[tmaynard]

hey, i got a new 7130e on the Bell network on sunday, and im experiencing awful battery life

with normal use (a couple phone calls and emails a day), i am getting about 8 hours of battery life before the battery is fully drained

this is nowhere near the claimed 8 days of standby or 3 hours of talk time

has anyone else had similar experiences, or know what might be wrong with my unit?

thanks in advance

[markhutchison]

I'm afraid what your seeing is normal for the 7130e. Many people have been very happy using an extended battery with that unit.

[tmaynard]

but only 8 hours of battery?
i have it holstered basically 95% of this time
it only comes out to make a couple short calls, or answer a couple emails
this seems pretty pathetic

[coreyg510]

Have you checked Mark Rejhons battery saving tips. It has great battery saving ideas. I utilized some of them with my new 8700c (which uses the battery quickly) and got almost double my battery life.

Good luck.

[gdpmumin]

Wirelessly posted (7130e VZW: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0) BlackBerry7130e/4.1.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/105)

I forgot who it was but I read a post a couple of weeks ago that said the user gets three days of battery life on his 7130e. That's awesome battery life. I always have to charge mine at night. Now I'm not a light BB user, but I'm not making a ton of phone calls. I do get about 20 e-mails a day on it.

As for the extended battery, one exists that would work with the 7130e, but it requires a different battery door which, to my knowledge, isn't available for the 7130e, yet. So I'm not sure how many people use the extended battery yet.

[tmaynard]

i have checked the savings tips, and am basically following them to a T
(low brightness, holstered all the time, backlight stays on for 20 seconds, etc.)

given that my unit is still new im going to try to drain and fully charge the battery a couple times

i also have taken out the battery and held down the power button for 30 seconds to do a hard reset

i will post an update if things change in the next couple days

[gadgtman]

Originally Posted by tmaynard

hey, i got a new 7130e on the Bell network on sunday, and im experiencing awful battery life

with normal use (a couple phone calls and emails a day), i am getting about 8 hours of battery life before the battery is fully drained

this is nowhere near the claimed 8 days of standby or 3 hours of talk time

has anyone else had similar experiences, or know what might be wrong with my unit?

thanks in advance

This may seem all too obvious, but I'll ask anyway. What kind of reception (signal strength) do you typically get? I get very poor signal strength at my house (one to two bars, frequently no service), and that drains my 7130e extremely fast. On the other hand, if I'm in good signal range, I can make anywhere from 2-3 hours worth of calls, or get at least two days of standby.

Sorry to be so basic, but I had to ask.

[tmaynard]

Originally Posted by gadgtman

This may seem all too obvious, but I'll ask anyway. What kind of reception (signal strength) do you typically get? I get very poor signal strength at my house (one to two bars, frequently no service), and that drains my 7130e extremely fast. On the other hand, if I'm in good signal range, I can make anywhere from 2-3 hours worth of calls, or get at least two days of standby.

Sorry to be so basic, but I had to ask.

i have pretty excellent service, its rare that i am ever at or below 2 bars, 3 to 5 seems pretty standard

[mistermix]

While we're on the obvious - are you running the latest Bell firmware? My battery life improved noticeably when I upgraded to the latest Verizon firmware.

[tmaynard]

i am on 4.1.208 i believe, it is the newest bell firmware

the one thing that ive been reading about is EVDO

i almost never have that and IX show up at the same time, despite having a great signal

could the fact that my phone is always looking for EVDO result in poor battery?

since i dont really use the EVDO network, i am switching to 1X only for today and see what happens

i think the EVDO problem is simply because im in a fringe area, because it is not often that i fall to 2 or less bars

[elmaldonado]

Originally Posted by tmaynard

but only 8 hours of battery?
i have it holstered basically 95% of this time
it only comes out to make a couple short calls, or answer a couple emails
this seems pretty pathetic

Tmay, do you have any other applications running? I used to use Vettro for Salesforce.com on my 7130e and it was constantly working and that would cause the battery to go down big time. When I uninstalled Vettro I saw a dramatic change. I think Vettro was constantly getting data from SF.com and that caused the issue.

[tmaynard]

not that i know of, i installed google talk, but am not logged in when im not using it
i use the internet browser from time to time, but i close it when i am done
other than that, there are no new programs i have added, or ones that i use that could explain this short life

[eppey]

I have a 7130e on Bell as well. I can't say that I get 3 days battery life but can probably pull out 1.5 days if I really stretched it. I use about 1800 to 1900 minutes a month on the phone and probably receive 50 pieces of mail a day with a reply on the BB to maybe 10. I have my screen brightness turned to 60% and timeout to 45 seconds. My BB is in the holster the rest of the time that I am not on the phone. I would also say that half my phone minutes are spent on a BT headset which should use more battery life than without. The only third party app that I have running is Message Alerts. So, after all that, it may be worth while trying out a different battery if you can to see if it's the battery itself or the phone that is causing the problem.

[aristobrat]

7130e on Verizon. I get between 30-50 emails a day, do about 10-20 minutes of web browsing, and 10-20 minutes of calls and usually end the day with full battery bars, ... sometimes 4/5 battery bars. 95% of the time I'm on 1XEV with 2+ bars of coverage.

[nyc2socal]

I did the draining stuff for the first 3-5 times, and only noticed a slight increase in battery life. Before upgrading to the latest vzw firmware, I was getting 1.5-2 days. After the firmware, I get 2.5-3 days. I get roughly 50 emails a day, compose maybe 5 emails, 3 ongoing chats via webmessenger, and maybe 5-10 minutes browsing.. Talk time has been light, maybe 15 minutes a day. The lowest I go is 3 bars, and I'm in solid EvDO.

I took my phone off the charger yesterday at 6AM (~31 hours ago) and I'm down to 65% battery. From experience, tomorrow morning, it should be down to 45, and ready for a charge at night (usually @ 15%).

[markhutchison]

Originally Posted by gdpmumin

As for the extended battery, one exists that would work with the 7130e, but it requires a different battery door which, to my knowledge, isn't available for the 7130e, yet. So I'm not sure how many people use the extended battery yet.

We have the batteries and doors available here in Canada and I have shipped many units to American Verizon customers as well.

PIN me if you are interested in hardware/shipping options: 300B6852

[Blackcrack]

i had a 7100i and the battery was great

[tmaynard]

so today i disabled EVDO, so i am only operating on 1X and it seems to be doing the trick

i have been hovering around 90% charge for the better part of the day
i assume that i was losing life because EVDO is not fully in my area yet, so it was searching for service alot

my increase in battery life may also just be a result of starting the charge/fully drain of the battery for a couple times

however the former is more likely than the latter

anyone else in the waterloo region having similar problems

[NEWSNEAKERHEAD]

I am also on Bell. I just warranty'd a battery. I was getting 3 days of standby on mine. Just lately the battery life seemed to drop exponentially. I got to the point I would charge it all night 10 hours, then turn it on in the morning send 2 text messages and the orange low battery light was on already. Swapped up the battery on warranty. Just gave it a full charge last night. Had it running today no calls and only couple small text messages and the orange light is back on again. I think it's the handset now. Gonna try and drain the battery fully till it won't turn on anymore. Then see what happens. I must say when you've been used to 3 days on standby this really is brutal. Plus the unit's only 3 months old.

[tmaynard]

try what imentioned in my previous post
go to options, then network
and change your connection from automatic to 1X only
there was no EVDO in my area, so my battery was exhausted from searching from the network
now that i have changed things, i am getting much more realistic battery life