I’ve had my iPhone 3G for about a month now and I have come to the conclusion that the battery life on the 3G is less than ideal.
Here is what my usage looks like:
We usually start off like this, where the battery is still showing strong after quite a bit of use.
This seems to be the normal amount of usage I have been getting:
It looks as if there is in fact something wrong with the battery indicator. ehPhone reader Teebs has also experienced similar issues.
It is pretty clear that the power of the iPhone 3G is not battery-friendly. The whole point of the iPhone 3G was to have these great new features like 3G, GPS, etc. I am very happy with all of the new features. I wish the battery life were a little better but I can live with it. It is not like I’m trying to conserve battery anyway.
Here’s what Apple recommends to save on battery life:
- Minimize use of location services
- Fetch new data less frequently
- Turn off push mail
- Auto-check fewer email accounts
- Minimize use of third-party applications
- Turn off Wi-Fi
- Turn off Bluetooth
- Use Airplane Mode in low- or no-coverage areas
- Adjust brightness
- Turn off EQ
- Turn off 3G
Now I don’t really want to do any of these. There are a few things that I do like leaving location services off most of the time and keeping the screen brightness low. I do not want to be constantly turning 3G on and off as that is a total hassle. I’m definitely not going to be putting my iPhone in airplane mode unless I’m on an actual airplane. I don’t use wifi that often, even when at home because I want to stick it to Rogers/Fido. But using 3G data takes more battery juice than wifi does anyway. Most notably would be streaming radio over the 3G network. This kills the battery. I have push on all the time because push email is the best thing ever. 3rd party apps are fun and one of the biggest advances with the iPhone 2.0 software, I’m not going to stop using them just to save battery, maybe if I’m at 10%. I just don’t think owning a 3G means should be doing all of this stuff. Enjoy all of the features, don’t give yourself a headache trying to maximize battery life.
I can’t really complain about poor battery life because I’m not really making any effort to conserve it. It would be nice if the battery did in fact last a few days with many hours of usage, but we do want a nice slick, sleek, sexy, and light iPhone, not a Zach Morris brick. I do charge my iPhone every night. Sometimes I even have to charge it at work for 20 minutes or so because I’ve brought it down to 10% with all of the personal emails I get and listening to streaming radio. I guess it is a hassle to charge it sometimes twice a day but I guess that’s life for now.
I hope this battery lasts me at least a year, or until the iPhone 4G or the third gen iPhone comes out. The iPhone battery is supposed to last 400 full charge and discharge cycles. That should amount to about 1 year at this rate. The iPhone comes with a 1 year warranty, so if it dies within the first year, you can probably get it replaced for free unless you have exceeded the charge cycles significantly. When it is not covered by warranty, the iPhone battery replacement costs $79 plus $6.95 shipping. It’s a little expensive and most people will probably just buy a new iPhone when their battery does actually kick the bucket. At least the option is available and the price is not totally ridiculous.
If only the battery would last this long:
The 17 days standby was achieved on my first gen iPhone with no sim installed. It seems that the cell signal is the biggest battery drainer of them all.
What are the averages on your iPhone? Do you try to conserve or do you not care like me?
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One Ping to “My battery life experiences with the 3G”
17 Responses to “My battery life experiences with the 3G”
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1. Harith Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 11:56 am3G is a huge power suck. That’s the sad truth.
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2. noahattic Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 11:56 am532M data…how could you achieve this? I used data every day when i was in Vancouver. but it was just about 50M for 5 days.:) that’s why i jumped out of the data plan. i dont really need data.
about the battery life of the iphone 3G. first of all, i have to say, i dont use 3g very much. as i am in HK now, i just use my iphone to make phonecall, and it runs pretty good. generally, it can hold for 2 days. i’m kinda satisfied about this.
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3. James Bailey Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 12:32 pmI have terrible battery life if I leave Exchange ActiveSync with push turned on and use 3G. Using MobileMe push on 3G seems fine. Using ActiveSync with push on WiFi drains the battery but not nearly as fast as 3G. I put Exchange ActiveSync on a Fetch/1 hour schedule and my battery lasts all day.
Luckily for me, most of my day I’m sitting in front of a PC and don’t need ActiveSync pushing email/calendar/Contacts most of the time. If I’m going to be away from my desk for any amount of time during business hours, I turn on push (if I remember). That seems to solve my problem otherwise I would have to charge the phone by 3:00 pm.
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4. Maxime Scrocca Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 1:00 pmto be serious my battery is staying a good 20 hour stanby and 3-4 hour (random) use time before its saying 20 %
im pretty satisfy whit my iphone battery right now and i wish it doest change :P
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5. Chris Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 1:56 pmMy best stats so far are:
Usage - 5:31
Standby - 2 days 8 hrs
During that time i was making and receiving calls (not too much though), wifi was mostly on and email fetching set to hourly. I think 3G was on for half of that time.
Usually I get less than that though. -
6. Myke D Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 3:32 pmI charge every 2 days for the most part. Mainly 3G, I don’t bother with wi-fi unless I need to use VNC or Remote.
Main uses:
2 episodes a day of whatever I have on it this week
Light browsing
Email (no push/fetch) manual checking
Bluetooth disabled
Fair amount of texting
Light phone use
Some Tetris (Tris) -
7. Constable Odo Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 5:26 pmApple has the greatest pocket device going and unfortunately one of the thinnest. I would have traded a thicker iPhone for longer battery life any day of the week. What’s amazing is that reviewers were saying that the iPhone had better battery life than other 3G handsets, but none of those are going to be used for internet browsing as much as the iPhone. What a double-edged sword that is for Apple.
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8. AdamC Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 6:53 pmSteve Jobs brought this up that battery life sucks for 3G when he introduced the 1st gen iPhone and a lot of would be users demanded 3G.
Now that they got 3G and GPS and realised that battery life sucks they started whining…lol -
9. Neil S. Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 10:15 pmnoahattic Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 11:56 am532M data…how could you achieve this? I used data every day when i was in Vancouver. but it was just about 50M for 5 days.:) that’s why i jumped out of the data plan. i dont really need data.
about the battery life of the iphone 3G. first of all, i have to say, i dont use 3g very much. as i am in HK now, i just use my iphone to make phonecall, and it runs pretty good. generally, it can hold for 2 days. i’m kinda satisfied about this.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^I have 3.2 GB transferred.
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10. ruffdeezy Says:
August 20th, 2008 at 1:19 amIm at 1.2 gb’s now. Mainly due to streaming radio.
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11. ruffdeezy Says:
August 20th, 2008 at 1:20 am@ AdamC
So true. I could complain about it all day but I choose to use 3G so I live with the poor battery life. -
12. ruffdeezy Says:
August 20th, 2008 at 2:24 amSo far it looks like everyone is pretty much in the same boat when it comes to usage and standby times.
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13. RobInNZ Says:
August 20th, 2008 at 4:45 amGood grief. All this whinging about 3G battery life. Its a fact of life. My Motorola v3x used to be lucky to get a day on 3g. Especially if you were sitting on the edge of 3G reception. Annoy me? Yes.
For me, on weekends, Im often in areas where I can get cell coverage, but have no power to charge a phone, or I forget the charger. For me, adequate standby time allows me to go away for a weekend and leave the charger at home.
To achieve this with the v3x, the ONLY solution was stick it into 2g. Standby times leapt from ~18hrs to 5 days. When I saw the iphone 3g was coming out, I just sniggered, as I KNEW there would be grizzling and whining to high heaven along these lines.
So, yeah, just seems to be a fact of life. 3G is a battery hog.
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14. Harith Says:
August 20th, 2008 at 1:12 pmOh and here’s the best thing:
Not only is 3G a power drain, it also doesn’t work right on the iPhone 3G.
Lovely!
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15. redhearts Says:
August 21st, 2008 at 1:09 amat the moment, my phone is reading:
usage: 2 hours, 47 minutes
standby: 1 day, 15 hourswith my battery at about 35-40%. i have push on, wireless off, and 3g on all the time. honestly, this is great in comparison to my last ‘non-iphone’ phone, nevermind 3g! :)
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16. Ace McDuck Says:
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:06 amI’ve been experimenting with battery versus services. First day, 3 email accounts, push & 15 min. fetch on, 3g, location svcs on, bluetooth off, wifi on. By noon I had less than half battery left, by 6pm, nothing in the battery. Second day, 1 push email, location svcs off, everything else the same, battery lasted until midnight, so an extra 6 hrs. Third day (today) 3g off, loc svcs on, rest the same. at 1pm I have probably 80% of my battery left - seems a lot better. Mind you, my email updates & web surfing are brutally slow.
My original iPhone, without data turned on, lasted 4 days before no battery left, same usage pattern minus non-wifi email & surfing.
Not the best, but as someone said - tradeoffs are battery/size/3G. I would have taken a bit more size to get better battery, but still love it - a mini computer on my belt.
NB: when I first got it I thought the wee charger brick was a cool design thing - now I realize it’s because you need to keep it in your pocket. LMAO!
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17. ruffdeezy Says:
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:46 am@ Ace
Thanks for the comparison. I prefer services to battery life if I have to choose.@ redhearts
Looks like you lucked out with that battery =)
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