Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

How's your iPhone 5S battery life

wgr73 said:
If your screen was on most of that 2hrs then that is absolutely normal!
Click to expand...

Really?? I honestly feel like the other one I had lasted much longer. Just looking at this site I've dropped to 43%... So just under 30 min and dropped 9%?

But I think my screen is definitely on during my usage time (not listening to music, etc). I figured screw off = standby (other than playing music?)
 
wgr73 said:
If your screen was on most of that 2hrs then that is absolutely normal!
Click to expand...

No it's not. Apple is advertising 10 hours of wifi browsing. With his numbers, he would be getting about 4.5 hours of usage only.

Definitely not normal.

Ruffian829 said:
Really?? I honestly feel like the other one I had lasted much longer. Just looking at this site I've dropped to 43%... So just under 30 min and dropped 9%?

But I think my screen is definitely on during my usage time (not listening to music, etc). I figured screw off = standby (other than playing music?)
Click to expand...

Get it replaced.

_____

I contacted Apple today regarding my phone. I'm having issues with my battery while in standby, the screen has a yellow tint and I'm getting very low signal strength even when I'm out in the open. They are sending me a replacement :D Apple has the best customer service.
 
kh3khalid said:
No it's not. Apple is advertising 10 hours of wifi browsing. With his numbers, he would be getting about 4.5 hours of usage only.

Definitely not normal.



Get it replaced
Click to expand...

Another trip to the apple store :-/ so not happy about that.
 
wgr73 said:
If your screen was on most of that 2hrs then that is absolutely normal!
Click to expand...

I don't even know if this is a serious response.

If you think 2 hours of usage should drop more than half of the battery life and that's "Normal" -

I'm not even going to waste my time finishing that statement. Go search the web for 5s battery test/review results, they'll look something like this: 10hr video, 8-10hr talk, 10hr web, 40hr music.

Again if you're not getting 8-10 hours of normal/moderate usage something is up. Most of the time my screen is not off, it's probably on the majority of the time. I can't read with screen off, or YouTube, MR, Tapatalk, FlipBoard, Apple TV etc. I normally spend anywhere from 2-4 hours a day reading/browsing while streaming music and podcast at the same time. I spent an hour on YouTube yesterday and I can tell you it didn't drop my battery more than 10% if that.
 
Here's mine. I keep LTE on 24/7 because it's that good here!

I've gone nearly two days between charges before with about the same usage.
 

Attachments

  • photo-27.PNG
    photo-27.PNG
    65.3 KB · Views: 124
AntnyMikal said:
I don't even know if this is a serious response.

If you think 2 hours of usage should drop more than half of the battery life and that's "Normal" -
Click to expand...

You do realized those are near perfect conditions, right? If what you said was the case then 90% of people in this thread would be posting up 10hr usage photos...doesn't happen.

His 2.xxhr photo at 50% (or 4.5hrs @ 1%) is on par. Was he on Cellular, if so was his signal perfect? Doubtful. Many factors contribute to how long the battery lasts, especially on Cellular. I've seen this type of battery life on more occasions then not.

I'm not even going to waste my time finishing that statement. Go search the web for 5s battery test/review results, they'll look something like this: 10hr video, 8-10hr talk, 10hr web, 40hr music.

Again if you're not getting 8-10 hours of normal/moderate usage something is up. Most of the time my screen is not off, it's probably on the majority of the time. I can't read with screen off, or YouTube, MR, Tapatalk, FlipBoard, Apple TV etc. I normally spend anywhere from 2-4 hours a day reading/browsing while streaming music and podcast at the same time. I spent an hour on YouTube yesterday and I can tell you it didn't drop my battery more than 10% if that.
Click to expand...

8hrs max, max. I think I've seen 7.4x once maybe twice and that was with moderate use. My screen is always 40% or lower, wifi on, I always close background tasks. The 10hr benchmark just doesn't happen. That's the reviewer trying to save as much battery as possible, Apple as well.


I won't argue though, I'm just explaining what I see in real world stats (along with pretty much the rest of the thread).

----------

Oh and btw, I can easily hit and far surpass your 12.x hr usage life by playing my iPod (screen off ;)) for 40hrs. Usage will be 30+hrs, or however long the iPod has been playing) and of course with no screen time.

I do realize that those stats would not be realistic to everyday use; but it proves a point. Hopefully next software update (probably won't happen) we get a "Screen On Time" usage indicator under the Usage screen.
 
I'm not arguing either, just explaining what I get too. I know how the iPod function works, and that is not a big part of my normal use. I listen to music while reading at the same time. I have gotten more than 20 hrs use time just listening to music/podcast while driving/traveling so I see your point there.

I get around 11-12 hours, and I'll admit I listen to music alone maybe 1-2 hours within that time, but that is still 9-10hr of everything else I do. My wife has the 5C and she gets 8-9 hrs, all notifications on, 30% bright auto, never on silent and she lets the kids play games on her phone. Her screen is on for almost all her usage reading, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, text, calls games. She doesn't listen to music that much from her phone.

As far as the thread goes, this is a small percentage of the millions who have iPhones , iPods, iPads etc. those with complaints or problems are louder, as they should be or their problems wouldn't be heard or solved.

If anyone thinks 4-5 hours of usage with reasonable settings and conditions is normal, that's their prerogative.

I also manually close all apps that I'm not using, I always have, probably 90% of the time that my phone is in standby there are no apps open.


Anyway, my personal rule of thumb for all MY i devices(7) is 8-10% per hour. Within that they should be close to apple claims and reasonable in the real world, and 4-5 hours isn't in my opinion. If I can more that's great, which on my case ally i devices get 8hrs or more consistently even my first gen ipad still pushes 7-10 hours and it's heavily used by my kids mainly.

I respect everyone's experience and opinions, I'm just sharing mine as well. At the end of the day you're either happy with what you have or you're not.
 
wgr73 said:
I understand. Most of the time his screen is off. If he's on cellular data then his signal is very ideal, if not perfect.

Those stats just don't happen unless your screen is off and you're listening to music. Even my Note II (with twice the battery as the iPhone 5s) would barely last 12hrs with *screen on* time. So his stats are definitely possible.

In your case if your screen is off like his most of the time and you're still only getting 5-6hrs then something is wrong. Next time you can go without your phone see how long you can leave it off the charger at 100% then come back the next day. It shouldn't be less than 92-94%
Click to expand...

Where are you getting that his screen is off most of the time though? Because they stream music/podcasts?

My screen is on for most of my usage so that's probably why my battery life is less, as you mentioned.

----------
AntnyMikal said:
For the record my screen is on quite a bit as I read Flipboard a lot, MR, YouTube and do quite a bit of google searching and use it to control my Apple TV. I also use SBP Mobile to touch up artwork between my ipad, iPhone and Mac mini. Either way I still think if you can't get 8-9 hours of normal use and be at 10-20% there is something wrong! wether it be the the actual hardware or some kind of software drain somewhere.

Also there are other things I do to preserve battery, alerts don't repeat, screen @ 30-40%, no push or fetch accept on things I need. app refresh only ones I use. notifications only on things I need/use. This works for me as I check my phone regularly and don't need to see everything that everyone is doing on FB , twitter etc...

I full charge my battery, and full drain it and use battery doctor for full cycle at he end off every month (app reminder).

Maybe I'm just lucky, my Touch ID works 99.9% of the time! my ipad air has a perfect screen and I'm getting upwards of 12 hours use out of it even with some gaming, the mini retina I bought had a perfect screen and good battery life, and safari doesn't crash on me.

I'd try some reboots, restores and if that doesn't work I'd go see a genius. My ip4s was struggling to get 8 hours and would get warm/hot, I took it in showed how the battery was dropping pretty quick and received a replacement. After that I was getting 8-10 hours easy with same settings off restore. I did have to remove FB and reinstall it, it was doing something to the phone idk.

I don't want you to be jealous I want to help you solve the problem. Part of that is me sharing my experience and results, and giving suggestions. I'd go see about a new phone or replacement.
Click to expand...

I may try a restore to 7.0.4 soon. I just can't get past 8 hours of my normal usage. I even checked my remaining battery capacity with iBackupBot and I lost maybe 70 milliamps since the day I got the phone (10/02). Who knows... If it helps at all, I'm on T-Mobile and their signal can be very inconsistent. Could that be the cause of my battery drain?
 
Since paying attention to this I've seen, on average, I lose 9-10% per 30 minutes of usage. On 90% wifi, otherwise the signal is great to good (3+ dots minimum). After closing background apps and everything, I haven't seen a difference.
One reason I was keen to upgrade from the 4s was because my battery life was starting to go... Similar to how this brand new 5s is. But after having two 5s phones I can say the battery on this one, with more battery saving changes made (no background apps refreshing, screen brightness down, etc), is way worse.

Hopefully they can help at the apple store tomorrow third trip in three weeks... So far I can't say I'm all too impressed.
 

Attachments

  • image.jpg
    image.jpg
    85.8 KB · Views: 142
Last edited:
viperGTS said:
Where are you getting that his screen is off most of the time though? Because they stream music/podcasts?

My screen is on for most of my usage so that's probably why my battery life is less, as you mentioned.

----------
Click to expand...

Because if his screen was on he'd be getting battery life like the rest of us.
 
Ruffian829 said:
Since paying attention to this I've seen, on average, I lose 9-10% per 30 minutes of usage. On 90% wifi, otherwise the signal is great to good (3+ dots minimum). After closing background apps and everything, I haven't seen a difference.
One reason I was keen to upgrade from the 4s was because my battery life was starting to go... Similar to how this brand new 5s is. But after having two 5s phones I can say the battery on this one, with more battery saving changes made (no background apps refreshing, screen brightness down, etc), is way worse.

Hopefully they can help at the apple store tomorrow third trip in three weeks... So far I can't say I'm all too impressed.
Click to expand...

That's horrible, just to compare I spent an hour and a half reading this thread, checking eBay and Craigslist, reading some some news on Flipboard, checking my bank accts. this morning. My battery went from 48% to 35%, obviously I couldn't do any of those things with screen off.
 
Hey everyone,

As I'm currently eyeing the 5s for myself, I would like to know how fast your battery drains while listening to music on the device.. aka not streaming it. My S3 drains at a rate of 1%/8min or so. I find this pretty terrible seeing as though the screen is off and the music is on the device. I know the iPhone is notorious for awesome standby times, unlike android.
 
How's your iPhone 5S battery life

Honestly it's long enough that I don't even keep track of that really.
But to give an example, yesterday while driving to school I was listening to music and podcast I went from 99 to 97% after an hour and a half and I was streaming. That was also with a 10 minute phone call from my wife.
That was screen off with one headphone, bouncing between LTE and decent 3G.

While traveling I've made it to 20 hours of just music with a few short calls and been around half way through the battery. Screen off of course since I wasn't using Navigation.

Hope that helps.
 
https://forums.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=448575&d=1385150484

I got about 5-7 hours battery on my previous iphone 5s gold, which I think isn't normal for my usage. 0% - 20% brightness, snapchat, instagram, facebook, messaging and 2 calls and of course a safari?

That's it. I used to get about 9-12 hours on my iphone 5 16 gb.

(It's my previous because I'm about to get my 3rd replacement, not fun though -_-)
 
Last edited:
AntnyMikal said:
Honestly it's long enough that I don't even keep track of that really.
But to give an example, yesterday while driving to school I was listening to music and podcast I went from 99 to 97% after an hour and a half and I was streaming. That was also with a 10 minute phone call from my wife.
That was screen off with one headphone, bouncing between LTE and decent 3G.

While traveling I've made it to 20 hours of just music with a few short calls and been around half way through the battery. Screen off of course since I wasn't using Navigation.

Hope that helps.
Click to expand...

Wow, that's insane. I'd lose like 25% lol. Thanks for the info.
 
So this is what i'm getting now,

I think standby by is good, usage breakdown after turning on auto brightness:

moderate texting and phone calling, occasional surfing the web & FB'ing, check instagram, no streaming or listening to music/videos as i dont have any on my phone as of now and i guess thats it.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_0137.PNG
    IMG_0137.PNG
    71.8 KB · Views: 167
For an update on my trip to the apple store because of this: the Genius Bar guy agreed that the battery drain was not normal, but in doing battery tests he said it was a software issue not a battery issue. I pressed getting a replacement phone though, because they told me the same thing about my touch ID and it definitely ended up being more hardware than software. So he replaced the phone with no issue and we restored from iCloud. He said if it is a software issue, and the issue is "in" the data that was backed up, I'd know within 24-48 hours if the battery drain is the same and in that case I should do a full restore.

It seems he was right, it was (is) a software issue and something that carried over from loading from a backup because I'm getting the same battery drain on this new phone. All location services are turned off, all geofencing, all background app refreshes, brightness at about 50%... And I'm just watching the % drop.

Fwiw the battery test they could do were really impressive IMO. I didn't realize he'd be able to look at recent days and just watch the battery level drain on the chart, and then see when I ended up having to plug the phone in... Along with the signal strength for those times and the apps that were using the most battery. Impressive, but slightly unnerving that the phone collects/stores so much data!

I'll do a restore tonight and see if that helps at all.
 
I'm really impressed with my 5S battery life. I really only have to charge it every second day, with about 6-8 hours usage per charge. Delighted it with it.

With my last iphone I was like most of the people in this thread, almost counting the battery percentage drain per minute. With my 5S I deliberately switched off the battery percentage icon and I'm much happier using the phone.

So your phone drains 2% on standby overnight: So what?
 
Upgraded from a 2-year old 4S to a 5s recently. Battery life on the latter indeed does seem pretty amazing, but I do have 'Reduce Motion' and auto-brightness enabled, if those helps. Also, I only have some notifications, location services and background app refresh turned on. In addition, all my E-mail accounts are set to manual; no push.

I pretty much do a lot of things with my phone, especially listening to music, chat and voice call on Whatsapp and Viber, browse on Safari and play 3D-intensive games. My phone normally would last for at least 7 hours with all these and the settings I've mentioned.

I've always restored from backup and it often result in lag and crashes, but 'Reset All Settings' does the trick all the time for me. :)
 
marf1million said:
So your phone drains 2% on standby overnight: So what?
Click to expand...

2% overnight is different than 10% / half hour...


On that note, I may have spoke too soon. I have about five hours of usage (screen on- kindle app) and am only down to 55% which is an enormous difference from what I was experiencing. Maybe I don't need to restore the phone and set it up as new after all!
 
I'm quite happy with this batterylife. Didn't even bother to discharge it more before I plugged it in, plenty of juice left and with extremely heavy use.

I guess it helps to have 5 dots on the signal wherever I go too.
 

Attachments

  • 7f64daa1-0104-4915-abb2-93ed75c926a3.png
    7f64daa1-0104-4915-abb2-93ed75c926a3.png
    77.2 KB · Views: 113
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back