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Old 07-25-2010, 08:41 PM   #1
Phaneuf3
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How long should an iPhone 3Gs battery charge last? It seems like this battery is dieing WAYYYYYY too fast.
Use the phone for a day and the battery's at 50%.
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Old 07-25-2010, 08:49 PM   #2
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How long should an iPhone 3Gs battery charge last? It seems like this battery is dieing WAYYYYYY too fast.
Use the phone for a day and the battery's at 50%.
That sounds better than my battery (which was just replaced). With moderate usage I'm dead by days end. Heavy usage it's dead by dinner.
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Old 07-26-2010, 02:36 AM   #3
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How long should an iPhone 3Gs battery charge last? It seems like this battery is dieing WAYYYYYY too fast.
Use the phone for a day and the battery's at 50%.
Depends on what "use" means.

If I don't use it for video, games, apps, making calls, etc and just use it for listening to music with headphones, then I can go almost a week without charging. But given that my phone typically gets heavy usage, I find myself losing half the charge in a day and therefore put it in the charger every night.
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Old 07-26-2010, 06:25 AM   #4
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How long should an iPhone 3Gs battery charge last? It seems like this battery is dieing WAYYYYYY too fast.
Use the phone for a day and the battery's at 50%.
Depends on how much you use it.

I know it isn't an iPhone but if I leave my wifi on all day and use my Blackberry a lot, web usage, twitter, some pictures etc, it is dead before I get home from work the second day. If I just make normal phone calls it has lots (maybe 30%) left after that same time.
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Old 07-26-2010, 08:17 AM   #5
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Well. I guess the good news is my battery usage sounds pretty normal and expected so my phone isn't broken at least. I wasn't really doing all that much on it: Phone calls, a couple e-mails and some very light browsing (checking the weather and the like). I guess I had set my expectations too high. *shrug*
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Old 07-26-2010, 08:29 AM   #6
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I decided this could be its own thread; you can never have too many Apple threads; right?

I'm now on day 3 of using my iPhone as just a phone- and I'm doing this on purpose because I want to see how long it will last. Part of the reason why I wanted a new phone was the battery on my old one was getting tired and would only last 2 days.

Normally I have to recharge my iPhone 3GS every 1-2 days, but at the start of day 3 I'm still at 60% battery.
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Old 07-26-2010, 09:14 AM   #7
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Is it your first iPhone? There’s the “new iPhone effect”, which is caused by really high usage your first week or so - as you settle in with the phone you start using it less intensively than during the exploration/play phase, and at that point battery life seems a little better.

Some people are just intensive users though, and for them, recharging daily is a fact of life.
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Old 07-26-2010, 09:17 AM   #8
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A question for all of you with battery issues:

Are you draining the battery completely, or charging it whenever you can? People got into the habit of completely draining their batteries when using Nickel-Cadmium or Nickel-Metal Hydrate batteries, but that's not what you should be doing with Lithium Ion, which 95% of batteries are now.

Lithium Ion batteries will maintain a pretty healthy charge capacity so long as you don't perform deep discharges regularly (below 50%). Each deep discharge reduces the charge capacity of the cell. So charging the phone as much as possible is a good idea.
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Old 07-26-2010, 09:44 AM   #9
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Is it your first iPhone? There’s the “new iPhone effect”, which is caused by really high usage your first week or so - as you settle in with the phone you start using it less intensively than during the exploration/play phase, and at that point battery life seems a little better.

Some people are just intensive users though, and for them, recharging daily is a fact of life.
Yup - first iPhone. The first two days, the battery dropped pretty fast while I got used to the interface, set up settings, accounts, etc. I let it go cause I knew I was using it in a way I normally wouldn't.

The other day was my first day of normal level of usage, which would be a decent number of calls and staying pretty light on the smartphone feature usage, and 2 days of usage without a recharge would be pretty tricky to do.
I guess I'm used to other devices like my kindle or my previous phone where I can leave it for a week and a half before it needs a charge.
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Old 07-26-2010, 10:22 AM   #10
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I use my phone during the day, charge it at night. It ain't no thang.
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Old 07-26-2010, 10:33 AM   #11
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Lithium Ion batteries will maintain a pretty healthy charge capacity so long as you don't perform deep discharges regularly (below 50%). Each deep discharge reduces the charge capacity of the cell. So charging the phone as much as possible is a good idea.
Do you need to give the battery a long charge when you first buy it? I bought a new battery for my BlackBerry recently and it said full charge when I put it in, so I didn't bother charging it. It has roughly the same life as my old battery though, and if I don't charge it every night, it dies part way through day 2. It's really frustrating.
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Old 07-26-2010, 10:40 AM   #12
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Smartphones inevitably need to be charged more frequently.

Sister's iphone typically lasts around 30 hours with about an hour of music a day and some browsing of websites. 40 hours if she just uses it as a phone for maybe 3-4 calls a day.
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Old 07-26-2010, 10:56 AM   #13
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Do you need to give the battery a long charge when you first buy it? I bought a new battery for my BlackBerry recently and it said full charge when I put it in, so I didn't bother charging it. It has roughly the same life as my old battery though, and if I don't charge it every night, it dies part way through day 2. It's really frustrating.
Usually when getting a new battery it's a good idea to do one deep discharge on it at first, then fully recharge it and try to keep it topped up.
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Old 07-26-2010, 11:25 AM   #14
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I was under the impression that these lithium batteries are only good for X number of discharge/charge cycles; which is why it was better to use the battery as much as you could.
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Old 07-26-2010, 11:39 AM   #15
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Usually when getting a new battery it's a good idea to do one deep discharge on it at first, then fully recharge it and try to keep it topped up.
Ideally you need to let the battery fully charge, then leave it connected to the charger for a few hours after it reports fully charged so that it settles. Then, use it all the way until the phone powers off on its own, then leave plugged in for a full uninterrupted recharge to 100%

The reason for doing this is to calibrate the battery gauge - like laptops, phones these days need to be calibrated to learn the discharge curve of the battery, which is how they determine the current charge level. That’s why you start from 100%, go all the way to zero, and then all the way back up, when you first get a device.

You can also do this every couple of months to re-calibrate the device. I wouldn’t do it more than every couple of months, because, as people have already noted, going all the way to 0% charge on a lithium battery is hard on them.
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Old 07-26-2010, 11:42 AM   #16
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I was under the impression that these lithium batteries are only good for X number of discharge/charge cycles; which is why it was better to use the battery as much as you could.
They do have a specific number of charge cycles, but a charge cycle is draining the battery below 50% and then recharging it. So using it more is the exact opposite thing you want to do.
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Old 07-26-2010, 11:44 AM   #17
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I was under the impression that these lithium batteries are only good for X number of discharge/charge cycles; which is why it was better to use the battery as much as you could.
There are a number of factors affecting lifespan on lithium batteries. For one, they are rated for a limited number of charge cycles. Second, they have a limited shelf life - a seldom used lithium battery is likely to last in calendar time just as long as a battery that is used frequently but is still under its total number of rated charge cycles.

High temperature also greatly accelerates the rate of battery wear - you should never, ever, leave a phone or laptop in a hot car. Even if not in use, the high temps cause enormous chemical wear on the cells.

Leaving a battery always connected to power also shortens life - lithium cells do best when they are being used frequently, but not discharged deeply. A cell held at 100% charge all the time (like a laptop that never leaves a desk and is always plugged in) is under a lot of chemical stress because of the charge potential, and will break down quicker.
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