Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

1 hour 19 mins and i'm at 80%

5 hrs 43 mins stand by

ios 5.1  didn't fix anything

Julymel wrote:

 

Thank you so much for all your responses.  I am going to take it through the day since I've only had one full charge since updating to 5.1; and will post the usage vs. standby to see where I stand.

 

I have changed some of the features, but I would also like to to be able to use my phone and all its fun features!

Feel free to use all of them you like, just remember that each one imposes some impact on your battery charge level.  No way around that.  If you look at the specs., you can calculate the 'cost' of the major functions.  For instance, each hour of Wi-Fi use (actually sending/receiving data) costs 10% of your battery power.  If you think that is excessive, compare it to other similar features on other phones.

sbailey4 wrote:

 

I am Verizon but that is listed in the release notes (the ATT icon change)

rphunte42 wrote:

 

Pichu21 wrote:

 

Did anyone else's 3G sign at the top change to 4G on AT&T?!?!?!??

Yes, and my data rate is half what it was before.  I'm not the least thrilled.  I will see what it shows at another location as I am in a radio dead zone where I live.

I wasn't sure what that meant.  Now I know.

Mac osx snow lepord mac book wrote:

 

Why can't I see the Disable 3G option!

It depends on your service.  ATT here doesn't show it.

But how much have you used your phone for 3G, games or video? In five hours, losing 28% could be totally normal. In fact, if you had been using 3G to browse a lot, you could easily be well below 72% and STILL be well within the battery specs listed by apple for the phone. If you want to be able to use your phone heavily all day for Internet browsing, gaming, videos etc, your battery is going to drain quickly, and that's perfectly consistent with the usage specs given by apple. So many people seem hung up on the 200 hr standby, when the fact is, if you use your phone regularly, you will not get anywhere close to that. That is what the battery is capable of, meaning everything turned off and no usage. And for those who say apple should list more "real world" battery stats, I don't disagree but also this is just common sense: if you use your phone all the time you probably will have to charge every night. And that is perfectly consistent with the usage times listed for the battery of this phone.

For the record, my phone seems slightly better on battery since the update, but I can't say for sure yet.

That's not great, but it will get you through more than a full day of use.

mac2112 wrote:

 

1 hour 19 mins and i'm at 80%

 

5 hrs 43 mins stand by

 

ios 5.1  didn't fix anything

My phantom usage only disappears if I have cellular data on without 3g and wifi enabled. If wifi is enabled and cellular data is off phantom usage starts again and in about 3 years of standby I can loose 9%. Since I have left on cellular data and wifi on its been standby 15 hours usage: 2 hours usage and I have lost 15% battery. usually if i just have wifi enabled im loosing 30% overnight.

Location services: ON

Push Email: ON

Also do not know if this is a bug when i have cellular data and wifi on after about 2 mins in standby my phone has the dot symbol in the top and wifi logo only appears when i actually unlock my phone. Also if i have whats app running in background the wifi symbol stays after i press the sleep/wake button on my phone. but when i close apps like whats app and go into standby the circle appears when i wake it.

i have had previous iphones and battery never drained this much with wifi.

My battery was 100% this morning at 9:00am. It is now 1:30pm and my battery is at 30% and all I have done with my phone is some texting. This is ridiculous.

Wibcs39 wrote:

 

For the record, my phone seems slightly better on battery since the update, but I can't say for sure yet.

Mine seems better.  Or maybe I need to recalibrate the battery.  Right now, it shows 187 hours remaining at current usage/standby rates.  I can live with that...

Since I updated my iPhone I have been using it only with the 2G network (EDGE). Everytime

I turned the phone off and then on again it always "forgets" the 3G was disabled, so when I restart the phone the 3G is always activated. Is it normal? I didn't use to have this issue with my 3GS...

This is where your particular situation has you blinded to additional realities......    My situation leads me to a different conclusion.   I shut off only the Time Zone and iADs location services.   I have 3 email accounts set up, with two being PUSH and one of those Exchange.   I use wifi all the time and BT is on for when I'm in the car.   I have icloud running, iTunes Match running, photostream running.   I don't waste time clearing out my app history every time I'm done with an app, so my previous apps bar has some 20 apps listed in there.

I charge my phone every night, while sleeping.   64gb 4s received on day one of the release.

So, I upgeraded to 5.1 yesterday evening, then plugged in at bed time.   This morning I unplugged and all the while attached to wifi, I lost nothing ---- After 2+ hours, my phone was still at 100% with 23min of usage.

Time to go out --- I left home, stopped for something to eat and while there (on 3G or AT&T's faux 4G), worked a bunch of emails, did a little facebooking and read some news stories.   Immediately, when leaving my wifi connection, the battery began to drop quickly.   After some 40min on 3G, with steady usage, I was donw to 85% remaining.   So that's 15% in less than 3/4 hour.   The phone was warm, but not hot.

This reinforces my belief that the problem is in how the 4s and iOS 5 manage cellular data with the new dual antenna system.   For the heck of it, I brought my iPAD-1 with me, set up with the same exact email configuration, same wifi/3g connections, same iCloud, photostream and iTunes Match settings....   After all morning and part of the afternoon, it's at 98% remaining after 8 hours.    I know I'm comparing Apples & Oranges (so to speak), but to see the phone battery drop so quickly, just by leaving the wifi environment, to me, is very telling.

I'm guessing that APPLE is not going to be able to fix the 3G battery drain issue and iPhone 5 is our only hope.   And that will require a bigger battery, and probably a bigger form, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.......

rphunte42 wrote:

 

Complaining about battery use because things are on isn't beneficial.  Complaining about excessive battery use with NOTHING is on, is why people come here.

Bottom line:  There ain't no such thing as a FREE LUNCH.

I have actually not played and games or video.  My phone is 3G all the time and I have no been browsing the web either.  All that my phone has been doing is pushing emails once an hour and I use messaging that is all that my phone has been doing.  Compared to what it was yesterday and previously by the time I hit about 10pm I'm in the 0-10% range.  Its 1:45 here and I am at 44%.  I don't think that I will make it to the end of the day at this rate.  I actually don't look at what the usage specs are cause I set my phone up my way and based my battery usage off of 1 weeks worth of use.  So my averages are actually different. 

I do charge my phone every night that is not an issue or concern for me, I just want to be able to actually make it the day on a single charge.  I know I am going to have to see over the next couple of days but as for today the first day of having 5.1 I am losing battery at a much faster rate then I usually do.  It's the end of my lunch and my battery is usually around 65%.  I'm down roughly 20% so it is something that I have noticed. 

LisaFrances1988 wrote:

 

My battery was 100% this morning at 9:00am. It is now 1:30pm and my battery is at 30% and all I have done with my phone is some texting. This is ridiculous.

Yes, that IS riduculous.  Definitely something wrong.  Let Apple check it out.

Oops that was directed to the guy a couple pages back complaining about having 72% after five hours of the phone being on. All my point is is that, aside from the phantom usage problems, this thread seems filled with people who want to be able to heavily use their phone for over a day without running out of battery. I just don't understand where that logic is coming from. The specs state something like 6 hrs 3G browsing, 9 hrs wifi browsing, and I forget talk time (up to 14 hrs maybe). So what has made all of you think you should be able to use these features all day and not have to charge every night (or more if you browse/game constantly)? I am genuinely curious; I knew what usage times the phone had when I got it, and generally it seems close.

J martin, that does seem weird, sorry to hear that. Does your usage time listed seem way higher than your actual time using the phone?