Piss poor battery life with iPhone 4...?

[aforty]

Love my iPhone 4, hate the battery life! I gave it some time, I've now fully cycled the charge twice hoping it would get better.

Yesterday (after my first full cycle) my phone had gone down to 21% through heavy use in only 6 hours. That included some Maps usage, web browsing (reading up on battery issues), playing some Doodle Jump, checking Twitter, Mail, that kind of thing. The battery then drained to zero overnight and then this morning I charged it to 100% again.

After completely charging this morning, I played about 30 minutes of music and browsed the web via WiFi for 10-15 minutes. Add two 2 hours of standby time and I'm already down to 84%.

I'm not running any background apps, no Words With Friends, no Skype, nothing. Stuff in my tray are definitely not background enabled. I read a few other threads that mentioned reseting the phone and starting fresh. Well this phone was started fresh when I got it, I did not restore from a backup.


What's going on with my phone? Should I return it and get it exchanged if this continues? Or is all this normal?




[edit] Take the battery survey courtesy of colourtheatre! http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2DLDWMT

 

[whocaresit]

Return it if you can

 

[maturola]

We are all wondering and working on it to see if we can track the source of the issue.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/978158/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/977152/

 

[Jnardis]

Not sure, but that sounds like a lemon. I've only had my phone since Tues and I charged it once. I think this battery is WAAAY better than the 3gs. You should go to apple and complain.

 

[maddux2005]

Can you post your usage/standby screen?

Draining like that overnight shouldn't happen

The apple store would happily replace if for you

Depending on what I do. I generally get 7-10 hours of USAGE. I find games drain it the quickest. But I'm very pleased with that much battery life.

 

[bluer101]

Today I'm at Usage 50 minutes, Standby 3 hrs 55 minutes and 93% battery left. Try closing all apps in multitasking and doing a hard reset, home and sleep button see if that helps. I have noticed some app and games are harder on battery than others. Just my observation.

 

[chakraj]

My 4 last two days between charges, every time. Once I had to plug it in on the second day because of heavy usage but it should last easy more than a day.

Did you restore from backup when you first set it up or set up as new phone? always set up as new phone for trouble free opperation

 

[tibi08]

My 4 last two days between charges, every time. Once I had to plug it in on the second day because of heavy usage but it should last easy more than a day.

Did you restore from backup when you first set it up or set up as new phone? always set up as new phone for trouble free opperation

Yeah 2 days between charges is pretty good benchmark, I find.....

 

[b-rad g]

Not sure, but that sounds like a lemon. I've only had my phone since Tues and I charged it once. I think this battery is WAAAY better than the 3gs. You should go to apple and complain.

I agree, get it exchanged. Mine won't even drain down from 100%-->21% in the course of one full day. One day I started out with about 90% and proceede to watch a FULL season of Entourage, play games, web surf, and more and by 9:00 that night I was still at 27%. This battery is AMAZING.

 

[damnyooneek]

with the exception of the blackberry all smartphones will have about the same or worse battery life. thats just how it is.

 

[aforty]

Ok here are two usage screenshots. The one that has the battery at 79% was from last night and the other is from just minutes ago.

I made a Genius bar appointment for today after work in case I decide to exchange it. Let me know what you guys think.

 

[sleyeu]

Love my iPhone 4, hate the battery life! I gave it some time, I've now fully cycled the charge twice hoping it would get better.

Yesterday (after my first full cycle) my phone had gone down to 21% through heavy use in only 6 hours. That included some Maps usage, web browsing (reading up on battery issues), playing some Doodle Jump, checking Twitter, Mail, that kind of thing. The battery then drained to zero overnight and then this morning I charged it to 100% again.

After completely charging this morning, I played about 30 minutes of music and browsed the web via WiFi for 10-15 minutes. Add two 2 hours of standby time and I'm already down to 84%.

I'm not running any background apps, no Words With Friends, no Skype, nothing. Stuff in my tray are definitely not background enabled. I read a few other threads that mentioned reseting the phone and starting fresh. Well this phone was started fresh when I got it, I did not restore from a backup.


What's going on with my phone? Should I return it and get it exchanged if this continues? Or is all this normal?

what charger cable do you have?

do you use the old ones with the squeeze to let go buttons on the side? or the new ones which come with ipod touches and iphones?

i find that i used my old big one but then i got a bumper and it didnt fit anymore so i used the new one and my battery has improved...

 

[maddux2005]

Ok here are two usage screenshots. The one that has the battery at 79% was from last night and the other is from just minutes ago.

I made a Genius bar appointment for today after work in case I decide to exchange it. Let me know what you guys think.

That's def NOT normal at ALL! Did you setup your phone as new? Or did you restore from backup?

 

[r&s]

to be honest i'm not impressed with the battery life either. i have a feeling that the brightness setting can really drain the battery if set up high (what's yours set at?).

the thing that -really- seems to drain the battery is pulling data via 3G (web browsing, basically). you can basically watch it drop while doing that.

i get similar statistics to the OP and I've restored my phone as new previously.

 

[aforty]

what charger cable do you have?

do you use the old ones with the squeeze to let go buttons on the side? or the new ones which come with ipod touches and iphones?

i find that i used my old big one but then i got a bumper and it didnt fit anymore so i used the new one and my battery has improved...

Yea I thought of that too. My first full cycle was done with an old cable but then this morning I charged with the cable that came with my iPhone 4 (plugged into wall, not computer). Admittedly through the wall (and new cable) it took a lot less time to fully charge but my battery life doesn't seem much better today. (see screenshots in my previous post)

 

[maddux2005]

to be honest i'm not impressed with the battery life either. i have a feeling that the brightness setting can really drain the battery if set up high (what's yours set at).

the thing that -really- seems to drain the battery is pulling data via 3G (web browsing, basically). you can basically watch it drop while doing that.

Judging by his sent/received data, he uses wifi mainly.

But yes, brightness can be a major factor. If yours was turned all the way up, then those numbers you posted make a little more sense. When I'm indoors, I keep mine well below 40%. It's plenty bright enough at that level

 

[nikhsub1]

That's def NOT normal at ALL! Did you setup your phone as new? Or did you restore from backup?

This is my question too... When I first got my iP4 I restored it from a backup from my 3GS - The phone got HORRIBLE battery life. I then restored and setup as a new phone and it was fine. You may want to give that a shot if you did not setup as new.

 

[Limey77]

My phone was giving me excellent battery life, usually lasting a couple of days between charges.

But yesterday that all changed.

Charged it to 100% and left for work at 8am. I was so busy at work that I literally did not use it at all before leaving work at 7pm. I went to text my wife and saw I only had 4% left.

Got home and recharged to 100% and then used it pretty heavily (web surfing, games, videos) for 3 hours or so and it still said 100% then dropped instantly to 70%.

The funny thing is that when I looked at my usage there were no figures, no stand by time, no usage, nothing.

This morning I again left for work at 8am with 100% charge, without using it at all in the car, I was at 84% when I got to work at 9am.

I've had it in airplane mode most of the day and havene't been online with it and I now have 45%. My usage figures show 1hr 2min of usage and 9hrs 40mins standby.

Looks like my battery is failing and I'll be at the Apple Store this weekend!

ps I have rebooted a couple of times to see if that fixes it, but it doesn't. Tonight I'll back it up and try setting it up as a new phone and see if that helps.

If anyone has any other ideas please let me know.

Cheers!

 

[aforty]

That's def NOT normal at ALL! Did you setup your phone as new? Or did you restore from backup?

See my original post, I setup as NEW.

what charger cable do you have?

do you use the old ones with the squeeze to let go buttons on the side? or the new ones which come with ipod touches and iphones?

i find that i used my old big one but then i got a bumper and it didnt fit anymore so i used the new one and my battery has improved...

Yea I thought of that too. My first full cycle was done with an old cable but then this morning I charged with the cable that came with my iPhone 4 (plugged into wall, not computer). Admittedly through the wall (and new cable) it took a lot less time to fully charge but my battery life doesn't seem much better today. (see screenshots in my previous post)

to be honest i'm not impressed with the battery life either. i have a feeling that the brightness setting can really drain the battery if set up high (what's yours set at).

the thing that -really- seems to drain the battery is pulling data via 3G (web browsing, basically). you can basically watch it drop while doing that.

My brightness is roughly 75% with auto-brightness enabled.



By the way, through the life of this thread my battery has gone down from 84% to 81% and all it's been doing is getting some emails related to this thread. Haven't even activated the phone, just been ignoring the mail alert sounds. So a 3% drop while on standby but receiving some emails.

 

[nikhsub1]

See my original post, I setup as NEW.

I guess that is what I get for posting as soon as I wake up You should definitely return the phone.

 

[r&s]

But yes, brightness can be a major factor. If yours was turned all the way up, then those numbers you posted make a little more sense. When I'm indoors, I keep mine well below 40%. It's plenty bright enough at that level

yeah that's probably what the problem is: i usually keep mine between 70 and 100%

 

[dewdst]

my battery life was not amazing but better than 3gs. I dl'd case program and skype and boom battery was done-zo. I had to get a replacement because of the yellow blob, and it KILLS it almost 4 hr standby and 1+ hour usage still 92%.

 

[maddux2005]

I guess that is what I get for posting as soon as I wake up You should definitely return the phone.

Same here lol

While, I think 75% brightness is far to high. It still appears your battery is faulty. I'd def have em replace it. But I'd also at least keep my brightness on 50%. Or so.

Brightness can effect the battery quite a bit.

 

[malevolant]

Full brightness all the time.

 

[aforty]

I guess I'll exercise my genius appointment later today and try to get an exchange. Are they going to give me any problems trying to exchange it? Should I prepare something good to say?


Until then I'm open to trying any suggestions you guys might have to improve the situation.