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duncanapple

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 12, 2008
472
12
Hi - I know there is a lot of talk about battery life with 3g/3gs but I didnt see anyone else with this problem in a search, so maybe I have a defective unit?

So, I totally get that 3G sucks the battery very quick. Though I am very suprised just how quick! With my old 2G phone, I could easily make 4-5 1/2 minute calls, check email all day, check FB a handful of times, and listen to the ipod at work for 4-5 hours. Doing this, I would need to charge every 2 days or so, and I usually wouldnt even be empty yet.

I just got a 3Gs this past week... wow... yesterday from a full charge, I checked my email a couple times, FB 3-4 times plus posted a pic, and made 3 calls totaling less than 5 minutes. Oh, and took 2 pictures. It died before the day was over?


I read how this is common, but I thought for sure people were using their phones a lot more to not make it through a day.

So my question/point;
The kicker is (I would be willing to accept the above and just get a car charger), I never get a warning before it dies. The first time it happened I thought it had crashed b/c it just went black. The battery icon hadnt turned red yet (still had a sliver of green), and I definitely didnt get the low battery "dismiss" pop up box. Only after I plug it into the charger and turn it back on does the "low batt warning, dismiss" box come up (a lot of good it does me at that point :rolleyes: )

Sooo, is anyone else seeing this? It has done it 3/4 days/nights I have owned this thing. I know I can turn 3G off for better battery life, but thats not the point - point is, why do I get no warning? I would def stop using email and FB at the point its about to die so I still have a phone!

Do I need to exchange?
 
I've had some weird battery behavior as well, but turn off all notifications. Seems some apps are constantly fetching and running down batteries.
 
Hmm - other than the apple apps, I only have shazam, pandora, whats on (a tv guide app), countdown (a timer app), and facebook. Other than maybe facebook, I didnt think any of those apps fetch (not even FB fetches right now I didnt think?).

Unless its the apple apps?

But even the above doesnt explain why I dont get a red battery or low battery warning. Surely it isnt wearing down that fast that it doesnt even have time to warn me?
 
Hmm - other than the apple apps, I only have shazam, pandora, whats on (a tv guide app), countdown (a timer app), and facebook. Other than maybe facebook, I didnt think any of those apps fetch (not even FB fetches right now I didnt think?).

Unless its the apple apps?

But even the above doesnt explain why I dont get a red battery or low battery warning. Surely it isnt wearing down that fast that it doesnt even have time to warn me?

You might try a restore to see if there's a software issue that is running down the battery and especially since you're not getting the battery warning at 20% and 10%. Other than that, you should take it back and get an exchange. Chances are good that you won't get a refurb this early.
 
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