My 3GS usage / battery life results

czeluff · Jun 24, 2009

I know there's all sorts of talk regarding the 3GS battery life, and I just thought I'd go into detail about how I use the phone, and the battery life's I've been seeing.

I use the iPod for multiple hours per day, at least 4-5. I'm a programmer and need something to listen to.

I text ALOT. I have the unlimited plan, because i'm usually around 1800-2000 per month.

I don't use the phone much, maybe 15 minutes per day MAX.

I feel like I use the 3G internet very often, in short bursts. Google queries to reach Wikipedia, opening up the Facebook app 10-15 times per day (til they get push), etc.

And with that usage, here are my results:

On both the first-gen and the 3G phone, I take the phone off of the charger @ 8am, and by 10pm i'd be hitting the 10/20% warnings.

On the 3GS, I take the phone off of the charger @ 8am, and a full 48 hours later, I hit the 10/20% warnings, depending on the usage differences.

Let me know if you have any other questions regarding my usage, and i'm happy to update the post above.

Ent · Jun 24, 2009

your usage is the opposite of mine.

Today I had bluetooth on for about 30 minutes, GPS on for about 5-7 minutes, brightness to about 30%, wifi on, locational services on, push OFF. Browsed the internet via 3G for about an hour..and watched a movie for about 10-15 min. My usage (since 7:30am until 7:00pm now) is 3 hours 12 min., and 12 hours of standby time. My battery is 30% right now.

I still think the battery should be at least in the 6 hour range..and getting ~3 hours of usage is still garbage. What do you think?

B.A. · Jun 24, 2009

My battery life has been much worse on the 3GS than the 3G. On the 3G I might use 25-30% of the battery in the day compared to about 50-60% of the battery with similar usage on the 3GS. As I type this I'm actually trying to run down my battery to 0% so I can recalibrate, as per Apple's site. We'll see if this helps.

fleshman03 · Jun 24, 2009

I'm in the middle of a stress test for my iPhone. '

Normal usage shouldn't be quite this harsh...

Results so far:

Brightness 100%
Push ON
Location Services ON
Email: 15 MINUTES
BLUETOOTH: OFF
3G: ON

3:41
71%
Video

5:17
51%
Video

6:32
32%
Video

7:04
20%
3G call

7:21
12%
3G call

I'm going to repeat tomorrow w. the battery at 100%.

Knowlege Bomb · Jun 24, 2009

I think these iPhone batteries have a "break in period" where you're going to get horrible usage for a while. The battery on my 3G was total crap when I switched from my first gen but when I switched to my 3G S I realized I hadn't thought about it in months so it must have been doing fine. (it's either that or I just got used to the decreased battery life)

Everybody that is having problems just give it a few days and see if it doesn't improve.

czeluff · Jun 25, 2009

agree

I agree completely regarding the battery "break in". I noticed a significant decrease in performance when I first switched to the 3G phone, and it got better after a few weeks. I'll admit, though, no break-in was necessary for my 3GS.

Some other info to add regarding my usage:

I never have bluetooth on.

Wifi is always on regardless of connectivity (though I've switched "Ask to join wireless networks" off).

I hope everyone enjoys their phones as much as I've enjoyed mine. IMO, if you suffer "poor" battery performance, I would let your nearest Apple Store know. Mt SLC, UT store has been very concerned about battery life, and have been willing to swap units to help the problem (both with Macbooks and iPhones).

wingnut8 · Jun 25, 2009

I'm at 84% right now, and it's been off the charger since 1PM EST. 1 hr 26 min of usage, 4 hrs 27 min of standby. 3G off, data roaming off, wifi on, push on, and notifications only on for beejive. I've only texted and used email.

This is my first iPhone so I'm not sure what to expect, but it seems like it's not lasting as long as it should.

Torq · Jun 25, 2009

I'm actually very pleased with the battery life I am seeing. I ran a test to see where the limits lay for me, using my normal configuation, but just letting the battery run down until I got the 10% warning (usually I charge nightly).

I do not normally talk a lot on the iPhone (cars have their own phones, so does work/home), but I added an hour or so of call as part of this test just for good measure.

Settings:

3G: On
Bluetooth: On
WiFi: On
Push: On (w/ Fetch for non-push accounts at 15 minutes).
Nike+: On
Notifications: On
Location Services: On
Brightness: 85-90% w/ Auto Brightness Off.

Yes, that is how my phone is normally set up. Not seeing a reason to turn things off given the battery life I am getting and, frankly, if I had to to make it through a normal day constantly fiddling with settings then I would have to get a different device out of sheer frustration.

Usage:

Calls: A little over an hour total throughout the day.
Gaming: Real Racing (30m), Yahtzee (20m), Archon (20m)
Internet Use (Browsing/Twitter/FB etc.): ~1.5 hours.
Camera/Video: 8 pictures, 2 minutes of video recording.
iPod Video: 44 minutes watching 2 TV episodes.
iPod Audio: ~2 hours
Other: ~10 minutes playing with MotionX GPS/Maps

So, over a day of standby, and nearly 7 hours total active usage charged from 100% with everything enabled.

B.A. · Jun 25, 2009

After running the battery to 0 and charging up over night, here is where I am at today:

1 hr 49 mins of usage
11 hrs 40 minutes standby
WiFi, Bluetooth, 3G on all day. Screen at like 75%.

@59% as we speak.

Knowlege Bomb · Jun 25, 2009

Torq said:
I'm actually very pleased with the battery life I am seeing. I ran a test to see where the limits lay for me, using my normal configuation, but just letting the battery run down until I got the 10% warning (usually I charge nightly).

I do not normally talk a lot on the iPhone (cars have their own phones, so does work/home), but I added an hour or so of call as part of this test just for good measure.

Settings:

3G: On
Bluetooth: On
WiFi: On
Push: On (w/ Fetch for non-push accounts at 15 minutes).
Nike+: On
Notifications: On
Location Services: On
Brightness: 85-90% w/ Auto Brightness Off.

Yes, that is how my phone is normally set up. Not seeing a reason to turn things off given the battery life I am getting and, frankly, if I had to to make it through a normal day constantly fiddling with settings then I would have to get a different device out of sheer frustration.

Usage:

Calls: A little over an hour total throughout the day.
Gaming: Real Racing (30m), Yahtzee (20m), Archon (20m)
Internet Use (Browsing/Twitter/FB etc.): ~1.5 hours.
Camera/Video: 8 pictures, 2 minutes of video recording.
iPod Video: 44 minutes watching 2 TV episodes.
iPod Audio: ~2 hours
Other: ~10 minutes playing with MotionX GPS/Maps

So, over a day of standby, and nearly 7 hours total active usage charged from 100% with everything enabled.

Your phone needs a Superman "S" stamped on the back instead of an Apple logo. I'm jealous.

samcraig · Jun 25, 2009

Today

Full charge - unplugged at 7:45am

3g off
screen at 30 %
location services on
bluetooth off

music for about 20 minutes
watched 40 min of a movie
2 phone calls <10 min

push email all day (463 incoming emails - 90 percent just deleted)

Phone says usage: 1 hour 30 min
Standby 10 hours 31 min

Battery is at 79 Percent

Torq · Jun 25, 2009

lostprophet894 said:
Your phone needs a Superman "S" stamped on the back instead of an Apple logo. I'm jealous.

I think having a consistent 4-5 bars of 3G signal both at home and at work helps with those numbers immensely. Nothing kills battery life like the phone having to ramp up its radio output power.

daneoni · Jun 25, 2009

I dunno if this is good or bad *shrug*

EDIT: Added stats from another separate 2 day use

Bacong · Jun 30, 2009

daneoni said:
I dunno if this is good or bad *shrug*

EDIT: 2 days later

That's not bad at all.

cardboardcowboy · Jul 3, 2009

Here's what I got today after not plugging my phone in over night and using it for two days. I definitely wasn't "going easy" on the usage by any means but I don't necessarily push it to any extremes. The majority of my usage was browsing the internet/checking email on both 3G and wireless, doing some texting, taking pictures and a video, and playing a little bit of paper toss here and there. I feel like my battery is only getting better since I first got the phone, but maybe it's just optimism kicking in?

conch575 · Jul 3, 2009

I use my phone pretty much the same way as you (except when I'm at school I'm not listening to the iPod constantly unless I have a study period or something) and I've noticed the battery doesn't last long. If I charge it at night to 100% for 7am. When I get home at 3 it's down to about 20-30%.

It lasts a lot longer now that I haven't been touching it so often. When I first got it I was playing around with all the apps, voice control, iPod, 3G internet etc.

daneoni · Jul 3, 2009

Duplicate. please look above

hsk · Jul 3, 2009

With general use - Exchange on push, no wifi or bluetooth, occasional browsing, a few calls, a few texts - I am getting about 14-15 hours.

However, I made a 2 hour call yesterday and saw a 30% drop in that time. So calls really knock it down - as with any cell phone. I seem to be right on a 850mHz/1900mHz line - most of the time I get 4-5 bars and 850mHz, but my signal hovers between -89 & -100, usually around -93 everytime I check field test. But I have not seen EDGE yet (which is what I had back in February). So signal has a lot to do with it - or the amount of calls one makes - IMO.

Question while I am here - is it typically for the phone to drop the ATT signal and pick it up again when you first wake it up? I can wake it up with 5 bars on the lock screen, then unlock it and it drops to 0, then in about 5-10 seconds the signal works its way back to 5 bars.

fdot · Jul 3, 2009

this is

this is my second phone, they both sucked.. the battery on both where terrible.. and i get 4 hours of use.. everything is on... WTF/.. i hate you apple iphone battery man maker

alexmadison · Jul 3, 2009

Unfortunately, as Apple doesn't design any of the chips or battery technology that goes into the iPhone, it doesn't really have much control over things like 3G battery life. And thus, the iPhone 3G suffers like any other smartphone when operating on a 3G network.

KevinC · Jul 3, 2009

LA Times article: "iPhone 3GS owners bemoan its battery life"

This just came out today...

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-iphone3-2009jul03,0,2546606.story

From reading the posts in this thread, it sounds to me like there is definitely a problem out there - some bad batteries, a firmware problem, or something.. but that the vast majority of us are doing fine. I'm probably seeing 10-20% better battery life with my 3GS than with my old 3G. Lots of people are having similar experience. And a ton of the examples above seem to be VERY good life.

If this were a more widespread problem, as the Times article would seem to imply, I doubt this topic would be buried way down the list here, and there would be more threads about it all over the place.

We're going to see a firmware upgrade very soon, it will be interesting to see if it specifically addresses any battery life issue(s).

SephirothXR · Jul 3, 2009

I have 6 hours of usage and 3 days of standby with around 14% remaining. I would like to see the statistics on future iPhones, like ones 2-3 months from now.

Simo1122 · Jul 3, 2009

I was surprised when I found watching a movie uses very little battery. Anybody else notice this?

Ishimaru · Jul 3, 2009

Here's mine. I could have let it go a little farther, but didn't want to push it, plus I wanted to be able to make calls as well. My usage is about 8 hours of iPod listening (at work), bluetooth on, and about 30 minutes total A2DP usage, about an hour total of calls, about 50 text messages sent back and forth, probably about 15 minutes total web browsing, including opening the AppStore and Facebook.

DaGreat01 · Jul 3, 2009

WOW! You guys talk A LOT! lol. Assuming that these are 3GSs and that you guys got them on launch day or later, 1 Day is a lot lol. I got my phone in december and im at 3 Days, 2 Hours lol.

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