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Battery Lives Compared

J

Jeef690

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 25, 2006
70
0
Would everyone mind posting their battery life under different usage? It may help others confirm if they have some problem with their batteries.


(Will edit with exact numbers in a few days)

Ipod only: Long time
Web Browsing/Data: About 4 Hours
Talking: Long time
 
I did an hour of text messaging
4-5 hours of internet wandering
2 hours of phone usage

All today...and my phone only lasted from 9am to 6pm

Was very disappointed
 
Full charge at 7AM
Checks three email accounts every 15 minutes.
1 hour of talking
no ipod
1 hour of surfing
30 text messages

At 9PM battery level at 50%!
 
I am getting around 4hours and 45 minutes of usage time from counter in settings. That Is mostly browsing,text messaging, and some phone time. I called apple today and the guy told me to take it in to the store cause I am getting less that stellar usage. He callled it rather low so that is exactly what I an doing tomorrow and I am going to see what they say .
 
The battery life on mine is slightly less than I hoped for. I HAVE to charge it at the end of the day.

Granted, I was REALLY spoiled with my hacked / modified Sprint-Verizon Treo 650. That thing went for 9 days without a charge, and I DID use it quite a bit. However it was with a modified PRL, hi-gain antenna and battery designed for a (#* network - not Verizon.

Granted, the Iphone is 1/2 the size, and 8 times more useful (to me). So I'm dealing.

No way I'm hacking this thing.... yet
 
Hmm...im going out of town tomorrow. Would it be worth it to try to swap iphones at the location im going to? Is this even possible?
 
This may sound weird, but my battery seemed to improve over the past week. Earlier this week, when I would take it to work (7am), I would do some surfing, some ipod, basically a little bit of everything. When I would get back home (6pm) it would be nearly dead. But today, I did the same amount of usage and when I got home the battery was over 50% full! I think a few charge/drain cycles sort of increases the battery's life. Maybe...
 
OrleansMac said:
I did an hour of text messaging
4-5 hours of internet wandering
2 hours of phone usage

All today...and my phone only lasted from 9am to 6pm

Was very disappointed
Click to expand...


I don't understand how you're disappointed exactly. Your numbers are on par with the advertised battery spec of the device as posted by Apple:

Power and battery
Built-in rechargeable lithium ion battery
Talk time: Up to 8 hours2
Standby time: Up to 250 hours3
Internet use: Up to 6 hours4
Video playback: Up to 7 hours5
Audio playback: Up to 24 hours6

All of those numbers produced under ideal operating conditions. Mobile phones will draw more power in regions with weaker signal. Did you have wifi enabled? How bright is your screen? For that matter, did you use it outside here and there? (The device, by default, will crank up the brightness alltheway to be legible in direct sunlight.)
 
erikislame said:
I don't understand how you're disappointed exactly. Your numbers are on par with the advertised battery spec of the device as posted by Apple:

Power and battery
Built-in rechargeable lithium ion battery
Talk time: Up to 8 hours2
Standby time: Up to 250 hours3
Internet use: Up to 6 hours4
Video playback: Up to 7 hours5
Audio playback: Up to 24 hours6

All of those numbers produced under ideal operating conditions. Mobile phones will draw more power in regions with weaker signal. Did you have wifi enabled? How bright is your screen? For that matter, did you use it outside here and there? (The device, by default, will crank up the brightness alltheway to be legible in direct sunlight.)
Click to expand...

I expected the phone to get through a full day of work without dying on the way home in the car. I have no songs on it, no photos, and no videos.

That isn't expectations that should be unrealistic even when used most of the day.

I used Edge for 3 hours and WiFi for the rest.

I bought the phone not expecting a super-duper battery but one that won't fail on me if I charge it 100% at 9am and need to work till 7-8 at night
 
For me, I was a tad bit disappointed.

30 minutes of iPod
90 minutes of calls
60 minutes of emails

Charged at 8am, dead at 4pm.

This obviously is a show stopper, but it's only day one, so I will give it a go...
 
Your "day of work" includes 5 hours of aimless internet wandering??? Nice job.



ash =o)
 
My phone is getting way better than most of you are listing... what are your screen brightness, etc. settings?



ash =o)
 
OrleansMac said:
I did an hour of text messaging
4-5 hours of internet wandering
2 hours of phone usage

All today...and my phone only lasted from 9am to 6pm

Was very disappointed
Click to expand...


I thought you got pretty much what they advertised. The numbers from Apple's specs aren't additive. If you use it for 5 hrs of internet use, you're not going to get 7-8 hrs of talk time. Say if the power usage for phone use is 75% of WiFi, it looks like you would have had close to the 6 hrs they spec'd for internet use. Their talk time is a more ideal situation. For instance, if you are using the phone in a weak signal area, it's going to take more power.
 
Use of the internet is what kills the phone's battery faster than anything else. Did you kill Wifi when you weren't near an access point? That might help out if you haven't done that already.

From what I've noticed, the iPhone will search for a wifi access point each time you use one of its internet functions if you aren't already connected to Wifi or don't have it disabled.

I cut the wifi off for most of the day today, and I played with the phone on the internet, listening to music and watching video off and on and making a few phone calls from 9 am this morning until just a few minutes ago when the phone died. Usage time said 7 hrs and 39 minutes and I didn't leave it sitting for long at the home screen, I was almost always doing something.. including browsing the net with music playing.

What other device of this type has a longer lasting battery? For its size, the iPhone can do a hell of a lot of stuff before it needs to be charged.
 
Andrmgic said:
Use of the internet is what kills the phone's battery faster than anything else. Did you kill Wifi when you weren't near an access point? That might help out if you haven't done that already.

From what I've noticed, the iPhone will search for a wifi access point each time you use one of its internet functions if you aren't already connected to Wifi or don't have it disabled.

I cut the wifi off for most of the day today, and I played with the phone on the internet, listening to music and watching video off and on and making a few phone calls from 9 am this morning until just a few minutes ago when the phone died. Usage time said 7 hrs and 39 minutes and I didn't leave it sitting for long at the home screen, I was almost always doing something.. including browsing the net with music playing.

What other device of this type has a longer lasting battery? For its size, the iPhone can do a hell of a lot of stuff before it needs to be charged.
Click to expand...

You my friend are why I am
going to apple tomorrow. I barely can get 5 hours of usage out of mine. Auto brightness checked and wifi turned off. Unless it is your iPod time that is adding to your usage, haven't really used iPod yet.
 
a get a full day out of my iphone... but I use it a lot. I think that if i needed to (while travling) i could turn wifi, bt... etc off and get two days (if i only used it as a fone™)
 
Yesterday, I got about 6 1/2 hours of usage, the bulk of which was iPod time (other uses were about 30 min. texting, maybe 90 minutes web browsing on EDGE or Wifi, depending, and a few minutes of calls). I had WiFi off for most of the day, and have disabled the automatic mail check. I'm thinking if there's no improvement by Monday, it's going in for an exchange...

[UPDATE: So far today, with WiFi off except for about 15 minutes of YouTube usage, using phone, SMS, some mail, and with the iPod on pretty much continuously, I've got 4 hours, 8 minutes of usage, and the battery's at about 80%. Evidently, WiFi really does drain some serious power. Huh!]
 
Last time I charged mine I remember I got around 6 hours of usage. I was doing a bit of everything but mostly internet usage on wi-fi. I also have my e-mail settings to check manually.
 
I watched superman returns, and the matrix from start to finish including credits.. Before that i did some goofing around on wifi, but nothing long.

After the movies, the battery was around 20%. Each movie is over 2 hours in length, and a total of close to 6 hours of movie time.

Impressive to say the least.

If you are having battery issues (it is a known issue) they will replace your phone for free at an apple store.
 
Wi-Fi is most certainly the cause of everyone's "poor" battery life. There's absolutely no reason to have Wi-Fi on unless you know you're somewhere that has it available. I leave Wi-Fi disabled, and if I'm somewhere I know (or even suspect) has Wi-Fi, I'll turn it on, let it search, and if nothing is found, I turn it back off.

Using this method, just the other day I had 3+ hours of usage, virtually all surfing the Internet via EDGE, and had about a 75% charge remaining.

As one who manages my Wi-Fi intelligently, I've been VERY impressed with battery life.
 
chilltown said:
This may sound weird, but my battery seemed to improve over the past week. Earlier this week, when I would take it to work (7am), I would do some surfing, some ipod, basically a little bit of everything. When I would get back home (6pm) it would be nearly dead. But today, I did the same amount of usage and when I got home the battery was over 50% full! I think a few charge/drain cycles sort of increases the battery's life. Maybe...
Click to expand...

I'll second that. After a few rocky and worried first few days, my battery didnt move off full all day yesterday.

Seems to be getting better with age.
 
No Complaints here
738058569_4925704d03_b.jpg
 
pcguru83 said:
Wi-Fi is most certainly the cause of everyone's "poor" battery life. There's absolutely no reason to have Wi-Fi on unless you know you're somewhere that has it available. I leave Wi-Fi disabled, and if I'm somewhere I know (or even suspect) has Wi-Fi, I'll turn it on, let it search, and if nothing is found, I turn it back off.

Using this method, just the other day I had 3+ hours of usage, virtually all surfing the Internet via EDGE, and had about a 75% charge remaining.

As one who manages my Wi-Fi intelligently, I've been VERY impressed with battery life.
Click to expand...

I will try this tommorrow.

I think I have just been dumb with my settings for my iPhone.

Today, my battery life was SHORTER then yesterday and I did LESS on it.

I left Wi-fi on though and there are some networks around me that I guess are using the energy.

Phone lasted from 9-4 today....and I only used the net for 1.5 hours and a few text messages.

Hopefully that works.
 
I'm at about 20% right now and my usage stats are 5 Hours, 9 Minutes and a standby of 1 Day, 0 Hours...I dont know if I should be upset or what...:p
 
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