iPhone 4S Battery Life Worse for 3G Data and Media as Compared to iPhone 4

[CrAkD]

Wow.

4 million suckers got dragged into purchasing the same phone 2 years running.

Only to find that battery has gone backwards.

Most of you geniuses dont realise that battery should get better with performance gains.

Take intel for example.

Every generation the power usage goes down with performance going up.

Basically the A5 is just a clocked up CPU with a better GPU.

iPhone 4S = Cash Cow.

Lower costs and higher margins make stock markets very happy.

My iPhone 4 has gotten faster with IOS 5 so i doubt the performance gap everyone is seeing is all to do with the A5.

Ill wait for the iPhone 5 when a real successor comes out that warrants a £500 upgrade

You keep doing everything you have to to validate your decision to wait another 12 months for a new phone.....the rest of us will enjoy the 4S

The battery is a little worse but its seemed to get better as time went on as I charge and run it down. Now to the point it's only about 10% less then my 4 by the end of the day.

 

[4:20]

Wow.

4 million suckers got dragged into purchasing the same phone 2 years running.

Only to find that battery has gone backwards.

Most of you geniuses dont realise that battery should get better with performance gains.

Take intel for example.

Every generation the power usage goes down with performance going up.

Basically the A5 is just a clocked up CPU with a better GPU.

iPhone 4S = Cash Cow.

Lower costs and higher margins make stock markets very happy.

My iPhone 4 has gotten faster with IOS 5 so i doubt the performance gap everyone is seeing is all to do with the A5.

Ill wait for the iPhone 5 when a real successor comes out that warrants a £500 upgrade

Very smart.

Note to self:

Use more paragraphs.

 

[lw9090]

I'm sure there will be a firmware update and app updates to better support the HW. I have seen it before with the 3GS
Used the Nike+ GPS app yesterday for a 3 mile run and battery dropped 15%. I don't know if it was the or GPS using all the battery but I think there will be some udpdates to correct it.

I did notice today my battery was performing better.

 

[bmustaf]

I'd be pretty interested in seeing the media tests done with airplane mode on and the data tests with airplane mode with wi-fi on.

Frankly, that'd be a lot more instructive (e.g. to take the network out of the equation).

 

[iMaconApple]

give it time the battery needs to be cycled..could be bugs/settings/location depending on weather ect...thats why its running 800mhz not full 1ghz like ipad has bigger battery

 

[futch]

I upgraded to the iPhone 4S from the iPhone 3GS and I noticed that the battery seems to drain much faster; even faster than a phone I've had 2 years.

I can't compare it to the iPhone 4, as this article did, but I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks the iPhone 4S drains the battery more.

I haven't tested it extensively enough to really make a firm conclusion. But I'll be interested in reading what other people observe in their day-to-day usage.

I will say that my 3GS's battery would bleed power. The 4S uses a lot of battery under heavy use, which is what I would expect. Siri, Games, 3G, talking, etc. are going to drain it much faster than email and standby. Leaving my phone overnight I went from 100% to 96%, whereas with my 3GS It would go from 100% to 70%.

 

[elkk]

One thing we must remember, those of us who just got a 4S is probably using it a bit more than we were using our iPhone 4. We're playing with the new camera, or talking to Siri. These are still things we're having fun with, whereas later, we'll get back to the baseline of using it only when necessary.

amen, when i got my 3G back in the day, I'd be charging it up almost 3 times before i made it back home.. people play with new toys, they're obviously gonna drain faster

 

[MBHockey]

Wow.

4 million suckers got dragged into purchasing the same phone 2 years running.

Only to find that battery has gone backwards.

Most of you geniuses dont realise that battery should get better with performance gains.

Take intel for example.

Every generation the power usage goes down with performance going up.

Basically the A5 is just a clocked up CPU with a better GPU.

iPhone 4S = Cash Cow.

Lower costs and higher margins make stock markets very happy.

My iPhone 4 has gotten faster with IOS 5 so i doubt the performance gap everyone is seeing is all to do with the A5.

Ill wait for the iPhone 5 when a real successor comes out that warrants a £500 upgrade

I don't know where you got your engineering degree but you should ask for a refund.

 

[futch]

Wow.

4 million suckers got dragged into purchasing the same phone 2 years running.

Only to find that battery has gone backwards.

Most of you geniuses dont realise that battery should get better with performance gains.

Take intel for example.

Every generation the power usage goes down with performance going up.

Basically the A5 is just a clocked up CPU with a better GPU.

iPhone 4S = Cash Cow.

Lower costs and higher margins make stock markets very happy.

My iPhone 4 has gotten faster with IOS 5 so i doubt the performance gap everyone is seeing is all to do with the A5.

Ill wait for the iPhone 5 when a real successor comes out that warrants a £500 upgrade

Whatever it takes to sleep at night knowing you have an INFERIOR phone to the iPhone 4S.

Let me get this right: mine is twice as fast as yours? 7x better graphics than yours? A personal assistant unlike anything else out there? Better camera than yours? 1080p video that yours doesn't have? And I have to sacrifice 100 hours of standby for that? Deal.

Will the iPhone 5 be better than the iPhone 4S? Of course it will, nobody is denying that. The only one in denial is you for thinking that the 4S isn't a "successor" to the 4 and that the 4S is the "same phone" as the 4. Same exterior? Sure. A gorgeous one at that. The innards are night and day. Definitely superior.

Regards,

Futch

 

[Dreamer2go]

I THINK starting from recent years, Apple used a better approach in battery test?
I mean I forgot, was it the Macbook Pro who get worse battery compared to last refresh's battery life?

I could be wrong...

 

[sm.wilson]

To all of the people explaining vastly different battery usage time, nobody has the same configuration.

You cannot expect a phone with several email accounts, push notifications out the wazoo, and background tasked applications to perform like a clean test unit. Want to see what the battery life of your phone is compared to benchmarks? Set it to the exact configuration of the units used in the benchmarks.

That said, under the same usage scenario as my iPhone 4, I DO get worse battery life on my 4S, but not by much.

 

[samcraig]

I'd be pretty interested in seeing the media tests done with airplane mode on and the data tests with airplane mode with wi-fi on.

Frankly, that'd be a lot more instructive (e.g. to take the network out of the equation).

Because that's a real world example? "Lab" tests suck because you never truly know how they've set up their iPhone (brightness, email accounts, etc) so you'll never really get a picture on how long the battery lasts. The only true measure of how long your battery will last is to see what your usage based on your settings and activity is. No two (or very few) people will ever experience the same battery life. They might get within a range - but mileage varies on so many factors.

The best advice I could give here is - stop caring so much. Enjoy your phone. If you need to plug it in - plug it in. If you need an extra battery - get an extra battery. If you want a phone that will last days - avoid any smart phone.

 

[kas23]

Wait, I thought this was all just in people's heads, like the antenna problem of the iPhone 4 (which interesting provoked an antenna re-design)?

Changes don't appear to be significant.

You have zero way of knowing this because you don't know how many iPhones were tested in each group, their individual values, and hence the standard deviations of each group. So before you want to spout your mouth off with garbage, like Jobs once said, go educate yourself.

 

[SidewaysTakumi]

They probably should have waited to post these results...

I remember when I got my iphone 4, the battery seemed to drain so fast, but it leveled itself out after about a week. To me, they should have given it at least that long and retested.

 

[cshearer]

I noticed a slight change, just as the graph seems to show. Though the iPhone 4S's battery life is way better, I owned the HTC Droid Incredible for quite some time, and the battery is nowhere near as frail as on that phone. That's why I have a car charger.

 

[Alisstar]

I don't think the 4S has the battery reserve I'm used to, but on the other hand it seems to be recharging more quickly also. Has anyone else had the same experience?

I did notice that last night. I let it drain completely and went back to check a message 30 minutes into the charge and it was above 50%.

 

[Bodygard]

Battery and screen size was the "game changer" for me to buy the "next" iphone.
I'll wait for iPhone 5 and hope Apple comes out with BIG improvements in these two areas. Battery life is crucial...

 

[elkk]

Will the iPhone 5 be better than the iPhone 4S? Of course it will, nobody is denying that. The only one in denial is you for thinking that the 4S isn't a "successor" to the 4 and that the 4S is the "same phone" as the 4. Same exterior? Sure. A gorgeous one at that. The innards are night and day. Definitely superior.

Regards,

Futch

idk man, i had a nokia back in the day and i only had to charge it once a week.. obviously battery life is the only measure of a successful phone design, and we're all idiots for jumping on this new fangled "iPhone" bandwagon.

pic definitely related, this was my old nokia which, to this day, apparently *****s on anything else on the market.

EDIT:
p.s. it could even send text messages.

 

[JulianL]

CPU's using smaller transistors need less energy to run, hence matching battery needs with improved performance. So for as long we can reduce the component size, we get better and better performance without a slight cost to battery life.

So why is it happening here? Well, Apple obviously didn't mind letting the iPhone 4S demand slightly more power. If they had wished, they could simply have underclocked it a bit more. The A5 CPU in the iPhone 4S probably gives you a longer battery life than the iPhone 4's if it would run on comparable clock speeds. It's just a business decision.

Maybe a business decision in a much wider context. You're right about transistor sizing and it's almost certain that next year's iPad/iPhone SoC (A6?) is where they will drop to a 20-something nm geometry which will save power vs the current A5 but, if the rumours are true, then that might also be the iPhone where the screen size goes up which will presumeably draw more power. Hopefully the two will at least balance out and so we stay at about the same level, or maybe Apple have some extra tricks for next year that might end up with a net power saving.

Either way, maybe Apple was anticipating going to a bigger screen next year, and in particular the challenges of not taking a big hit on battery life, and didn't want to make life any harder for themselves by setting a higher target with the 4S. They were probably happy for the target to drift just a bit lower to make life easier for next year... and then there's the whole 4G thing to throw into the mix next year as well.

Until someone does something dramatic with some new battery chemistry suitable for mass production then it's always going to be a challenge (yup, I've had a visit from Captain Obvious too).

- Julian

 

[Intarweb]

Are they comparing both phones with iOS5 installed? I've noticed my battery life is worse now that iOS5 is installed. I think iOS5 is the culprit here with the new notifications system.

 

[WannaGoMac]

Wow.

4 million suckers got dragged into purchasing the same phone 2 years running.

Only to find that battery has gone backwards.

Most of you geniuses dont realise that battery should get better with performance gains.

Take intel for example.

Every generation the power usage goes down with performance going up.

Basically the A5 is just a clocked up CPU with a better GPU.

iPhone 4S = Cash Cow.

Lower costs and higher margins make stock markets very happy.

My iPhone 4 has gotten faster with IOS 5 so i doubt the performance gap everyone is seeing is all to do with the A5.

Ill wait for the iPhone 5 when a real successor comes out that warrants a £500 upgrade

There were a TON of people (myself included) waiting and waiting for the new iphone. So glad you have a 4, but someone who has a 3gs i DON'T care, i would never have purchased the 4 at this point in time as the hardware is well out of date.

 

[ng-design]

Wow.

4 million suckers got dragged into purchasing the same phone 2 years running.

Only to find that battery has gone backwards.

Most of you geniuses dont realise that battery should get better with performance gains.

Take intel for example.

Every generation the power usage goes down with performance going up.

Basically the A5 is just a clocked up CPU with a better GPU.

iPhone 4S = Cash Cow.

Lower costs and higher margins make stock markets very happy.

My iPhone 4 has gotten faster with IOS 5 so i doubt the performance gap everyone is seeing is all to do with the A5.

Ill wait for the iPhone 5 when a real successor comes out that warrants a £500 upgrade

Another person who clearly isn't smart enough to understand how phones work.

#1. People did not buy the same phone twice. The iPhone's internal parts are completely upgraded. The speed has been doubled, if you bought the AT&T model, the signal has been doubled too. And the photo/video quality alone makes it comparable to many point and shoot cameras, if not greater. It is a completely different phone. I swear to God, if Apple had just slapped a "5" on the phone and slightly altered its appearance, trolls like you would be satisfied.

#2. Out of the 4 million people who bought the phone, many of us were upgrading from an iPhone 3GS (myself included). So leaping from a 3GS to the 4S is a significant value. I love it! We did not waste our money and we are not idiots.

I agree that I have noticed a decrease in battery life. I'm hoping it's just a bug caused by the new iOS and hoping that a software update will help. In the past, there actually have been patches that helped prevent unnecessary drains on the battery life. It's the reality with any new product launch and it can certainly be resolved in many cases.

 

[tivoboy]

too early to tell

give it time the battery needs to be cycled..could be bugs/settings/location depending on weather ect...thats why its running 800mhz not full 1ghz like ipad has bigger battery

yeah, I think it is a bit too early to tell. Everytime a new phone comes out, the battery gets tested and I think it can really take a solid 3-5 cycles of use, drain to zero, charge and use in order to really set the battery up. We haven't had enough time for that I think. They will probably be much more close to equal once that occurs.

the new GPS services (and probably the chipset) take some extra juice, I am sure having SIRI on MUST use something. Is iMessage polling to see who in your list is currently online and ready for an iMessage? Location based reminders could possibly be a KILLER.

 

[nighty5]

cant disable 3G?

my bug bear with the 4S is that Apple appear to have removed the ability to disable 3G!

i used to keep my old 3GS in 2G standby which boosted the battery significantly.

fingers cross they will take feedback on the issue but i doubt it.....

 

[WannaGoMac]

BTW, apple ALWAYS fine tunes the OS for better battery life in new models in subsequent OS updates. I am fairly certain this will be addressed...