Incredibly poor iPhone 5 battery life whenever 3G is activated, why?

I bought a new iPhone 5 and ever since I got it when I use 3G (or cellular data at all for that matter) the battery life is incredibly bad. Yesterday my phone only lasted for about 4 hours. I used up 20% of battery on a 15 minute bus ride. The battery % display is more like a countdown timer. The battery life isn't great even with cellular data disabled (with or without WiFi) but it is absolutely attrocious with any kind of cellular data. I feel like the battery life on my heavily used iPhone 4 was better all around but this new phone is pretty much whenever cellular data is activated. With my iPhone 4 I could always get through at least 1 day without recharging, with the iPhone 5 I never can. With cellular data activated I'll have to recharge more than once a day.

What's going on here? Can anyone help?

iPhone 5, iOS 6

Posted on Oct 23, 2012 12:13 AM

35 replies

brsm1990 Author

Level 2

250 points

Dec 22, 2012 11:01 PM in response to Motox112

The only time I was ever able to obtain usage statistics anywhere NEAR that was by disabling cellular data entirely. Cellular data on = extremely poor battery life and a very warm phone (even when not in use).

I have done OTA and not OTA upgrades. I have done restore and DFU restore. I have exchanged my hardware. None of it makes a diference. The only cure is to turn off cellular data and after three months and hours of my time wasted I'm still wondering why I spent $1000 on a smart phone that is defective whenever used in conjuction with cellular data. To make matters worse, as others have pointed, this problem is so extreme (given the high operating temperatures) it's probably killing the battery life for the future even if they ever choose to acknowledge and fix this bug which at this point seems doubtful. It seems like they did the A+B+C equation from fight club and decided it would be more profitable to screw the few hundred thousand of us with defective phones and refuse to acknowledge the problem even exists. On with the iPhone 5S for march relase!

Motox112

Level 1

61 points

Dec 23, 2012 1:37 PM in response to brsm1990

So you're saying that you are convinced it is a bug in iOS 6.0.1/6.0.2 hopefully they fix the cellular bug then in iOS 6.2 which from multiple sites have seen info about 6.2 in testing, I really wonder if they test it for that type of things or just fix one little known thing then throw the update out.

brsm1990 Author

Level 2

250 points

Dec 23, 2012 6:51 PM in response to Motox112

And 6.0... It must be. But for sure all those whining that there is some new terrible bug in 6.0.2 but describing the EXACT SAME symtpoms have the same problem. It seems like there is something that catalyzes the problem though because it just appears out of the blue for people that didn't previously have it under all three versions (6.0 6.0.1 & 6.0.2) while others have always had it (like me). Since it's spread all over the globe and people have tried hardware exchange to no avail it's probably software but who knows. It's incredible that they refuse to acknowledge this.

SpiXy

Level 1

0 points

Sep 1, 2013 12:32 PM in response to brsm1990

I know the post's been inactive for like a year or so, But I had exactly the same problem and looking at :

http://ipod.about.com/od/iphone3g/tp/iphone-battery-life.htm

Helped me strengthen my iPhone's battery life 🙂.

Thought maybe it would be of help for someone else or something.

brsm1990 Author

Level 2

250 points

Dec 16, 2013 1:58 PM in response to SpiXy

None of those things helped for me on the iPhone 5. I ended up downgrading to a 4S and I got back to normal battery life until iOS 7. Since iOS 7 I have the same horrible battery life - 3 hours or so. Can never make it through a day even when I barely use it. Many others have the same problem. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5673881?answerId=24147295022#24147295022

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Incredibly poor iPhone 5 battery life whenever 3G is activated, why?