The good news is you'll be without a phone for a week when you have to send it to Apple in a few months for a replacement.

I thought a couple of previous reviews (WSJ one maybe?) had said battery life was very, very good.

My own experience has been mixed too. I've been on the phone a lot today and the battery is almost down to 2/3 full. I don't think it'll matter all that much day to day because I don't anyone who doesn't plug in their phones when they knock out for the night.

wonder what their signal strength was when they conducted their test. Even though the "bars" show a good number of bars...the phone may need to work a bit more to maintain the call which would cause the more power consumption.

Add the facts that came out last week that you will have to send it to Apple to replace the battery after 300-400 charges.... (if you're charging every night.. do the math)

And the VERY late release of features, i think the very loyal Apple fans have been ripped off by the same company they love and defend so fiercely. Apple is taking advantage of you.

Bummer, sorry guys.

I'm been having some pretty good results with my iPhone. However, my settings are conservative. I only turn on Wi-Fi when I really need to use the web browser for a while. Also, I only use my bluetooth headset when i'm traveling, so for 90% of the time BT is off. Lastly, I keep my brightness down a bit because i'm fine with it being low. I don't want to be that guy in the movie theatre pulling eyeballs because of a bright screen.

I'm not surprised by the results... most gadgets never even come close to the rated battery life. Wait until next year, when these batteries start dying, then the real complaints will start.

I haven't really charged it since I got it. I only connected it to my computer while I activated and added a few songs and a video to it. I've been using the wifi and edge to browse the web and I've been making calls, texting, listened to a couple songs, watched Youtube vids and still got about a third of the battery left.

Welcome to the 21st century, when getting 12 - 13 months for a $600 piece of tech is "good". (talking battery charge cycles here)

@Sturm Truppen: 12-13 months out of a $600 device isn't an issue when you can quickly, easily and cheaply replace the battery.

People are mentioning shipping the phone off to Apple once the battery craps out. Regardless of what happens, the sim card can be removed from the iPhone and used for service in either your previous AT&T phone (assuming you were already a customer) or in one of the loaner phones you can get when your phone needs to be serviced or replaced. When I upgraded to the iPhone on my current family plan, the thing on iTunes told me to hang on to the old phone for this reason.

I've had no problems with battery life for any of the 3 days that i've had it, and i've been using the hell out of it too. So far i've been nothing but happy with this phone.

It seems pretty obvious to me what the issue is, especially with the talk time: in the first paragraph of the article, it's mentioned that the phone is reset to factory default before each test which, as they mention, means that WiFi is always on, sucking battery power. As no reasonable person would leave WiFi on all the time while making calls, battery life is normal (i.e. close to rated) in real-life situations, which would explain why Engadget and other tech blogers haven't seen this issue. For web browsing, the WiFi radio was left on as well, meaning that the iPhone had to power both EDGE and WiFi. This is simply a case of the review site using overly strict methodology. (But kudos to them for mentioning the issue clearly in the first paragraph.)

I don't know man, I TRIED to run my battery down all the way last night in order to try to condition the battery properly. I watched Ronin, turned the speaker all the way up, surfed through a bunch of web pages, and the damn thing just wouldn't die. And that was after a full day of playing around with it - calling people, lots of web browsing, using the camera. Finally got it to shut down at about 2am, but I was pleasantly surprised.

@YG17
one problem...the battery isnt removable...so...i guess you either get to do some fun hardware work or you get to send it in to apple huh? kind of a bitch

ahahaha i KNEW that touch screen would come back to bite itself in the ass..

yeah its true that when the battery starts getting worn out its gonna get eaten up...

I've never had a mobile phone for long enough to worry about replacing its battery. Never has a removable battery been an issue for me except on the models that required removing it to get the SIM in (bad design).

I'm not an iPhone owner, nor do I have any near-term plans to be. I'm just saying there are people out there like me for whom this kind of thing isn't an issue.

I've gotten eight hours through two cycles so far, both included watching a feature film, surfing through edge, listening to music, etc. Though I had wifi off.

Maybe they got a dud iPhone; I've been using mine pretty much all day; I was on the phone for about an hour total, listened to podcasts and music for about 90 minutes, watched the skating dog and piano-playing cat and so forth for a while, showed off some photos, and have done quite a bit of web browsing. In between, it's been checking e-mails every 15 minutes, and Bluetooth has been on the whole time.

I just got the thing (obviously) and am still dinking around with it; I don't think that it would be possible to have used it much more outside of a day stuck somewhere with nothing else for entertainment or information, or one of those horrible days when I get roped into a conference call that lasts all afternoon.

And at this point the tiny little battery icon is showing about 2/3 capacity.

Battery claims are akin to MPG claims on Monroney labels, both are bull shit.

Apple seriously needs to make devices with user-replaceable batteries.

I think they're way off... I too would say that my experience with the iPhone has been mixed as well. Its been out 2 days, and I've been using mine both days. I took it out of the charger around 9am and put it back around 11pm... both days I got my battery down to the 10% warning (I'm wonderng if its better to cycle the iphone battery all the way down to 0 every now and then?)

I talked on the phone for approx 4 hours today, did my share of surfing the web and sending emails/taking pictures. I watched an episode of entourage... If the phone can last the entire day with that sort of usage what more can you ask for????

I also think its important for everybody to remember that as far as I can tell the phone is never off... even when It goes to standby wifi (and I assume edge if you arent in range of wifi) checks your email every 15 min...

I like the phone a lot.... and at this point (until jobs decides to give us some fun features like ichat, video recording, and bluetooth stereo) the phone has its shortcomings... but battery life is DEFINITELY not one of them!

I don't know why companies like Apple and Palm continue to make products with non-replaceable batteries. I am one of those people who recharges a lot so I have no interest in buying an iPod or a Palm PDA. If I can't buy a replacement battery which I can pop in then I am not interested...

Gotta agree with PUPABOY on this one. The thought of having to ship the phone off to Apple just to get the battery changed is really putting me off...especially if it will need to be done almost annually (by my calculations, anyway).

@lm:
But us common folk ain't smart enough to change a battery.

Apple needs to open up a lot of stuff, but they are very happy with keeping everything locked down and their customers are happy about it.

Makes you wonder, as mentioned earlier, are these the folks that leave WiFi on and turn the brightness/volume all the way up? I've gotten on average 7 hours out of my iphone with heavy use and three full charges. Obviously your mileage will vary but when does anyone expect accurate battery life estimates on any other piece of tech out there?

My battery life has been great so far, running everything full blast. Probably more than usual, considering I just got it and I'm playing around with it more than one would if they expect to lead a productive life. :)

Does anyone know: Once the battery starts to decline, is the only choice to send it in, or do you think they will set up a quickie in-store battery replacement service?

@smarusich: Since my commment above, I've used the phone a lot tonight, and now I couldn't agree more. I used every bit of functionality over the past few hours (well every bit that matters) and I really appreciated having all of that in the palm of my hand at once.

until you are able to kill the battery completely then charge it with one continuous charge... i don't want to here one bit of bitching about the battery..... we haven't even had our phones for a full weekend yet. chill out.... i didn't give it a full charge when i started.... then let it die ( which took about 24 hours to kill completely ), i'm on my first full charge now and so far so good.
So you all need to really just relax.... its like you are looking for problems with it... i'm just enjoying it for now.
Sure its not perfect... but its the best phone i've ever had so far

Not perfect?! NOT PERFECT?! What the hell are you, some kind of Microsoft fanboy? Of course it's perfect, you moron. The battery doesn't need to be replaceable, because it will NEVER DIE. I've already place thousands of calls, watched 22 seasons of "Gunsmoke" and listened to the complete works of Mozart and my battery's at 99%. These charts are LIES! LIES!!!

"Take this with a grain of salt, until more tests come in. WirelessInfo, the site that does 15,000 word cellphone reviews just finished testing the iPhone's battery life while talking and browsing, and it's not looking even close to the rated specs, or the other phones in that battery life chart that Apple published."

If this is the most biased thing I've ever seen published on this site!

First you tell us to take a review by a professional publication with "a grain of salt", which means they didnt say something friendly about the iPhone. Next you tell us to wait for more reviews, as if some one else who uses professional equiptment and methods is going to come up with the numbers that Apple or Mossburg would say were real. I can assure you these outfits have too much professionalism to lie for Apple. Then you mock them for writing 15,000 word reviews, as if that is a sign of poor work, it is the exact oppsite.

These guys are an INDEPENDENT outfit that SUSPRISE came up with a result that is different from an Apple press release that I dont recall Gizmodo telling us to take with a grain of salt.

So far, so good here. I just charged my phone for the first thime pate last night. I bought it on friday but had to go on a long drive right after leaving the AT&T store so I didn't even unbox and slip the thing down my pants until about noon on Saturday. The only charge time the phone has seen before last night was about 20 minutes plugged into my MacBook Pro for activation ans that first sync of 3GB of media.

To me, making it all day Saturday and until 9PM Sunday on the "out of the box" charge is pretty impressive, especially since Sunday was spent demonstrating it to co-workers that wouldn't leave me alone!

Typed this whole post on the iPhone as well... So boo to those skimping on the grammar and punctuation because of issues with the keyboard!

@canfezplay: I know it's not removeable. Someone else was acting as if getting only a year out of a $600 device was common. Most devices last a lot longer since batteries can be replaced

@iblamehistory: The point is, on a $600 phone, I shouldn't have to be stuck using a cheaper one for a week. That would be like me buying a new BMW for 50 grand, and a year later, having to leave it at the dealer for a week for something that shouldn't be broken in the first place, then, to make it worse, I get stuck driving a rental Kia for a week.

I've been hearing people complain about the locked down battery for a couple of months, but it seems to me that, while this might be a bit of annoyance once a year or so, in most cases sending it back shouldn't be necessary. I'm sure thaat if you have an Apple-authorized service center near you (I have at least two and I don't live in a very big city) they should be able to do it for you fairly quickly. I'll call my preferred place when they open (they've been an Apple service/sales center since before the Mac came out) and report back.

@jedibugs: IIRC, Apple Authorized Repair Centers only work on Macs, I don't think they've ever done iPods and I highly doubt they would do iPhones. It will most likely require sending it off to Apple, which is a bunch of BS.

And do we even know how much a battery replacement will cost? It sure would suck for all of you lemmings who bought the iPhone to have to spend another hundred bucks each year for a new battery

i dont call much, but in using mine, i've gotten the following times:
day 1, saturday: after charging all night, so it was full, I had 14 hours standby with 6.5 hours of internet usage, all over wifi. and it was out of juice.
day 2: sunday: after again charging fully overnight, I got about 6 hours of browsing over EDGE before it started to poop out.

all in all, so far that's on spec.

But since you charge it with an iPod charger those are so common and everyone has them everywhere, so if your battery dies your chances are much higher of finding a charger then asking everyone around you if they have a 3rd gen samsung two prong charger!

@yg17: That would be like me buying a new BMW for 50 grand, and a year later, having to leave it at the dealer for a week for something that shouldn't be broken in the first place, then, to make it worse, I get stuck driving a rental Kia for a week.

In my experience, this is actually a pretty accurate description of the BMW dealer experience. Mine has this clapped-out Corolla with a funny smell inside semi-functional brakes that they lend out. Seriously.

It's entirely possible that Apple will come up with a more reasonable solution by the time battery-replacement time comes around -- like a free loaner iPhone while yours is in the shop. Myself, I'm not too worried about it because by that time iPhone Mark III, with HSDPA and GPS and LMNOP will probably be available and I won't be too interested in replacing the battery in my antique phone anyway.

I am slightly confused by the hype ?
My phone has a full web browser with flash and java, in fact two different flavours including opera. I have ever kind of connectivity imaginable, can use any carrier, have a dozen different mapping applications, including gmap-track, integrated GPS, global navigation, stereo speakers, 5 megapixle camera, replacable 4gb micro sd cards at £10 each, bascially everything the iPhone has but twice as much, the phone was FREE on a standard contract, plus it also has over 600 downloadable apps plus anything the apple has online.

I can not say this clearly enough to you all, you are beng taken for a ride, sorry, those are the facts.

People make it sound as if you get 300 charges and then your battery is completely dead and useless. I've owned many cell phones, cameras, iPods, and laptops and have never had to replace a battery. The performance might not be 100% but after 2 years, I might be ready for something new and 80% capacity is something I can live with. The people living in fear of this are the same people staying away from plasmas.

Interesting info:
[www.ipodbatteryfaq.com]

iPhone v2.0 for me baby. This is why I resisted the hype. I'll wait for all of these early adopter problems and rumors to iron themselves out first before I bite. No whining LCD screens, no mooing noises, no exploding/expanding batteries, no heat issues, no sudden shutdowns, no spontaneously cracking LCD screens ala nano, etc, etc, etc. Who knows, a few months down the road, either there will be something better for less money (Moore's Law), or this same Jesus Phone will have it's second coming where it will be stronger, cheaper, better battery life, 10 - 12gb(??), who knows. I'm willing to keep sucking the last bit of juice from my Cingular 8525 Cell Whore until then. I call it a whore because the phone will do just about anything a Windows Mobile 5/6 phone will do without much of a hassle at all.

If this proves right (the battery lasting almost half what they claimed) I'm guessing it won't really be a major problem... but it'll be one more lie to add on the iPhone hype experience.

Because if it does last half what they claimed... it'll last probably the same as your usual cellphone. It's just bad that lots of problems are showing up.

But maybe this may serve as a lesson to all iPhone fanboys. iPhone is just another cellphone after all.

About having to send the cellphone back to change batteries... that's awful. But as someone already said... chances are people will have already replaced the iPhone before needing to replace it's battery.

I'm willing to bet we'll have something better than the iPhone in less than a year. Even if it has to be iPhone2.

so many people complain about not having a replaceable battery but i would love to know the percentage of people that honestly even have a second battery for their phone. i doubt it is as high as some of you chronic complainers think.

Well can some1 explain2 me wth is the difference between EDGE and 3G.
Im guessing 3G is faster but takes more battery life.
Is there a considerable difference as in iternet bandwidth.