Using Blackberry Messenger on my Bold 9650, it would exhibit battery usage identical to that as if I was texting.
Using iMessage on the 4S drains my battery a significant amount more than SMS. 10 minutes straight of iMessage will drain my battery a good 5%, right before my eyes. It can't be that intensive of a process.
I know the two phones are completely different in nature, but it's odd to me that the data-based messaging battery consumption varies so much between the two. Does anyone else feel this way, or has noticed the same issue?
My 4S is the Sprint model, on Wi-Fi+3G. Perhaps iOS5.1 will include some fixes. I'm hoping it just needs some optimization, as the Sprint phones really weren't in the wild during all of the iOS betas.
There will be updates, so I'll be hanging on.