iPhone 5 Battery Life May Be Impacted Greatly by Cellular Signal Strength

[macchiato2009]

it's always the same marketing ***** with Apple

wanna get real life battery life ?

just the numbers announced during a keynote and remove 1/3 to it and you'll get the real battery life for iPod, iPad, iPhone and Mac

[TallManNY]

Originally Posted by TG1

Even my Razr Maxx will peter out around lunch time because our signal strength is absolutely atrocious. Phones boost power whenever signal strength is poor. Nothing new here.

Damn, and that is largest battery phone out there.

[powers74]

Or iOS6. Took my iP4 off the charger at 7:45, by 10:00 I was at 50%. LAME. The reception in my cube is 2 bars if I'm lucky, but after the update it has really been taking an over-sized bite out of the battery life.

[needfx]

Originally Posted by kas23

Hey Phil, my battery life is worse than before.

That's normal.

Phil

You are looking at it wrong

[neuropsychguy]

I have an Android-based phone. If I'm in an area with good signal and if I only minimally use my phone, it will last the workday. If I'm somewhere where I have poor signal for more than a couple hours I turn it on airplane mode because it will drain the battery dead within those hours if I leave it running (I can tell when I forgot to turn on airplane mode because it starts getting really hot in my pocket).

As a number of people said, results like this have always been the case with phones. Why do you think Apple didn't want to include LTE before now? The real news is that battery life is so good on LTE.

[rman726]

Originally Posted by realeric

My battery is fine.

Mine too. The other day I was on LTE for almost all of the usage time, and had 17% battery left at the end of the day, with 8 hours 3 minutes of usage, and 16 hours 53 minutes standby. I could hardly ask for anything better than that.

Oh and how is my LTE signal? Well, AT&T doesn't actually advertise LTE being available in my area. Nor do they advertise it as being available in my area by the end of 2012. All I have is a couple of towers that are somewhat unreliable at this time due to the fact that they are in the process of getting it up in my area. So I definitely don't have a great LTE signal all day, as it switches back to 4G occasionally since they are definitely doing some testing/expansion to get ready for an "official rollout"

[chris.robison]

Originally Posted by Galatian

This is even newsworthy? I keep my iPhone 4S on Edge whenever possible because you have coverage literally everywhere and it is good enough for checking mails or an update on your mobile news site. I only turn on 3G whenever I do tethering or have to send/download some larger files.

It is because on iPhone 5, you can no longer toggle 3g (4G) on and off.

[iSpock]

Battery life is significantly better on the iphone 5 compared to iphone 4s under similar conditions. 5 bars ATT 4G and on WiFi. I get upwards of 20 hours on iphone 5 whereas on the iphone 4s only ~10-12 hours.

[maril1111]

great, and since this probably wont be able to be resolved by the cell phone manufacturers, they will just be stuck with this and the excuse themselves by blaming the signal providers.

[drumcat]

Can someone please address the terrible battery life of an iPhone 4 under iOS6? This must be widespread enough that there's something going on...

[chris.robison]

Originally Posted by drumcat

Can someone please address the terrible battery life of an iPhone 4 under iOS6? This must be widespread enough that there's something going on...

My iPhone 4 under iOS 6 (the few days I used it before the 5) had just fine battery life. That is to say, there wasn't really any difference after I upgraded to iOS 6.

[Galatian]

Originally Posted by chris.robison

It is because on iPhone 5, you can no longer toggle 3g (4G) on and off.

Oh I didn't knew that...But that was the same with the 4S as well and they restored the function with an later update...Either Apple just doesn't learn or there really is an hardware issue preventing it this time around.

[diamond.g]

Phones in general are horrible about battery if they are in Fringe signal.

[ndpitch]

This explains my battery struggles. I had to turn off LTE to make it somewhat better, but it didn't get THAT much better. I'm still puzzled at the people getting 10+ hours of usage. WTF? I haven't broken 7 yet.

[Geckotek]

This is nothing new, my 4S sucked through battery like there's no tomorrow when I moved to my new job where AT&T reception shows 3-4 bars yet is slower than molasses in January!

[GQB]

My battery life has seemed awfully short, reminding me of how my 4 felt originally.
So, since I'm on AT&T and LTE availability pretty much sucks, I went in and turned it off.
Battery life so far seems to have improved greatly.

[powers74]

Originally Posted by drumcat

Can someone please address the terrible battery life of an iPhone 4 under iOS6? This must be widespread enough that there's something going on...

Ah, so I'm not the only one!

[moderngamenewb]

Originally Posted by bushido

lol what is LTE? i'm getting 2 bars of edge at my parents place if i'm lucky cannot wait to go back to uni and the real world soon

It's another term for 4G, unless I'm wrong on that. Extra speed for internet use. I don't have an iphone 5, but I'm planning on getting the 5S next year. Is talking on 4G clearer than talking on 3G?

[isoft7]

What?!?! Apple LIED about battery life?!?!?1

no *****

[drumcat]

Originally Posted by powers74

Ah, so I'm not the only one!

I've had everyone I know that has a 4 and upgraded have it turn into a pocket heater. Put it on airplane mode, and it's fine. I know it's a data draw on a thread that's not properly terminating. Still, very annoying.

[GorgonPhone]

Duh

[tiptopp]

Originally Posted by Chris Blount

This is nothing new folks. All cell phones have this issue. I don't understand the big deal.

This.

My iPhone 4 battery life was quite predictable until I took it to a campsite in France when it spent all day switching between weak signals from different carriers. Battery life halved. Not a big deal - just frustrating.

Don't understand why this is a story. Same as bears defacating in woods and Popes being Catholic.

Tiptopp

[KPOM]

Originally Posted by moderngamenewb

It's another term for 4G, unless I'm wrong on that. Extra speed for internet use. I don't have an iphone 5, but I'm planning on getting the 5S next year. Is talking on 4G clearer than talking on 3G?

Voice over LTE has not yet been implemented by carriers (Verizon will start next year). Voice calls still use 3G.

[drumcat]

Originally Posted by tiptopp

This.

My iPhone 4 battery life was quite predictable until I took it to a campsite in France when it spent all day switching between weak signals from different carriers. Battery life halved. Not a big deal - just frustrating.

Don't understand why this is a story. Same as bears defacating in woods and Popes being Catholic.

Tiptopp

Maybe, but I suspect that if the 4's are having battery issues, it's not just the towers.

[twiggy0]

Originally Posted by Prof.

Another reason why I'm waiting 'til the end of 2013 to get the iPhone 5S.

And then the iPhone 5S will have its own set of problems, and you'll be waiting for the iPhone 6.