Q: iPhone 4s Battery Life?

I'm in agreement, I notice the most battery drain when the iPhone attempts to hang onto an external 1 bar 3G signal, even though there is a 5 bar Edge network internal to the building I work in. The phone cell algorithm seems to favor the 3G signal, even at the expense of killing itself.

Previously, I would get around this on my other iPhones by simply switching off 3G when entering the building. This forced the phone into 2G/EDGE mode, getting 5 full bars. Now that Apple/AT&T has taken away the ability to manually turn off 3G network, my battery life *****. Come on Apple, bring back the ability to turn off 3G networks, give us a choice!

Carole Anne wrote:

 

I purchased what I thought was a top-of-the-line product only to be terribly disappointed. This is my first iphone and may well be my last. I have most features turned off based on the messages here to try to improve battery drain. I paid for this phone just to have some of these features. I didn't pay for a poor quality device. After a full charge last night (I let the phone completely drain--2nd time doing this since I bought the phone), my battery right now shows 96%. My usage shows 11 minutes and my Standby shows 9 hours, 38 minutes. I feel like I've been duped!

Is this a joke? 200 hours standby (according to specs) is 0.5% every hour. You've left it on standby for over 9.5 hours (that's just over 4% battery drain). Your phone's battery is perfectly within spec. The fact that all features are turned off is just confirms that Apple's batteries last 200 hours on standby (when all features are normally not in effect).

If your problem suddenly appears when you start turning ANY SINGLE feature on, then I can see how you might have feel duped. Try enabling one feature at a time -- if all is working properly your battery should still be holding out very well. If not, at least you've identified what is causing the massive battery drain. The folks who are having problems are experience heavy battery drain even with everything turned off.

IM16 maybe you are right, what I had exp beforehand which I didn't mention was that after a full charge (last evening) I had unplug from the charger and went to bed at around 10pm and woke up at 7am to find that the battery was at 30%. In a span of 9 hours, I had lose 70% which works out to be about 7-8% per hour, which if it is 0.5% for normal standby I would have suffer only ~5%, give it 10% tops, not 70% which I think its unacceptable for a smartphone.

My 4s has the same problem. I drop about 10% in 15 minutes. Not good. Apple should do something about it.

I'm not sure if this has been posted already. Anandtech just published a very detailed review of the iPhone 4S.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4971/apple-iphone-4s-review-att-verizon

If you're not familiar with this site, they are extremely knowledgeable about technology matters, and they are unbiased when it comes to reviews. There's an entire section of the review devoted to the phone's battery life. Here's an excerpt:

"Based on our data, concerns about the iPhone 4S' battery life seem unrelated to hardware. The raw power consumption numbers show a platform that's competitive with its predecessor in most areas, only really hurting when it comes to heavy 3D workloads. If you're seeing worse battery life on the 4S, the cause would appear to be software related. Wipe, setup from scratch (no restore), remove/re-add all accounts and reset network settings would be the best course of action if you're seeing higher than normal power consumption."

If you read the entire review, you'll appreciate the engineering that went into the design of the phone. My iPhone 4S has decent battery life. Since I didn't have a previous iPhone, it was set up as a new device. I'm sure Apple is tracking down whatever software bugs/settings are causing poor battery performance.

I've made the settings work by disabling location services for reminders, etc.  But still, this thing ***** power.  Apple needs to address this issue and let us know they're working on a patch.  Cross your fingers it's a software/firmware issue and not a hardware issue.

My battery life for 4S is about a day with "reasonable" internet use, certainly not the 6 hours listed for the product.  I don't use Wifi  (3G connection works good) and don't have blue tooth turned on either.  Apps get closed if I have opened more than a couple of the non-standard issue apps open...like the myweather app.

This is my first Iphone...used to have Blackberries and got at least 2 days of battery like with "reasonable" use of data.

I solved my issue by disabling wifi sync initunes.  Whenever my Iphone was connectedto wifi with this enabled the battery would drain approx 5% an hour.  Phone usage in settings showed that the ‘standby’time and ‘used’ time were equal – the phone was constantly doing somethingwhile in standby.  Also the wifi neverswitched off – as soon as I woke the phone from sleep it was already connected.  Disabling wifi syncing when connected toitunes via the usb cable solved the problem for me.  Hopefully it may for someone else. 

JohnnyInSNJ wrote:

 

This is pretty bad.

11/1/2011 1am phone dies completly charged until 9:38 am

9:38 am 100%

0 - calls

0 - Siri

No Wifi, no icloud

7 texts in and out

15 ish emails read, none replied.

11:45 am  88%

 

Burning through approx 10% every two hours at this current pace...and I'm not even doing anything.

From your settings, it seems you are getting your texts and emails through your carrier's data network. I am guessing your carrier uses 3G -- if that is the case, then your battery probably normal. (Wifi will use less battery power so try using it when you can). I'd only be worried if your battery was draining at that rate during standby (no emails, no texts).

Current usage summary.  This equates to a combined usage battery drain of 2.5% per hour.  This means I "could" get a combined use of 38 hours and 54 minutes, which breaks down to:

Usage = 7 hours, 42 minutes (all types)

Standby = 31 hours, 12 minutes

With my phone locked, no apps running, and connected to wifi, I loose rediculous amounts of battery. This phone lasts way less than my 3gs. I have to charge twice a day just to send a text here and there while at work. Im super dissapointed. It oesnt even make sense how it could be so bad. At least maybe if I was using the phone it should drop a little. Ive even lost up to 20% in just half an hour. Helllpppp!!!

How is it working out for you now? Same battery drain or were you able to come up with a solution?

I also saw a vast improvement in battery life after completely draining the battery before charging. 

Well I finally solved my battery life issue. I get 26 hours of standby and  6 hours of use ( aprox. 2 hour of calling, 45 min games..rest txt messaging, safari and email) and i'm at 20% life. That is acceptable to me and within specs.

I restored my phone as "new" from iTunes, and let the battery drain to zero. Something rather odd is that the battery stayed at 1% for 54 minutes before dying, and this was while playing youtube videos. I charged the battery to 100% and went to bed. The following morning the phone showed 8 hours 4 minutes standby time, and the battery still at 100%. The battery percentage calculator is apparently wildly innacurate, at least on my phone. I turned the usual suspects in location services off (everything under System Services is off). I also have email to fetch and iCloud and Bluetooth off.

I can finally use the phone instead of worrying about its battery. Good luck to all.

This is so annoying! I drained my battery purposely and charged it over night. In under 4 hours it was already at 52% battery life! I went into the settings several times and adjusted everything to the minimum of what I require but this is silly. What's the point of having all these fancy features if I can't even use most them to conserve battery life? Even putting my phone on sleep drained 2% within minutes. I might have to start bringing my usb everywhere I go to charge.