Battery life too short...
 

Hi,

I got this new 8900 and I can't believe how short the battery life is. Has anyone experienced similar problems?

The battery life indicator goes red (no bars, the upper right light starts flashing) after 1 day of very light use (UMA/Wifi on, 10 short calls, about 5 e-mails).

The phone is on Rogers
v.4.6.1.94

Thanks

sounds like a defective battery... bring it back to the store

Thanks Cory.

yea that is way to short... mine, after HEAVY use... 100s of emails, 100s of SMS, calls totaling 2 hours, multiple constant conversations on BBM and MSN, along with all my apps that self update (viigo, weather channel etc etc) and i still have 70% at the end of the day... i dont think i have yet to see my battery fall under 50% yet in one day of usage

Has you experimented with the screen brightness? I normal always keep brightness at 100% and never let it dim on my old 8320. Now on my 8900 I am burning through the battery pretty quick I found with it like that when using it a good portion of the day.

Wow, that is a truly remarkable battery life. I bet you would never be able to do anything like that with an iPhone...

my screen brightness is at 50%, auto DIM is off... i turn off wifi and BT if i am not using it... thats about all i do or have done to the device to save battery life

oh and i forgot to add that i tether about 2 hours out of a day as well... but i guess i really cant say much for battery life as it kinda charges as i am tethering...

Believe me, and as Cory has also confirmed, Wifi and Bluetooth are battery killers
Wifi will literally EAT your battery if left turned on constantly
I have used Nokias with Wifi, an iPhone with Wifi and my Bold with Wifi and if I forget to switch it off, all of them, regardless of the brand, will practically drain in one day
In the last few days I have been using my Bold at home most of the day and have turned Wifi on and I am charging the phone before the day is even out!!!
Knock off the Wifi when you aren't using it and try it for a couple of days and post back
I'm betting you will notice a huge difference

thefonedoc

thats wierd... normally if you are just connected to wifi and edge its fine... i actually get better battery life with wifi on at home... as it had less distance to travel to get data so therefore doesnt need to boost the radio to get to the tower... i noticed this on my 8820, bold and 8900... battery life increased for me when connect to both rogers and wifi, and staying at home and just using wifi for the day... thats odd that yours is draining faster...

BUT if you have wifi on and its not connected its constantly looking for a network which will drain your battery... and plain and simple bluetooth is a battery killer... especially when you are using it to talk on the phone... wow does it ever... doesnt matter how big your battery is... it will drain

Hmm, I have my phone running on EDGE all the time. UMA/WiFi is on whenever I am home or at work (and just idling whenever I'm elsewhere; i.e. Its never off) and I leave my bluetooth on all the time, and it's paired whenever I'm in the car.

I can go nearly 3 days on a full charge.

I'd say its your Battery.

It so depends on where you are, how you use the phone, etc...

I never could get one full day on ANY of my Blackberries (or any other phone for that matter), unless I did severly less than I usually do.

You people talk of "days" of battery, and, I just figure my body must suck the life out of these batteries, because 12 hours is about the best i can get on a normal business day. And, that susually includes no WiFi, and, limited Bluetooth usage.

That all being said, my 8320 was the best, I could clear a full 16 hour day some of the time (no Wifi, maybe 1-2 hours of bluetooth). The Bold, maybe a 10-12 hour day (no 3g), and the 8900, is seemingly like a barely 12 hour - at the moment, more like 10 hours, I'm down to 20% or less, but, I still am playing and configuring a bit on my new toy.

And, PS - I get the worst life when I'm in New York (Manhattan). L.A. is better life, Europe is even better.

try changing your display brightness, and turn off auto DIM that will help ALOT!

I put my brightness to 10%, and auto dim off, but I just made one phone call yesterday and browsed on the net 5 minutes and my battery went to 75% by the end of the day.. pretty weak.

sounds like a defective battery... that is bad... doing anything else with it? watching vids? music? anything of the sort?

i would bring that back (the battery) there is no way it should do that... not even on the bold...

Thanks guys and thanks Cory.

I changed the brightness, turned off Wi-fi and set off the auto dim (what's this?). I'll upgrade the OS right now and I'll report back in a couple of days.

I have the same problem with my battery too on my 8900! I turned off the wifi and that helped a little bit but I still have to charge it everyday. Don't think its the brightness cause i just leave me phone sit and the battery goes down. I have read some other people have the same issue.

A bit better now...
 

With 4.6.1.101 and after making the changes suggested here, I'm getting a bit over 2 days out of it. For now, I would say that this is significant improvement. It's still way below what I can get from my Bold but... it's better. Looking forward to the new OS :smile:

hmmm you guys are getting a lot of battery life!

mine isn;t as bad as the OP, but after one day i am at 1 bar of battery!

not nearly as much usage as some of you.. but basic usage:

about 20 calls a day
sms here and there
bb msg usage
music player usage about 2 hrs each day
browsing
black berry alerts

after one day it's at 1 bar.. it was like this before i got the bb alerts installed..

but i charge my phone everyday anyway so no big deal

Ok, but I still don't understand how come the battery life from the 8900 is shorter than the curve? The 8900 come with a 1400 mAh battery and the curve was 1100 mAh!!
So where is the impressive power autonomy??
Don't get me wrong, I have the 8900 and for me, it's the best device ever after the curve, but come on, the battery suck and I'm really curious if an update (after .101) will solve this problem.

It has a CPU that's more than twice as fast, screen that has more than double the resolution, and 4 times more internal memory.

Add to the fact that the Curve is based on the platform first introduced 3 years ago on the 8700, which means they had all the bugs worked out. Compare to the brand new platform on the 8900 first introduced with the Bold 6 months ago, you should be damn glad that the battery doesn't last quadruple as short.