Brun

Her indoors wants a new phone and the above has made her short list. How long realistically does the battery last? Having searched round the net it seems that some people are having to charge every day. Is that the norm or is that the result of heavy use

JackClark

Every day is pretty normal for smartphones, mine lasts two days sometimes but it depends on what you do with it of course.

CharlySkunkWeed

iTrader: (7)

Avereage use on a smartphone is one days battery. For a woman on twatter or facetube , more like half a day !

Brun

Really. What makes them suck so much power? From what i can tell, they seem to use lots of power what they're not being used. Are there a number of things running in the background?

Skoobie Dhu

iTrader: (3)

I really don't see the problem with this - I sleep 7 hours every night and I plug my phone in each night as I go to bed whether it needs charging or not.

Some folk make a great deal about their phones lasting days without needing charging - don't these people ever sleep?

(awaits replies about how charging every night is bad for the battery - it's a phone ffs)

Brun

I hear ya but she's just worried about being caught short with no electric in her phone with no obvious means of charging. If a phone lasts 2 or 3 days then the chances of being caught short are slim.
BTW - she sleeps for England

eelz

iTrader: (10)

internet usage on a smart phone hammers the battery.

JackClark

Mine rarely goes on charge overnight, more likely to be plugged into my computer during the day or hooked up to the car stereo.

RobsyUK

iTrader: (2)

A lot of apps use location which runs in the background. you can turn it off to save some juice..

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Realistically 2 days max between charges. Thats with WiFi syncing (icloud etc) enabled, bluetooth active (always conected when in the car), location services mostly disabled (except for sat nav and stuff that "needs" to know where I am...ie NOT facebook ) with minimal web or app use and little or no 3G usage. Plus about 30 to 60mins worth of voice calls. If you are heavy on voice calls, or web/app/game/music use that can easily shrink down to less than one day. I've killed the battery in the space of 6 hours messing with games and apps etc.

Could squeeze it to 3days if you turn off some features, but you really are pushing it and have to basically only use it it for the odd voice call and text in a good reception area. So I have an old Nokia 8310 to use for camping trips as its tiny and gets far better reception and has 5 day battery.

iOS5.1 update has helped, although that could be just a tweek on the battery meter to make it "look" like it has better battery life

Other bug bears:

• No signal/reception in areas where there is good signal - confirmed with other phones (inlcuding iPhones). Powering down and turning back on cures it
• Dropping calls even though I have signal (as does the other party, when I phoned them back with another phone).
• Ghost calls, I've had peopel with a 4S leave me with 5minute voicemails.....and mine done it to others too. I caught it in the act yetuday when I jumped into the car and the bluetooth on the radio immediatly activated. I check the phone and it was not doing anything (in standby-keypad locked), take off keypad lock to find it making another call
• Web stuff not working when it should (live leak videos, which I've just found out about, youtube is fine. I assumed it was do to no flash support but something else is amiss

Good luck!

JackClark

You should restore the phone. Liveleak not working for you but does for everyone else is a big clue. I've never seen the ghost call stuff either.

Lee247

My daughter has the 4s and I took on her 3gs. Both have to be charged every day, but it's no hassle really. The phones are great and sorry to those who don't like them, but I would highly recommend them

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Done a restore re: ghost calls, no difference.

Mates iP 4S does it too (had 6 minute voice mails off him FFS...no audio on the message, just a faint background buzz, and he doesn't use bluetooth at all, so its not that. )

dpb

ye gods , and i thought having a phone that does everything for half the price was enough of a reason not to be suckered into the "i" family

Jamescsti

I think my iPhone would probably do 2 days without charge if I needed it to. It as most others do I charge it over night.
Every smartphone I've had pretty much needs charging over night and my list is
Blackberry curve
Htc desire hd
Samsung galaxy s2
Now iPhone 4

They are all pretty similar, the iPhone probably edges it for battery life.

RA Dunk

You could always get one of those battery cases which doubles (some of them) the life of your iphone battery, was actually thinking about one of these as well when I upgrade.

boxst

My iPhone will just about last through the day although not always. I am constantly receiving emails (for work) and replying. The screen takes quite a lot of the power as does the wifi/3G signal. If you are stuck somewhere and start playing games then the battery drains considerably.

You can improve the life by switching off 3G, turning the screen brightness down, switching off location services. I do not as to be honest if I have to do all of that I'm losing half of the fun of the phone.

As mentioned above, this isn't specifically an iPhone thing, most smartphones have limited battery life in comparision to 'old' phones that just, well, make calls, have a little LCD screen etc...

Frosticles

iTrader: (1)

1 day and charge it over night regardless. Do also have issues with it dropping calls & refusing to get a signal.

Brun

A mixed bag of opinions. We're off down the phone shop tomorrow for a play but the Ip is looking favorite

RA Dunk

Isn't the iphone 5 comming soon?

Brun

June from what i can tell but she doesn't want to be spending even mare than the 4s will be costing

Jamescsti

Hope so.
I'm holding off upgrading my iPhone 4 waiting for the new handset to be released.

RA Dunk

Same here, holding off upgrading my iphone 3 for it's release, when ever that is?

boxst

June supposedly, although I'm not sure I believe it: http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-...ruiter-746987/

Steve

jonc

The Blackberry Bold and Torch have pretty good battery life. I get three days out of the 9860 Torch that I use for work.

JackClark

My Nokia N8 lasts a week on a charge. Mostly because it's so crap I don't use it.

bioforger

iTrader: (1)

My HTC explorer lasts way over a week easily, it's classed as a smartphone, just

Gear Head

iTrader: (2)

Same as my old Blackberry Curve, both of which can not really be classed as 'smart' phones! Just phones that do what they are supposed to and not a lot more!

My HTC Desire S last around 36 hours with normal usage. Although I killed it in just 8 hours yesterday after I downloaded a new game!

The screen size is what kills the batteries on these phones, not Wifi or 3G.

lordharding

iTrader: (1)

Charge mine every night although would last 2 days if needed
Always have a charger in the car as a back up
The iPad charger does a quicker job if need be

Fantastic phone such an advance on my 3GS ,which the misses has now
Camera is great and web sites are so quick

JackClark

Didn't charge mine last night, didn't make any calls on it yesterday but did use it for other things 50% this morning.