Normal iPhone 3G Battery Life?
iJohn | July 20, 2008 4:05 pm
The iPhone 3G has been the best phone I have ever used in my life! It replaces multiple devices into one! It is basically my little handheld computer!
After participating in multiple iPhone 3G forums on battery life, I don’t see anything from Apple or users what they are actually getting in standby times and usage times. Along with a few software bugs in 2.0, this is by far one of the biggest issues that is affecting a lot iPhone owners.
Now, I know the iPhone 3G uses up a lot more power than the original 1st Gen iPhone. However, normal everyday use of these phones and escpecially mine has proven to be not very good – even with everything turn off (3G, Wifi, GPS, Push). So basically the phone is running just like a normal 1st Gen iPhone in Edge. Apple specifications report around 10 hours talk of battery life on regular old Edge and 5 hours talk on 3G. Now that totally makes sense since 3G uses a ton more power.
Now I am a pretty heavy mobile user, but results I got were pretty sad when running on Edge only.
- On Edge – all other services turned off
- 12 hours Standy with 4 hours of use
- Only around 30 min of call time
- Phone in airplane mode for about 4 hours when I was flying
- Battery at 10%
That was pretty normal times on my battery. I read in a couple different forums where people were getting over 1 day of Standy and bigger usage times.
I called Apple Support on Friday and was giving them my battery times. She couldn’t find any exact numbers but she told me that it sounded like my battery was about half of what it should be getting when on Edge only. I went for the option of having my iPhone 3G replace by Apple and should be here tomorrow via DHL. I could have went to the Apple store to get it replace, but since the store is about 2 hours away and basically there are no iPhones in stock confirmed by iJustine’s video of “The World is out of iPhones”, I just paid $29 in shipping to have the iPhone shipped to me.
Now, this is where I want to hear from all the iPhone 3G owners out there. I want to hear what your normal battery times in standby and usage times and under what configurations. I haven’t seen a centralized location with this information from real life users. So please post below, and let’s hear what your times are to help out other iPhone 3G owners.
I thought I would also share iJustine’s awesome video of “The World is Out of iPhones”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDKEkD6KFvs]
7 Responses to “Normal iPhone 3G Battery Life?”
John… i would love to go through the testing you went through, but I don’t have the time to practice with my phone in all of these various states. I iPhone battery does go down quickly if I perform alot of 3g tasks… however, when i’m just using it for phone and other apps, it seems to be okay.
I’ve been getting about 12-14 hours standby with 3G on, and about 30 hours standby with 3G off (push email etc turned off in all cases, with about 3-5 hours use).
edit: I found my battery improved a lot after I fully charged the battery for about 10 hours, then fully discharged and repeated the process for 4 or 5 days.
I know I’m sounding off on this post rather late, but it sounds like a defective battery–which I’m sure you’ve taken care of. :)
My phone set as default got about 6 hours total, with about 15 minutes of internet time, and 20 texts. Is that normal for iphone?
I nor none of my friends have any problems with battery life on the 3G. I agree with MacDavid that it is probably defective
Hey, love the phone, love the features etc etc but hate the short battery time. I get around 11 hours stand by and 5 hours usage. I don't monitor if I am on 3G or not but assume I am most of the time.
Hope this helps and hope Apple will do something about it as the new BB Bold gets a lot longer battery use…..
I just bought a 16g black iphone 3g on Saturday….I have turned off 3g and push and wifi as a test and I cannot even make it through the day…. sounds similar to your situation. Anybody think this is a defect?
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