The Apple Core

Jason D. O'Grady & David Morgenstern

Impressive iPhone 3GS battery performance

By David Morgenstern | July 4, 2010, 10:55pm PDT

When considering the performance of a battery in a mobile device, the talk is usually all about the hours and minutes available when the battery is new. However, a recent test shows that the older iPhone 3GS battery ages gracefully.

In a recent test of the iPhone 4’s battery life, Macworld’s James Galbraith compared the new model with the old. He used a coworker’s year-old iPhone 3GS. He worried that the older phone had aged and wouldn’t provide a fair comparison. However, at the last moment, he was able to get ahold of one just a couple of weeks old.

The difference between the new and old 3GS phones? Only 7 percent. That sounds very good to me.

Of course, the iPhone 4 is way better.

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Apple iPhone, Performance, Battery, Apple iPhone 3GS, Engineering, David Morgenstern

David Morgenstern has covered the Mac market and other technology segments for 20 years.

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RE: Impressive iPhone 3GS battery performance

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One year is not very old for a Li-Ion battery.

toadlife 5th Jul 2010

It is not uncommon for Li-Ion batteries to last for years. I've observed the same type of endurance in my Blackberry and HTC phones. All this proves is that Apple doesn't chince on batteries.

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Batteries in most Motorola phones degrade heavily before a year

wackoae 5th Jul 2010

I had Moto-RAZR. The battery life was fine for the 1st few months, then it went down the hill fast. After a year, if I didn't recharge the battery nightly (even without any usage), I would have a dead brick in the morning. Same issue with my previous Moto V551

Before that, I had a Nokia (one of the worst phones I ever owned) that would show 1/2 charge and die while in usage (replaced twice under warranty).

The only phones I ever owned with decent battery life were an unlocked Ericsson (can't remember the model ... great little phone) I purchased on eBay and my current iPhone 3GS.

Nokia and Moto phones suck at battery life. Don't know how good HTC is and LGs are such crap phone, there is no way to evaluate battery life because the OS (WinMo) crashes too much.

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RE: Impressive iPhone 3GS battery performance

hill60 5th Jul 2010

Are those the same batteries that were exploding and overheating enough to discolour cases in last year's "let's bash Apple" rampage?

What do you think it will be next year, should they run a book in Vegas?

My 3G is still going strong, two years old on the 11th.

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My 6-year old Nokia is still as good as new

Daniel Breslauer 5th Jul 2010

My 6-year old Nokia still makes it through 6-7 days standby - something very few modern smartphones are capable of (my newer Nokia E72 makes it through one day easily, but two is difficult).

I do have to say Apple really seem to understand the importance of battery life, as they have shown with their new laptops. I wish other laptop manufacturers (the Windows ones) would ascribe the same level of importance to the battery that Apple does.

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RE: Impressive iPhone 3GS battery performance

TalentSupporter Updated - 5th Jul 2010

@Daniel575
Please do not talk about dead company here ,
they screwed the people using pig slow dirty symbian and cheap plastic phones for several years.
Apple & Google liberated us from it's menace.

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RE: Impressive iPhone 3GS battery performance

Samic 5th Jul 2010

@TalentSupporter except Nokia was, and still is, the market leader of mobile phone market, not to mention their phones have impressive battery life which is what we're discussing about.

And what's wrong with cheap plastic phones? Some people just need a simple, realiable phone that just do one thing - making phone calls. So far neither Apple and Google phone can beat that advantage.

P.S. I'm an iPhone 3G user and my battery life has been awful since upgraded to iOS4

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Is this just an attempt to publish positive news about the iphone?

iTeaBoy 5th Jul 2010

Come on... you gotta admit this is a pretty lame article to publish when it's all kicking off about problems with the latest and greatest (i)phone there ever was.

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You're swimming upstream, David

Userama 5th Jul 2010

To say anything positive about the iPhone--or Apple in general--just isn't the "in" thing to do these days. Better get with it and join in the bad-mouthing.

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Why? ZDNet will just delete non Apple zealot posts

NonZealot Updated - 5th Jul 2010

@Userama
It would seem that you are 180 degrees wrong. Anyone who doesn't write anything positive about the iPhone is swimming upstream at ZDNet! There is no opportunity to "bad-mouth" Apple because ZDNet will make sure that all posts that don't profess utter love for Apple get deleted.

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Cue the Apple-haters!

thetwonkey 5th Jul 2010

Oh, I'm too late already, aren't I? Anyhow, I have a year old 3 GS, and the battery life beats all hell out of my old original iPhone. It sometimes seems to me to be better than it was when it was new, when I had to keep WiFi and 3G off if I wanted to get good life. Now I can leave them on and it seems to make no difference. Better power manaqement maybe? Dunno, but I like. I'm only one year in contract, and will probably wait close to two before upgrading. Maybe by then, they'll have multiple US carriers, like Verizon. Haven't had any real issues with AT&T in general, but I don't live in Manhattan, either. So I guess the fact that I'm happy with my iPhone, its battery life, reception and general usability means there must be something wrong with me, at least according to the assorted haters out there, almost of all of whom seem to have never owned or tried an Apple product of any sort.

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Haha, nicely done ZDNet!

NonZealot Updated - 5th Jul 2010

Way to delete every single post that wasn't a giant love fest for Apple!!! happy

So Apple zealots, still think ZDNet is biased against Apple?

Hilarious!

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RE: Impressive iPhone 3GS battery performance

toadlife 6th Jul 2010

@NonZealot

One of my posts was indeed deleted. It wasn't even very anti-apple either. WTF?

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"Of course, the iPhone 4 is way better."...."?

wellcraft19 7th Jul 2010

David,
What do you really mean with "Of course, the iPhone 4 is way better."?
The 3GS works well, no antennea issues, and now "proven". We know there are issues with the "4" and yes, it does have more RAM and faster processor. But way better? Me think not.