Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

I'm not sure what to think of this update.  I woke up at 100% and it's already dropped 3% in less than two hours.  My husband and I bought our iPhones on the same day, and he charged it last night and it went from 100%-95% overnight - so not bad at all. 

I feel like mine my have some bad battery issues going on, that 5.1 did not fix.  Also, I am now seeing the 4G network.

Thoughts?

A two hour test is useless.   Give it some time.

I agree, that is a little amount of time...

Have you set the phone as a "new phone"? Previous backups can contain corrupted data/settings...

I reset the settings last night, and set it up as a new phone.  my phone is less than two weeks old, so I don't even have much data on it.  The first week I had it, I could see the battery drop by 2-3% as I was using it.  I lost almost 30% in less than an hour.  It got better as I charged it, and did two full cycles, but I don't really know what to think of it overall.

Just a thought if you have 5.1 take a screenshot of your usage when your phone is close to dying, because I don't thin I'm alone when I say I don't know if mines good or not

I've tried the full drain, now it won't go past 20%.

Time to bring it in I guess.

You'll have to give us a description of the settings you use...

Are location services turned on?

Local Weather on?

Siri Raise to speak on?

Bluetooth on?

3G on?

Cellular data on?

Wi-fi on?

E-mail push on?

Automatic fetch?

Diagnostics and usage set to Send?

Auto Brightness on?

Automatic timezone on?

Auto-lock set to what?

Sim lock on?

Ping on?

All of there things are turned on by default and can drain the battery. And if you are like me (I like to turn off what I don't use), there are some things that you can change in order to improve battery lifetime...

mdaley9 wrote:

 

I've tried the full drain, now it won't go past 20%.

Time to bring it in I guess.

Did you do a restore in DFU mode?

You'll have to give us a description of the settings you use...

Are location services turned on? Yes - just for the find my phone feature

Local Weather on? yes

Siri Raise to speak on? no

Bluetooth on? no

3G on? yes (don't have the option to turn it off)

Cellular data on? yes

Wi-fi on? no

E-mail push on? no

Automatic fetch? yes - hourly

Diagnostics and usage set to Send? no

Auto Brightness on? no

Automatic timezone on? no

Auto-lock set to what? 1 minute

Sim lock on? not sure what this is?

Ping on? no

I tried to set the phone up according to the battery tips I've seen on this board, but I mean, I still want to be able to use my phone you know? or else, what is the point?

Try the soft reset once (home and power button). Its not the problem with the phone, its a software problem. If that doesnt work, then restore the phone once. That should solve the problem....

Depened on how long youv had it you may need to change the battery in the iphone or try letting it fully run out of charge and then fully recharge it and see how that works.

Sure I understand you! But we must always have to think that we will have to make a choice regarding using some things VS battery lifetime.

I'm pretty sure that your location services are the ones that are taking down your battery.

Did you go all the way down to "System services"? There are somethings that you can turn off...iAids, traffic, timezone...these things keep the GPS always running and don't do much in practical terms.

And if you don't use GPS in a regular basis, I recommend turning Location Services Off. When you need to use GPS, turn it on...by the way, this would be REALLY simple if Apple added a bar like SBSettings where, with a slide of a finger, you have access to individual switches to "Wi-fi"; "3G"; "Airplane Mode", etc, etc. But that's not the case at the moment, so it will give a little more work...but it's possible! And it will save you battery power...

"Local time" is something that you can turn off too. It's related to the GPS module and keeps it running all the time. Just add your town to the list.

"Sim lock" - I don't know if it's the correct name in english (I'm portuguese). Is the feature that, if turned on, when you turn on the phone, you'll have to insert the PIN of the Sim card.

BY THE WAY: what are your Waiting Time and Usage Time? Are they close? Are they the same? Is Usage time going up even when the phone is not in use?

Cheers

I've had the phone for less than two weeks - which makes me mad because I waited SO long to get an iPhone (due to being stuck in contracts with tmobile), and now it's like really...all that for THAT?!

I just can't believe that such an expensive, and supposedly high tech product has so many issues.

OK I went ahead and turned off the locations - you are right, I don't really need it because I don't use Siri much and if I do, I can turn it off.  I've also turned off most of the icloud features (honestly I might even just delete icloud).

As for the other system services I definitely turned all that off too.  haha I swear this is kind of stupid to me that in order for me to use my phone, I need to turn off all the features I bought it for in the first place.  I have an iPad 2(wifi only) and I only charge it once a month.  What's crazy is that until I got the iphone, I didn't know of all the settings  you need to change for battery improvements, so my iPad was running with ALL the features on and the battery STILL lasts through the week.  I only charge it once to 100% and let it go.  I thought the iPhone would be similar, but dang, it is nothing like the iPad 2! 

my bad - I  meant once a week!

I see it the other way around: many other phones come with options turned off by default...iPhone comes with everything ON lol it's just a different way to see things

I did'nt remember iCloud. There have been many reports that it was the culprit of poor battery lifetime in iOS 5.0.1. I don't use it, so I've erased it...but this is one of those functions that should work as it is announced as a "revolutionary feature".

Also remember that iPad has a larger battery than the iPhone, so that comparison isn't fair...

OH!! Just tell me something - after you've turned off the Raise to speak function, did you reboot the phone? If you didn't, you must...otherwise, the sensor will continue to be ON (even with 5.1 - I've checked myself).

After making these changes, don't forget to reboot the phone...

Post your results.

Cheers!