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

[Rend It]

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A few things to realize.

1) it's a new phone, and will probably still see some battery life updates.

2) I found with my 4S, Bluetooth had been enabled, even though I restored from a 4, which had bluetooth disabled.

3) The 4S is wicked fast, weighs about the same as a 4, and yet it has only a very slight decrease in battery life. That's impressive. To those complaining that the battery life should increase with each new iPhone, I encourage you to go out and invent another battery technology with a higher charge density.

 

[corvettester]

Here is what I've noticed...

Yes, the battery is draining much faster than with my iPhone 4.

Siri eats up a lot of battery really quickly.

I don't know why posters are claiming that they cannot turn off 3G in iOS5? All you have to do is go to Settings>Network>3G. It's kind of a pain because you have to go through 4 or 5 screens to get to it. I wish it were much easier and faster.

I have to turn off 3G a lot because my data plan is only 2GB and I listen to Pandora and Spotify for at least 2 hours a day while exercising. So not only does it eat up my battery, but also my data package.

After two hours of listening to music, I've used 25% of battery. It wasn't this bad with my iPhone 4.

 

[likwidplastik]

He's just pointing out your guaranteed disposition to applaud Apple regardless of their decisions.

"Apple releases redesigned iPhone 5 with 4" screen and tapered aluminum design"

Way to go Apple. This is why the competition will never catch up. Apple will always be the leader in innovation, this phone proves that. They could have easily just given it the new A5 and improved cameras, but they didnt stop there. This new design really takes the iPhone to the next level...larger screen and consistent battery life is better than anything else out there.

Mean while, all the Android garbage is just doing spec bumps. Post PC-Era here we come.
*LTD*

"Apple releases iPhone 4S with A5 and improved camera"

Incredible. Apple really made the right choice here: Improve upon a perfect phone. Let's be honest, a redesign wasnt the best thing now. When all the competition is scrambling to release bigger and bigger phones, Apple stays away from a fad and delivers a perfect 10 again. The A5 and Siri are huge game changers. Pick out a coffin now Google/Microsoft/RIM.
*LTD*


---

Honest praise and criticism are essential to becoming the best you can be, and creating something truly special. If it starts with Apple, you totally forget that. Peace

BUAHAHAHAHAHAHA! This post just made my day.

 

[GSPice]

I think people who use their phones a lot are noticing "increased battery life" with the 4S MOSTLY because their iPhone 4 battery could be up to 16 mo old, and it you charge it every day, the new iPhone 4S is going to "appear" to have much battery life.

Did you read the article? It says the iPhone 4S has worse battery life compared to the iPhone 4.

Did you read photographypro's comment? A BRAND NEW iPhone 4S battery may very well perform better than a HEAVILY USED 16 MONTH OLD iPhone 4 battery.

Please, read. Then, try to understand. When you truly understand someone else's position, you will often find that they are more informed than you had previously thought.

 

[D4F]

Had it been Samsung Galaxy S2 or other Android smartphone you wouldn't have said the same thing

I wonder when will any of you in here finally realize that LTD is apple employee of some sort.
I seen fanboys and he clearly is getting paid.

 

[joseprofet]

80% after two hours of use is excellent!

At that rate it would give you 9 to 10 hours of use

 

[shnln14]

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.

that's try i remember them saying that as well

 

[GorgonPhone]

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 agree 10000%

 

[tim0409]

I am always amazed at the logic of some people on here.

Somebody posts a legitimate issue they are experiencing with an iPhone, in this case abnormal battery drain (even taking into account the spec increase). This is then followed up by somebody stating they don't have a problem, ergo the problem does not exist.

I don't recall those posting problems stating that because they are experiencing an issue it therefore affects every iPhone. It's like antennagate all over again.

I think we can safely conclude from the "batterygate" thread, on the basis of the volume of users experiencing issues with abnormal battery drain on a 4s, that there is an genuine issue that some people are experiencing (including me!)

 

[randfee2]

I don't know why posters are claiming that they cannot turn off 3G in iOS5? All you have to do is go to Settings>Network>3G. It's kind of a pain because you have to go through 4 or 5 screens to get to it.

I know what you mean but why don't you just believe us?
There is no such setting on the iPhone 4S, it's just gone!
here is what it did look like before....

this setting is not there anymore on the 4S!

 

[Tinmania]

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?

Yes very much so noticed this. It has me thinking perhaps it is the calibration on the 4S that is the problem. Surely it is not actually charging any faster so maybe it is that the battery was not quite as low as indicated. At least I am hoping that is what it is.


Michael

 

[blackhand1001]

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.

The HTC incredible used to be bad but the software updates have improved it drastically, especially the latest 2.3.4 update (usually down to 77% by the end of the day and onl drops a few percent overnight). So Apple should also be able to ring a little bit more battery out of the 4s in time.

 

[lilo777]

No surprises here

As iOS is catching up with Android in terms of functionality it gets closer to Android in power consumption too. And if Apple implemented real multitasking memory card support, normal size screen etc. I wonder if iPhone would be even able to keep up with Samsung phones battery life. Galaxy SII is not that far from iPhone 4. It should be evn close (if not on par) with iPhone 4S.

 

[OrangeSVTguy]

I still think its too early to determine how much faster the battery drains in real-life situations as we really haven't even had a full workday use out of it.

I will comment on battery life when I had a least a week with it through a normal work week.

 

[atanase]

New battery...

It's a new phone with a new battery. Therefore it would seem worst, just needs a few cycle charges. Don't panic!

 

[edoates]

On apples own site they state that the standby time is reduced from 300 to 200 hours on the 4S vs the 4. But they show the 3G talk time go up from 7 to 8hrs.

http://www.apple.com/iphone/compare-iphones/

If by "standby" they mean that the phone is turned off, maybe they accurate; but with my 4S in default mode (with really only the Facebook app, but it's notifications turned OFF), I get maybe 24 hours before I'm at less than 15%.

I think to get 200 hours, you'd have to turn essentially everything off, including bluetooth (remember to turn it on when you get in the car), location services (bunch of stuff doesn't work right), etc.

To me, it's very misleading. The standby time should be quoted with the usual stuff operating that most people want and need. If I just wanted a phone, there are lots of cheaper alternative with much more battery life.

Eddie O

 

[xraydoc]

You mean the iPhone can't perform miracles?!

Major fail, Apple!

How dare they release something that has better battery life than almost every other smartphone on the market but one that still doesn't live up to the expectations of swarms of pundits and users who expect the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field to change the laws of physics!



Move along. Nothing to see here.

----------

If by "standby" they mean that the phone is turned off, maybe they accurate; but with my 4S in default mode (with really only the Facebook app, but it's notifications turned OFF), I get maybe 24 hours before I'm at less than 15%.

I think to get 200 hours, you'd have to turn essentially everything off, including bluetooth (remember to turn it on when you get in the car), location services (bunch of stuff doesn't work right), etc.

To me, it's very misleading. The standby time should be quoted with the usual stuff operating that most people want and need. If I just wanted a phone, there are lots of cheaper alternative with much more battery life.

Eddie O

Location services are only active if you've got an open/running app making use of these features. Simply having them on as a software option for apps doesn't use any additional power.

Bluetooth, however, does use power. Nothing that can be done about that.

 

[WilliamG]

In Siri settings, turn off Raise to Speak. This apparently stops the accelerometer from constantly monitoring which drains the battery life while on standby.

I think that's not true. The accelerometer is only monitored when the screen is ON. And at that point, it's monitored all the time for web-browsing orientation etc etc.

Why would turning Raise to Speak off have any effect in standby when Raise to Speak doesn't work in standby!?

 

[bushido]

i get 4 hours out of my iPhone 4 if im lucky, then again its 1.5 years old

i can literally watch it drop percentages

 

[Hakone]

So we doubled the horsepower of an engine and expect the same MPGs... ???
/boggled/

 

[Alisstar]

I have not read every comment here but it would be interesting to note if the 3G difference is with or without a case. Im thinking when not using a case the antenna switching software kicks in and uses more juice. I use a case and my battery life seems fine.

My 4S has a Burton-Speck case on and it drains battery faster than my 16-month-old iPhone 4. Same settings, nothing has changed. I tried turning off Siri and that seemed to have helped a little but not much. I'm letting my phone go through a couple of full battery cycles since some people say it's improved their battery life some.

 

[Friscohoya]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

A few things to realize.

1) it's a new phone, and will probably still see some battery life updates.

2) I found with my 4S, Bluetooth had been enabled, even though I restored from a 4, which had bluetooth disabled.

3) The 4S is wicked fast, weighs about the same as a 4, and yet it has only a very slight decrease in battery life. That's impressive. To those complaining that the battery life should increase with each new iPhone, I encourage you to go out and invent another battery technology with a higher charge density.

My battery has been draining in a matter of hours versus my 4 that seemed to go a solid 24 with constant use. I feel like I got a bad unit. It just cant be that much worse.

 

[aberrero]

Getting the 4GS after the 3GS is understandable, but it is still technically better to wait for the 5 because it won't be outdated for a long time. If the 5S comes out, it will just be faster. If the 6 comes out, it will take a long time to make.

But the 4GS will be outdated by the revolutionary 5 more quickly.

The 3GS lasted longer than the 3G. The 4S is more of an upgrade to the iPhone 4 than the 4 was compared to the 3GS.

The 4s has a dual core A9 CPU, which can be over twice as fast as the one in the 4. The iPhone 4 onl had an over locked version of the same A8 core in the 3G. On top of that, the graphics processor is 7 times as powerful. The iPhone 5 might be thinner and have a larger display, but it won't be substantially faster than the 4S.

A new number means a redesign, an s at the end means a major internal upgrade. It all depends on what you care about, a new design or a more capable phone?

 

[Xenomorph]

Coming from a 3GS, even if the 4S has "worse" battery life compared to a 4, I don't think I'll notice.

Why? Everything is done instantly. It seems like my 4S running iOS 5.0 is quicker than my 3GS was running 3.0. I tap something, it opens. No waiting for it to open. No staring at a blank screen while it loads the app.

Even if the 4S eats twice the battery, it's doing things in less than half the time for me.

 

[aberrero]

My battery has been draining in a matter of hours versus my 4 that seemed to go a solid 24 with constant use. I feel like I got a bad unit. It just cant be that much worse.

It's like that for everyone it seems.