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iPhone 3G Battery Life Tests

Wednesday July 16, 2008 2:26 am PDT by Arnold Kim


Gizmodo compiled this impressive chart of battery times for the iPhone 3G as reported by various reviewers.

Most reviewers found the iPhone 3G did have around 5 hours of talk time which was amongst the best for 3G handsets that were testing. The "mixed" use included web browsing and had far more variable results. In those tests, the iPhone 3G ranged from 2 hours and 52 minutes of use as high as 5 hours and 49 minutes.

Hardware site Anandtech actually performed dedicated web browsing tests for the iPhone 3G compared to the original iPhone on EDGE. They found that iPhone 3G (in 3G mode) could browse for 3 hours and 17 minutes, while the original iPhone browsing on 2G could browse for 5 hours and 42 minutes.
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johnnyjibbs
Posted: 50 months ago
hmmm web use is a little disappointing... :eek:
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IDANNY
Posted: 50 months ago
battery life really sucks in comparison to the 2g iPhone. I really like the new one but I never needed any extra power connectors with me for the old one. with the 3g I think I need to get one of those battery packs.
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bondsbw
Posted: 50 months ago
They need to show battery life of the iPhone 3G on EDGE and WiFi. I live in an EDGE-only area, so of course I would turn off 3G.
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jlubinsh
Posted: 50 months ago
When saying that 3g iphone web time is not good when compared to first gen. iphone, you should keep in mind, that in 3 hours on 3g ihpone you can brows MUCH more websites, than in 5 hours on firstgen. Those 2 hours is the time you are WAITING for pages to download :-)

I am almost sure that new iphone will beat old one if 3g is turned off.
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Lexoticstylez02
Posted: 50 months ago

When saying that 3g iphone web time is not good when compared to first gen. iphone, you should keep in mind, that in 3 hours on 3g ihpone you can brows MUCH more websites, than in 5 hours on firstgen. Those 2 hours is the time you are WAITING for pages to download :-)

I am almost sure that new iphone will beat old one if 3g is turned off.


That is very true.
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KaiMac
Posted: 50 months ago

When saying that 3g iphone web time is not good when compared to first gen. iphone, you should keep in mind, that in 3 hours on 3g ihpone you can brows MUCH more websites, than in 5 hours on firstgen. Those 2 hours is the time you are WAITING for pages to download :-)

I am almost sure that new iphone will beat old one if 3g is turned off.


I agree. I turned off 3G and have gotten great talk time compared to my other 3G phones (Cingular 8525). Unless your on a park bench browsing, turn it off and just use Edge for voice and txt. Having the option to turn off 3G is a great feature, I couldn't do it on my 8525 and would rarely go a full day without losing my charge.
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mdntcallr
Posted: 50 months ago
to be honest, this battery life is less than stellar, it is kinda depressing when i was out yesterday and the battery indicator kept getting lower and lower.

and it was not with tons of use!

Apple kinda sucks for not designing the phone with user swapable batteries like every other cell phone.

THIS IS A HUGE PROBLEM which will only get worse with 3G!!
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iNfowarrior
Posted: 50 months ago

When saying that 3g iphone web time is not good when compared to first gen. iphone, you should keep in mind, that in 3 hours on 3g ihpone you can brows MUCH more websites, than in 5 hours on firstgen. Those 2 hours is the time you are WAITING for pages to download :-)

I am almost sure that new iphone will beat old one if 3g is turned off.


what I don't understand is, how does Apple get away with outright lying about this very topic?

One of the things most of us were worried about was battery life on a 3g iPhone. Jobbs comes out on jun 9 and tells how absolutely wonderful and revolutinary their newest battery life accomplishments are.

Why can't they just be honest? I left the keynote thinking: 3G and better battery life. Reality though, is 3G and worse battery life.

How does that not become a legal issue for them? I mean, it will eventually. They get sued constantly over these things. But it will be all hush hush again and swept under the rug like the macbook battery issue.
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cshale210
Posted: 50 months ago

When saying that 3g iphone web time is not good when compared to first gen. iphone, you should keep in mind, that in 3 hours on 3g ihpone you can brows MUCH more websites, than in 5 hours on firstgen. Those 2 hours is the time you are WAITING for pages to download :-)

I am almost sure that new iphone will beat old one if 3g is turned off.



see I wouldn't think of that. That is very true

I continued reading and thought the following...

So, my White 16gb is on the way, so I cannot accurately speak from experience. Apparently the battery is horrible. I've heard it countless times at this point. I feel like I will be keeping my phone on EDGE all the time unless I wanted to actually browse the web, then I would turn it on.

Now what if there was an free app that you touched on the home screen and it toggled 3G on and off..? Then you wouldn't have to go to setting, etc...

Just a thought, but one of my buddies is actually returning the device and going back to his old one. XP Vista situation? We will see...
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KaiMac
Posted: 50 months ago

I continued reading and thought the following...

So, my White 16gb is on the way, so I cannot accurately speak from experience. Apparently the battery is horrible. I've heard it countless times at this point. I feel like I will be keeping my phone on EDGE all the time unless I wanted to actually browse the web, then I would turn it on.

Now what if there was an free app that you touched on the home screen and it toggled 3G on and off..? Then you wouldn't have to go to setting, etc...

Just a thought, but one of my buddies is actually returning the device and going back to his old one. XP Vista situation? We will see...



If he is returning his 3G iPhone then I'm sure there is a line of folks to buy it from him. Considering how horrendous the Edge Data speeds were, 3G is great. Long Range wireless does take more power. If you are only doing voice/txt or in a Wifi area, just turn off 3G and you'll be very happy with this phone. If you think Apple is going to be releasing a new 3G iPhone with a better battery before the next 12 months, then you will be disappointed. 3G battery life is not just an Apple issue, its across all vendors. It is a very power hungry chipset to do 1.4mbps of data transfer long range. My battery life has so far blown away my old 8525. I'm very happy with it. :apple:
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