iPhone 4s battery life stinks

[Qbah]

Well WiFi off and no change... I'm down 43% in 9 hours (@57% now)... Not much use either 🙁

Yesterday I was down to 1% when I came back home... in 16 hours with a bit of use. The phone is also getting a bit hot when I'm using it.

Is that considered normal?

 

[runawayprisoner]

Yeah, that is normal.

In fact, I'd say you should keep WIFI on if you run off 3G. 3G radio drains battery life faster than WIFI.

 

[Qbah]

Yeah, that is normal.

In fact, I'd say you should keep WIFI on if you run off 3G. 3G radio drains battery life faster than WIFI.

Yea, I switched it on again. I just thought, because there's an AP close to my work that barely shows up, that the phone would try to connect to it and use more battery in the attempts... That's not the case though.

Makes you wonder though - the phone won't last even a full day with a bit more of use on 3G? 😵

On WiFi it's a lot better. No WiFi at work though (and I got 5GBs a month for a reason...).

 

[runawayprisoner]

The 3G radio in the 4S does seem to drain quite a considerable amount.

Now that you mention it, I can easily go 10 hours of total 3G usage with my 4, but the 4S can barely reach 8 hours and a bit over before I hit the 10% mark.

Then again, the 4S has much better signal in general, and it also has faster 3G speed as well.

 

[Qbah]

Well... I looked up things on the net a bit more and followed a few guides. And hey - it worked (hope I won't jinx it!!!) 😀

What I did was reset all settings to default (no impact on apps and their data). Apparently something got messed up when I restored from the 3GS' backup and before that upgraded the 4S to iOS 5.1.

5 hours on 3G today... ~30 minute call, a bit of chatting, FB, reading Flipboard, a few emails and I'm down only 12% 🙂 First ~2 hours it didn't budge a single % - was at 100% 😀 Then I started to use it more so it dropped.

Well, I'm happy now 🙂

EDIT: Of course I re-enabled Location Services for the stuff I want, also added apps I had to Notification Center. Email is as it was (push on gmail and yahoo, fetch every hour on the others). So I'm back at the same usage scenarios as with the crappy battery life period.

 

[Super56K]

Glad to hear you sorted it out Qbah. My battery life has consistently great. Pretty much if I'm not using it heavily it won't dip below 70% by the time I'm going to bed, and even when I use it heavily it's still well above 40%. Pretty awesome.

 

[Qbah]

Glad to hear you sorted it out Qbah. My battery life has consistently great. Pretty much if I'm not using it heavily it won't dip below 70% by the time I'm going to bed, and even when I use it heavily it's still well above 40%. Pretty awesome.

Thanks! I'm really happy now.

At 82% now - chatted a bit more, read a few articles, checked the weather and FB a few times, deleted a few more emails - the usual. Lost 6% in 3.5 hours = awesome! 😀

EDIT: Which means 9 hours of light-moderate use and 18% down. I'd be around 50% before...

EDIT2: Also, the phone definitely feels cooler when I use it.

 

[TheStu]

Well... I looked up things on the net a bit more and followed a few guides. And hey - it worked (hope I won't jinx it!!!) 😀

What I did was reset all settings to default (no impact on apps and their data). Apparently something got messed up when I restored from the 3GS' backup and before that upgraded the 4S to iOS 5.1.

5 hours on 3G today... ~30 minute call, a bit of chatting, FB, reading Flipboard, a few emails and I'm down only 12% 🙂 First ~2 hours it didn't budge a single % - was at 100% 😀 Then I started to use it more so it dropped.

Well, I'm happy now 🙂

EDIT: Of course I re-enabled Location Services for the stuff I want, also added apps I had to Notification Center. Email is as it was (push on gmail and yahoo, fetch every hour on the others). So I'm back at the same usage scenarios as with the crappy battery life period.

I know that my old roommate is running on the same basic backup from his very first iPhone, and that was like 6 devices ago (he had a serious of issues with a series of 3GSs). I wonder if he has ever done this.

 

[Qbah]

Just some final comments - 17 hours on 3G, my typical usage -> 27% down. Which means two days without problems for me as the phone hardly uses anything now when idle. This thing runs longer than my old 3GS now!

Defiitely really happy now about the battery life. Plus it's a zillion times faster and more fun to use than my old 3GS. Very happy I got it 🙂 Was rather upset with the battery life before that.

 

[Qbah]

Gah... I don't get it!!! I didn't change anything... 3 hours of not using the phone at all... 13% down 😵 WTF

 

[Wonderful Pork]

Gah... I don't get it!!! I didn't change anything... 3 hours of not using the phone at all... 13% down 😵 WTF

How is coverage when you notice the battery dropping like crazy? For some reason, my iPhone 4 would rather hold on to 1 bar of 3G vs 5 bars of EDGE and that murders the battery. So I usually toggle 3G to off when I'm at work or other poor service locations (and toggle Location too).

I don't believe you can toggle 3G/EDGE on the 4S which is why I didn't upgrade, that and the jailbreak for SBSettings & BiteSMS.

 

[Qbah]

How is coverage when you notice the battery dropping like crazy? For some reason, my iPhone 4 would rather hold on to 1 bar of 3G vs 5 bars of EDGE and that murders the battery. So I usually toggle 3G to off when I'm at work or other poor service locations (and toggle Location too).

I don't believe you can toggle 3G/EDGE on the 4S which is why I didn't upgrade, that and the jailbreak for SBSettings & BiteSMS.

I have full bars at work, 3G. Down to 82% now 🙁 So another 5% down in an hour... Phone is getting warm too again, not doing anything.

I don't get it, it was working brilliantly yesterday 🙁

EDIT: 81%...

 

[Aikouka]

Your phone might be bad.

It seems like my replacement 4S has worse battery life than my original one, but I don't have numbers to work off of. 🙁

 

[Qbah]

So I did a reset again today... let's see if something changes. Already after ~30 minute call.

EDIT: After 5 hours - @94% with a 30 minute call and a bit of FB, IM and Flipboard reading. Will try to narrow down in the next few days what triggers the high battery usage.

EDIT2: 14 hours on 3G and down 25%. So far so good!