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Please post your battery usage screenshots!!
- Thread starter Locoboof
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jsquared
macrumors 6502
I appreciate it TWL, I didn't think anything was wrong until I started to some incredible usage by some people. It is more comforting to know that I fall in the average.
Makes me wonder about the iPod feature though. You think you could play music all day and it would show huge usuage and standby? I might toy with this at work tomorrow.
Thanks again, Mciarlo, for doing the averages. It's like you read my mind but took more initative. lol
_Refurbished_
macrumors 68020
Personally, I think some people have lied in this thread. It's very easy to manipulate screenshots. Any insane numbers we see are most likely bogus posts. Batteries vary slightly, but it's impossible to get some of these numbers. Not unlikely, impossible.
Why would anyone do that??
Anyway, you are partly right in that some of the numbers here aren't exactly accurate, but, they are not bogus.
I just realized that the iPhone Usage report keeps adding to the total usage time if you only partially charge your battery before disconnecting it. The Usage numbers only reset themselves once a Full Charge is done, or if you manually reset them.
I didn't realize this when I posted my Usage screen. I wasn't able to allow the phone to fully charge this afternoon, and noticed that when I got back later and plugged the phone in, the Usage time was now over 8 hours. It kept going up because I didn't allow it to fully charge before using it.
I just did a full charge of my iPhone and now notice the Usage number automatically reset to Zero. So, I just Reset all the numbers, and then I'll post a more accurate screen shot after the battery has been fully drained (and before it has been fully charged).
This probably accounts for some of the really long usage times some people have posted.
jsquared
macrumors 6502
But even if you plug your phone in for a minute it'll leave a message right underneath the usage/standby saying "The phone ahs been plugged in or charged...."
mciarlo
macrumors 6502
My calculations take this into account and it seems that the average is pretty on par with Apple's estimates.
Also, if you play your iPod enough, you can skew results without charging.
I think so, too. People are freaked out about their batteries, and the trolls are exploiting that insecurity.
Dimwhit
macrumors 68020
My phone doesn't do this. If I plug in my phone (for any amount of time) and unplug it before it's fully charged, my phone doesn't display ANY usage numbers. It's all blank until I charge it completely, then they reset.
Not sure if mine is normal behavior, though.
This is my first contribution to this thread. Is my battery life normal?
The usage was probably about 1hr on the phone, 1hr of music and 3hrs of internet browsing. Wifi was probably on for about 16hrs in total. 3g was off.
On the one hand, I was suspecting some people were manipulating their screenshots just to make it look like they got magical iPhones, but I also found the battery life varies wildly based on what was actually being done with the phone. My first screenshot is pretty typical of my usage:
- Push on
- 3G on
- BlueTooth on
- Location off
- WiFi on about 10% of the time
- About 15 minutes of phone use
- Some games and web surfing (>2 hours)
- Most of my time spent in a studio that has RF shielding (virtually no cell signal at work)
The second screenshot is rather unusual, but it shows me how different the life can be based on what I do:
- Push on
- 3G off <- Makes a huge difference
- BlueTooth on
- Location off
- WiFi on about 20% of the time
- About 45 minutes of phone use
- Some games and web surfing (<2 hours)
- About six hours of iPod use (screen off while playing music)
- Home or near-home with full strength cell signal
So, the factors that seemed to make the most difference in my case were:
- EDGE instead of 3G
- Strong cell signal
- Lots of iPod use with little Safari use
- Push on
- 3G on
- BlueTooth on
- Location off
- WiFi on about 10% of the time
- About 15 minutes of phone use
- Some games and web surfing (>2 hours)
- Most of my time spent in a studio that has RF shielding (virtually no cell signal at work)
The second screenshot is rather unusual, but it shows me how different the life can be based on what I do:
- Push on
- 3G off <- Makes a huge difference
- BlueTooth on
- Location off
- WiFi on about 20% of the time
- About 45 minutes of phone use
- Some games and web surfing (<2 hours)
- About six hours of iPod use (screen off while playing music)
- Home or near-home with full strength cell signal
So, the factors that seemed to make the most difference in my case were:
- EDGE instead of 3G
- Strong cell signal
- Lots of iPod use with little Safari use
Attachments
Dimwhit
macrumors 68020
I'm generally a skeptical person too, but as someone with a DRAMATICALLY worse battery in my 3G than i had in my 2G iPhone, I know that what Apple suggests above is not what I'm getting. I've taken three screen caps in the past 3 days. I have to charge my phone generally twice a day - I generally charge it before bed so that the alarm works in the AM, and then I generally have to charge it by about 3 PM the next day.
I keep 3G off almost exclusively. Screen brightness is down to about 15%, compared to about 50% on my old phone. Location services are off all the time. Since I got the 3G with its terrible battery, I skimp on every activity there is - I keep my browsing very short. My email is set to pull every 15 minutes.
One thing is for sure - they have recalibrated the 20% and 10% warnings so that if anything, they are not OVER those amounts, whereas with the 2G once you got that 20% warning, you had like 15 minutes of battery left (at least on mine).
With the 2G phone, I used it a lot more and never had to worry about whether my charge would make it through the *afternoon*. I'm pretty upset about that, and the fact that I drop a TON more calls than I did. Calls on 3G are intensely unreliable, and reception is actually worse both on 2G and on 3G than they were with my old phone in my house and in my neighborhood.
I live in downtown Arlington, VA, one of the hot spots for 3G coverage in the country. When I turn on 3G, most phone calls never get started because "Call Failed" with zero bars. Turn off 3G, and immedately I get 4 bars of Edge reception.
Sorry, this turned into a bit of a rant. I just need to find some time to get back to the Apple store and talk to someone about it. It's killing me.... Aside from the Apps, I'm far less pleased with my 3G than I was with my 2G.
Attachments
queshy
macrumors 68040
Wow, that's some sort of super battery! Over 2 days of standby with 7 hrs of usage? Are you sure you didn't charge it up and it didn't roll over from last time?
mciarlo
macrumors 6502
What are your usage statistics. Numbers don't mean anything without that information.
My wife's phone - one the second charge - saw 17 hrs of usage, and 4 days of standby before it died. She plugged it into a car charger for an hour or so in there.
Mine couldn't get past 4 hrs of usage, and 6 hrs of standby so it went back to apple for a replacment. The second one is MUCH better...
Anyone else notice that the battery charges quick on this phone?
My two cents
Although I didn't read all posts and checked all posted screenshots, it makes no sense to forge results, at least judging from the screenshots that I did see.
Testing conditions vary but the average should be around what Apple claims to be, for they themselves must have done due diligence testing and posted not their best results but rather either conservative or median/mean values.
To get a better idea of how well your battery performs, jailbreak your phone, install BossPrefs and enable numeric battery -- it will allow you to switch between the graphic bar and numbers by tapping the battery indicator. iPhone shows 100% green when in fact the battery is 90% charged, for instance.
Then... run tests like: browsing for 10 minutes and measuring how much battery juice you consume. Heck, you don't even need to go on for 3-4-5-6 straight hours and just use a simple formula to calculate how much browsing you'll get if you know how much 10 minutes of browsing consumes the battery. Obviously, that's provided the battery demonstrates equal performance, be it at 100% or 10% charge. It should though.
My talk time is around ~4 hours (+/- 10 or so minutes). I get ~24 minutes on 3G (full signal with all bars, PUSH and any other background process--such as SSH--off) for every ~10% battery charge.
Make your screenshots with the numeric battery indicator, not the graphic bar.
Cheers.
Although I didn't read all posts and checked all posted screenshots, it makes no sense to forge results, at least judging from the screenshots that I did see.
Testing conditions vary but the average should be around what Apple claims to be, for they themselves must have done due diligence testing and posted not their best results but rather either conservative or median/mean values.
To get a better idea of how well your battery performs, jailbreak your phone, install BossPrefs and enable numeric battery -- it will allow you to switch between the graphic bar and numbers by tapping the battery indicator. iPhone shows 100% green when in fact the battery is 90% charged, for instance.
Then... run tests like: browsing for 10 minutes and measuring how much battery juice you consume. Heck, you don't even need to go on for 3-4-5-6 straight hours and just use a simple formula to calculate how much browsing you'll get if you know how much 10 minutes of browsing consumes the battery. Obviously, that's provided the battery demonstrates equal performance, be it at 100% or 10% charge. It should though.
My talk time is around ~4 hours (+/- 10 or so minutes). I get ~24 minutes on 3G (full signal with all bars, PUSH and any other background process--such as SSH--off) for every ~10% battery charge.
Make your screenshots with the numeric battery indicator, not the graphic bar.
Cheers.