Anyone jump ship after owning iPhone 5 due to battery?

[ZZ Bottom]

I've grown quite tired of running out of phone battery at the most inconvenient times. Coming from an iPhone 4 to the iPhone 5 battery has left me frustrated too often. I am not tied to the ecosystem enough to force me to stay iOS, especially since I have a dedicated iPod and iPad.

I know this has been discussed to no end, but I'm curious if there are any lurkers that sold their iPhone 5 for this reason? What did you jump ship to?

EDIT: wanted to reiterate that LTE is always disabled. There is no LTE with AT&T in my region.

[FixBrokeni]

What iOS are you running? If you updated, did you do a DFU Restore? This typically improves the battery life. If you haven't done an update yet, I recommend doing one.

[zhenya]

If you are having battery life issues, you have something wrong. Time to do a full factory restore and set things up fresh again. Battery life for my 5 is excellent, basically the same as my 4 which is to say 5-7+ hours of usage and 2-5 days of standby no problem.

[nburwell]

Originally Posted by zhenya

If you are having battery life issues, you have something wrong. Time to do a full factory restore and set things up fresh again.

^ This

Or schedule an appointment at your local Apple store with a Genius to have them take a look at it. I've had my iPhone 5 for over two months now, and I get very similiar battery life on my i5 as I did on my 4S.

[iHailCarlo]

No, I havent noticed any difference in the battery after the latest update.

[ZZ Bottom]

Hey all,

Appreciate the constructive comments. I have done all the usual, and have also held off from upgrading to 6.0.2 due to many reports of worse battery performance.

I don't have specific numbers, but under the exact same usage patterns my iPhone 4 would easily go twice as long before needing a charge. For most people charging daily isn't a big deal, but I feel that perhaps I was expecting to maintain similar habits as I had with the 4.

For the record I did not restore from a backup after upgrading. I only used iCloud to transfer contacts. I keep LTE disabled, bluetooth off, stripped out almost all apps from notification center, have limit ad tracking turned on, have iCloud backups disabled, have setting time zone, traffic, and location based iAds disabled in System Services. Long story short, I run it as minimalist as possible to extend battery life.

It's worth noting that I live in an area of spotty coverage (AT&T). I generally get 2-3 bars at home. However, this was the exact same for the iPhone 4 which faired much better. I use a Microcell at home, but have been told it likely makes no improvement on battery life vs. the poor tower reception; so basically I'm just insuring I don't get gurgled or dropped calls at home.

[Bahroo]

Originally Posted by ZZ Bottom

Hey all,

Appreciate the constructive comments. I have done all the usual, and have also held off from upgrading to 6.0.2 due to many reports of worse battery performance.

I don't have specific numbers, but under the exact same usage patterns my iPhone 4 would easily go twice as long before needing a charge. For most people charging daily isn't a big deal, but I feel that perhaps I was expecting to maintain similar habits as I had with the 4.

For the record I did not restore from a backup after upgrading. I only used iCloud to transfer contacts. I keep LTE disabled, bluetooth off, stripped out almost all apps from notification center, have limit ad tracking turned on, have iCloud backups disabled, have setting time zone, traffic, and location based iAds disabled in System Services. Long story short, I run it as minimalist as possible to extend battery life.

It's worth noting that I live in an area of spotty coverage (AT&T). I generally get 2-3 bars at home. However, this was the exact same for the iPhone 4 which faired much better. I use a Microcell at home, but have been told it likely makes no improvement on battery life vs. the poor tower reception; so basically I'm just insuring I don't get gurgled or dropped calls at home.

Bro theres obviously something wrong with the software on your phone. Do a full factory reset and update to the latest software.. Dont restore from your old backup because it will be there again..same thing happened to my brothers iphone 5, he came from a iphone 4 and transferred everything from the 4 to the 5 via iTunes and he was having problems in the beginning( most likely due to some iphone 4 files causing bugs on the iphone 5) but all he did was a factory reset and his phone is now flawless with great battery life. My iphone 5 has just a little bit more battery life then my old 4S and thats including a bigger brighter screen and LTE on so i am extremely satisfied

[wacky4alanis]

My iPhone 5 gets much longer battery life than my 4 or 4s did. I'm loving mine.

[ZZ Bottom]

Originally Posted by wacky4alanis

My iPhone 5 gets much longer battery life than my 4 or 4s did. I'm loving mine.

I'm convinced that the cell radio used in the 5 just performs much worse under poor reception conditions. It's quite amusing how often I have to recharge compared to my wife's iPhone 4 (which she's had since 2010). I even tried convincing her to take the 5 so I could use her available upgrade for something else, but she wants nothing to do with it. Guess she's heard me complain one too many times. I am of course going to use the upgrade if I decide to switch, but she'd prefer I just sell the iPhone 5.

[Risco]

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1510244

[darster]

Originally Posted by ZZ Bottom

I'm convinced that the cell radio used in the 5 just performs much worse under poor reception conditions. It's quite amusing how often I have to recharge compared to my wife's iPhone 4 (which she's had since 2010). I even tried convincing her to take the 5 so I could use her available upgrade for something else, but she wants nothing to do with it. Guess she's heard me complain one too many times. I am of course going to use the upgrade if I decide to switch, but she'd prefer I just sell the iPhone 5.

At home my LTE reception on Verizon is generally -105 dBm, which is not as good as my 3G reception. However, I leave LTE on all the time and get better battery life than I did with my 4 on 3G.

[Sweeperdk]

Originally Posted by wacky4alanis

My iPhone 5 gets much longer battery life than my 4 or 4s did. I'm loving mine.

This.

I am massively impressed with the batterylife of the iPhone 5. It is a lot better than my previous iPhones and a hell of a lot better than my last phone, the Galaxy S3

[craftytony]

Originally Posted by Sweeperdk

This.

I am massively impressed with the batterylife of the iPhone 5. It is a lot better than my previous iPhones and a hell of a lot better than my last phone, the Galaxy S3

same here....i always have plenty of juice at the end of the day...

[JAT]

Originally Posted by wacky4alanis

My iPhone 5 gets much longer battery life than my 4 or 4s did. I'm loving mine.

Ditto here. I keep finding myself in a quandry about timing. I was used to a certain schedule with my 4, daily charging (I use it a lot). The 5 is often at 40% instead of 25% by midafternoon. So, do I charge now or later? Driving me crazy!!

not really

[Marrakas]

I'm really impressed with the battery. 4:20 usage today, where 100% was music, and maybe 30-40min of screen on while surfing, and battery is at 78%

Bluetooth is off, and I manually fetch mail. I guess that helps.

[Browns2212]

I feel that I have excellent battery life.

The ONLY time my battery life sucks is when I use the TuneIn Radio Pro app and I steam a radio station. At 100% I would probably barely make it through 4 hours of continuous streaming. Outside of using that app, my i5 easily last all day and then standby at night. Granted, I don't use it a TON, but I use it enough for what I do and it's great.

[Zerilos]

What's your brightness set at? I keep mine at about 33%. If you have set at over 50% then battery will drain very quickly. Ive heard that disabling LTE could cause battery problems as well since it will finish a task much faster than 3g.

----------

Originally Posted by Sweeperdk

This.

I am massively impressed with the batterylife of the iPhone 5. It is a lot better than my previous iPhones and a hell of a lot better than my last phone, the Galaxy S3

My wife has to take a charger to work because of her s3.

[Sweeperdk]

Originally Posted by Zerilos

My wife has to take a charger to work because of her s3.

Yeah... I have no issue with having LTE activated, nor with screen brightness at about 60%. Battery lasts more than long enough.

[AutoUnion39]

I have both the S3 and iP5 and it's just the nature of the beast with LTE these days.

I carry around a charger when I decide to use my S3. My iphone 5? It will last me a day

[SnowLeopard2008]

My iPhone 5 lasts the longest out of all my friends with various Android devices, iPhones (except those with 5), Windows Phones, BlackBerries, etc. What's more interesting is that I use my phone more frequently than all of them and it still lasts longer.

[ZZ Bottom]

Originally Posted by Zerilos

What's your brightness set at? I keep mine at about 33%. If you have set at over 50% then battery will drain very quickly. Ive heard that disabling LTE could cause battery problems as well since it will finish a task much faster than 3g.

Thanks for pointing out. My brightness is typically between 20-50%. Only time I crank it is when showing off a photo to someone. At 50% its almost always perfectly acceptable.

I will likely not make a move until January anyway, so I will wait to see if iOS 6 corrects this enough.

There are many of you expressing frustration. I am not advocating leaving the iPhone. I have found that for MY usage habits it falls short compared to my two year old iPhone 4 with identical settings tuned for best battery.

I realize that several people responded to my first post, but I assure you that better details of my corrective attempts were mentioned in later posts. My phone was not restored from the old one; not something I ever trust. Mail is on manual fetch, BT off, numerous settings disabled for optimal battery (probably some that make no improvement as well).

Bare in mind that I also mentioned that I receive poor cell coverage. Those of you getting average 3-5 bars aren't a decent comparison. I live in part of southern Illinois, a.k.a. The land that AT&T forgot. Average 1-3 bars; occasionally higher in certain patches.

[QuarterSwede]

Originally Posted by ZZ Bottom

Bare in mind that I also mentioned that I receive poor cell coverage. Those of you getting average 3-5 bars aren't a decent comparison. I live in part of southern Illinois, a.k.a. The land that AT&T forgot. Average 1-3 bars; occasionally higher in certain patches.

Agreed. When I've got good reception (in town) my battery life is fantastic. However, when I'm out of town in a poor reception area battery life tanks. Lasts maybe 8 hours on standby with occasional use. Sometimes it outright dies before I leave work. This is on 4G mind you. No LTE where I work and travel for work yet.

[Zerilos]

I have to admit that the new Ravensword game chews up some serious battery life. I totally drained my battery last night because of it.

[Zerilos]

I would definitely exchange it if the battery is that bad. Most people report decent battery life so it might be your particular phone.

[bandofbrothers]

I achieve a full days use out of my 5.

Too many variables of each users usage to see why others usage time etc fluctuates unless your unlucky enough to have a bad battery.