Thoughts on the iPhone 3G battery life

Batteriesiphone20080711Like everyone else I now have a few full days of iPhone 3G usage under my belt and over the weekend there seemed to be no shortage of grumblings on the intrawebs about the "bad" iPhone 3G battery life.  Now that I’ve got a bit of time on the iPhone 3G battery I need to point out what I think people are seeing.  First of all it’s important to understand that I have used at least a half dozen different phones with 3G capability, even more than that with Edge only (like the original iPhone).  This means my take on the iPhone 3G battery life I am seeing is based on what other devices have offered me and not my expected run times.

I can state with absolute certainty that the battery life I am getting on the iPhone 3G is as good as any other 3G-capable phone I have used.  This flies in the face of what you might be seeing others say on the web the past few days but I have no beef with the battery life I am getting.  What I think is happening to make others feel otherwise is based on two different factors.  Those who have upgraded from the original, non-3G iPhone are seeing less battery life on the new one.  That is only logical as the 3G radio does in fact use more juice than the Edge one.  So in fact the iPhone 3G is probably providing them less battery life than their old one did.

The main factor is that when you have broadband speeds on your phone like the iPhone 3G, you spend more time on the web than on other phones without 3G.  I can attest to this based on my own experience.  With non-3G phones when I go to the web it is to do something specific which I do and then get off the web because it’s too slow and painful.  Not so with the iPhone 3G, the web experience is so fluid that I find myself jumping online to do something specific and then doing something else.  And something else again.  It’s such a good online experience that I can easily find myself staying online for an hour or more.  Believe me, that can eat the battery for sure and I’ll bet that those who are not happy with the battery life on their iPhone 3G are spending far more time online than they realize.  What I am seeing is battery life at least as good as if not better than other 3G handsets I have used.  I haven’t run the battery dry in a given day yet but then I have long conditioned myself to always plug in when in my office working.  That’s even more critical on the iPhone with its unswappable battery.  So always plug in and get a car charger and you’ll probably be fine.  Also pay attention to notice how much time you’re spending on the web and you’ll see what I mean.  Your battery life is probably better than you think.

UPDATE: wow, just found this PC World benchmark which confirms what I have said here.

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