[headtailgrep]

Some you have had this a few days now. What's the battery life like?

on my 7280 i could go about 6 days without charging.

on my 7290 it's about four, maybe three.

What about this device? did they sacrifice the battery life for the bigger screen, and faster processor speed?

[Boy Genius]

Battery life is very good, like barjohn said the magnet in the plastic holster makes a big difference because I guess instead of just putting the screen to sleep the processor is slowed down aswell...

[AlbertoM]

Charge it every night when you go to bed and the battery lasts forever....!

[bperkins]

After only using for ONE day I did not have very good results. Of course when I received it yesterday I did not fully charge it as I should have until yesterday afternoon. Last night I used it quite frequently (emails, BB Chat) and accidently left the Bluetooth on. This morning it was at 21% and this was leaving it in the holster overnight. I will fully charge it today and report back to see if it improves.

It also may be a factor that I have a poor signal at my house. If only Cingular would do something about that I would be golden. I have no issue with Verizon working at my home.

[sfo]

Having moved from the 7290 to the 8700, I'd say the battery life is about a third better on the 8700. I've used it ten days so far.
But as AlbertoM says, charge it every night out of habit and you'll be just fine.

[AlbertoM]

Yep. Unless one is in a camping trip to BFE, there really is no reason to let it go that long without charging. Charge it every night and you'll never run the battery down. And no, the battery will not build up "memory".

[Wavester]

I notice a marginal improvement in the 8700 over my 7290; however, I have been on the web a lot more with the 8700, so I might be willing to agree with about a third better battery life than 7290. Also. I do charge it everynight. In fact I am starting to worry about all the devices charging on my nightstand these days.

[Mark Rejhon]

Originally Posted by bperkins

I will fully charge it today and report back to see if it improves.

Don't forget to trickle charge it for several hours past a full 100% charge. That often helps greatly.

[greggebhardt]

Going from the 7520 Nextel to the Cingular 8700c, I am noticing good battery life. I have played with mine from 6am and it still shows full. I will know more at the end of the day but my 7520 would not be showing full with the amount of playing I have done.

I tell you I love the screen, for those who have not tried, check out the themes! Internet is FAST! No more WAP for me, 8700 is so much faster you can really do full HTML with ease with EDGE

[greggebhardt]

Originally Posted by boygenius

Battery life is very good, like barjohn said the magnet in the plastic holster makes a big difference because I guess instead of just putting the screen to sleep the processor is slowed down aswell...

Hmmm. Mine simply go to sleep after 60 seconds (my setting) if in the holster or not.

[headtailgrep]

doesn't matter guys, everyone has their own usage pattern. Remember, one of the strengths of the Blackberry always has been amazing battery life. Why not take advantage of this? I definagely do.

I do NOT use a cradle, or a holster, i think they are super geeky. I put my blackberry in my pocket at all times, therefore i don't get the benefit of screen being off.

having said that, has anyone been able to go 3 days, 5 days without charging it yet? 7 days? more than that? and describe how you use it.

[stevew]

On my 7290 I found that if it charged for around 8 hours and unplugged just prior to usage, the battery would not last as long as if I charged it for 2 hours just prior to using it for the day. I can see through my built-in battery gauge (bluetooth) in my Chrysler 300C, that the 2 hour charge just before usage keeps the battery gauge at 100% in the car when I first connect, whereas if I charge for 8 hours just prior to usage, the battery gauge in the car shows around 90% full. I believe this is due to the fact that the device never truly goes to sleep even when off and though the charger stops charging once you reach 100%, it likely never "tops off" till the charge falls down to somewhere around 90% or so. I have notice that talk time and general battery usage is definetely much longer using the 2 hour charge just prior to usage technique. I have tested this "theory" many times now and I can't think of any other reason why the shorter charge works better for me. I would imagine that the 8700 works in the same way too.

[barjohn]

My first test after a full overnight charge. I took it off the charger at 8:30am and it is now almost 4:30pm and it still shows 100% even though I have had Bluetooth going all day, made several phone calls, played around with it and the smart card reader, surfed the web, etc. The 7290 was good but this appears to be much better. I will see how it is at the end of the day.

It is now 10:00pm and it finally was down 10%. Not too bad for a full days use!

[gages]

I am finding the battery to be worse than the 7290. I made a 30min phone call and battery dropped from 80% to 55%.

[barjohn]

Have you gone through a complete charge cycle? Initially, (I was impatient and didn't charge the battery fully before I started playing it didn't appear that good. After the first overnight charge is when I started getting the results I got yesterday. I'll see how it does today. I took it off the charger at 7:30am. So far shows 100% at 9:05am.

[headtailgrep]

phone conversations are big battery drains.

Either way, it doesn't appear you have to charve it every day all the time, so it's still got a leg up on the competition

[barjohn]

It is now 10:00pm and I took it off the charger at 7:30am (see above post). Battery is still at 100%. Bluetooth has been on and linked to either a headset or my car all day. Only made a few calls, did some web browsing and general playing. This is much better thatn the 7290!

[ckeck]

This so far seems to be the one complaint I have...and I seem to be having different results than everyone else. I got my 8700 today and gave it a full charge before starting to use it, and within 5-6 hours with light e-mail/internet usage and almost no phone calls I was already down to 60-70%.

This is no where near the battery life of my 7290 which could go for 2-3 days on a single charge with moderate-heavy use. I will try again over the next few days and I really hope it gets better. Don't want to have to lower the screen brightness below 50%.

[barjohn]

Originally Posted by ckeck

This so far seems to be the one complaint I have...and I seem to be having different results than everyone else. I got my 8700 today and gave it a full charge before starting to use it, and within 5-6 hours with light e-mail/internet usage and almost no phone calls I was already down to 60-70%.

This is no where near the battery life of my 7290 which could go for 2-3 days on a single charge with moderate-heavy use. I will try again over the next few days and I really hope it gets better. Don't want to have to lower the screen brightness below 50%.

I am repeatedly getting exceptional battery life. At first, it didn't appear to be very good and I was worried that my rushing to use the device without doing a full charge might prevent the battery from taking a full charge. I don't know if you used the charger or a USB port. I used a USB port as that gives it a trickle charge compared to what can be delivered from the wall or a car adaptor. I don't know if that would make any difference but you might try it.

[MegaBit]

I find the same thing John does- exceptional battery life. I did a full charge with some added trickle time and it's been super.

Try topping it off if you think you're getting less than expected.