the time. Your actual savings will depend greatly on how much screen time you have and which apps you use, but eking out an extra 15 or 20% screen time seems quite plausible.

    amoled-power-chart-100525418-large.jpg