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stonyboys

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 16, 2012
323
3
Okay so here's my story: Got my iphone 5 about 2 weeks ago. Perfect condition out of the box, and looked like I had no problems at all. On my first charge to 100%, I got about 8-9 hours of usage (was almost straight usage, cuz first day). The next day I charged it to 100% again and that day, 3-4 hours of usage later and I was out of battery. I thought it was because I spent a while playing games so I did nothing.

The day after that, again 100% gone within 3-4 hours of usage. Now is when I thought something was wrong, so I booked a genius appointment. He told me to restore it and it should fix the problem. Restored it that night, and the next day 100% gone in 3-4 hours. Another genius appointment and this time, a replacement.

My replacement had somewhat of an improvement, 4-6 hours of usage. But still this was being on wifi for 60% of my browsing so I knew something was still wrong. Tried it out for a week to see if anything would improve, but nothing. Went back to geniuses, and he said he was going to try a DFU restore and that it fixes the problem 19/20 times (9/10 wasn't enough).

After the DFU, while setting it up I noticed the screen was flickering. The kind gentleman had glasses on and sad his sight wasnt the best, so he took it to another genius for confirmation. That genius said that the screen was definitely flickering, and bam, replacement.

Now this 3rd one is still getting the same terrible 5-6 hours of usage, even being on wifi most of the day. I don't really know what to do, should I bother making another genius appointment? Not because they're not helpful, all geniuses I've talked to were very nice and did what I thought was their best to try to help me.

But can they do anything at this point? Should I just deal with the battery life and bring a charger with me, and if in a month I have the same problems, go talk to geniuses and hope the replacements have been fixed?

Opinions appreciated.
 

tymaster50

Suspended
Oct 3, 2012
2,833
58
Oregon
Okay so here's my story: Got my iphone 5 about 2 weeks ago. Perfect condition out of the box, and looked like I had no problems at all. On my first charge to 100%, I got about 8-9 hours of usage (was almost straight usage, cuz first day). The next day I charged it to 100% again and that day, 3-4 hours of usage later and I was out of battery. I thought it was because I spent a while playing games so I did nothing.

The day after that, again 100% gone within 3-4 hours of usage. Now is when I thought something was wrong, so I booked a genius appointment. He told me to restore it and it should fix the problem. Restored it that night, and the next day 100% gone in 3-4 hours. Another genius appointment and this time, a replacement.

My replacement had somewhat of an improvement, 4-6 hours of usage. But still this was being on wifi for 60% of my browsing so I knew something was still wrong. Tried it out for a week to see if anything would improve, but nothing. Went back to geniuses, and he said he was going to try a DFU restore and that it fixes the problem 19/20 times (9/10 wasn't enough).

After the DFU, while setting it up I noticed the screen was flickering. The kind gentleman had glasses on and sad his sight wasnt the best, so he took it to another genius for confirmation. That genius said that the screen was definitely flickering, and bam, replacement.

Now this 3rd one is still getting the same terrible 5-6 hours of usage, even being on wifi most of the day. I don't really know what to do, should I bother making another genius appointment? Not because they're not helpful, all geniuses I've talked to were very nice and did what I thought was their best to try to help me.

But can they do anything at this point? Should I just deal with the battery life and bring a charger with me, and if in a month I have the same problems, go talk to geniuses and hope the replacements have been fixed?

Opinions appreciated.

Sounds like you'll just have to get over it for now. 5-6 hours of usage is pretty good depending on what you're doing. Games like the dark knight rises will drain 1% every minute or so, if it's like constant usage then yeah the battery will take a hit.
 

SpyderBite

macrumors 65816
Oct 4, 2011
1,262
8
Xanadu
I get 9-10 hours if light usage, 6-8 moderate usage and 4-6 gaming, streaming video, etc. Same thing I got from my 4s and 4.
 

tymaster50

Suspended
Oct 3, 2012
2,833
58
Oregon
What's the iPhone's rated usage time?

Heavy Gaming - 1-2 hours
Light Browsing - 7-9 hours
Heavy Browsing 6-7 Hours
Light Network Use - 7-8 hours
Moderate Network Use - 6-7 Hours
Heavy Network Use 5-6 hours
Wifi Browsing 9-10 Hours
Standby - about 3-4 days
These are numbers taken from experience with 3 different iPhones.
 

stonyboys

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 16, 2012
323
3
I wifi browse so according to ty's numbers I'm still 3-4 hours below what I should be getting...

Does a bad signal really decimate the battery that much? Even if you're not on a call or using data?
 

Arias21

macrumors newbie
Nov 9, 2005
14
2
Yes, bad signal kills the battery. I travel a lot for work and every city (big or small) is always different. (Texts, phone calls, maps, safari, no intense games, few other small apps)

Last week in Austin, TX I was getting over a day battery life.
This weekend in Louisville, KY, my battery lasts maybe 6 hours and I have barely used it.



I wifi browse so according to ty's numbers I'm still 3-4 hours below what I should be getting...

Does a bad signal really decimate the battery that much? Even if you're not on a call or using data?
 

lunaoso

macrumors 65816
Sep 22, 2012
1,332
54
Boston, MA
Where i go to school there's almost no service, and after the 6 and a half hours of not using it at all, I'm down to about 50%. This is on a 4S btw. So yes, service affects battery life a lot. (And no I don't put it on Airplane mode cus I don't feel like it lol.)
 

Radiating

macrumors 65816
Dec 29, 2011
1,018
7
It sounds to me like your battery life is normal. It's worth mentioning that the iPhone battery needs to be conditioned though normal use for a few days before it achieves it's best charge.

You may have also built up a ton of background apps from having the phone from so long. It's probably worth it to reset all settings or do a clean instal. That fixed the same issue for me.
 

stonyboys

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 16, 2012
323
3
Indeed. Every phone the op has described is fine battery wise...

My first phone with 3-4 hours browsing was fine? Ohhhh ok thank you steve jobs.

Anyway I didn't know bad signal affected it THIS much, I guess my 2nd one was fine. But now I know, and I guess I'll just have to carry a charger around... Something I didn't have to do with my garbage android that I had before this, you'd think a premium device like this would be better than that phone in every way.

Question about LTE, does LTE have its own seperate signal search? Or does the 3G signal just tell your phone that LTE is available, and then the phone switches over? In simpler terms, would turning off LTE in a no-LTE zone preserve battery?
 

Dyn-tec

macrumors member
Oct 29, 2012
91
30
I pre-ordered at first my battery just sucked! Terribly, would last a day at work in "do not disturb" mode. It is not "back to what I am used to....1.5 days.

But it has only recently happened...I would give it some time
 

swingerofbirch

macrumors 68040
I think if you get to a tier 2 AppleCare representative there's a battery test they can do remotely. I can't vouch for how good the test is. I used to do tier 1 support (quite a while ago), and if callers had already restored the phone, we would escalate to tier 2 for the remote test (we didn't have access to it, so I really don't know what the test does).
 

scaredpoet

macrumors 604
Apr 6, 2007
6,627
342
Anyway I didn't know bad signal affected it THIS much, I guess my 2nd one was fine. But now I know, and I guess I'll just have to carry a charger around... Something I didn't have to do with my garbage android that I had before this, you'd think a premium device like this would be better than that phone in every way.

No one is forcing you to keep your iPhone.

would turning off LTE in a no-LTE zone preserve battery?

Yes it would.
 

Newbie MacUser

macrumors member
Jun 22, 2012
77
0
Okay so here's my story: Got my iphone 5 about 2 weeks ago. Perfect condition out of the box, and looked like I had no problems at all. On my first charge to 100%, I got about 8-9 hours of usage (was almost straight usage, cuz first day). The next day I charged it to 100% again and that day, 3-4 hours of usage later and I was out of battery. I thought it was because I spent a while playing games so I did nothing.

The day after that, again 100% gone within 3-4 hours of usage. Now is when I thought something was wrong, so I booked a genius appointment. He told me to restore it and it should fix the problem. Restored it that night, and the next day 100% gone in 3-4 hours. Another genius appointment and this time, a replacement.

My replacement had somewhat of an improvement, 4-6 hours of usage. But still this was being on wifi for 60% of my browsing so I knew something was still wrong. Tried it out for a week to see if anything would improve, but nothing. Went back to geniuses, and he said he was going to try a DFU restore and that it fixes the problem 19/20 times (9/10 wasn't enough).

After the DFU, while setting it up I noticed the screen was flickering. The kind gentleman had glasses on and sad his sight wasnt the best, so he took it to another genius for confirmation. That genius said that the screen was definitely flickering, and bam, replacement.

Now this 3rd one is still getting the same terrible 5-6 hours of usage, even being on wifi most of the day. I don't really know what to do, should I bother making another genius appointment? Not because they're not helpful, all geniuses I've talked to were very nice and did what I thought was their best to try to help me.

But can they do anything at this point? Should I just deal with the battery life and bring a charger with me, and if in a month I have the same problems, go talk to geniuses and hope the replacements have been fixed?

Opinions appreciated.

Hey on average how long are you leaving it plugged in to charge? I know a lot of people reported battery life getting better after a few charge and discharges. Some of the phones have a bug where the percentage of charging isn't accurate. You may want to leave it plugged in for like 12 hours and see if you can max charge the battery. Maybe purchase a battery health app to see if you can see why this is happening?
 
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