Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

I have commented on this earlier in the thread, but will repeat it again as most people won't go back to read what was already discussed.

Given all the properties of the lithium ion batteries, Apple had to make a decision: either have a higher capacity battery out of the box (for example, by adjusting the low and high charge margins in the battery circuit) that will last fewer cycles, or have an battery that will endure many more charging cycles without degrading performance -- but have it start with lower capacity initially and not let all of th ebattery's capacity be used (by using narrower low-high charge range). I believe with the iPhone 4S they chose the longer battery lifetime variant and it seems the battery migh be even of newer kind -- because it exibits these properties more pronounced than others.

It is also possible, that the "newer" iPhone 4S that do not exibit the "battery problem" have in fact an older design battery, possibly because of suply shortage etc. Or maybe not. This is speculation.

Fact is, if you actually USE your iPhone battery life improves considerably.

The bad thing here is that 'out of box' battery experience does not match expectations of most users, who try to compare it with their old iPhone 3GS or 4, whose battery has reached it's rated capacity long ago.

This by the way sort of explains the observation "when they released their new device it had buggy software which was eventually fixed later" -- in fact, batteries just got "trained" for the most part.

In any case, we are just discussing possible causes here -- one would know for sure, if they had the OEM specifications for the batteries used and the specifications of the charging circuit. Not impossible task, but frankly not for this user forum.

Guys after my 4th fullcycle my standby drain drops additional %3 percent now with 7 hours standby with 40 min phantom usage batterry drops only %5 percent overnight with everything on except bluetooth off.
I think people exactly right about lithium-polymer batteries they reach their potential after few cycles ..

Regarding the battery reaching it's full potential after a few cicles, that's what happens with most equipments...that is why the first days can be misleading...

As I stated earlier, the only way to know if the battery itself has a problem is: take out the SIM card and watch what happens.

In my case, the difference was HUGE!

I went from 1day and 6 hours with the SIM on to 6 days with no SIM.

This let me know that the battery itself is fine and that the problem is somewhere else.

Cheers!

The conditions where pretty much the same in the two situations: everything turned OFF, with almost no use (standby mostly).

This isn't a very meaningful comparison. Usage drains the battery at 4200% the rate of being on standby, and without the SIM card, the cellular radio is shut off (conserving power).

Well if i play some 3d games and browse some web pages it sucked up my battery.. this morning  7h standby 40min usage battery at %96  now 14h standby 4 hour usage %36 i hope this is normal.  Btw noway i can use my phone for 4h i think there are still some phantom usage isues in day time usage i have to check pids more carefully.

J D McIninch wrote:

 

This isn't a very meaningful comparison. Usage drains the battery at 4200% the rate of being on standby, and without the SIM card, the cellular radio is shut off (conserving power).

The comparison is good ONLY for you to know if the battery itself is fine or not. I said that in the previous post. Other than that, is useles because there are too many variables that can run down the battery.

Where did u get that percentage?.....Even when we use the mobile's highest consuming option, 3G and browse the web, we get 6 hrs of browsing time which doesnt mean it is .042 times the standby time....No offence, these are just theoritical numbers....

I have found a solution that worked for me, after numerous tries following other solutions that only sloved my problem partially.

Step one: Reset all settings, when prompted after the reboot, choose set up as new iPhone

Step two: Follow what most people have said, turn off diagnotic reports/ all system services except "cell network search" On the same screen, make sure status bar icon is on so you can see if location services are being used. Turn off location services for things you don't need, the same for notifications. If you can avoid turning on notifications that show up on the lock screen for things that are unimportant. Also enable restrictions and turn off "ping", blue-tooth and for siri, turn off raise to speak, "that way the phone doesnt have to worry about sensing your phone when you put it against your ear. (INSTEAD, just hold the home button and when siri is on, then put it next to your ear to switch to headset mode. )

For email turn push off. When push is off, any email that has the fetch option on will only check for emails lets say every hour when you set fetch to 1 hr. Emails accounts that are unimportant set to mannual, that way it will only check when you use the mail app. Try to avoid having push set on.

Step three: Recalibrate your battery, drain it completely and let it charge fully to 100% overnight. Let it still charge for hours once it is at 100%.

Step four: restore your phone, and DO NOT restore from backup. You have to somewhat start over again. Make sure you have atleast your apps and music/videos/podcasts etc in your iTunes library.

step five: turn off automatic downloads for itunes, app store and iBooks when purchased on other devices. Somehow, after doing this my phantom drain stopped. Then when I checked these options the next day, they went back to on by "itself"

This solution doesnt work 100% the first time. I believe there is a bug in the settings that causes the phone to have some sort of phantom drainage. You just have to tweak your settings around. This is why for some people their battery problems were solved and for others, were not. It could be possible they thought doing the original solution guides people have set up indeed fixed your battery issues, when they could had actually fixed it themselves by playing around with the settings.

I tried for almost a couple of weeks doing the above steps, but last night i did step five and the phantom drainage stopped. I now have 1 day 12 hrs stand by and 8 hours of usage ( light web browsing, application downloads, some text, couple of calls, 2-3 hrs of music .) And I also noticed that my usage is accurate now. Before my fix, i noticed the usage time went up to a number of hours I dont recall using. That was probably the phantom drain. I also noticed before that when i lightly used my phone(listening to music drained 2-3 per hour), it seemed to drain at the same rate as if it were on standby. (losing 2-3% an hour as well)

Tips:

Keep checking if your usage time is accurate, if its not, you still got a drainage problem. Also Standby time includes usage hours altogether. If you dont get a plug icon when your phone is fully charged and get a bolt icon instead, that is another bug. Restarting your phone and plugging it back in again may fix that. Or restorting your phone.

Avoid apps that have lots of ads, it may cause drainage issues, or make sure you dont use too much storage.

J Soap wrote:

 

Duckgirl722, admittedly the iphone is a bit slow of the blocks in comparison to Android, but if you follow even some of the basic guidelines on saving energy on the iphone, you'll be looking pretty in no time.

 

There is no permanent battery drain issue with the iphone; it's a brain drain issue with some users.

 

Report back on your Android trip.

In reading a number of reviews on various Android smartphones, especially those with 4G LTE, the main complaint is short battery life.  Enter the Motorola RAZR MAX with its monster 3300 maHr battery.  Smart phones just take a lot of battery power, and by comparison, the 4S has a rather small battery.

Pavan Kulkarni wrote:

 

I did not leave the phone idle for 200 hrs....I just averaged it....And yeah, I did leave the phone without using for two days and used 3GS for two days during which 4S had lost about 23 percent in 49 hrs.....

And when I am going to bed at night, I usually look at the battery percentage and sleep and the average drain is around .5%....About 4% loss overnight....

So, the phone is great....

I just discharged mine to 1% and recharged.  It took 2 days 7 hours, and I had to run the GPS for a few hours to get it to shut down.  Now it is a few minutes over 4 hours, with 21 minutes usage, and 98%.  It just gets better.

I quite agree that there are likely several things working, and making the problem seem worse than it is.  I am certain that some users give up on the phone before taking all the steps to solving their problem, and that some have expectations that just exceed the available technology.

On a recent trip, I noticed that in spite of AT&T's coverage map, I had 3G coverage in areas marked 'no coverage'.  My wife used 3G to access the internet almost without pause (and it is reflected in her megabytes used) during our trip from Fort Worth to Jackson Mississippi.  I was rather pleased by the performance of her 3GS and my 4S, both of which used far more battery power than they would have at home, thanks to the 'fringe area' usage, and the nature of the terrain.  Sometimes I saw only one bar, but never lost contact entirely that I saw.

grinch420 wrote:

 

Apple should be embarrased.  I've had my 4s for only a couple of days.  I've had many blackberry devices and I could at least go they day on a charge - seems like the minimal amount to expect from a phone at moderate usage.

 

I have very few apps installed and running.  I'm always covered in wifi, and I don't do much more than the occasional call and text messages.  It's 1:27pm after taking my phone from the charger at 7am and its down to 34%.  I lost 4% taking 2 one minute calls.  I've turned off all the stuff the forums recommend and it stil drains quickly.  Rediclous.

 

I'm a tech guy, I know how to use my devices and have been using smartphones since the Treo.  I've never had a phone battery perform so poorly.

 

So disappointing.

Let the phone discharge to 1%, or to cutoff, and the recharge.  The meter chip needs to be calibrated before those percentages mean anything.  Also, check your usage.  If usage and standby are the same, or very close, then you will need to do the reset thing outlined in other messages.

EdiMC wrote:

 

Regarding the battery reaching it's full potential after a few cicles, that's what happens with most equipments...that is why the first days can be misleading...

 

 

As I stated earlier, the only way to know if the battery itself has a problem is: take out the SIM card and watch what happens.

In my case, the difference was HUGE!

I went from 1day and 6 hours with the SIM on to 6 days with no SIM.

This let me know that the battery itself is fine and that the problem is somewhere else.

 

Cheers!

There are known problems with some SIM cards, especially when they came from an old phone.  The update 9A406 is supposed to address that, so if removing the SIM card greatly changes things, then it might make sense to do the update, and then contact your carrier about a new SIM card, properly provisioned for a 4S.

Something I noted this morning when I was trying to run my battery down.  When I set a reminder to remind me to take out the trash when I got home, I knew it would accelerate the battery use because the GPS would come on once a minute to see if I was home yet.  However, when I got home, received the notification, and then acknowledged it, I noticed that the GPS was STILL ACTIVE.  I set the reminder off, and the usage continued.  I had to delete the reminder in order to get the GPS to turn off.  Just something to be aware of.