iPhone 5s battery life

[vlee]

There are lots of reviews out there about the 5s and its battery life, but not many specific to Sprint. For those that have already gotten one, any impressions on how the battery is holding up for you?

Also, if you could mention if you spend most of your day on EVDO vs LTE vs WIFI, that would be helpful as well. 

[koiulpoi]

Wouldn't battery life concerns be the same across carriers? It's Apple that controls both the hardware and software, after all. The only thing I can see that would be different would be signal strength, which admittedly, can affect battery life quite dramatically. 

[hankbear]

Wouldn't battery life concerns be the same across carriers? It's Apple that controls both the hardware and software, after all. The only thing I can see that would be different would be signal strength, which admittedly, can affect battery life quite dramatically. 

 

In general, CDMA phones tend to have worse battery life than GSM carriers, at least in the past, before LTE.  That said, the iPhones my friends and acquaintances have tend to have worse battery life in general, no matter what carrier.  It seems to be a good idea, given the claims of better battery life with the new 5s, to understand how reality is for different carriers.

 

I will say that the switch to LTE has me doing much better with my S4, but it also has a bigger battery than before.  Certainly, when I have a bad signal, it drops like a stone!

[Destroyallcubes]

I have heard of quite a few people complaining of their battery dying quite quickly. But Almost everyone complains of battery life on a smartphone.

[The Dave]

I think iOS 7 drains the battery faster than iOS 6. My iPad 3 is wifi only, so any cdma/lte/low signal issues aren't a factor, but my battery definitely doesn't last as long as before. 

[jroepcke51]

I have had Ios7 on my iPhone 5 now for three months and I will say it is all of the new things in Ios7 that make it drain faster. I turned off the motion backgrounds and background app refresh and as of right now i feel that it is the same as ios6.  I will say that the 5s has a larger batttery than the 5 so doing what i did might extend life even further.

[chris2420]

The battery life on my 5s is amazing I can use it all day and when I get home around 8pm it's on like 65-70%. And I mean as a college student I use it heavily

[kory108]

I agree, the battery life of the 5s is noticeably better than the 5. I just bought one yesterday and was pleasantly surprised to still be at 75% by the end of the work day. My old 5 would be around 55% by that time of the day. 

 

Not sure if it's just due to the battery being new, but quite a nice bump!

[xenadu]

First day or two while everything was syncing battery life was bad, but it has settled in now and is as good of better than before.

[spotmeterf64]

It appears to be on par with my BlackBerry Bold 9930. Gets me through the day easily. No complaints from me for battery life. 

[The Dave]

The 5s must have some hardware enhancements to help with battery life compared to previous devices simply upgrading to iOS 7.

[nobius]

I think iOS 7 drains the battery faster than iOS 6. My iPad 3 is wifi only, so any cdma/lte/low signal issues aren't a factor, but my battery definitely doesn't last as long as before. 

 

There's some new features that can impact battery life.  Here's what I did.  Battery life is now better than it was on iOS 6 on my iPad 2 and iPhone 5:

1.  I don't remember if the iPad 3 has AirDrop, but if it does, open Control Center and turn it off.

2.  Settings | General | Background App Refresh is an important one.  It controls which apps can periodically update in the background.  Turn off the apps that you don't need to use this for. 

3. Settings | Privacy | Location Services lets you see what apps have recently used your location.  A purple arrow means it's been used recently, a grey arrow means in the past 24 hours.  Turn off access to apps that don't need to use it.

[The Dave]

There's some new features that can impact battery life.  Here's what I did.  Battery life is now better than it was on iOS 6 on my iPad 2 and iPhone 5:

1.  I don't remember if the iPad 3 has AirDrop, but if it does, open Control Center and turn it off.

2.  Settings | General | Background App Refresh is an important one.  It controls which apps can periodically update in the background.  Turn off the apps that you don't need to use this for. 

3. Settings | Privacy | Location Services lets you see what apps have recently used your location.  A purple arrow means it's been used recently, a grey arrow means in the past 24 hours.  Turn off access to apps that don't need to use it.

Thanks, I will try that when I get home. I admit, I don't use iOS much so I am not all that familiar with its nuances. If ADT Pulse and TiVO were coded better for the Android version, I probably would have an Android tablet instead. I like OS X, but I just can't get into iOS as much.

[RightNow]

My 5 is equal to or better than before. The first 2-3 days after it was a bit worse. It is as good as it ever was now. Some people have found a complete reinstall restores things to the same general time frame they had in 6. My iPad (2) is just the same as it was, no gain or loss. I have not disabled anything on either device. Again, on both devices I saw a slight reduction in the day or two afterwards, after that it was back to normal. 

[doug526]

GSM as an air/radio standard hasn't been mainstream since like 2008.  Since then, WCDMA has supplanted GSM/EDGE.  So, in the event you are trying to compare Sprint/Verizon iPhone battery life against AT&T/TMobile iPhone battery life, I don't think there is a recent precedent or study to this. Would be nice if someone did one, on a level playing field, and compared the two iPhone models' battery life in a real world environment (i.e. 50% of the time on LTE and 50% on 3G.)

 

In general, CDMA phones tend to have worse battery life than GSM carriers, at least in the past, before LTE.  

[pepetrok]

OK so I have just gotten an iPhone 5S with Sprint and my roommate has the exact same phone with Verizon. His battery life literally outperforms mine 3X, which is a bit odd. Even when I turn off LTE in cellular settings, all things being equal (wifi/push/apps/location etc) his phone is 80-90% when mine goes down to 50% halfway through the day and is dead by early evening with light use, while his has everything on (location/push/bluetooth/wifi) and comes home with 50%. The only remaining factor for the battery drain is a defective battery or the network... I have no idea but I am even contemplating returning it. Prior to sprint I had a 3 year old iPhone 4 which held up its battery very well on AT&T. I have no complaints about Sprint, since I get voice and 3G everywhere I need, but I do notice the 3g and the bars going up and down. When i have LTE on I literally have 3G in my bathroom and LTE when I walk to the living room etc... It is that patchy... I understand this can have an effect on battery life, but can it be this drastic where the phone is literally drained in a matter of hours?

[nobius]

For those of you with battery issues, try to minimize the things that run in the background.  Those things add up to where it's doing things often on a cell network, draining the battery.

 

Settings > General > Background App Refresh.  Turn off the ones that you don't need to check and download things automatically for you.

 

Settings > iTunes & App Store > Use Cellular Data. Turn off if you want automatic updates to only run on WiFi.  

[kalev76]

Ive found that the main battery drain issue is to turn off push mail, and instead have it pull once an hour. The other tips are good too of course

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-T989 using Tapatalk 2

 

 

[The Dave]

If you are in a patchy 4G area, you will see much worse battery life. My G2 can last over 40 hours with moderate use while I am at home or at the main campus where I work since I have strong LTE the entire time. Every time I go to a client's house on the Island, which only has LTE in a few tiny islands and mostly just 3G, I can see my battery drain by as much as 30% in 4-5 hours with hardly any use. LTE seems to be a higher priority so whenever there is patchy LTE signal, your phone is going to continually search for it until it locks it in. That will literally cause a free fall battery drain for you if you stay in a mostly 3G environment.

[burnout8488]

I'll attest to LTE helping. 

 

My 5S was a beast compared to my 4S, and the 5C seems just as good as the 5S too. After 12 hours of use, I had 55% left the other day. 

[jamisonshaw125]

All of these issues will be eliminated completely when band 26 shows up. I won't drop to 1x and 1 bar inside of a classroom anymore, and might actually be able to get out an iMessage without connecting to wifi (which also sucks) on campus. My 5S is much better than my 5 was. I can go all day using the phone normally and by 12 am normally when I fall asleep and plug the phone in, I still have 20%. Excellent battery life. Just wish LTE was around, that'll help even more.