How bad is the iPhone 4S' battery life exactly?

[scaredpoet]

When I got my iPhone 4S, I restored from an iCloud backup copy of the iPhone 4 I had before it. I have iCloud on, with backups, push e-mail, calendar and notifications. I don't quit apps unless I see sluggishness or flakiness. I charge my iPhone at night before going to sleep and unplug it in the morning.

And this is my usage.

Pretty much equal to the usage I would get on the iPhone 4. I got another 45 minutes of so of usage, and 6 hours standby before the battery went go from the 24% in that screenshot to near dead.

 

[solo118]

@OP Im getting about 6hrs usage which is fine for me. I noticed you mentioned you have a SGS so I think the battery will be better on the 4S.

Welcome to the club!

 

[itsmrjon]

See attached screen shot

Wifi on the entire time, bluetooth off the entire time. Screen brightness @~60%

I don't bother closing apps or taking any special precautions with my battery life. Coming from a 4G android phone, anything over 16 hours of battery life is a blessing.

 

[superstrongboy]

See attached screen shot

Wifi on the entire time, bluetooth off the entire time. Screen brightness @~60%

I don't bother closing apps or taking any special precautions with my battery life. Coming from a 4G android phone, anything over 16 hours of battery life is a blessing.

haha i guess it's good then my android was a 3g phone but it's battery life stil sucked balls.

 

[Primejimbo]

No.

They recommend that you pull it out of the box and activate it (no charge) and then let it drain all the way down. Do a full charge and enjoy.

There is a LOT of false info going around on these batteries so I suggest you do your own research on how to best handle the battery. Numerous sources will tell you it's BAD to let the battery drain all the way down until it dies. Apple recommends you fully drain the battery once a month (which I believe is more for calibration than battery maintenance). Keep in mind Apple will also sell you a new battery for $80, so I don't think they're really concerned with you getting every last iota of useage out of your battery.

Either way, I intend to follow the recommendation. For what it's worth, here's what Apple has to say:

http://www.apple.com/batteries/

Another thing to keep in mind is how many millions of these phones are sold and how many people do NOTHING for/to the battery. Unbox and go.

When i got my 4s I used it until the battery died completely and then full charge, no problems at all.

 

[superstrongboy]

getting my 4s tomorrow most probably, so excited

 

[terraphantm]

The battery issues are exaggerated. It's no worse than I got with my iPhone 4. Have to charge it every night, but that's not really a big deal. Doing CPU/GPU intensive tasks would probably drain the battery quicker since the A5 is a lot more powerful (while the battery is pretty much the same size as before).

I think the bulk of the battery issues came because of the whole "new-toy" thing... they're using the phone a lot more because it's new to them. Once it's no longer "fresh" then they'll go back to their old usage habits and the battery will be sufficient. With every iPhone I've ever had, if I actually played a game or used the internet for more than a couple hours, my battery would be severely drained. iPod touch is much better in this regard due to not having a cell radio.

 

[dirtbikng8]

recently purchased a 4s off of ebay. i talk on my phone 3-4 hrs a day, misc. texts, email and some browsing mainly to look for phone numbers etc. seems that i should be able to get by just charging my phone nightly not charging it 3-4 times a day while driving. coming from a droid pro.