[abji13]

Hey everyone, ive been browsing the forums for a little while, finally decided to register.

I got a 9700 on December 30th, ive loved every second of it since i set it up. I am disappointed though. Before I made my decision between the 9000 and 9700, I read alot of reviews and lots of users were saying the battery life is phenomenal.

I dont see it though.

At the end of every day so far, im only about around 20% battery left and I am not a power user by any measure. Last night, I left it to charge at around 1 am and it only had 10% battery left and I woke up this morning at 6 (I know your not supposed to charge it overnight, had to last night though) with full battery. I took it off charge, responded to a few text messages and a couple emails, checked my facebook and went back to bed. Woke up again at around 9 and since then ive been sending/recieving an email or 2 every half hour, talking to a friend on bbm on and off all day, and sent a few text messages back and forth, also 2 phone calls with a total talk time of at most 5 minutes. Now im sitting here with 55% battery and wondering if i have a defective unit? Or maybe this is actually how long the battery is supposed to last?

Just to put this out there, I always close apps, never leave them running in the background, and im running the default precision zen theme. Am i doing something wrong? Is there anything I can do to get more battery life?

[JRawlinson]

You may want to try another battery and/or take the phone back. Most people are having quite a different battery experience. I keep mine pretty lean, like you, and I can't kill the thing before I put it on the charger at night. I've tried.

Sorry you're having that issue. I think it's pretty atypical, and I can't think of anything you're not doing that you should be doing, based on what you wrote. Good luck.

[BlueMonk7]

Must be defective. Mine is performing way better than you describe.

[Dubdub]

Battery life all depends on how you use the device. The time I get has nothing to do with the time you will get. We use it differently.

Some considerations:

Are you in a 3G fringe area? If the device is constantly searching for a 3G signal, it consumes more power.

Do you surf the web? That uses more power.

Do you have apps running int he back ground, especially data intensive apps? They take a lot of power, make sure you close them down and not just exit out.

Do you use the phone? That takes A LOT of power.

[JRawlinson]

Dubdub brings up good points. Mine is pretty much always on Wifi, which I understand uses a lot less power (someone correct me if I'm wrong).

[abji13]

Well my wifi has been off the whole day, the only app that i have running is the weather network app in the background, and I am in an area with good network coverage, constant 3G signal. And I havent browsed the internet all day seeing as how my carrier (Bell) has been having data issues for the past 3 days. I havent even touched the phone other than answering and sending messages all day. I just have a gut feeling that either my battery is defective or the actual phone has something wrong with it.

[tom0100]

I use mine QUITE a bit during the day and it runs for a good 9-10 hours before hitting 50% and I have 6 email accounts that are constantly connected and I surf alot and use it for GPS navigation.

I think yours is faulty.

It's not near a 8900's battery life but it should beat out a 9000 (the 9000 was famous for short battery life).

As for charging: I set it up to charge nightly....but to be honest, I even did this with my old Moto Razr years ago because I always worry about a dead cell phone. I just make it a nightly thing to charge phones.

[Dubdub]

Originally Posted by abji13

Well my wifi has been off the whole day, the only app that i have running is the weather network app in the background, and I am in an area with good network coverage, constant 3G signal. And I havent browsed the internet all day seeing as how my carrier (Bell) has been having data issues for the past 3 days. I havent even touched the phone other than answering and sending messages all day. I just have a gut feeling that either my battery is defective or the actual phone has something wrong with it.

Keep in mind that the weather app uses a lot of data and battery if it is constantly connected. How often does it update? Phone and email out also uses battery.

Try a battery pull and clear everything out and shut every thing down. Then reboot, leave the weather app off and see what you get.

Could be the battery, but my you should really try to find out first.

[abji13]

Ive tried it all, more battery pulls than I can count, shutting down the weather app, nothing works.

Just got off the phone with Bell after being put on hold for 30+ minutes, they told me to just go back to the place i got my phone and they should be able to change it out so im probably gonna try that tonight or tomorrow.

[abji13]

And the weather app updates every 30 minutes but is that really gonna drain my battery making it half of what im supposed to get?

And i have 3 email accounts running.

[xeroxide]

sounds like it's defective. i mean i've got a similar setup to yours. 3 emails, berry weather at 1hr intervals, wifi+3g connected. at the end of the day i've got probably around 70% battery left if on standby. thats with just a few sms, no calls really.

might be silly, but you don't have a gps app open in the background? some sort of geocache app that's keeping gps active?... i find that will drain the battery

[abji13]

Originally Posted by xeroxide

sounds like it's defective. i mean i've got a similar setup to yours. 3 emails, berry weather at 1hr intervals, wifi+3g connected. at the end of the day i've got probably around 70% battery left if on standby. thats with just a few sms, no calls really.

might be silly, but you don't have a gps app open in the background? some sort of geocache app that's keeping gps active?... i find that will drain the battery

Yea I made sure there were no apps of any kind running in the background. Im probably gonna go and get a replacement unit tomorrow sometime.

I just have one question about backing up. Will the back up option on blackberry desktop manager copy everything including contacts, messages, email settings, 3rd party apps, etc.?

[xeroxide]

i think it' restores everything that i can think of.... except 3rd party apps. i used bbsak 1.7 for that, works perfectly, however you may have to re-enter registration keys, so make sure you have them jotted down somewhere. I have heard of some apps that require a full re-install and give error messages if you try to restore using the proggie i mentioned, but i didn't encounter this so i don't know.

I checked again today giving it a full charge before i started my day. Sure enough with about 20mins of talk, msn chat, used gps to find the near food outlets and.... yup 75% left at the end of the night. morning was full charge. also one more thing, i tend to place it on standby not just lock when not in use (right shoulder button). i removed bbm since all my friends have an iphone... gg.

[chris280]

I am having the same issue, nothing but a faulty battery I think. I had it fully charged before going to bed and woke up with 50% battery left. I am having to charge mine 3 times a day with light use. I plan on getting a replacement soon.

[lmyamen]

Mine started out strong but its not as good now as when i bought it but its still the best battery in a phone i have had.

[lstratos]

I think there are some bad batteries.. I got my 9700, 3 weeks ago. Two of them actually... I pull the almost dead battery off my 9000, that only holds about half a day and doesn't charge some times, put it in my 9700 and it was able to charge it, hold charge and give me about 2 days of avg usage.

I was surprised, OLD 2008 batteries week 44 ish, wouldnt work well on my first bold works amazing on my bold 2.

I also did a non usage test where I charge the used battery full and a 100% discharge, it lasted about 4.5 days. It only lasted about 1 day on the first bold. Charge 100% and let it run down (w/o connecting to carrier network). Yeah its not a good scientific test but having 2 device side by side, you can see the drain well

[pvdilf40]

Originally Posted by chris280

I am having the same issue, nothing but a faulty battery I think. I had it fully charged before going to bed and woke up with 50% battery left. I am having to charge mine 3 times a day with light use. I plan on getting a replacement soon.

I've had my 9700 since mid November and battery life had been outstanding on the stock TMP 5.0.0.330. However only in the last week I'm experiencing excessive battery drain. I did a battery pull last night before putting it on the charger and this morning I took it off the charger at 6AM. By 9AM battery was at 55% and I barely used it within that time frame. I made sure nothing else was running in the background that could have drianed it that much.

I just called TMO and they are sending me out a new battery for it.

[hoostie]

I think my battery life is good.

[colemac]

Hey All

So I just got a new blackberry bold 9700 with telus. I love the phone. Battery life a bit disappointing. Started using it at 8am. Its now 5:30. Its down to about 70 percent. I was told people were getting 3 to 4 days out of one charge with heavy use. Anyone else have that

Please post

[fritz269]

I do heavy use and I make it just 1 day starting from about 5 am to about 10pm or so.