Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Just hit 8 hrs, 1 day 15 hrs standby. :) I keep data on 24/7. This is all on screen time, using apps, texting and Safari, no music with screen off.

Over the years of owning iPhones, I found that I had the worst battery life while using AT&T and Verizon. While at home, I could never get a reliable data signal so this affected my battery. Since moving to T-Mobile last February, my iPhones have been able to last 1.5-2 days.
 

Attachments

  • photo-33.PNG
    photo-33.PNG
    65.8 KB · Views: 156
First charge, used on min brightness, only news and fb and other light programmes, is it ok ?
Will get better with further charges ?
 

Attachments

  • image.jpg
    image.jpg
    87.9 KB · Views: 130
My iPhone 5s battery life is great. After 4 days it still is in the double digits. (Of course, I keep bluetooth off when I can, and after every app I open, I force-close it, so my battery life is much better then the average iphone user.
 
How's your iPhone 5S battery life

I'm definitely satisfied with my 5s battery, is really GREAT, i come from a 3gs, its battery was a pain. That's my last result, today, started using it at 9.30AM, and that is what i got now after a full day at 1:03AM (i'm italian, we use the 24h time so i'm specifying it). 3g connection always on, switched to wi-fi for about 2hrs when i was at home before going out. Plus text messages, web (3g), few vids on youtube, about half an hour playing CSR classics, 40mins calls, heavy whatsapp use (about 300 texts),few photos and two slow mo vid. Definitely best battery life i've ever had on an iphone!
ge4a7a9y.jpg
 
Last edited:
I just don't understand how any of you are getting over 7 hours of usage. This is my normal usage, just mainly twitter, some texting, and very rarely the flashlight. Probably didn't even use the flashlight this charge.
 

Attachments

  • photo.PNG
    photo.PNG
    71 KB · Views: 139
Yep, I get almost 7 hours of usage if I consciously protect battery life. Listening to music with the screen off will show 8-9 hours. Not using it at all, I've gotten a day and a half with 3hrs of usage and sat at 45%. Once I started using it with email, Facebook, and a game like candy crush, it dropped rapidly within an an hour to 10%. This is all with Verizon at 3 circle signal strength all around the DC area.
 
How's your iPhone 5S battery life

I find those results hard to believe... 52% left and over 9 hours of usage?! On an iPad yes, but not an iPhone. Unless it was a low power consuming application or music with the screen off, which isn't really usage.
 
I just don't understand how any of you are getting over 7 hours of usage. This is my normal usage, just mainly twitter, some texting, and very rarely the flashlight. Probably didn't even use the flashlight this charge.


Other users in this discussion told what to do, and i assure that that's the way. You just have to patiently set your settings, it takes about half an hour, you won't regret it. For example: keep notifications on only for apps you need; do the same thing with location service; brightness is a personal settings, so you decide what's better for your eyes, mine is about half; i personally disabled Siri since i don't use it; switch off connections from control center when you don't use it (bluetooth, wi-fi), i keep 3g always on only; close active apps unless you need to re-open them in a short time;
 
Other users in this discussion told what to do, and i assure that that's the way. You just have to patiently set your settings, it takes about half an hour, you won't regret it. For example: keep notifications on only for apps you need; do the same thing with location service; brightness is a personal settings, so you decide what's better for your eyes, mine is about half; i personally disabled Siri since i don't use it; switch off connections from control center when you don't use it (bluetooth, wi-fi), i keep 3g always on only; close active apps unless you need to re-open them in a short time;

You don't think I tried? :rolleyes:

I have tried a combination of different settings. Even when most are disabled I get battery life like that screenshot.
 
I really dont know what to think of my 5s battery life... What would you say?

This is what ive got during my first ( and until now only) full discharge. At least 2 hours of music, some lte/3g surfing, some hours of wifi surfing, a few phone calls, whatsapp, facebook, sms, a few photos.

Usage: 9 hours, 29 minutes
Standby: 2 days, 3 hours

Battery was at 1%

Settings: Bluetooth off, wifi always on, screen illumination at about 40%, 1 mail account with push ( the gmail app), twitter notifications, no auto updates, location services nearly all off, background app refresh off, Auto brightness off.

A few days back:

Usage: 4 hours, 11 minutes
Standby: 1 day, 9 hours

Battery was at 45% - is that good? Settings - as mentioned earlier.


Yesterday, I hardly used my phone. just some lte/3g surfing.

Usage: 0 hours, 46 minutes
Standby: 5 hours, 48 minutes

Battery was at 87% - with only 46 minutes of usage??

Right now, it looks like this. A few phone calls, whatsapp, siri, facebook, 5 minutes of temple run 2, wifi surfing.

Usage: 1 hours, 40 minutes
Standby: 6 hours, 56 minutes

Battery is at 77%.


What i can experience is that surfing with wifi connection drains my battery at about 1% every 3-5 minutes. lte drains the battery even faster - every 2-4 minutes. Is that normal?
I should add the fact that my signal strength is really bad at home ( about 1-3 bars maximum - edge).

Yesterday, i did a complete clean restore ( dfu mode) and set the phone up as new. My old iphone 4 backup was over 3 years old and i never did a clean restore before on that device. So, i was just curious whether it would improve my battery life on the new 5s - until now its the same as before...
 
Here's something interesting: I used a program called iBackupBot, which, other than managing iPhone backups, can display certain information about your iPhone. I used this program to determine how many battery charge cycles I have been through, as well as determine my phone's remaining battery capacity. Here is what I found:

CycleCount: 70 (I'm guessing this is charge cycles)
DesignCapacity: 1550 (Guessing max capacity, which fits the reports of the 5s's 1550 mAh battery)
FullChargeCapacity: 1497 (My current capacity as a result of natural battery degradation due to charging and other factors)

Remember how Apple states that that after 500 charge cycles, the phone should be able to maintain 80% of it's original capacity? That means that after 500 charges, I should be at (1550 * .8) mAh for my FullChargeCapacity, which is 1240. After 70 charges, I'm at 1497. The difference between the max and current capacity of my battery is 53, meaning that my capacity dropped 53 mAh after 70 cycles. After doing some math, assuming the degradation is linear (I'm not sure if it is or not), after 490 charges (multiplying the ratio of 70 cycles/53 mAh lost by 7/7) my capacity will be only at 1179 mAh, not that close to Apple's 1240. And that's only 490 charges, not 500.

Of course, things in real life are usually exponential and not linear, so I can only hope that the battery degradation is going to slow down at some point in time. I'm going to try a restore to see if that will fix my battery life problems.

EDIT: Guess what? It just dropped 2 more after a restore. So now I'm at 1495 mAh capacity.
 
Last edited:
If this isn't an example of gaming the numbers I don't know what is.

I lost the link but I remember a blog or article that had a guy and his 5S testing the battery life of a screen left on all the time at 30% brightness. The results were that the screen lasted something like 11 hours of idling. So my real world results of 6-7 hours aren't too bad compared to people gaming 8-20 usage hours of life.
 
Apple has never claimed an exact 80% after 500 cycles.

http://www.apple.com/batteries/iphone.html

Oh well, I guess. My battery seems to be performing better though. This is after a restore, I watched 2 episodes of an anime, so about 40 minutes combined, and some surfing. 92% left, 55 minutes of usage and 59 minutes of standby with background app refresh enabled for stocks and weather.

Just restated! The battery meter went to 93%, 1 hour 0 minutes of usage, 1 hour 5 minutes of standby. Must've been a software bug perhaps. :)
 
Last edited:
You don't think I tried? :rolleyes:



I have tried a combination of different settings. Even when most are disabled I get battery life like that screenshot.


Than it depends strictly from the use you do. For example, today i played all day with CSR, a racing game, my 5s did almost 7 hours of usage, so far from the +10 hrs i get with normal use. But i'm now thinking, may be that there are "lucky" batteries? I mean maybe you have to be lucky and get the battery that has been produced by the most reliable company (we all know that not only one company produce batteries for iphones)
 
I agree. Not all batteries are created equal, at one point I had 2 iPads same model both from the same back up and one would always get 1-2 hours more of actual usage doing basically the same tasks.

It should be common knowledge that batteries are not created equal. I could also describe multiple situations where the same same size battery acted different in devices of the same model.
 
If this isn't an example of gaming the numbers I don't know what is.


It was just with Bluetooth connected to another device and a couple hours of actual phone/internet usage. I was demonstrating that "usage" is very difficult to define, just like some are getting only 5 hrs. It all depends on what type of usage it actually is.
 
qyte8abu.jpg


Mostly surfing the web, reply a couple of iMessages, read a couple of emails, had a 2 minute conversation over the phone, played a little RR3. No listening to music. Got to say that it is pretty close to apple's stated usage expectation.
 
I'm getting better battery life out if my 5S than I was with my 5. I get from 6-7 hours of actual usage. This does NOT include me letting it play music for 4 hours. This is screen on 80% brightness and me doing actual stuff on it. Talking, texting, web browsing, app usage, email etc etc.

I'm very satisfied
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.