Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

@snif123

snif123 wrote:

 

Your 4S goes more than a day with light usage! So do other smartphones for half the price, as I said, the 4S has no edge over other competitor products on the market.

With your light usage, do you think you should be able to get atleast 2-3 days without charge? The 4S is supposed to be an improvement to the IP4 but in the battery category it's a big loss.

I use my phone lightly I believe, and it has never hit the 2 Days mark, many times it has died on me during the day when I have forgotten to charge overnight, I think this is not value for money. The 4S should be able to easily go 2.5~3 Days with my usage pattern, I KNOW this.

Every 2-3 times a month, I have to reset all settings/content when the phantom usage somehow creeps up again.

I have the static issue, this is my 2nd 4S.

Overall, the 4S battery is poor and the APPLE advertising/marketing is misleading and false, most consumers/owners don't realise this because they believe "it's a smartphone, smartphones use a lot of power, they must be charged atleast daily".

I agree with you! It is a shame that one can sell a phone at a premium while having the same battery life like other cheaper phones. iPhone 4s battery life is even worse than iPhone 4 without adding anything major.

@deteacher

deteacher wrote:

 

Update #2:  Have not used the phone since the last update at 9:30 this morning.  It is now 2:30 p.m. and the battery is down to 68% (from pulling off of a full charge at 7:30 this morning.  I've lost 30% of my battery from 7 hours of standby time.  That's not right.  Just wanted to post my stats.

It looks like a hardware issue.

I suggest to get a refund or a new replacement!

@Youssef Amr

Youssef Amr wrote:

 

Does 5.1 fixes the battery issue?

No. It does not. The last one is iOS 5.1 beta 3 and it is known that it does not fix the battery life issue of iPhone 4s.

@Pokharel

Pokharel wrote:

 

It's not the iPhone 4S itself that has terrible battery life. Trust me. Call AT&T or Verizon as your Carrier is. And tell them to see what's going on with the nearest Cell Towers most of the time of the day you spend on. Ask them to boost your Carrier Network for your phone numbers and see what a change you will notice. I'm pretty sure, your iPhone 4S is great but due to poor network cell-torwers, and switched network towers congestion, the power drains pretty fast.

 

Here's the trick: AT&T or Verizon will never accept this fact for sure. So what you have to trick is: let them know that you are having massive phone drop-calls. Once they try to look into it, here we go, you gonna have the improved reception corresponding improved network signals and capabilities dramatically sucking less juice from your iPhone 4S.

I suggest one to het a refund or get a new replacement!

It is not the fault of the carrier that iPhone 4s has a miserable battery life which cannot be fixed by the carrier or with software updates! It is the fault of Apple!

1AppleADayNoWay,

Don't get me wrong, but from your writeups I understood that:

- you don't own an iPhone 4S, don't plan to buy such, don't like smartphones at all.

My questions: if you don't own an iPhone 4S how come you know it's battery lfie is awful? How come you are of the opinion it is worse than anything else out there? How could you make a fair judgement of something, you don't even use? (smartphones)

- you insist, that Apple should not look at the Product first, but at the Customer.

My questions: Are you aware, that Apple is to sucessful, because they are actually obsessed with the Product, in the first place? This is because if Apple is like all other "caring" companies, they will have no Product, but will babysit "customers". The customer wants a good Product. Most customers want the best product they can afford. With 'digital life' becoming so widespread, customers now demand they have access to integrated electronic devices, that do a lot of things and do them well -- the iPhone is such a device. This is why it has such overwhelming success.

- Apple not admitting anything etc.

My comment: Actually, Apple is not denying that there is place for improvement to the iPhone 4S. This is why they are working on new software, that will better (and properly, as it relates to the power consumption) manage the hardware. This does not mean that Apple should respont to every user's post with something like "don't worry, we will handle this" --- this is a message that is actually presumed with Apple (and don't call me fanboy, please -- that is just what history has shown) With regards to the battery life, Apple has actually published a very helpful guide to advise you what is draining your battery. This article is worth reading by anyone who has 'battery problems': http://www.apple.com/batteries/iphone.html

As for your question whether the iPad Touch can replace an iPhone. Yes, it can -- it is sort of the same device, without the radio chip. It has similar spec, but bear in mind that the current generation iPod Touch uses the A4 CPU so it is comparable more with the iPhone 4. I myself, considered keeping my Nokia smartphone (for it's long battery life when used as dumb phone ) but considering I have another iPod Touch (1st gen), an iPad 2 3G... I decided it's more convenient to carry around just one device: iPhone 4S

If I am inclined to carry more bulk, that would be external battery

So, the current iPod Touch will do what an iPhone 4 can do for games/apps , except for the GSM/GPS and will of course not have the discussed here battery drain.

dkaltchev: you are having a great battery performance!

As to iPod Touch: its is another feeling entirely to be always connected to the network with your apps like on an iPhone. I use the Touch for occasional youtube and emails when I am in bed. But its no phone. Though it synced contacts from the Cloud.

1AppleADayNoWay wrote:

 

-The idea that Apple released a variant of their 5.0.1 build aka 90A406 to address "sim card reader" related issues - (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4148)

-The idea that some people could stop their "phantom usage" by removing the sim. Lately someone stated having 6 days of standby without the SIM. Yet he changed the sim many times and nothing helped and he tried both the 405 and 406 build - EdiMC I think.

Build 9A406 has new modem firmware. This controls the radio chip, including it's communication with the SIM apparently.

When you remove the SIM, you effectively disable the GSM/CDMA radio, thus reducing power consumption. In effect, you turn your iPhone 4S into an upgraded iPod Touch (A5 CPU, GPS).

As discussed in this thread, there are many reasons why power consumption may be very high because of poor radio reception (no, the chip is not defective, as such -- it's all about radio [power] management). This is especially pronounced with 3G enabled. The current iOS does not have an knob to disable 3G data -- that will be in iOS 5.1. This will help in cases where your operator's network is perfect with 2G, but not so good with 3G.

The issue of higher power consumption with poor network coverage is not unique to the iPhone 4S -- it is true for any other phone. Some phones are better, some are worse. We see it more visible with the iPhone 4S than with iPhone 4, because it uses an new chip, that is supposed to do all this automatically -- select various bands, switch 2G/3G etc. I guess the vendor (Qualcomm) hasn't sorted things initially with firmware, but since this chip is fully software programmable, things can improve with new modem firmware (embedded in iOS).

Hi enx23! I am curious as to why you are so passionate about insisting that people get a replacement/refund because you believe no software update could possibly solve the issue. I'm not saying you are wrong nor right, I am just curious

Because he is some poor guy paid by Samsung to bash iPhones in forums. :-)

Begging your pardon, ser, but you are the same as him, insisting that iPhones are the best when in fact something is really wrong with them

enx23 wrote:

 

One has to have realisting expectations.

This has nothing to do with realistic expectations or how one uses the iPhoen 4s. The point is that the battery life of iPhone 4s is horrible compared to iPhone 4 when used in the same conditions and same way. Also here one compares the battery life with iPhone 4 and also with what is written in its specification! I least I suggest that Apple should modify the specification of its iPhone 4s in such a way that it reflects the reality!

It is all written here: http://www.apple.com/iphone/battery.html

One has to read these documents, to understand what Apple actuallt claims.

My Nokia smartphone used to have battery life of several days, but... that with 2G and everything else off. As soon as I switch on 3G and/or WiFi it dies much faster than the iPhone 4S! (admittably, it's smaller, has smaller battery but also much, much slower CPU and small display etc.)

I have a feeling that here is a confusion between 3G network and Cellular Data. Please, note that 3G network is used also for voice data and not only for data transfer!  Please, rephrase it!

Of course, I forgot that you have higher degree than me! Nevertheless, imagine I have some clue what 3G is. Might be even better than yours. Of course, your higher than mine education might be in the field of 3G technology.. who knows.

By the way, "Cellilar Data", as used in the iPhone includes 2G (EDGE etc) as well as 3G (UMTS etc). I guess in the US it also includes CDMA.

I believe, the best advice one can give to a new owner of iPhone 4S is to first Restore in iTunes (thus updating to the latest software), then set it up as you please.

Unfortunately, for most people the setup is done by the sales folk at their carrier, who knows with what settings...

This forum has over one million views and it is full of restore/reset/etc. tips and neither of them proved useful! the proof for this is that the posts on this forum is growing as fast as ever!

I don't know about others. I know that for me, those reset hints were extremely useful --- to hint me that my phone has some bad setting, that is.

As a coinscidence, this is the very first advice Apple gives to those interested in better battry life "Update to the latest software" -- here, read: http://www.apple.com/batteries/iphone.html

I strongly suggest that if one has or things that it might have the battery life issue to get a refund or a new replacement! Do not spend your time reseting/reloading/etc. because they do not work! It is not the fault of carrier, it is not the fault of customer that iPhoen 4s has a miserable battery life. It is fault of Apple and Apple should have done something about it yesteryear!

Please stop spreading FUD. You have absolutely no clue what you talk about!

Despite you having higher degree than me, that is

duckgirl: I don't know what is wrong with the phones. I am insisting iPhones are the best there is because it really is. I tested Android and laugh every time I spot a top-of the line Androids in the wild, especially Samsung. It amuses me to watch faces with which those victims of sales techniques use their phones :-)

And when I hear that Apple is overrated, that very same features can be found in Samsungs and then some, I always laugh because I know WHAT idiocy is a Samsung. My friend has an HTC, says he wants to copy files to the device (I use Dropbox for that).

When I am in the electronics store, I play with Samsungs and HTC to laugh on its developers and users.

I also once witnessed sales people advertising a Samsung to a poor lady who wanted an iPhone (which is way better phone) and told her they are cheap fools who want to install pirated software.

Haha, there you go - I rest my case. lol

enx23 wrote:

 

@Gooner90

 

It looks like you are affected by the battery life issue and it looks like it is a hardware issue.

 

I suggest to get a refund or a new replacement!

Even better yet, have someone desolder your defective Qualcomm 3G chip, put in an "not defective" Samsung chip and sneak Android instead of iOS, so that your experience might be improved.

<sarcasm off>

What Gooner90 did was what I did and his battery life improved just like mine. This is welcome improvement.

If the phone gets warm while using 3G, then it must have poorer reception (that might well be the case in trains). Today's mobile phones have up to 1W EIRP (which is good, because early models had up to 4W EIRP). Given that the antenna does't have much amplification, the power drain is significant. When the cellular signal is poor, or the phone has to switch between cells, it uses more power. This is true for any mobile phone, with any (defective or not) radio chip.

iOS 5.1 wil improve this situation. If nothing else, it will let you switch 3G off completely, for much improved battery life and sometimes (when the network is that bad) for much improved call quality.

Though of course if you buy Android for say $150 unlocked it is a good value even though the phone will be extremely slow.

But to spend $1000?? On Samsung? When you could get an iPhone? Only fools do that.

dkalchev: I also have had a Nokia Symbian phone. Terrible battery life, 1 day at max with everything off, 2 hours talktime on wifi.