Carrier T-Mobile iPhone 5s dying faster than anything

mjb59463 said:

Hey everyone,
We just switched to T-Mobile from AT&T, because of their unlimited international plan for $15 per month (to the countries I call). We traded in our iPhone 5s's with AT&T to get the 64gb and 16gb 5s with that Jump plan.

I noticed poor battery life at first, but gave it some time as I thought it would work itself out eventually. Fast forward to today.....

My 5s dies so quickly. After 1 hour and 33 mins of moderate texting and light web browsing, I am now down to 75% battery life on 7.0.4. I updated to 7.1.1 to see if it would get better or worse, and I'm losing 1% every 1-2 minutes of usage, even worse.

I have read that signal strength may have something to do with battery drain. I have 1 bar of LTE at home, but I use mostly wifi and have been able to place calls with no drops. Could this have something to do with this horrible drain?

Also, if we were to go back to AT&T, how would we go about doing this with the least cost? Would we have to purchase new devices and sign a new contract? And with TMO, will we have to pay the full purchase price of our phones to get out of this?

At the time we moved, the 2 lines we moved were out of contract and upgrade eligible. Will we retain that, or probably not?

We have 2 lines on our existing AT&T family plan that we have not moved over yet, could we go back to join them?

Sorry for the long post. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

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There is so much info out in the internet about this...

Having said that two things:
1 turn off cellular service when you are home
2 turn off background refresh and location services

I7guy said:

There is so much info out in the internet about this...

Having said that two things:
1 turn off cellular service when you are home
2 turn off background refresh and location services

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He already had an iPhone, but on a different network. If this iPhone on the new network is performing differently then I doubt very much that it's a settings issue. My own i5 has dreadful battery life on the O2 network in the UK, and yet others on different networks report no issues. There is something in this, because on the same network with iOS6, my phone performed like a champ.

sunking101 said:

He already had an iPhone, but on a different network. If this iPhone on the new network is performing differently then I doubt very much that it's a settings issue. My own i5 has dreadful battery life on the O2 network in the UK, and yet others on different networks report no issues. There is something in this, because on the same network with iOS6, my phone performed like a champ.

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That's what I was thinking, it could be a signal issue.

mjb59463 said:

Also, if we were to go back to AT&T, how would we go about doing this with the least cost? Would we have to purchase new devices and sign a new contract? And with TMO, will we have to pay the full purchase price of our phones to get out of this?

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T-Mobile should allow you to return your phones and cancel the service with at most restocking fees (usually around $30) for the phones if you signed up within the past 30 days. Anything after that and you'll have to buy out the phones to leave, but there's no ETF or anything because there is no contract.

EDIT: It might be 14 days now; I'm not sure what T-Mobile's return policy is anymore.

Here's the rub: if you want to keep your phone numbers, you can't just cancel T-Mobile; you'll have to go AT&T first and move the numbers over. Then you can go to T-Mobile and either return your phones or pay them off. If you cancel with T-Mobile first you will lose your phone numbers, and AT&T will have to give you new ones. Either way, when you go to AT&T they will be treating your lines as if you were a new customer. Think about whether you want to get lines on a contract or sign up for the Next program before you head over there.

mjb59463 said:

At the time we moved, the 2 lines we moved were out of contract and upgrade eligible. Will we retain that, or probably not?

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They will be new lines as far as AT&T is concerned, so you will be buying new phones either at the new contract/full discount price, or if you opt for the Next program with no money down and with an additional monthly payment.

mjb59463 said:

We have 2 lines on our existing AT&T family plan that we have not moved over yet, could we go back to join them?

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Sure; you'll basically be adding lines to that contract, as if they were new numbers.

mjb59463 said:

Sorry for the long post. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

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What it basically boils down to is that AT&T will be treating your lines as if you're a new customer switching over. The key is to see AT&T first if you want to keep your numbers and then go to T-Mobile to turn in your phones/equipment. The only thing you may want to do is talk to T-Mobile and ensure that you're within your return window, or you may end up stuck with the phones and have to pay them off. Other than that, you can do almost everything through AT&T. Hope that helped.