Maximizing battery life on the iPhone 3G
I've been on a persistent quest to squeeze the best battery life out of my iPhone 3G as possible and have found some good tips for getting it to last quite a while. The best combination I've noticed so far is, unfortunately, turning off the 3G and Wi-Fi connections. These are the hugest battery hogs and with them off I can easily go multiple days without charging. That's obviously not ideal for most that enjoy high-speed data access everywhere, and so I've played around with a bunch of other configurations.
I recently gained (and then lost) 3G coverage in my apartment so I've been trying out leaving 3G on 24/7 with mixed luck. Having 3G turned on in a place without coverage for an extended period of time is absolutely one of the best ways to destroy your battery life. That used to be how my apartment was and while the office has full 3G coverage, having the iPhone stay powered on at my apartment for the majority of the day (and night) caused me to barely squeek by with a day's worth of juice, depending on my usage. With my apartment having full 3G coverage for all of yesterday, I noticed my battery life improved significantly so I'm confident that in a solid 3G service area battery life should be quite good leaving that on all the time, depending on the data usage of course.
Previously I had tried leaving Wi-Fi enabled all the time. This was about the worst, from what I noticed. Even though both my home and office have Wi-Fi networks, it seems like the iPhone would sometimes remain active even after the screen locked, presumably maintaining a persistent connection to the wireless router for some reason. I could confirm this by my usage time under Settings displaying as being an hour or so more than what it was when I stopped using it and set it down. I know that the iPhone is supposed to disconnect from the access point when not in use and then connect when you unlock the screen or initiate a data connection. Presumably this is to preserve battery life and would probably do that quite well. I haven't been able to have it work as expected 100% of the time, though, and find that it drains the battery much faster than any other configuration (on average) so far.
One of my co-workers bragged about his 2-3 days of battery life and I was able to grab his secret. He told me that he leaves both 3G and Wi-Fi enabled 24/7. Oh, and he doesn't even have EDGE coverage at his house. What the hell? Yeah, apparently he's getting pretty amazing battery life by doing this, and I'm going to be testing it out today to see what I get. I was trying it out yesterday but the fact that my phone was displaying full 3G signal at home when it never had before made me think all of my troubles were quelled and I could now just leave it in 3G mode persistently and all would be well. Apparently that's not the case.
Hopefully the 3G access will return by the time I get back from a small vacation to Miramar for the airshow this weekend. I'd really like to just be able to rely on that. The data is super fast in my area and the call qualify is significantly better than when on EDGE. I'd really love to be able to reliably use the feature for which my phone is named.
I recently gained (and then lost) 3G coverage in my apartment so I've been trying out leaving 3G on 24/7 with mixed luck. Having 3G turned on in a place without coverage for an extended period of time is absolutely one of the best ways to destroy your battery life. That used to be how my apartment was and while the office has full 3G coverage, having the iPhone stay powered on at my apartment for the majority of the day (and night) caused me to barely squeek by with a day's worth of juice, depending on my usage. With my apartment having full 3G coverage for all of yesterday, I noticed my battery life improved significantly so I'm confident that in a solid 3G service area battery life should be quite good leaving that on all the time, depending on the data usage of course.
Previously I had tried leaving Wi-Fi enabled all the time. This was about the worst, from what I noticed. Even though both my home and office have Wi-Fi networks, it seems like the iPhone would sometimes remain active even after the screen locked, presumably maintaining a persistent connection to the wireless router for some reason. I could confirm this by my usage time under Settings displaying as being an hour or so more than what it was when I stopped using it and set it down. I know that the iPhone is supposed to disconnect from the access point when not in use and then connect when you unlock the screen or initiate a data connection. Presumably this is to preserve battery life and would probably do that quite well. I haven't been able to have it work as expected 100% of the time, though, and find that it drains the battery much faster than any other configuration (on average) so far.
One of my co-workers bragged about his 2-3 days of battery life and I was able to grab his secret. He told me that he leaves both 3G and Wi-Fi enabled 24/7. Oh, and he doesn't even have EDGE coverage at his house. What the hell? Yeah, apparently he's getting pretty amazing battery life by doing this, and I'm going to be testing it out today to see what I get. I was trying it out yesterday but the fact that my phone was displaying full 3G signal at home when it never had before made me think all of my troubles were quelled and I could now just leave it in 3G mode persistently and all would be well. Apparently that's not the case.
Hopefully the 3G access will return by the time I get back from a small vacation to Miramar for the airshow this weekend. I'd really like to just be able to rely on that. The data is super fast in my area and the call qualify is significantly better than when on EDGE. I'd really love to be able to reliably use the feature for which my phone is named.
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