iPhone 5 battery life is way worse than iPhone 4

I have to disagree with the majority getting good battery life. The majority don't even know there is a forum disputing battery life. The majority doesn't even know what good or bad battery life is. We have just a very small sample of people on this forum and the other forums with this discussion. It is not dying and only getting stronger. The battery is not good on straight cellular. Wifi is amazing.

Just a random person here and like Jameson says...wifi I get excellent battery life and then in 4-5 bars of lte it becomes garbage. I'm a beta tester of 6.1 and can also tell the others that it is not better on that version either. I get 5 hours max on strong lte signal. Guess that isn't bad compared to my android but nothing like my old iPhone 4 when I had it.

It's simple, more power hungry phone with cellular data due to the radio function ...SAME size battery as previous iPhone. ******* move by apple. 200 more mah would have made a huge difference, but no, increased it by what?..maybe 10 or so mah. Big fail on apple and I can rest assured that they won't do it again next year.

Really you guys need to get your facts straight. Not one of you knows what the problem is, any testing anyone is doing is totally irrelivant. From the amount of replys and different results nothing has been concluded.

I for one am having this same issue but it can come and go, again i cant explain it.

My friend who also has an iphone 5, can go easilly 1.5 to 2 days with heavy usage.

His stats are normally 12 hours usage and 1 day 12 hours standby.

This is with LTE on all the time, Wifi on, Bluetooth on and constant iMessage usage including usage of other apps.

Not to mention bluetooth audio streaming for at least 30 minutes a day.

The concept that wifi, or that LTE or that the battery is too small are all incorrect.

LTE may suck more battery but Apple definetly engineered this thing to perform. There is soemthing else going on here.

Our phones are the exact same, almost the exact same apps, and if i get 5 hours of usage and 12 hours of standby i am lucky.

Whatever is causing this is as of now a mystery.

EDIT: also as a side note for anyone mentioning the beta or that they are on the beta. Just FYI if i am correct that is in breach of your contract that was signed when you became a developer.

Message was edited by: dani190

same here. my Iphone 5 only last for 4 hours usage if using 3G (dont have LTE in my country indonesia), but if i'm using wifi it could last until 8-9 hours usage. another problem is my iphone getting warm if browsing using 3G. is all iphone 5 have a problem like this or we are just unlucky people who get the defect iphone?

Hey guys and gals. I have had my iPhone 5 for a couple of weeks and it barely lasted a day on a full charge. I did some scoping out on the forums and tips and tricks and I have finally gotten my iPhone to where I want it.

Currently 33% battery, last charged (only to 98%) 12/23 @ 1300, 7 hours 38min usage and 1 day 10 hours on stand by. I was pretty tired when I was messing around and changing thing around so I will list things that I've done. I hope this may help someone.

Deleted my gmail and icloud accounts then readded them, bluetooth off, LTE off (I don't get it too often), notifications off (kept phone, messages, and weather) , auto lock 2mins, set time zone off, vibrate on ring off, most sounds off (except ringtone, text tone, FB, and alerts), brightness ~ 33% with auto on, location services ON but manually turned all off, system service (at very bottom of location services) all off except cell network search. I went through all apps in settings and looked. Angry Birds has "Magic Places" it will track you even when app is off. Then opened up every app and looked at the IN-APP settings. some of them had loaction tracking or other forms of notification. Also I DL BatteryDoctor and it seems interesting so i'll keep it.

I am now more comfortable with my iphone 5 and will slowly start turning service and such on to see where or what is killing my battery. Also going to Apple store and will have them run a system check. I was pretty close to returning it but happy that it's acting normal.

(Phone is now at 29% with 25 more minutes of usage and itunes playing)

Switching to another topic coz even if my 2nd iPhone has better battery life, he's losing the SIM card once a day LOL. The manufacture of this phone is a joke.

I'm still trying to understand what happens on standby. If I charge to 100%, the first 24 hours on standby drops to 96% (uses 4%), but the 2nd day drops it to 88% (uses 8%). I don't have the 3rd day yet. This is a test with cellular, wifi, bluetooth, and icloud all off, and the phone calls forwarded.

I suspect something strange is happening in the battery reading rather than the actual battery capacity. Why would a brand new phone be so double the decline than the previous day.

Anyway, I'm continuing this test to see how I can minimize the charge loss when on standby.

@dani190

I know it gives you hope to continue claiming that this problem is firmeware related and somehow fixable. Nobody wants to believe that their gorgeous new iPhone 5 has no hope of performing better that we are seeing so far.

Unfortunately, I am convinced that after 4 iterations of iOS6, if it ain't fixed, it ain't gonna be fixed. I'm sure that once iOS6.1 is released this thread will get another jolt of hand-wringing, moaning and groaning, along with the surprising level of anger that we've seen for 200+ pages already. It's just not going to be fixed. Hopefully, APPLE will see the light for either iPhone 5s or iPhone 6 and increase battery capacity.

Compare the iPhone battery life to other SMARTPHONES with similar 1400 -1450ma batteries and similar features. They are no better, and many are worse! The laws of physics are at work here, and for the iPhone, it is what it is........

Sorry, but the facts are piling up to prove my opinion makes sense.

You do realize that with Cellular Data off, your phone is still attached to the cellular network and able to make phone calls, right? It is still polling the network regularly to maintain that voice connection. Try putting it in AIRPLANE Mode which truly turns off all cellular functionality and then see what happens.

paulfromhere wrote:

I'm still trying to understand what happens on standby. If I charge to 100%, the first 24 hours on standby drops to 96% (uses 4%), but the 2nd day drops it to 88% (uses 8%). I don't have the 3rd day yet. This is a test with cellular, wifi, bluetooth, and icloud all off, and the phone calls forwarded.

I suspect something strange is happening in the battery reading rather than the actual battery capacity. Why would a brand new phone be so double the decline than the previous day.

Anyway, I'm continuing this test to see how I can minimize the charge loss when on standby.

Jameson -

Your claims and thought process are completely off. I can see if the battery dies a little faster than my iphone 4 with usage. I am fine with that, I'll deal with it.

BUT, when in standby and or airplane mode and the battery is dropping with no use at all, that IS NOT supposed to happen.

I left my phone at 66% when I went to bed. No apps running, mail set to fetch every 30min, iCloud on, Bluetooth off, WIFI on, LTE on but not connected(wifi was connected)

I woke up and it was at 16%. How is that possible? You are claiming that is normal.

For you to say that it's normal for the battery to drop 50% in 7 hrs of standby is just ridiculous.

You are not helping this issue here in this thread by posting things like this. If that's what you believe, then move on about your day and stop visiting this forum. We are all here providing information for each other in hopes that there will be a fix, or to help apple resolve the battery problem by posting our usage and setups. It is much easier for apple engineers to narrow down the problem when they have a bunch of information from their users.

Like it or not, there IS an issue with this phone, and Apple will one day figure it out. If they don't, I am sure there will be a class action suit started by someone lol.

Until then, I still have a tiny bit of hope!

Why are you mis-stating my position? I never said it was NORMAL. I did say it is "un-fixable".

And I don't "like" the fact at all, but have resolved myself to the fact that is is unfixable.

What release will it take, with no improvement, for you to become convinced? 6.1? 6.11? 6.15? 6.2? 6.3?

APPLE has deep pockets. If this were something they could solve with firmware, it would already have been solved........ Please don't tell me what I can or cannot post here. I have my opinion and you have yours. We both have the right to voice them here.

cocktail5555 wrote:

Jameson -

For you to say that it's normal for the battery to drop 50% in 7 hrs of standby is just ridiculous.

If you really believed that there wasn't a fix, you wouldn't keep coming back and reading this thread. I'm sure you are hoping for a fix from apple just as the others here. We are all very upset users and this battery problem is terrible.

But, they way you are approaching the situation isn't helping anything get resolved. Whether there is a solution or not.

Also, the way you are speaking to the others in this thread isn't positive or productive:

"I stand by my claim. Now, isn't it past your bedtime?????"

Lets just be civil and work together to help find the problem and get it fixed - if that's even possible.

Everyone, keep posting your usage and standby, settings and setups. Keep hoping for a fix, because all we have left is HOPE :)

Onward and upward!

Really? The individual called me a "retard" and an "idiot" in successive posts and you chide me for what I said?

cocktail5555 wrote:

If you really believed that there wasn't a fix, you wouldn't keep coming back and reading this thread. I'm sure you are hoping for a fix from apple just as the others here. We are all very upset users and this battery problem is terrible.

But, they way you are approaching the situation isn't helping anything get resolved. Whether there is a solution or not.

Also, the way you are speaking to the others in this thread isn't positive or productive:

"I stand by my claim. Now, isn't it past your bedtime?????"

Lets just be civil and work together to help find the problem and get it fixed - if that's even possible.

Everyone, keep posting your usage and standby, settings and setups. Keep hoping for a fix, because all we have left is HOPE :)

Onward and upward!

I'm on my 2nd iPhone 5 now (6.02). This one is almost as bad as the last one in terms of battery life, though it doesn't get quite as hot. Last night I left it at 95% charged. When I woke up this morning it was down to 74%. There were no open or running apps on during the night. Location settings are all off (except for Find my Phone), Mail is on Manual, blah blah blah...usual suggestions for battery life all taken care of including staying signed out of the app store.

However, what is interesting is seeing the system processes that are running currently as I re-charge my phone with Battery Doctor on, in descending order of consumption:

Location

Network

Phone

Settings

Wifi

Bluetooth

Push

One wonders why Bluetooth and Phone are consuming battery as I'm not currently making a call and Bluetooth is firmly off. I'm in a wifi zone right now, yet Network(3G) is consuming power. I have no apps whatsoever set to Push.

This statement or opinion is completely false. You say compare the iPhone battery with a smartphone with the same mah battery and they will be no better or worse. This is entirely false as I know people WITH iPhone 5's with 10 hours of usage. And no, these usage times are not from WiFi usage but 3G usage alone with no listening to music. Just browsing the web, messaging people and using facebook. This itself has disproven what you think is correct as some people who have the same phone as us all here complaining, have superb battery life.

Jameson! wrote:

@dani190

I know it gives you hope to continue claiming that this problem is firmeware related and somehow fixable. Nobody wants to believe that their gorgeous new iPhone 5 has no hope of performing better that we are seeing so far.

Unfortunately, I am convinced that after 4 iterations of iOS6, if it ain't fixed, it ain't gonna be fixed. I'm sure that once iOS6.1 is released this thread will get another jolt of hand-wringing, moaning and groaning, along with the surprising level of anger that we've seen for 200+ pages already. It's just not going to be fixed. Hopefully, APPLE will see the light for either iPhone 5s or iPhone 6 and increase battery capacity.

Compare the iPhone battery life to other SMARTPHONES with similar 1400 -1450ma batteries and similar features. They are no better, and many are worse! The laws of physics are at work here, and for the iPhone, it is what it is........

Sorry, but the facts are piling up to prove my opinion makes sense.

Using your logic, the cause of the problem would more likely be a HARDWARE problem. If two i5's on the same OS version yield very different results, there must be some component that is malfunctioning. If that's the case, you can definitely forget about a software fix coming from APPLE.

BTW, if I go and sit by an LTE tower, giving my phone a full strength signal, my battery drain disappears on cellular data as well. Those people "you know" may well be in a very strong signal area for most of their day, yielding such good results.

BTW.... NO such people have posted usage screenshots here with outstanding perfornace using cellular data only, so I'm not sure how trustworthy your claim is, regarding these people "you know"........

iPhone4Lyf wrote:

This statement or opinion is completely false. You say compare the iPhone battery with a smartphone with the same mah battery and they will be no better or worse. This is entirely false as I know people WITH iPhone 5's with 10 hours of usage. And no, these usage times are not from WiFi usage but 3G usage alone with no listening to music. Just browsing the web, messaging people and using facebook. This itself has disproven what you think is correct as some people who have the same phone as us all here complaining, have superb battery life.