iPhone 5 Battery Life May Be Impacted Greatly by Cellular Signal Strength

Deep in its lengthy review of the iPhone 5, iLounge has performed an analysis on the battery life of the iPhone 5. The site tested the device under a number of conditions, including both cellular and Wi-Fi web browsing, voice calls, FaceTime calls, video recording, and video and audio playback.

Iphone5battery
The phone performed fairly well but iLounge found battery life struggled when transferring cellular data or making voice calls, which they speculated was due to a weak signal:

if you’re using your iPhone 5 in places a with a very strong (4- to 5-bar) LTE or 3G signal, your cellular battery life may approach that number, but if not, the cellular antenna will struggle to maintain a signal, and fall well short. Because LTE and 3G/4G towers are in a state of build-out flux right now, our tests suggest that many LTE users won’t come close to Apple’s promised numbers.

Iphone5batterytesting
iLounge has the detailed results on its battery testing in its iPhone 5 review, but unsurprisingly, mileage will vary greatly depending on a number of factors including health of the battery, signal strength, screen brightness, and other considerations.

Related Forum: iPhone

Top Rated Comments

G51989 Avatar
150 months ago
Newsflash.

ALL Cellphones, even dumbphones are affected by signal strength, the weaker the signal, the phone has to boost power to the radio to maintain a connection.

Turn on Airplane mode on pretty much any dumb or smart phone, you'd be amazed how long the battery lasts without having to power the radio, I did that with my old Samsung Replenish Android Phone after I got my S3, I think with airplane mode on, it lasted almost a week before it died, my old 3GS would go almost a week to.

In other news, the pope is catholic.
Score: 90 Votes (Like | Disagree)
kas23 Avatar
150 months ago
can't you see
whats the point of LTE if
you dont have a Battery
will software fix this
broken technology?

Is this supposed to be a poem?
Score: 41 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Prof. Avatar
150 months ago
Another reason why I'm waiting 'til the end of 2013 to get the iPhone 5S.
Score: 21 Votes (Like | Disagree)
swarmster Avatar
150 months ago
Another reason why I'm waiting 'til the end of 2013 to get the iPhone 5S.

Good idea, I'm sure physics will be fixed by then.
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
chrmjenkins Avatar
150 months ago
They accidentally put an "i" before Phone in the title.
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
realeric Avatar
150 months ago
My battery is fine. :p
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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