iPhone 5 Battery Life

DubDJ

How are people finding the battery life on the new iPhone 5?

I went from an iPhone 4 I ordered on launch day so it was well over 2 years old. And it had a better battery life than my new iPhone 5 with the 'improved' battery life. I've let it drop to 1%-2% a few times and charged it back up to 100% and it is still below average at best.

Anybody actually seeing an improvement in battery? I'm curious to see if its just normal or if my battery is actually worse. I used to leave my iPhone charging and disconnect it before going to sleep and I'd wake up with 98-100%. Done the same thing last night with the 5 and woke with 92%. That's an example of how it has dropped since upgrading to the new model.

FourFourRED

See here; http://www.apple.com/iphone/compare-iphones/

The iPhone 4 has 75 hours more standby time than the iPhone 5.


The 8% drop overnight could be a result of numerous things. How often is your iPhone fetching new content from email, iCloud & push notifications? These are the most likely causes of battery loss overnight.

Follow these tips from Apple on how to get the most from your iPhone 5's battery - http://www.apple.com/batteries/iphone.html



I found the 4S to be a big drainer in battery. I got my new iPhone 5 yesterday and it lasted 24 hours from a full charge with 8 hours of that 24 being "awake time".

Since then I've turned off fetching of iCloud data unless the app's are open. I've reduced my push notifications & keep location services off unless needed.

I reckon I will be getting at least 12 hours usage with around 24 hours total active time on a full charge now.



However, it's always good for the battery to be charged whenever you have access to a charger throughout your day to keep the electrons flowing and be sure to calibrate once a month.

(So basically don't keep waiting for it to hit 1% or die completely more than a few times per month because it's actually worse for the battery).


Also: Letting the phone drop to 1-2% and charging to 100% again isn't going to improve battery life it will only calibrate the battery percentage level indicator so that it keeps accurate.

For e.g. your phone might die even at 8-9% battery because the phone hasn't been calibrated and the indicator has lost its accuracy.

faceman

I posted a thread about this recently too. My ip5 has a battery life no better than my launch ip4.

DubDJ

Aodhagan wrote: »

See here; http://www.apple.com/iphone/compare-iphones/

The iPhone 4 has 75 hours more standby time than the iPhone 5.


The 8% drop overnight could be a result of numerous things. How often is your iPhone fetching new content from email, iCloud & push notifications? These are the most likely causes of battery loss overnight.

Follow these tips from Apple on how to get the most from your iPhone 5's battery - http://www.apple.com/batteries/iphone.html



I found the 4S to be a big drainer in battery. I got my new iPhone 5 yesterday and it lasted 24 hours from a full charge with 8 hours of that 24 being "awake time".

Since then I've turned off fetching of iCloud data unless the app's are open. I've reduced my push notifications & keep location services off unless needed.

I reckon I will be getting at least 12 hours usage with around 24 hours total active time on a full charge now.



However, it's always good for the battery to be charged whenever you have access to a charger throughout your day to keep the electrons flowing and be sure to calibrate once a month.

(So basically don't keep waiting for it to hit 1% or die completely more than a few times per month because it's actually worse for the battery).


Also: Letting the phone drop to 1-2% and charging to 100% again isn't going to improve battery life it will only calibrate the battery percentage level indicator so that it keeps accurate.

For e.g. your phone might die even at 8-9% battery because the phone hasn't been calibrated and the indicator has lost its accuracy.

I overlooked the difference in battery. I didn't realise the 4 had a better battery life. I thought it was 225 compared to 200 but that's the 4S comparison so that part is new to me. Didn't realise the 4 has such a good battery life.

Settings are the same as before so notification and push haven't changed from one phone to another. Only mentioned calibration as it seems to be the first port of call. The 75 hour battery drop seems to explain the loss of battery life I'm seeing. I've been charging as normal as well as waiting for it to go right down. Usually while connected to my MBP it does charge from 50% and above so it's had a fair bit of variety there. Just thought it was supposed to be an improvement over the 4.

Not too worried now. But was curious about the drop. But the above seems to explain somewhat. Thanks for the info. Gonna keep track of usage and post here to compare.

Currently it's @ 19% and Standby is 16hrs 30mins and usage 5hrs 18 mins.

FourFourRED

5hrs 18mins usage with 19% left to go isn't bad at all. My 4S would have died by that time.

5 is impressing me so far.

Piliger

Battery life on my 5 is fine (day and a half). I read about quitting the constantly running background apps and now quit them all regularly and it helped quite a bit. Why keep push email going all night ? Why leave wifi on all night ?

A few people do have problem I agree, but most don't. Hopefully 6.0.1 might also help those people.

FourFourRED

Also, mine is usually on charge overnight.

DubDJ

Lets see if iOS 6.0.1 makes any positive differences to it

_Puma_

How hard is it to replace the battery in the 5? Ive owned a 3GS and I had a go at replacing the battery myself following youtube videos and although it was a bit cumbersome I was able to manage it! Currently own a galaxy S2 and got an extended battery for it. Just have to take off the cover and pop it in, old school style! I cannot understand why apple make it so hard to replace the battery for their Iphones

Heisenberg1

DubDJ wrote: »

How are people finding the battery life on the new iPhone 5?

I went from an iPhone 4 I ordered on launch day so it was well over 2 years old. And it had a better battery life than my new iPhone 5 with the 'improved' battery life. I've let it drop to 1%-2% a few times and charged it back up to 100% and it is still below average at best.

Anybody actually seeing an improvement in battery? I'm curious to see if its just normal or if my battery is actually worse. I used to leave my iPhone charging and disconnect it before going to sleep and I'd wake up with 98-100%. Done the same thing last night with the 5 and woke with 92%. That's an example of how it has dropped since upgrading to the new model.

I noticed a big improvement in Battery life over my 4S getting around 1Day 7hours Stand-By with usage around the 7 hour mark.

DubDJ

_Puma_ wrote: »

How hard is it to replace the battery in the 5? Ive owned a 3GS and I had a go at replacing the battery myself following youtube videos and although it was a bit cumbersome I was able to manage it! Currently own a galaxy S2 and got an extended battery for it. Just have to take off the cover and pop it in, old school style! I cannot understand why apple make it so hard to replace the battery for their Iphones

Try check info on iFixit.com that would give plenty of info. Afaik the 5 is a lot easier to repair than previous models.

mad muffin

I would put the iPhone 5 between the iPhone 4 and 4S.

I think the iPhone 5 battery is pretty good and almost as good as the 4 considering its only marginally bigger with duel core 1.3Ghz and a larger screen with a higher resolution.

Gumbo

99% at 11pm last night. 24% now. Heavy use today as we're working on an app in work so constant uploading etc!

mad muffin

Not bad?

DubDJ

This is my latest.

Duff

Got mine this morning, fully charged at 2 p.m. It's at 85% now with a lot of texting and some Facebook/Twitter action. Miles ahead compared to my 4S.

Mimikyu

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DubDJ

Captain Morgan wrote: »

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Just comparing my earlier usage stats to yours and with almost identical usage (yours with more actual usage and mine with more standby usage) your battery was at 40% whereas my one was at 24%. Which adds to my battery worries.

DubDJ

My battery drained pretty low last night. So I let it get right down to 1%. Normally my iPhone 4 would go dead at 2%. By the 5 kept running even at 1%. So connected to my MBP and had it connected for a good while. Disconnected at 3am when it was at 100%. Just to make sure it was calibrated properly.

Battery life seems to be much better now. Still at 75% at the moment. After 16 hours combined usage. Much happier.

eeloe

Mines pretty shocking to be honest, but I'm used to having my phone charged a couple of times a day anyway!

mad muffin

Before I put it on to charge last night

Creamy Goodness

fully charged 100% at 12pm on saturday afternoon, only plugged it in this morning, 1hr 20 minutes commute, push on, wifi 3g on, bluetooth off.

blows any smartphone i've had out of the water.

DubDJ

mad muffin wrote: »

Before I put it on to charge last night

That's really good. Basically 2 days of not more.

mad muffin

DubDJ wrote: »

That's really good. Basically 2 days of not more.

Yeah I'm impressed. I would have liked to see how far I could go but needed a full battery for the morning.

Also impressive is how fast this phone charges.

DubDJ

mad muffin wrote: »

Yeah I'm impressed. I would have liked to see how far I could go but needed a full battery for the morning.

Also impressive is how fast this phone charges.

Yeah noticed that myself. Charging much faster even when connected to the laptop. Which is handy.

Mimikyu

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Piliger

Got my 5 from Apple a couple of weeks ago. The battery is excellent, and I have no problems with it.

Remember to be closing those open apps !
(double click the main button, hold an icon, and then close each of them.)

Mimikyu

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Armonline

Captain Morgan wrote: »

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It depends on what type of apps. Generally, most apps in the 'multitasking' dock are not actually running. They close completely but their last state is saved into memory, so they only impact your phone by using up extra memory. The OS will 'close' the oldest as needed to reclaim memory, by releasing that memory. Some apps do use specific multitasking APIs which will result in battery drain. These APIs provide services through the OS, so it still isn't really the app that is using up resources, but they have instructed the OS to maintain some service which will use CPU cycle or other subsystem and therefore use battery. These will include any VOIP apps that can receive calls (OS keeps a VOIP connection open), any app the maintains location awareness when closed (GPS etc), apps that continue to stream and/or play music in the background, apps that use background task completion (i.e. uploading videos, but the process terminates when the task is complete) and local and push notifications (though these OS services are always running unless disabled in Settings).

So, if you have apps like Safari or twitter or facebook still 'running', no they won't result in additional battery drain. If you leave Skype or TuneIn running, then you will see additional battery drain. I've found VOIP apps like Skype or Maps Apps really tend to suck the battery when they are left running in the background, while music stream apps are not extremely draining.

I think it comes down to this, if the application requires a constant internet stream, GPS signal or wireless connection (Wifi or Bluetooth) it will drain the battery faster, otherwise it will not.

Armonline

I was plesantly surprised found the Iphone 5 Battery. Sold my Galaxy s3 partly due to having to always nurse the device through the day battery wise and I am really pleased with the Ipohne 5. I generally have at least 30% to 40% left on the iPhone 5 at the end of the day even though i have Wifi and bluetooth on all the time.

Mimikyu

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Piliger

Armonline wrote: »

It depends on what type of apps. Generally, most apps in the 'multitasking' dock are not actually running.

Except going by the history of apps, not all apps are well behaved and they have been found to have been making contact periodically with their home sites or home servers, causing wifi and battery drain. After starting to adopt this practice last week my already good battery life was improved in my opinion ... though not proven by any actual measurement.

Davexirl

I find my battery shocking, especially when I am browsing on 3G, travelling to and from work. It might go down 15% - 20% in 30 odd mins or so.

Is that the same for everyone? that cant be right.

Piliger

Davexirl wrote: »

I find my battery shocking, especially when I am browsing on 3G, travelling to and from work. It might go down 15% - 20% in 30 odd mins or so.

Is that the same for everyone? that cant be right.

Of course not. What steps have you taken to try to correct this drain ?

Davexirl

Piliger wrote: »

Of course not. What steps have you taken to try to correct this drain ?

I turned off all location services except for Find my iPhone, brightness is turned down, I have siri turned off, I have most of my notifactions turned off.

I restored the phone on Saturday, set it up as new and still I notice the major drain is when I am on 3G browsing on Safari, Facebook, twitter.

I got the phone on launch day up in Belfast, a friend of mine is also finding the same problems with his phone too.

I moved up to the 5 from a 4 and never had to turn anything off on my iphone 4 everything was on.

Heisenberg1

Battery has been excellent since I got the phone that was until today stand by 5hrs 7 mins Usage 1Hr 14 mins down to 54% now. Not good if this keeps up back to Apple it goes.

Heisenberg1

Davexirl wrote: »

I turned off all location services except for Find my iPhone, brightness is turned down, I have siri turned off, I have most of my notifactions turned off.

I restored the phone on Saturday, set it up as new and still I notice the major drain is when I am on 3G browsing on Safari, Facebook, twitter.

I got the phone on launch day up in Belfast, a friend of mine is also finding the same problems with his phone too.

I moved up to the 5 from a 4 and never had to turn anything off on my iphone 4 everything was on.

I have my phone set up exactly the same and I'm still seeing a big drain although I am not browsing apart from posting this message. Now 49%

Heisenberg1

Just an update battery has been dropping 5% every 20mins have contacted Apple for return on Monday here's hopeing the new one will be ok.

Piliger

Have you tackled the Safari bookmarks issue ?

DubDJ

Noticed the iPhone 5 seems to charge a lot quicker than any previous iPhone i've had. Not even the fast charge to 80% but it gets from 0% - 100% in less than 2 hours connected to my MBP. Not sure of actual time but i'm interested to see how quick it will charge when directly plugged into the wall adapter.

avalon68

Heisenberg1 wrote: »

Just an update battery has been dropping 5% every 20mins have contacted Apple for return on Monday here's hopeing the new one will be ok.

Was there any hassle changing it? Mine goes down about a percent a minute when the screen is on, little bit better when Im not using it. Lost over 50% on a 5 h bus ride today - while it was on standby, pretty much everything turned off....unless Im missing something thats a major battery drain.....

faceman

avalon68 wrote: »

Was there any hassle changing it? Mine goes down about a percent a minute when the screen is on, little bit better when Im not using it. Lost over 50% on a 5 h bus ride today - while it was on standby, pretty much everything turned off....unless Im missing something thats a major battery drain.....

If by saying it goes down 1% per minute when the screen is on, means that you're using it for stuff then that sounds about right. (I had the same level of battery on my iPhone 4)

FourFourRED

Mine is pretty good

vinnycoyne

Piliger wrote: »

not all apps are well behaved and they have been found to have been making contact periodically with their home sites or home servers, causing wifi and battery drain.

Standard apps can't perform actions like this indefinitely. They can request additional time to perform background tasks (e.g. finish an upload/download) upon closing, but the system will terminate the task after this time (usually around 10-15 mins IIRC). After that time, the app can't start a new task.

Only apps that request special permissions, such as GPS navigation apps, VoIP, and Bluetooth accessory apps can run indefinitely in the background. Apple are quite strict on these permissions during app review.

avalon68

faceman wrote: »

If by saying it goes down 1% per minute when the screen is on, means that you're using it for stuff then that sounds about right. (I had the same level of battery on my iPhone 4)

just checking the time etc. not on wifi or 3g or anything. I might have done that 3 or 4 times total and the battery lost about 50% during the bus ride. Seems like a huge amount of battery usage to me....Like how long would it last if I actually needed to surf the net for a while. I like the phone but at this point Im not sure Ill keep it - I really dont want to have to be making sure it gets charged up 2 or 3 times a day. If I have to turn everything smart off to get through the day I may as well go back to my nokia.....about 8 years old and still lasts a week and a half on a single charge.

mad muffin

Battery is amazing :eek:

wush06

mad muffin wrote: »

Battery is amazing :eek:

Wow that's some going. So can you tell us what sort of setup you have?

mad muffin

wush06 wrote: »

Wow that's some going. So can you tell us what sort of setup you have?

Wifi/3G/GPS on always

No push at all back light at 40%

And I just let the battery run down a couple of time since I got it.

Mimikyu

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keith_d99

Captain Morgan wrote: »

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Leave it on all the time and no issues at all!
Also I find Airplay over Bluetooth uses less battery than over AirPlay over wifi

Creamy Goodness

bluetooth 4.0 which is in the iPhone 4S and 5 can be pretty much left on all the time. as soon as it's out of range of anything it goes into sleep mode, very little battery drain.

myself however think bluetooth is a horrible standard so i leave it off 100% of the time :pac: