IPhone 5 battery life issues - covered under CGA by Telecom ?

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navinbhat

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#111786 14-Nov-2012 23:24

I purchased by iphone on 24 october at Telecom on their open term plan. I kept the phone on the charger the whole night. Next day, on normal usage the phone barely lasted a full day and by 4 pm, it was below 18% battery on 3 hours and a bit usage. My cheap galaxy ace would give me almost a day and a half.

I then spent the next day googling and reading numerous forum threads on suggestions on improving battery life which ranged from resetting the phone and starting fresh to turning off all features. I followed some of the advice and have noticed a little change but nowhere close to what people are reporting overseas. My battery drops 8-10% every hour even if I am not doing anything. I get around 12 hours standby and 3-4 hours usage before the battery goes flat.

I called up apple who opened a case and were willing to provide a refurb unit under warranty but I had to go back to he retailer if I wanted a new handset. So I returned the phone to Telecom last week and they promptly sent it to Telegistics for an assessment. Given that I barely had the phone was two weeks, I thought it would be covered under DOA and replaced immediately ?

I called up Telecom today and was advised that tests showed that the battery is fine. I don't accept that as my usage proved otherwise and all they ran were standby tests. The irony is that TNZ have given me a loan iphone4 and its battery is a lot better than the 5.

I have a number of actual screen shots comparing my iphone 5 to a colleagues 5 and now the loan 4.

I think I have consumers guarantees act on my side with this one and really want Telecom to replace the set with a new iphone OR provide a refund. A refurb is not acceptable. I am also drafting a letter quoting the CGA and asking for a replacement or refund given that the description does not match the phone.

Anyone from Telecom here who may be able to help me with this please ? How do I get this resolved ?

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#717400 14-Nov-2012 23:28

Get an android?

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johnr

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#717403 14-Nov-2012 23:31

You are comparing a iphone4 to a iphone5 not the best idea!

Best test if possible is 2 iPhone5's beside each other for the whole day then you will really see if one of the handsets has a issue or working as designed

navinbhat

13 posts

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#717405 14-Nov-2012 23:36

I did compare two iphone 5s per my post. Through the day against my colleague's. His projected usage was close to 7 hours and with a number of services, including Bluetooth, on.
All devices are on ios 6.0.1.

johnr

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#717406 14-Nov-2012 23:41

Have you removed all non factory apps?

lxsw20

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#717407 14-Nov-2012 23:44

If you have Skype installed look at settings>Skype and make sure always signed in is not enabled. Took me ages to find that with someone at works iPhone.

NonprayingMantis

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#717408 14-Nov-2012 23:48

lxsw20: If you have Skype installed look at settings>Skype and make sure always signed in is not enabled. Took me ages to find that with someone at works iPhone.

had exact same issue with a friend of mine. Having Skype on really ruins battery life.

navinbhat

13 posts

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#717411 14-Nov-2012 23:55

- reset all settings and set up the phone as new
- turned off location services for most apps other than maps and compass
- turned off Bluetooth
- set wifi to join networks automatically without asking
- turned on restrictions and disabled ping
- turned off cloud sync for safari
- switched to push rather than fetch even for gmail. And set fetch to manual.
- turned off notifications except for email, phone, messages, calendars

You name it I've done it. I can appreciate that I may not get 10 hours usage as stated by apple. But 4 is poor by any margin.

What I do need to know is whether I have a case for a replacement/refund with Telecom and is it possible to avoid the legal route on this.

dickytim

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#717448 15-Nov-2012 07:08

could you have your phone restored to your freinds settings and test it?

That would prove it is the phone, so far you have tested against a phone that could be set up very differently to your own.

You can try the CGA act but you will have to be prepared that if Telecom decline your request you will still need to take it to disputes tribunal or similar to get a resolution.

Have you seen the report from the repairer, or asked them how long the battery lasted for them?

My iphone4 lasts a couple of days if I leave it alone, if I am constantly playing with it then only 3-4 hours.

riahon

946 posts

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#717451 15-Nov-2012 07:29

You can check the report from Telegistics by going to their website and entering your mobile number but I doubt that will show anything different from what the store told you.

plambrechtsen

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#717455 15-Nov-2012 07:49

Not that this is any official response, but if you have been googling around and seen that others throughout the world have had battery life issues with iPhone 5's, and people trying all sorts of different things to improve battery performance. To me perhaps it's a "feature" / "working as designed" with the phone.

As JohnR said if you're comparing two phones side by side both on XT with full charge in the morning and see their battery life at the end of the day. This with the assumption that both phones have the same apps loaded on them (no Skype as it's a battery killer).

From experience my wife has a 4S and it gets about a day worth of battery and she has a mix of being on 3G and Wifi and leaves it not charged over night and just charges it for 1 hour or so in the morning. But again this is a 4S not a 5.

Telelegistics will do exactly what Apple tell them to do, and if they want to replace your phone with a refurb'ed one there should be no functional or experience difference between the brand new one and the refurb one.

At the end of the day Telelegistics are just doing what Apple tell them to do as it's an Apple device and if it gets poor battery life that perhaps it's just the nature of the smartphone beast... And just because it's the latest model doesn't mean it will last any longer.

I still have my old Nokia 6212 candybar phone.. That puppy gets 6 days of live with average use..

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#717465 15-Nov-2012 08:24

navinbhat: - reset all settings and set up the phone as new
- turned off location services for most apps other than maps and compass
- turned off Bluetooth
- set wifi to join networks automatically without asking
- turned on restrictions and disabled ping
- turned off cloud sync for safari
- switched to push rather than fetch even for gmail. And set fetch to manual.
- turned off notifications except for email, phone, messages, calendars

Turn off wifi and the option to join networks automatically keeps it scanning constantly. WiFi on doesn't save battery, saves 3G mobile data. Different things.

Turn off push and use manual fetch. If you receive lots of emails push will drain the battery with activity all the time.

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Dairyxox

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#717492 15-Nov-2012 09:25

Turn off wifi and the option to join networks automatically keeps it scanning constantly. WiFi on doesn't save battery, saves 3G mobile data. Different things.

Turn off push and use manual fetch. If you receive lots of emails push will drain the battery with activity all the time.

This is totally true. Wifi is one of the biggest battery hogs, especially when its un-connected and constantly searching.

If your 3G signal is especially weak, then it can chew through battery too, for the same reason, it constantly scans and trys to connect. I found this out when I went to Australia last year, and wasn't using roaming or one of their sims....the phone would give out after 4 hours usage because of constant network handshaking.

This might be relevant if you work in the basement or heavily re-enforced concrete building.

Do you have any geofences setup? People can use the find my friends app to notify them when you leave or arrive somewhere.

Our iPhone 5 gets about 7-9 hours usage, iPhone 4 gets about 8-12 hours usage.

navinbhat

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#717507 15-Nov-2012 09:43

Fetch uses bandwidth and starts polling anyway and I am not keen on manual fetch. And I don't receive many emails and push is better for this profile. And to confirm, I don't have any social apps. And I am in central Wellington so signal strength is not an issue.

And all my tests we done based on the settings used by Apple themselves. As I said, I can understand minor variations in battery life, say upto an hour here and there but definitely not half what Apple have advertised.

If the cost of increasing battery life marginally is to basically turn basic features off, then think I am better off asking for my money and getting an android which seems to provide all the features (push email, wifi on, world on) I am after and lasts through a day.

I love my iPad and even with heavy usage, I get three days usage out of it. Great device. But I am losing confidence in the iphone rapidly.

As I said, my colleague has the 5 and is a heavy user : wifi, FB, Bluetooth, notifications etc all on and gets about 7 hours.

sbiddle

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#717510 15-Nov-2012 09:45

Taking a few steps backwards - what is your expectation of battery life for a current smartphone?

The simple reality is that if you're a moderate to heavy user or run background apps that chew through data or battery (Skype being a classic example) then a modern phone won't survive 12 hours.

plambrechtsen

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#717522 15-Nov-2012 10:04

navinbhat: Fetch uses bandwidth and starts polling anyway and I am not keen on manual fetch. And I don't receive many emails and push is better for this profile. And to confirm, I don't have any social apps. And I am in central Wellington so signal strength is not an issue.

And all my tests we done based on the settings used by Apple themselves. As I said, I can understand minor variations in battery life, say upto an hour here and there but definitely not half what Apple have advertised.

If the cost of increasing battery life marginally is to basically turn basic features off, then think I am better off asking for my money and getting an android which seems to provide all the features (push email, wifi on, world on) I am after and lasts through a day.

I love my iPad and even with heavy usage, I get three days usage out of it. Great device. But I am losing confidence in the iphone rapidly.

As I said, my colleague has the 5 and is a heavy user : wifi, FB, Bluetooth, notifications etc all on and gets about 7 hours.

A few things in this post.

-Try setting Manual Fetch and see if it makes a difference
-Just because you're in the Wellington CBD doesn't mean that signal strength isn't an issue, especially if you work in a heavily concreted building (underground at the National Library springs to mind)
-Having Wifi turned enabled on your phone, but not having any wifi coverage does suck your battery
-An iPad is a completely different device to an iPhone, firstly it doesn't have a phone and its somewhat different form factor, and just a bit more battery than what they can squeeze into an iPhone. So again you're not comparing apples with apples (so to speak)
-Have you tried sitting down with your colleagues iPhone 5 and your iPhone 5 sitting in the same place with all the services (and background apps) configured the same, and being on the same network (ie both on Telecom, or both on Vodafone/2D)? I would be very surprised if you didn't get exactly the same battery life.

If after you did the last point and you got a huge difference between battery life of both phones then that would be grounds to get it repaired / replaced as faulty units can occur. But Apple's build quality is pretty high and I would find it extremely unusual that it would be the case.

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