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drober30

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 5, 2007
840
97
Both of the iPhone's I bought were dead when they were opened. They both had to be charged before they could be activated at the store.

I swear the battery life on both these phones is worse than our 3Gs.

Did any one else have a dead battery right out of the box? They usually come partially charged.
 

STEVESKI07

macrumors 68000
Jan 6, 2009
1,648
1
Washington, DC
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8A293 Safari/6531.22.7)

FamiliaPhoto said:
My battery was 75% out of the box and the battery life has been incredible since.

+1
 

Johns12

macrumors 6502
Dec 10, 2008
297
304
Mine was dead out of the box. Had to wait about ten minutes for it to charge enough so they could activate it (at AT&T store). The battery life has been poor since.
 

coelacanth

macrumors 6502
Jul 19, 2004
434
1
Mine was about 75%. Picked up on the launch day. But even you pick one up now, it shouldn't be dead as Li-on battery holds charge quite good amount of time.
 

MotleyGrrl

macrumors 6502
Jun 15, 2010
386
20
Chicago, IL
Mine was fully charged or maybe 95% out of box. I use it so much and it's yet to drop down past 75%. (I charge at night but will probably see how long I can go since I'm off work for a few.) Totally awesome battery.
 

jyj

macrumors member
Sep 11, 2009
94
0
my battery was also at about 75%...and it's been getting pretty good battery life so far.
 

drober30

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 5, 2007
840
97
OK, so those who had a charged battery out of the box claim good battery life and Johns12 who also had a dead battery out of the box is experiencing bad battery life.

This makes me believe that the batteries we received could be defective.

One thing for sure, our batteries do not last like they should, its obvious that they drain fast with normal to less than normal use!

I will make an appointment to have our batteries checked out. I think they have a way to test them.
 

jbachandouris

macrumors 603
Aug 18, 2009
5,778
2,903
Upstate NY
My phone, bought on Launch Day, was dead out of the box. It would lose almost 50% of a 100% charge overnight-even when powered off! The Genius Bar tested it with their program and yet it said the battery was good. Fortunately, I had a good tech and he noticed the phone was losing charge even when doing nothing. Needless to say, they replaced it. The new one is MUCH better. 100% to 66% after 16 hours of use (2 hours talk time in EDGE network!).

I tried all the software 'fixes.' They did not work. If your battery is bad, it is bad and needs to be replaced. Honestly, the bad battery issue is much more serious then the antenna issue. No power=no phone call.
 

drober30

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 5, 2007
840
97
My phone, bought on Launch Day, was dead out of the box. It would lose almost 50% of a 100% charge overnight-even when powered off! The Genius Bar tested it with their program and yet it said the battery was good. Fortunately, I had a good tech and he noticed the phone was losing charge even when doing nothing. Needless to say, they replaced it. The new one is MUCH better. 100% to 66% after 16 hours of use (2 hours talk time in EDGE network!).

I tried all the software 'fixes.' They did not work. If your battery is bad, it is bad and needs to be replaced. Honestly, the bad battery issue is much more serious then the antenna issue. No power=no phone call.

Thanks for the reply!

You said 16 hours of use... I cant get 8 or 9 without it hitting that 20% till dead warning!

Looks like we need new phones... I cant believe it!

However, I will be excited to get a battery that works because that's one feature I was excited about was the bigger battery!
 

theanimaster

macrumors 6502
Oct 7, 2005
319
14
My sister-in-law's white iPhone 5 (16GB) just arrived today. It's her THIRD replacement. The other two had pretty noticeable DENTS in the band -- and both were from China -- and the same production batch.

So this time Apple gives her one from a Singapore warehouse -- DEAD BATTERY OUT OF THE BOX.

I've read about this before, and I just KNOW this ain't gonna be good. I'm charging it now. Will charge it to full and let you know how long it takes to do so. If it ain't two hours, that'll be the second horrible sign that something's wrong with the battery (bad batteries take less time to charge to full).

THIRD REPLACEMENT!! WHAT ARE THE ODDS??!? Apple says that this is the last replacement they can give too. After this, they can only give her money back.

We're cool with that, but we are absolutely P*SSED that it's taken her a full month, shipping defective iPhones back and forth!!

I'm going to check the serial on this to see where and when it was made, and whether it's a refurb. In a question I've asked Apple before, they said they don't replace brand-new orders with refurbs. They might replace used items with refurbs, but not brand-new orders. That's their policy (they say).

So that's one more thing to check!



-------------

Ok, back from the check:

WEEK 48 (December) ... the other 2 defective ones were from week 26 (Nov)
Factory: DN (Chengdu) ... the other 2 were from F2 (Zengzhou) (or were they F1... I'll double check my screenshots)

So it's a new model from a better factory but with a crud battery.

Well.. still need to get the verdict on the battery (still charging, but I can bet on this...)
 
Last edited:

mpayne2k

macrumors 6502a
May 12, 2010
876
63
Mine was around 70% out of the box. Battery life on my phone is pretty bad, but at work I usually have only 2 bars of 4G or LTE which affects battery life I've heard.

I have replaced my first phone with a refurb from an Apple store due to battery drain due to iOS crashes according to the Genius's report. My replacement was also in the 70% charge range out of the refurb box and has had a bit better battery performance at work.
 

ALMF

macrumors regular
Jun 20, 2012
147
1
one i bought 2 days ago at Walmart was not near fully charged. i remember the sales rep mentioning that i should charge it when i got home. i cant remember % for sure but i think it was around 50%
 

pat park

macrumors 6502a
Nov 29, 2011
716
26
California
70% charged. Battery life has been great. If I push the LTE constantly. The battery life suffers a bit. As long as I'm on wifi for most of the day, it's all good.

Love this phone!
 

Marrakas

macrumors 6502
May 23, 2012
420
122
I can remember reading somewhere that for storage, batteries retain their quality longer if stored with a 50%+ charge.
 
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