[mooondog]

Turned in my Bold today. I was on day 29 since I bought it. Downgraded to the 8110 for now. I've had the 8100 for a while so am comfortable with it.

Why was I forced to do this you ask? The friggin battery life SUCKED. I tried everything. All the great help this forum offers. Tried every trick, setting, etc... Last couple of days my battery would last maybe 5 hours before it was at 10%. Even at it's best it would get maybe 8 hours of light use.

First and foremost, it's phone. I need the PHONE to work for 12-15 hours without plugging it in. And I'm not talking about running all kinds of apps all day. 100 or so emails. Dozen or so texts. Maybe 15-30 minutes of web browsing at most. BT only in my car. That's it.

So with only 1 day left with the ability to return and get an exchange/refund, I had to make a decision. Take another Bold with no guarantee it will be better. Or take the sure thing. Because of my business, I had to go with the sure thing.

It's a shame because I loved EVERYTHING about the Bold. But the battery issue is a killer. My co-worker will be turning in his as well by Saturday...."day 30" for him. Same issues.

Hopefully they'll find a solution to this well documented problem.

I'll take this opportunity to thank everyone for their support and great info posted in this forum to a couple of my posts and others. Cheers.

ps --- dealing with this was pretty stressful and annoying.....i feel very relieved that it's over. Kind of.....

[redbandana]

Originally Posted by mooondog

Turned in my Bold today. I was on day 29 since I bought it. Downgraded to the 8110 for now. I've had the 8100 for a while so am comfortable with it.

Why was I forced to do this you ask? The friggin battery life SUCKED. I tried everything. All the great help this forum offers. Tried every trick, setting, etc... Last couple of days my battery would last maybe 5 hours before it was at 10%. Even at it's best it would get maybe 8 hours of light use.

First and foremost, it's phone. I need the PHONE to work for 12-15 hours without plugging it in. And I'm not talking about running all kinds of apps all day. 100 or so emails. Dozen or so texts. Maybe 15-30 minutes of web browsing at most. BT only in my car. That's it.

So with only 1 day left with the ability to return and get an exchange/refund, I had to make a decision. Take another Bold with no guarantee it will be better. Or take the sure thing. Because of my business, I had to go with the sure thing.

It's a shame because I loved EVERYTHING about the Bold. But the battery issue is a killer. My co-worker will be turning in his as well by Saturday...."day 30" for him. Same issues.

Hopefully they'll find a solution to this well documented problem.

I'll take this opportunity to thank everyone for their support and great info posted in this forum to a couple of my posts and others. Cheers.

ps --- dealing with this was pretty stressful and annoying.....i feel very relieved that it's over. Kind of.....

3G and bluetooth drains every battery, period, at least outside a metropolitan area when referring to 3G.

[JerryD]

Sorry, but I'm not seeing this problem with my Bold at all! Of course, if I have Wi-Fi turned on, or if I use any IM Client it does drain considerably faster than my 8800 did.

But if I don't use either, I'm getting nearly two days - and I get a LOT of email on it, and have it set to vibrate when holstered. It will drop down to about a day if I have Viigo running which is set to refresh every 30 minutes.

And although I live in Manhattan, I have an interior office (no windows) where I don't get a consistant 3G signal, and live on the 20th floor where the signal also drops regularly. Yes, 3G will drain the battery faster than EDGE, but it's not that bad.

[ErnieH]

That's really too bad.

I didn't read your previous thread where you tried everyone's suggestions. But why didn't you just exchange it? Clearly there was something wrong with that specific unit. The vast majority of us get 1-2 days use.

[dakis]

Originally Posted by ErnieH

That's really too bad.

I didn't read your previous thread where you tried everyone's suggestions. But why didn't you just exchange it? Clearly there was something wrong with that specific unit. The vast majority of us get 1-2 days use.

I have 3G turned on all the time (Orange Switzerland doesn't have EDGE, so I need to use 3G to get a decent performance) - 100 e-mails plus some browsing plus 3-4 phone calls per day and the Bold easily lasts 2 full days.

So I agree - I'm sure yours was defective!

peter

[pfp22972]

The problem that I see with handsets is that they are no longer phones. They are handheld computers. The days of a "phone" lasting several days are long gone. Power and battery life do not go hand in hand. The Bold cpu is twice as powerful as anything RIM has ever made. Yet, the battery is only a fraction of an inch larger. Look at the automotive world. If you want a big powerful V8 engine in your vehicle you know that you are going to sacrifice fuel mileage. You want good fuel economy? By a four cylinder powered car. Look at power tools. The most powerful screw guns need a massive battery to support all that power. We want the most powerful handsets in the smallest form factor possible. Those two ideas simply do not add up, yet. As handsets rapidly become more and more powerful because of our demands, they will continue to have poor battery life until someone develops better battery technology.

[mooondog]

I'm jealous of you folks who haven't had this issue!! Like I said, I tried it all. Unistalled all of my apps, installed .190, etc.... GPS off. BT only on in the car. WiFi off. etc.. My co-worker had the exact same issue. Perhaps a bad batch of batteries or units out there.

AT&T has a 30 day "one time" return policy. Meaning if I exchange it for a new one I am stuck with it. Any issues I have after that I'll have to ship it to RIM for service. I wasn't comfortable rolling the dice. Too busy to be dealing with this quite honestly. It seems to be a widespread issue quite honestly. MOST people end up okay but a ton of people aren't.

I'm bummed though... Feel like I traded in a Ferrari for a Prius.

PFP22972 -- agree with you 100%. But they should never deliver a phone to market that can't last the entire day with average use.

[JSanders]

Are you not in a position to plug in an auto charger, wall charger or USB PC charger at least 15-20 minutes during the day? Even a short 10 minute charge will give you another couple of hours (often, according to your usage) of battery power.

These batteries were intended to be topped off and not drained daily. The constant draining can actually hurt the battery.

Just a tip.

[mic_crispy]

Wirelessly posted



Yeah I was going to ask why you don't plug in a car charger. I listen to the mp3 player for about a hour a day, do about 20 emails and 100 text, 1 hour of talking, keep aim active all day and I get a good day and a half out of it. Also seido? Makes a 1650mha battery for this phone. I would have kept it. I couldnt go back to my 8110 if I tried!

[BBHorrigan]

It could just be a defective battery, I've seen prolly 1/20 blackberry's come with a battery that just sucked.

[mooondog]

Originally Posted by JSanders

Are you not in a position to plug in an auto charger, wall charger or USB PC charger at least 15-20 minutes during the day?

Sometimes yes....often times no. And that's part of my problem. And maybe it's just me but I think it's kind of ridiculous to have to plug in a phone a couple of times a day unless I have used it a lot. I know .... I know.... all the sweet bells and whistles on the Bold take a lot of energy. I get that. I'm personally not willing to put up with that. And in my case, which I know isn't typical, I was at 10-20% in 4 hours. So 15-20 minutes of topping off wasn't going to get me to 10pm.

OH....and it's not a defective battery. They gave me a new battery and nothing changed.

[masonfoley]

Battery life for me has been 2-3 days. About a day and a half with moderate to heavy usage. Of course, I won't assume you are in a place where you can charge but I'm fully covered there. I have two wall chargers and a car charger. Getting my battery topped off takes hardly any time at all.

I think back to the days when my phone would go for 5 days or more but the utility derived from this Blackberry compared to those phones cannot even begin to be compared. Keeping the phone topped off has become second nature rather than an inconvenience.

In any event, it definitely sounds like you and your colleague have defective units unless there's something crucial being left out of your usage description (i.e. are all calls handled via speakerphone and for long periods of time?)

It really is a shame it didn't work out for you and I know how you feel. You wanted to be excited about the phone and indeed you felt it was a great phone other than the battery life but you got squeezed into not taking a chance and being stuck with a ~$300 device that causes too much of an inconvenience. Reasonable I think. Too bad you didn't get a chance to exchange it within the 30 day window to be sure it wasn't just those units you observed.

[tamazoid]

Hmm... No matter what, I'm not giving up my Bold! Until something I feel is better for my needs. If I was in your place, I would just buy another battery and have a external charger somewhere.

I guess I've been lucky with my battery compared to yours... Even though I thought mine was bad. Like the other day, I thought talking on the phone for just under 3 hours straight that drained the battery to 4% was bad.

[mooondog]

Originally Posted by tamazoid

I thought talking on the phone for just under 3 hours straight that drained the battery to 4% was bad.

That is real bad. BB could be pissing off some very loyal business clients who need a phone that just works all day....without doing all the little tricks to increase battery life. The people on this forum who spend the time to tweak their device "just right" are 1/10 of 1% of the users.

I need my BB and love BB in general. So I had no choice but to downgrade and wait for battery life to catch up with the technology....may be waiting a while!

[masonfoley]

RIM's stated battery life for talk-time on the Bold is 5 hours so I'm hoping that people didn't have expectations beyond that. I'd be interested to see a roughly comparable phone where 5 hours of talk time is significantly exceeded. This is actually right in the middle of the pack with other phones of roughly the same feature set.

[JSanders]

Honestly, if you look back to the initial threads of the 8700, the 83xx and the 88xx models, you will find this exact same issue on low battery life, multiple discussions and threads all on the same.

I am not by any means belittling your issue, it is legitimate, especially to you.

My Bold battery life was bad the first week also. It got better.
1. I was using it like a mad man the first week, trying media , watching vids, music, testing new apps. HEAVY use means heavy battery drain.
2. I think this new battery is not so bad, and got better after the first 3-4 charges. I have read other users here comment the same. Magic or a battery fairy?
3. There are other batteries available from Seidio, a same size 10-15% increase in power battery, and a newer thicker much greater percentage powered battery. Those are legitimate choices.

But the bottom line is, you are not the first. Each new model gets the same discussion. Go check the Storm discussion. Go back to last summer for the Curve discussions.

[masonfoley]

Originally Posted by JSanders

Magic or a battery fairy?

If I'm not mistaken, the "meter" for the battery won't be accurate through the first several charge cycles. Sort of an "on-the-fly" calibration that occurs between the hardware and the software. If I find a cite for this, I will update this thread.

[macallik]

That is tough. My battery lasts me a day if i use it moderately. On the heavy days, i charge it at work.

[JSanders]

Originally Posted by masonfoley

If I'm not mistaken, the "meter" for the battery won't be accurate through the first several charge cycles. Sort of an "on-the-fly" calibration that occurs between the hardware and the software. If I find a cite for this, I will update this thread.

I have not seen an official citation of that other than user observation and practice which to me usually carries more weight anyway.

But it does seem to be the case.

[kuj]

Originally Posted by mooondog

AT&T has a 30 day "one time" return policy. Meaning if I exchange it for a new one I am stuck with it. Any issues I have after that I'll have to ship it to RIM for service.

Not entirely true. Yes, you will be "stuck" with it but you have a 1 year warranty exchange through AT&T, not RIM. After the 1 year, then it is through RIM. You don't even need to have insurance. The insurance is if you drop it in water or something. As long as you're within 1 year and there is a manufacturer defect, just call up AT&T and they will exchange it. Eventually, if you keep exchanging it, they will offer you a comparable phone and it is up to you to chose that phone or stick with what you have.