is it really better or is because you have your phone clean now?

i was wondering about this as well.

the battery life certainly seems better for me with PR 1.3 (i was running virutally no daemons with my PR 1.2 setup either). however, the biggest difference seems to be in the battery remaining animation.

with PR 1.3, the battery remaining animation stays full (100%) for at least an hour after the phone is unplugged. obviously, the battery is slowly discharging, as normal, but the phone is choosing to present the information differently.

i was initially worried that the animation wasn't working at all, but it eventually started coming down. i installed battery eye to have a closer look, and the value that battery eye gives is very different from that implied by the phone's battery remaining animation.

at this exact moment, battery eye is showing 90%, which is in-line with the phone being off the charger for a few hours. however the status bar animation still shows 100% full. this disconnect appears consistent throughout the battery level range (i ran the battery down to about 20% yesterday to test it). the status bar animation is consistently 15 to 20% higher than i'd expect, given my normal battery consumption on PR 1.2 and the results from battery eye.

so... battery life seems improved, but i'm having a very hard time quantifying it.

When I had 48% with stiock kernel the battery mater read above 50%, Im running enhanced power kernel 125 600 limits, lets see what happens

the battery is better...
you guys.,.on pr1.2 my ram usage was about 150mb on start of phone...with pr1.3 its around 105mb-115mb... and 12 hours edge online on skype/fb/gtalk + mfe continuosly syncing..battery at 50%

Anecdotal for sure but I have experienced much improved battery life. I did an OTA upgrade so no change to any configuration and I have lasted a good few hours longer with usual usage. Coupled with the much better Modest experience and audio experience the N900 is finally the phone that can hold me over until the N9 next year!

One other possibility is that PR 1.3 now 'fully charges - tops up' the battery better towards the end of charging.

I had always noticed an hour after I unplug that its at 87%, now its around 95%.
But in any case it doesn't matter.. battery is increased 2-3 hours for my usage (very light, 2G, Google IM always on, no WIFI)

Yeah, me too.
I noticed my phone last a bit longer, not bad Nokia.

By "clean", do you mean "flashed"? I didn't flash. I perfomed the upgrade the way it's meant to be, OTA, so I still have all 3rd party applications, data plus whatever I had changed on my system the same way as before. Still, I see improvements in both battery life and performance.

(I notice new bugs as well. ...)

Same here used OTA and the battery lasted all day
(I usually end up with a hosed battery by the end of the day)

OTA, nothing really different.

Nokia (or TI) finally fixed SmartReflex - now both /sys/power/sr_vdd1_autocomp and sr_vdd2_autocomp are available.

Good work, Nokia!