Do you REALLY expect a few charge cycles to increase wifi browsing from 5 -> 9 hours?

[ap3604]

Battery life is currently sucking right now on my 4s

I get about 5 hours of WiFi browsing on my 4s (almost less than half the amount advertised)

I've seen people say "you just have to cycle the battery w/ a few charge cycles" ... But does anyone really expect a few charge cycles to make the battery go from 5 hours currently up to the advertised 9 hours?

And yes I'm doing all the battery saving basics already:
- turn off ping
- no push/fetch email
- Didn't sign into iCloud in the settings
- 30% fixed brightness
- full 5 bars of 3G service
- wifi on while phone is browsing the web
- turn off Bluetooth
- check off everything when it comes to spotlight
- clear memory and any apps running in the background
- turned off weather and stocks widget in notification area
Etc...

 

[Stealthipad]

I can not imagine looking at the little screen for over 5 hours. No matter what you do to your battery it will not reach the 9 hours. Just having the screen on for 9 hours much less using the CPU and WiFi is impossible.

Think about getting a iPad. It will come closer to your expectations.

 

[ap3604]

I can not imagine looking at the little screen for over 5 hours. No matter what you do to your battery it will not reach the 9 hours. Just having the screen on for 9 hours much less using the CPU and WiFi is impossible.

Think about getting a iPad. It will come closer to your expectations.

That doesn't really solve anything. Just because you dont use your phone as much as I do does not mean its not a valid concern. And yes it def should be possible to get 9 hours of wifi browsing if Apple advertises it as having 9 hours of wifi browsing. Plus if my WiFi browsing is this bad then it means the power hungry 3G browsing will be even worse.

So your saying if a car manufacturer sells you a vehicle and says you can get up to 30mpg and you only get 15mpg you would be cool with it?

I'm not. The iPhone 4 I used before had much better battery life than this. Anyone else really expecting a few charge cycles to really boost the battery life up 50% or so to what it's actually supposed to be?

 

[Stealthipad]

I wish you good luck in your waiting for your battery to increase in performance.

Enjoy!

 

[notjustgc]

And yes I'm doing all the battery saving basics already:
- turn off ping
- no push/fetch email
- no iCloud
- 30% fixed brightness
- full 5 bars of 3G service
- wifi on while phone is browsing the web
- turn off Bluetooth
- check off everything when it comes to spotlight
- clear memory and any apps running in the background
Etc...

These strategies are not helping because Apple already accounts for them in the software, and manages their battery usage accordingly.

Please, please, for the love of God, go search back to the iP4 launch and read through the battery life threads -- all the way to the end. Then stop worrying, run your battery through about a week of discharge/recharge cycles, and be amazed.

Or -- if you're still disappointed -- take it back to the Apple store and they might just agree that you've got a faulty unit and replace it for you. This early on, you're guaranteed to get a new unit (non-refurb), so you have nothing to lose.

Also, please stick to the main thread...

 

[DroidRules]

So your saying if a car manufacturer sells you a vehicle and says you can get up to 30mpg and you only get 15mpg......

There are the key words in your rant.

Let the battery drain almost completely down then fully charge. You will see improvement.

 

[fjrabon]

if it's a meter calibration issue, yes.

I think part of the issue here is that people are confusing conditioning the battery (which shouldn't have a significant effect) and calibrating the meter (which the effect just depends on how far off it is initially and will vary from unit to unit, with my last 3GS, it made a huge difference).

 

[notjustgc]

if it's a meter calibration issue, yes.

I think part of the issue here is that people are confusing conditioning the battery (which shouldn't have a significant effect) and calibrating the meter (which the effect just depends on how far off it is initially and will vary from unit to unit, with my last 3GS, it made a huge difference).

Bingo.

 

[Mr Bigs]

That doesn't really solve anything. Just because you dont use your phone as much as I do does not mean its not a valid concern. And yes it def should be possible to get 9 hours of wifi browsing if Apple advertises it as having 9 hours of wifi browsing. Plus if my WiFi browsing is this bad then it means the power hungry 3G browsing will be even worse.

So your saying if a car manufacturer sells you a vehicle and says you can get up to 30mpg and you only get 15mpg you would be cool with it?

I'm not. The iPhone 4 I used before had much better battery life than this. Anyone else really expecting a few charge cycles to really boost the battery life up 50% or so to what it's actually supposed to be?

He's right look into an iPad or stop crying,increased performance comes at a cost. If you refuse to properly cycle the battery the reactivate your old phone and move on.

 

[ap3604]

He's right look into an iPad or stop crying,increased performance comes at a cost. If you refuse to properly cycle the battery the reactivate your old phone and move on.

That's about as idiotic a statement as when someone says "just go get an android then"...

As for cycling/calibrating the battery I am doing that already (and taking screenshots of the usage time each time). Right now I'm at 3 hours and 55 minutes of wifi browsing and I'm left w/ 24% battery. I'm asking if people who know what they are talking about and can give helpful advice (i.e. not you) actually expect the battery life to jump from less than 5 hours to the advertised 9 hours with calibration/cycling in the next few weeks...

 

[tim4hire]

What Apple says is Wi-Fi usage might not be Wi-Fi usage the way you use it

Apple testing= light web browsing light video and music ect.
V.S.
OP= Real world use multi media rich.

 

[ap3604]

What Apple says is Wi-Fi usage might not be Wi-Fi usage the way you use it

Apple testing= light web browsing light video and music ect.
V.S.
OP= Real world use multi media rich.

I would say no as Anandtech covered the battery life of the iPhone 4 and it was actually BETTER than what Apple advertised

What was advertised:

What was actually achieved:

"Our first test is a basic web browsing benchmark. We've scripted almost two dozen webpages to load, pause for 20 seconds, then forward on to the next page. None of the pages use any Flash. This process repeats until the battery is dead. Screen brightness on the iPhones was set to 50% and the screens remained on the whole time."

I expect based off of past scientific results like this that Apple wouldn't just make up numbers that can't realistically be achieved by most anybody which is why the 4s battery life is so puzzling to me atm and hence why I am asking experienced people their opinion on whether or not they expect the battery life to jump up to what it is supposed to actually be...

 

[ap3604]

So I went ahead and kept browsing via wifi until my 4s died last night and here were the results (4 hrs and 48 minutes of wifi use - pretty terrible imo). Lets see if this improves over the next week or so...

Again this was:
- No 3g browsing
- No video watching
- No music or any apps playing in the background
- No games
- Brightness 30%
- JUST wifi browsing the web

 

[The Game 161]

No iCloud on? What you mean by that?

 

[ntrigue]

Cycles and calibration.

Prior to calibrating my iPhone spent 25 minutes at 100% and 20 minutes at 1% while streaming Rdio.

This is not accurate. Today, on cycle three, the 100% lasted 9 minutes. I am pleased with battery on
My 4S when not using Siri every minute.

 

[ap3604]

No iCloud on? What you mean by that?

I mean that I never signed into iCloud in the settings

 

[The Game 161]

I mean that I never signed into iCloud in the settings

That wouldn't effect battery life anyways

 

[tim4hire]

Do you see a big drain using other Wi-Fi locations?
Do other iphones see a big drain using your Wi-Fi also?
(I see your on a Micro cell shouldn't have anything to do with it?)

 

[ap3604]

Do you see a big drain using other Wi-Fi locations?
Do other iphones see a big drain using your Wi-Fi also?
(I see your on a Micro cell shouldn't have anything to do with it?)

My mom has an iPhone 4s so I'll do the same with her's tonight.

Plus I'll try this test at a library that has wifi and post screenshots to see if the battery life improves.

As for the MicroCell I would think that if anything it would help because it makes it so my phone isn't using power looking for 3g signal at all.

 

[tim4hire]

the micro cell pushing all the cell radio systems thru Wi-Fi on top of your browsing?? hmm..

 

[Eso]

And yes I'm doing all the battery saving basics already...

You shouldn't even have to do all of that. The page that details the battery life claims indicate that all settings were default except for "Ask to Join Networks and Auto-Brightness" which were both turned off. Default brightness is 50%, bluetooth on, ping and push on, etc.

 

[Stealthipad]

Bingo.

A meter calibration is not going to get the OP from 4-5 hours to 9!

 

[ap3604]

A meter calibration is not going to get the OP from 4-5 hours to 9!

This is what I am afraid of

I mean... I know that cycling the battery will improve the battery stats, but will it REALLY go from 5 hours right now to 9 hours?

As weird as this sounds if it only improved up to say 7 hours of WiFi browsing I would not be happy. I've come to expect real world performance on Apple's battery life claims and if it gets less battery life than advertised on Wifi that means that 3g browsing, 3g talk, video playback, EVERYTHING will be lower.

Again I know that draining and recharging the battery will get the results to be better, but does anyone really expect it to jump from 5 hours of Wifi browsing up to 9 hours just from draining and recharging the battery or should I just go get a new one?

 

[mackmgg]

You should bring it to Apple if it's that bad. My iPhone 4S is at 78% right now, with 1 hour 22 minutes of usage, and 9 hours 11 minutes of standby. The usage has been mostly 3G browsing, and games. That should use more battery than browsing the web, but it isn't.