3GS Battery Life

[JFSikora]

Originally Posted by Mag

It's actually an extremely bad way of explaining it, scientificly speaking, but, yes, it's good for this type of battery to drain it once a month and possibly a couple of times the first few charge cycles.

What I said was actually accurate but If I did such a "extremely bad" job, maybe this will help you:

"Although lithium-ion is memory-free in terms of performance deterioration, batteries with fuel gauges exhibit what engineers refer to as "digital memory". Here is the reason: Short battery discharges with subsequent recharges do not provide the periodic calibration needed to synchronize the fuel gauge with the battery's state-of-charge. A deliberate full discharge and recharge every 30 charges corrects this problem. Letting the battery run down to the cut-off point in the equipment will do this. If ignored, the fuel gauge will become increasingly less accurate."

I'm at work and just short on time sometimes when I post. So to all, please forgive me for the horrid explanation.

For some tips be sure to check this out from Apple's site.

[Ardoreal]

Just figured I'd chime in a rather pleased report. I've used many different types of smartphones. Blackberry models, a few winmo devices, palm old and new, and nokia (new kinds). I still rate the E71 as the longest lasting smartphone, but then again it's virtually a battery with a phone bolted on. This 3GS is in a close second for battery longevity. I've just received the phone today and have been brutally taxing it for the last 4 hours alternating between doom, beejiveIM, facebook, SMS, watching shows, and browsing these forums. It's still at %65 charge. That's remarkable. Superbly remarkable. Given the hardware and what this phone is capable of I'd say this is the best wireless longevity I've ever seen. Amazing, truly a treat. I have found "the answer" in smartphones.

[bubbatex]

Or maybe my expectations were different? Saw this in my local paper this morning: IPhone 3GS owners bemoan its battery life - Los Angeles Times

I have to say that my 3GS has the best battery of my previous 3 smartphones - Pre, Touch Pro, Q9c and Q. The Q9c was close or maybe a bit better with the hump-back battery, but hey, it was a Q9c with WM 6.1 Standard and limited functionality. I have had it for a week now and been through 5 or 6 full charging cycles. Maybe I don't use all of the "stuff" other iPhone users do - I don't use BT much, nor wifi since I have a good 3G signal. I use Exchange push and I browse on it and listen to some music, but I have not really taken it out and about the town with location services on. I watched a 2 hour movie on it last night and that only knocked about 20% of the battery out which was very impressive to me. I did have a 2 hour call yesterday and that drained about 30% of the battery (with BT also on), but that was typical for my Pre and the TP too.

Just throwing my 2 cents in.....

[JFSikora]

Originally Posted by bubbatex

Or maybe my expectations were different? Saw this in my local paper this morning: IPhone 3GS owners bemoan its battery life - Los Angeles Times

I have to say that my 3GS has the best battery of my previous 3 smartphones - Pre, Touch Pro, Q9c and Q. The Q9c was close or maybe a bit better with the hump-back battery, but hey, it was a Q9c with WM 6.1 Standard and limited functionality. I have had it for a week now and been through 5 or 6 full charging cycles. Maybe I don't use all of the "stuff" other iPhone users do - I don't use BT much, nor wifi since I have a good 3G signal. I use Exchange push and I browse on it and listen to some music, but I have not really taken it out and about the town with location services on. I watched a 2 hour movie on it last night and that only knocked about 20% of the battery out which was very impressive to me. I did have a 2 hour call yesterday and that drained about 30% of the battery (with BT also on), but that was typical for my Pre and the TP too.

Just throwing my 2 cents in.....

People expect too much - for a multimedia device that has 3G you'll be hard pressed to find better battery life. Thing is the iPhone is so popular you have these people who come from normal no feature phones which have great battery life because they don't do anything... then they come to an iPhone and complain.

Now people who have used smart phones in the past such as HTC devices or other Windows Mobile phones know better and would not be complaining about the iPhones battery life.

[Phoebe]

Originally Posted by Bad Ash

People expect too much - for a multimedia device that has 3G you'll be hard pressed to find better battery life. Thing is the iPhone is so popular you have these people who come from normal no feature phones which have great battery life because they don't do anything... then they come to an iPhone and complain.

Now people who have used smart phones in the past such as HTC devices or other Windows Mobile phones know better and would not be complaining about the iPhones battery life.

I totally agree! People come from basic phones and expect to get 3-4 days worth of phone out of the iPhone. It's just unrealistic!

To those whose main argument is "I bought the phone to use these features, why should I turn them off?" No one is saying don't use the features, just when your not using them if you want to maximize battery life it would be in your best interest to turn them off, if you don't want to turn the features off when your not using them and have everything running expect your battery to drain faster than others. Plain and simple.

As far as my battery life goes, I consider myself a high intensity user so I always carry around with me a battery pack. My battery usually hits 20% after 5 hours. In this time I watch like 2 hours worth of movies, listen to an hour of songs, play an hour of video games, and then talk, text, and email for another hour. I'm rather impressed because my old phone could last for 3 days but I turn on the crappy internet and it could be fully charged and be die in 15mins.

[9530convert]

So far i've been impressed with how long my battery's lasted with the power using i've been doing. I mean, i've only had it for 2 days but it's lasted the entire day with need for charge by the end of the night which i consider normal. So i really can't see arguments about battery life considering how much the thing can do.

[SOV]

Originally Posted by Bad Ash

What I said was actually accurate but If I did such a "extremely bad" job, maybe this will help you:

"Although lithium-ion is memory-free in terms of performance deterioration, batteries with fuel gauges exhibit what engineers refer to as "digital memory". Here is the reason: Short battery discharges with subsequent recharges do not provide the periodic calibration needed to synchronize the fuel gauge with the battery's state-of-charge. A deliberate full discharge and recharge every 30 charges corrects this problem. Letting the battery run down to the cut-off point in the equipment will do this. If ignored, the fuel gauge will become increasingly less accurate."

I'm at work and just short on time sometimes when I post. So to all, please forgive me for the horrid explanation.

For some tips be sure to check this out from Apple's site.

lmao well done; as if most of us didn't already know you understand what you are talking about.

[JFSikora]

Originally Posted by SOV

lmao well done; as if most of us didn't already know you understand what you are talking about.

I try my best.

[DMB247]

I just received mine. Ran it down all the way yesterday, and charged it fully thru USB.

I'm prob just used to better, but today at work, i didnt work haha, i just used the phone. Using it heavily. I'm talking there was app after app used (games, facebook), and i used safari for a while as well over the Edge network. I was also texting frequently. 3.5 hours into my shift and i was at 40%.

Im not sure if thats normal. By the end of the shift, which was a 10-6 it had completely died and i was conserving battery like a mad man thse final few hours. Brightness nearly all the way down. So, is this normal, or is it just because it's new to me and i've been using it a lot.

[waq0]

Hi Everyone - I am new here and this is my first post but I am a longtime iPhone user.

I have heard (based on alotta other forums and experience) that the battery life is much worse if your iPhone is unlocked and jailbroken. So when posting your experiences with battery life tell us if your iPhone is jailbroken or not.

My personal experience: I am jailbroken and unlocked and I am watching the battery life go down a % every 10-15 minutes which is really annoying. I do not have 3G on cuz its not compatible with T-Mobile. Yesterday I took out my sim card at 5pm batterylife was at 53% I came back this morning at 10am and where do you think it was? 53% ! It hadn't moved! Sure enough I put the SIM card back in about 20 -25 minutes ago and we're already at 52%.

I don't know if this can be fixed via upgrading to the 3.1 firmware or is it a defect in the battery? I certainly have no idea why it should use more battery if its unlocked and jailbroken...

Any ideas?