BlackBerry

[herbie_skeete]

The new software release does nothing for the BlackBerry Bold 9900 battery life problem. This is still crap!

See Blackberry Forum:

http://supportforums.blackberry.com/t5/BlackBerry-Bold/Bold-9900-Battery-Life/m-p/1510481#M101953

[QyKo]

Regardless of update the battery life is still going to be worn out.

Dont forget that the 1.2 Ghz processor requires alot to run the device to begin with.
Amongst other hardware upgrades that require power to run.
Then add on your 3rd party apps (unskilled developers will have lots of memory leaks)
Then your phone calls.
Then the fact your phone is constantly transmitting data all day.
Then add on your SMS use, Facebook updating, browsing + music off the mp3 player.

Most importantly, its your requirement to over charge the device also (most important with the first 1-3 charges).
The battery has a brain and will feed off your usage.
If you under charge then it will think thats all the charge it will need.

Draining the battery to almost death then recharging for 10=12hrs is a decent way to see some increase in life.

[herbie_skeete]

Listen matey, this is my n'th BlackBerry. I have been using mobile phones, PDAs since circa 1987. 

Have a look at the torrent of complaints on the BlackBerry Forum.

The BlackBerry 9900 has a problem with battery life. I had a BlackBerry Torch 9860 wor a week and sent that back after having batteries out of power after 4 hours use.

The BlackBerry Bold 990 is almost as bad.

This is not Vodafone's fault. It is RIM's fault..

 http://supportforums.blackberry.com/t5/BlackBerry-Bold/Bold-9900-Battery-Life/td-p/1288983

[QyKo]

x amount of blackberrys means nothing.

i read quite alot of blackberry forums and aware of most problems and this isnt as much a problem with the phone than it is the actual user.

battery issues have been and will continue to be an issue for mobiles.

considering this is your second device on OS7 it would appear your doing something wrong and not neccessarily the phone.

Or maybe your expectations are too high.

[herbie_skeete]

High expectations means battery lasting longer than  3 to 4 hours after leaving power source and fully charged. No applications running. Phone and e-mail use only. Capisce?

[daffi85]

Hi Guys,

Just going to chip in with a few tips that I have found helped me out with my 9810 and 9900.

Update to the latest available OS or leak if you are happy using one.

Keep wifi and BT off if they aren't being used.

If you have wifi available to you the BlackBerry is more efficient battery wise when connected to it, you'd be surprised how much power is wasted by searching for 3G and keeping the data connection.

When not being used pop the device in its case, it turns off non essential features, screen, keyboard etc.

At night set the device to auto power off at say 00:00 and come back on at 06:00 if you aren't planning on needing it when you are asleep.

Hopefully Vodafone will release 7.1 soon and you'll see the improvements of the latest OS.

Cheers,

Matt

[herbie_skeete]

I am copying from another board. A frustrated user of the Blackberry Bold has just switched to an iPhone4s:

"Samm, congras!!!!

That is the right move for anyone who can get out of their contract.

I was in Singapore last week and was at a electronic / mobile phone mall looking for a spare JM1 batt and a batt charger for this **bleep** phone.

The moment I asked if they have the set for sell, the sales lady literally says.. ' ...the phone only lasts a few hours, right..?'. I then asked if lots of people having the problem. She literally tells me everyone who goes there to buy either batt's or chargers have the same problem and no tricks that she has seen as of today to fix that except have bunch of spare batt fully charged.

That really tells me how wide spread the complains are."      

[pau1j]

I have to agree with OP on this.

Upgraded last week to 7.0.0 (bundle 2406) from bundle 1465 (i.e. applications from 7.0.0.296 to 7.0.0.585).  Other things being equal (all same apps running, similar usage profile) the new software has halved (conservatively) the battery life!

And I am convinced it's done something to the trackpad responsiveness in some menus (touchscreen scrolling is fine, but trackpad scrolling is 'twitchy').  There is also an occasional loss of BB network that wasn't there before.  The Vodafone signal is there but there is no access to BIS - no browsing, emails, PIN, BBM, etc.  Solution seems to be to switch radio off & on again (classic!) or a diagnostic which seems to force a Blackberry Registration email.

The Vodafone post (http://forum.vodafone.co.uk/t5/BlackBerry/Software-update-for-BlackBerry-9810-9860-and-9900/m-p/9755...) claims that .585 will fix problems with Battery Charging & Performance ... it doesn't ... it creates them!!

Not only does .585 introduce the immediate 100-92% battery drop which wasn't present before but I am now struggling to see out the day without a recharge.  The '92% phenomenon' is particularly noticeable after a long (overnight) charge.  Contrary to popular opinion, modern Li-Ion batteries do not benefit from long charges or conditioning - in fact, the system will stop charging altogether once 100% is reached.  Years ago, chargers used to go into a trickle mode.

With .296 I could (almost) manage three days between charges with, what I would consider, average usage.  Mainly emails, sms, phone calls.

Before I get chased on this ... I switch off 3G when not needed (there isn't great coverage here anyway) & use wifi when in office.  I have deleted (don't use) Facebook, Twitter, Social Feeds and any other garbage that's constantly chattering to itself.  No music.  No 3rd party apps from unknown sources (as I was specifically looking at battery drainage).

One thing I will say about .585 - it is considerably smaller than .296.  I reckon it has freed-up something like 30MB of memory, although some of that was from deleting unused languages and updating BBM & AppWorld (later versions were smaller).

Once I have an hour or two, I will be reverting to .296 or trying a leaked 7.1 build recommended at Crackberry.  I would recommend people to think seriously before moving to .585 or, at least, be prepared to revert if necessary.

[pau1j]

As a P.S. to the above post, I read a recent Vodafone Customer Services post: 

Dave wrote:

Next, can you try a hard reset for me, as this may help to clear up any orphan code on the handset? 

 - Switch the handset on
 - Whilst powered up, remove the SIM card and battery
 - Put the battery back in and switch on
 - Wait a couple of minutes, then remove the battery again
 - Replace the SIM and battery and switch back on

I had tried several ordinary battery/sim pulls and was dubious that booting the phone without a sim would make any difference.

The new OS is still not perfect (by any means) and I'm still planning to try 7.1 or revert to 7.0.0.296 but the battery usage has improved considerably.

I'm now getting an average drain of around 5% per hour (low-medium usage) whereas yesterday it was more like 10% (doing exactly the same thing, in exactly the same place ... I don't get out much!!).

This is still way above the previous OS but, if I can get through a couple of days on a single charge, I'll take it.

Hope this helps someone ... a reboot without the SIM is not mumbo-jumbo!!