Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

I'm really not that impressed with the 5S battery life

S

seble

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 6, 2010
972
163
Hi all, I've had my 5S for almost a week, and to be honest I'm not that impressed by the battery. I was seeing similar results on my 2 year old 4. Whilst yes I am using the phone more frequenetly, everyone else that has just got it must be using it quite a bit too, they still seem to rave about the b.life.

I didn't restore from backup, setup as completely new phone as I always do with a new iPhone, yet the figures really aren't that good. Is there something I'm maybe doing wrong here?
 
seble said:
I'm really not that impressed with the 5S battery life
Click to expand...

I sure am! :D

Yesterday I got 8 hours of screen on usage with 22 hours standby :eek:

Tips:
- turn off wifi/bluetooth when not using them
- turn off LTE if you don't live in an LTE area
- turn off parallax effect under "reduce motion"
- turn off background app refresh
- turn on auto brightness
- don't allow so many apps to use location services
- quit playing with it non-stop! ;)
 
One thing that has really helped me is letting the phone die out and then doing a complete charge, also some people feel after several charges the bat life improves? After letting the phone die and charging full for this morning I'm sitting at 65% after a full day if moderate use
 
user-name-here said:
I sure am! :D

Yesterday I got 8 hours of screen on usage with 22 hours standby :eek:

Tips:
- turn off wifi/bluetooth when not using them
- turn off LTE if you don't live in an LTE area
- turn off parallax effect under "reduce motion"
- turn off background app refresh
- turn on auto brightness
- don't allow so many apps to use location services
- quit playing with it non-stop! ;)
Click to expand...

Well of course you can get great battery life by turning off all those features but you shouldn't have to do that. Especially something like background app refresh, that makes my life so much easier.

The battery's still not great. There will be a breakthrough in battery technology one day soon I hope.
 
Well, what are you expecting and what is it actually doing?

I'm only expecting the phone to last one whole day per charge and mine is doing that so I'm content for now. If you're expecting it to last 2 days but are only getting a day, then I can see why you'd be disappointed.
 
user-name-here said:
I sure am! :D

Yesterday I got 8 hours of screen on usage with 22 hours standby :eek:

Tips:
-̶ ̶t̶u̶r̶n̶ ̶o̶f̶f̶ ̶w̶i̶f̶i̶/̶b̶l̶u̶e̶t̶o̶o̶t̶h̶ ̶w̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶u̶s̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶m̶ ̶
- turn off LTE if you don't live in an LTE area <-- No need to, have it most of the time.
- turn off parallax effect under "reduce motion" <-- But I like it :(
-̶ ̶t̶u̶r̶n̶ ̶o̶f̶f̶ ̶b̶a̶c̶k̶g̶r̶o̶u̶n̶d̶ ̶a̶p̶p̶ ̶r̶e̶f̶r̶e̶s̶h̶
-̶ ̶t̶u̶r̶n̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶a̶u̶t̶o̶ ̶b̶r̶i̶g̶h̶t̶n̶e̶s̶s̶ ̶
-̶ ̶d̶o̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶o̶w̶ ̶s̶o̶ ̶m̶a̶n̶y̶ ̶a̶p̶p̶s̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶l̶o̶c̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶s̶e̶r̶v̶i̶c̶e̶s̶
- quit playing with it non-stop! ;) <--- NEVER! ;)
Click to expand...

As you can tell I've done most of what you said there, apart from things like Parallax and LTE, but yet after doing most of those things still a mediocre battery?

----------
kappaknight said:
Well, what are you expecting and what is it actually doing?

I'm only expecting the phone to last one whole day per charge and mine is doing that so I'm content for now. If you're expecting it to last 2 days but are only getting a day, then I can see why you'd be disappointed.
Click to expand...

Never expect 2 days out of an iPhone. I'm having to charge mine twice a day at the moment, this is my second charge almost 40% 3:45 usage, 6 in standby. With my 4 i had to do that towards the end of its life, but when I first had it I could finish a day with roughly 30%
 
boshii said:
Well of course you can get great battery life by turning off all those features but you shouldn't have to do that. Especially something like background app refresh, that makes my life so much easier.

The battery's still not great. There will be a breakthrough in battery technology one day soon I hope.
Click to expand...

Well it's like you alluded to: until there is a breakthrough in battery technology that gives us multiple day battery life then it is what it is. We have to manage our devices by turning off features we don't need at the time since they don't have unlimited battery life.

It's like if a family only can afford an electric bill of $100 yet they run the AC night and day to the point that the power gets shut off. They can say "well we shouldn't have to do that" all they want but it's not going to change the fact that they should turn off the AC when they don't need it ;)
 
Tbh, you can get great battery out of mobile devices, If my iPhone had half the battery that my iPad had, I would be in love for ever. Love how I can take that thing with me to college every day for like 3 days, type up notes, browse the net, and after those few days only be down to about 30%. If my iPhone had just a quarter of that I would be super happy.
 
user-name-here said:
I sure am! :D

Yesterday I got 8 hours of screen on usage with 22 hours standby :eek:

Tips:
- turn off wifi/bluetooth when not using them
- turn off LTE if you don't live in an LTE area
- turn off parallax effect under "reduce motion"
- turn off background app refresh
- turn on auto brightness
- don't allow so many apps to use location services
- quit playing with it non-stop! ;)
Click to expand...

a) iPhones don't show screen on time
b) the solution to getting good battery life should never be turning off those features, as those are the features that people buy a smartphone to have

user-name-here said:
Well it's like you alluded to: until there is a breakthrough in battery technology that gives us multiple day battery life then it is what it is. We have to manage our devices by turning off features we don't need at the time since they don't have unlimited battery life.
Click to expand...

Orrrrr apple could just make a bigger phone and put in a bigger battery. Which is what they'll do with the iPhone 6.
 
OMAC83 said:
One thing that has really helped me is letting the phone die out and then doing a complete charge, also some people feel after several charges the bat life improves? After letting the phone die and charging full for this morning I'm sitting at 65% after a full day if moderate use
Click to expand...

This is good practice with Lithium-Ion when new.
Discharge all the way 2 times when it's new and every 4 to six months.

Mine improved after the first discharge. It was around 90% out of the box, but I didn't have time to do the discharge right away. Too many updates plugged in ;)
 
seble said:
Hi all, I've had my 5S for almost a week, and to be honest I'm not that impressed by the battery. Whilst yes I am using the phone more frequenetly,
Click to expand...

:confused::confused:

Well I am not that impressed with your lack of impression. Now what?
 
I'm not impressed with the impression I'm getting about others impressions of Apples impression of how long a battery should impress others and such !!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2
 
bjb.butler said:
a) iPhones don't show screen on time
Click to expand...

Sure they do.

Settings -> General -> Usage -> scroll down to see the usage time and as long as the user wasn't playing music or making phone calls with the screen off (like it was for me) then that's the screen on time.

bjb.butler said:
b) the solution to getting good battery life should never be turning off those features, as those are the features that people buy a smartphone to have
Click to expand...

That's like saying you bought a Toyota Prius for the 51mpg and that you shouldn't have to go below 100mph to get 51 miles per gallon :rolleyes:

If you have a limited resource then you either manage it or blow it. Complaining that "we shouldn't have to turn off air conditioning / drive at a good mpg speed / turn off wifi / turn off lights in the house / etc..." won't do a damn thing about it except make the complainer look foolish.

bjb.butler said:
Orrrrr apple could just make a bigger phone and put in a bigger battery. Which is what they'll do with the iPhone 6.
Click to expand...

Yes, putting in bigger battery would be nice. But do they? Not yet, so manage your battery until they do by turning off battery wasting features.
 
Last edited:
user-name-here said:
Sure they do.
Click to expand...

No, they don't. That includes anything that occurred when the screen was off, including music, receiving calls, receiving text messages, receiving emails, receiving push notifications, and apps with background refresh, push refreshes of calendars and contacts, etc.

There's no way you got 10hrs of screen on time only, period.

I'm not even going to respond to your car analogy because it was terrible lol
 
bjb.butler said:
No, they don't.
Click to expand...

No? A user of electronics don't have to turn off features to manage battery life? How ridiculous is that reasoning. I've given analogy after analogy and all you can come up with is constantly saying how battery life should be better without taking any responsibility yourself.

I'm not even going to bother responding to your other points, because I'd much rather cut off your quote to a few words and respond to a single point like how you did earlier :rolleyes:
 
user-name-here said:
No? A user of electronics don't have to turn off features to manage battery life? How ridiculous is that reasoning. I've given analogy after analogy and all you can come up with is constantly saying how battery life should be better without taking any responsibility yourself.

I'm not even going to bother responding to your other points, because I'd much rather cut off your quote to a few words and respond to a single point like how you did earlier :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

I said iphones don't calculate screen on time (they don't). You said "sure they do". I again said they don't.

you can't even comprehend what I quoted, or remember what you wrote, sad.
 
user-name-here said:
I sure am! :D

Yesterday I got 8 hours of screen on usage with 22 hours standby
Click to expand...

I can get 6.5-7 hours of use and 26 hours standby and still have 9% battery left on my 4S, and I'm sure if I had less standby time I could get 8 hours usage too. Sure I have a lot of things "off" but my work emails push through and that's all I need. Brightness at 20%.

I've always been able to squeeze tremendous battery life out of my 4S, I dont know why so many claimed they couldn't.
 
One thing I really appreciate as a former HTC One user is how *fast* the iPhone charges. Just a few minutes on a charger gives a big boost to battery %, whereas whenever I tried to get my One to charge I felt like Sisyphus trying to roll that boulder up a hill.

Because of that I just keep everything enabled and am in the habit of one or two quick charges during the day at work or home regardless of what charge level is. For me just having that routine is easier than constantly worrying if I need to turn this or that feature on or off, and always sweating over battery life.

I don't give it a second thought, have everything enabled, and it's not an issue.
 
seble said:
Tbh, you can get great battery out of mobile devices, If my iPhone had half the battery that my iPad had, I would be in love for ever. Love how I can take that thing with me to college every day for like 3 days, type up notes, browse the net, and after those few days only be down to about 30%. If my iPhone had just a quarter of that I would be super happy.
Click to expand...

...and if your iPad spent the day searching for cell signals and checking your locations, its battery would die far quicker than it currently does.
 
I get the point people are making but some of you are just being ridiculous also.
This morning my iPhone dropped 18% in 35 minutes, sending 5 texts. That is not the battery life I was expecting from an iPhone. I'm connected to wifi, and I have 3 bars.
 
You should be impressed. I can tell you from experience that the iPhone 5S blows away the battery life of most other smartphones.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back