So you've finally got that spiffy new iPhone 3G. You've waited for a long time for 3G speed, location services, and those really cool iPhone third-party applications and now you're happy. What? You're upset with the battery life?
This is the most common complaint I've heard from the lucky folks who have the 3G iPhone: with some usage, by the end of the day, their battery is almost dead or dead. And, there's no way to swap the battery with a fresh one to fix this problem.
So what's going on? Why did my previous iPhone get such great battery life and my brand spankin' new iPhone gets lousy battery life? The answer is quite simple, and I might add, it's just as it should be: 3G sucks power.
- 3G is faster but at the price of higher power consumption
- 3G gave about 25% less battery life compared to edge in standard web browsing
- Wifi gave the best battery life compared to 3G and Edge
- Leaving 3G enabled during talk time had the biggest impact: a 52% reduction on battery life
So why is there such shock from folks that the iPhone 3G has such a short battery life? It's probably because the previous iPhone on Edge had such great battery life. But let's remember that Edge has been around for a while and many companies have "mature" chipsets that are low power compared to 3G chipsets. Remember, one of the reasons 3G was not in the original iPhone, according to Steve Jobs, was that the chip set was too big and it ate batteries for dinner.
How can I get better life from my iPhone 3G battery?
I'm going to let you in on a secret. Well it's not really a secret. All you need to do is turn off 3G when you're not using it. Simple.
Go to Settings > General > Network > Enable 3G and set this to OFF.
You can also try changing your settings for Fetch New Data and Push as well. I did a few unscientific tests but found this worked best for long life during the day. Previously if I ran the iPhone with 3G on and push mail from my exchange server and fetch set to manual by the end of the work day (5pm) my battery was at 25% with very light usage. If I turned off 3G and only used it when I surfed the net then my battery usage was at 75% by the end of my work day.
Okay I've done this but I still need more power! What can I do?
Well the folks at Apple still haven't made the iPhone's battery replaceable and until they do you are stuck with either carrying around the charger or getting yourself a backup charging source!
There are a LOT of battery chargers out on the market for the iPod and other devices, but very few have iPhone specified. This is important to note because the new iPhone cannot be charged by any firewire devices or charging devices that use that method.
The big difference between the two is that one is a lot larger than the other. The mini battery (pictured above) will clip onto the bottom of your iPhone and charge it or allow you to extend your talk time. I plan to use this while traveling or for times I can't get to a power source easily. It's small enough that I can carry it in my bag and not worry about excessive weight. It's almost like having a spare iPhone battery, just not as sexy as an internal replaceable one.
According to specs it should extend play time up to 30 hours of music or 6 hours of video on iPod or 3 hours of talk time on iPhone (i'm going to assume this is with Edge only not 3G).
What have your battery life experiences been like with the iPhone 3G? Any tips or tricks you'd like to share with the world?
Thanks for such a cool post....this news is really very good for iphone user just like me.....