iPhone 5 Battery Life May Be Impacted Greatly by Cellular Signal Strength

kas23 said:

Is this supposed to be a poem?

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Hahaha, it was almost a haiku

Seems sneaky, makes me a little angry...

after doing a full restore and letting my battery die completely (not charging it at 1%), i'm getting better results.

93%
47 minutes usage
3 hours, 28 minutes standby

Not just iPhone 5

It's not just with iPhone 5. My iPhone 4 would last 2 days on a single charge before iOS 6 update. After the update, I hardly get 1 day. In my office I have 1 bar or no reception at all.

This TOTALLY explains my situation.
At home I get 5 bars of 4G (no LTE) and the battery lasts for freaking ever.
On WiFi, the same.

At work, though, I get normally 1-2 bars of 4G and I'll use 20% in 8 hours.

They accidentally put an "i" before Phone in the title.

Well duh, every manufacturer under the sun fibs about it's battery life. You will never get the flashy marketed times they say. The times they give you are lab tested optimal conditions, not real life facts.

It's just the way it is. How is this news again?

More than the actual battery life I'm suprised at the discrepancy between Apple's claim and real-world testing. Didn't Apple boast at a keynote a few years ago that its battery life claims were based on realistic usage while competitors were disingenuous with their claims?

This is the case on all phones.

My phones have always died fast in my house because my signal is terrible.

This isn't news.

technopimp said:

The example I'm giving is when I am on cellular data (not on a WiFi network). At lunch, in a so-so coverage area, I lost 15% in an hour. It was locked in my pocket. At home, overnight, I lose about 3%.

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Wow, that doesn't seem right, no?

Alert!

This just in:

This has always been the case, always...with all digital phones especially: weak signal = less battery. Ways to help it out: Kill GPS service when not needed, and it looks as tho when LTE is off it helps some as well (although it is reverting back to 3G, it seems to help some.) Even though the GPS has nothing to do w/ cell reception....if both antennas are struggling for signal, the faster the drain. This isn't news.

I work in an indoor area on 12 hour shifts, with almost no signal. My 4 averaged about 50% daily battery drain, with minimal txting. My 5 is doing about the same....with LTE turned off.

Help,, i lost contact

Naturally..... Better signal + more power = battery drain.

Why is this new?

I honestly don't think any of these battery problems actually exist. I think the battery lives are roughly equal to the phones we had before.

The perception of poor battery life is multi factorial. Apple inflates our expectations every year (as we see in this present study). We end up using our phones a lot more than our previous phones. Plus it's a new device. As a new device, we expect the battery life to be better. And we are let down yet again.

Prof. said:

Another reason why I'm waiting 'til the end of 2013 to get the iPhone 5S.

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Good idea, I'm sure physics will be fixed by then.

Way to completely waste your time iLounge. This will be fixed in iOS 6.0.1

Mark it.

It'd really help if they re-added the 4G/3G back on so you can revert to EDGE when you don't need fast data. I'm really disappointed this feature is missing on iPhone 5.

Hey Phil, my battery life is worse than before.

That's normal.

Phil

I found passbook was enabling gps location quite a bit (whether the app was running or not) and was one of my battery drain issues. It makes sense that that service would do what its doing, but by disabling location services for it I got a nice boost.

I think until I can find an extra charge cable for work Ill keep passbook off

This is even newsworthy? I keep my iPhone 4S on Edge whenever possible because you have coverage literally everywhere and it is good enough for checking mails or an update on your mobile news site. I only turn on 3G whenever I do tethering or have to send/download some larger files.

Boise, Idaho has fairly decent LTE coverage and I haven't ran any formal experiment, but I have had noticeably better battery life on my iPhone 5 over my 4S.

jent said:

More than the actual battery life I'm suprised at the discrepancy between Apple's claim and real-world testing. Didn't Apple boast at a keynote a few years ago that its battery life claims were based on realistic usage while competitors were disingenuous with their claims?

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Most "real world" claims are based on optimal signal. All cell phone battery usage estimates are based almost solely on impossible circumstances: Most people (at least in the suburbs) aren't in situations where they have all bars for even a single charge. Can't speak for apples testing methods, but the numbers they boast seem to fall in line with the same testing methods.

I'm also willing to bet that those claims are based on cellular service only, without GPS or any other antennas running at the same time.

Still impressed......Unplugged my phone at 100% before I went to bed and woke up it was still at 100%.

Waxhead138 said:

Most "real world" claims are based on optimal signal. All cell phone battery usage estimates are based almost solely on impossible circumstances: Most people (at least in the suburbs) are in situations where they have all bars for even a single charge. Can't speak for apples testing methods, but the numbers they boast seem to fall in line with the same testing methods.

I'm also willing to bet that those claims are based on cellular service only, without GPS or any other antennas running at the same time.

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HERE is your answer(s).

I'm noticing a huge difference between my iPhone 4 and 5. I could go hours at work with my iPhone 4 still at 100%. It wouldn't drop down until I stared playing around with it. By the end of the work day, I rarely ever dropped below 80%.

My iPhone 5 dropped 40% while at work today without any game play. Just email and some light app usage.

carriers should charge less if battery life is drained faster on their network