[PoCoMotion]

I've had my pearl for a few weeks now and am experiencing terrible battery life. I've had the battery replaced, but it has made little (no) difference. I am lucky to get two workdays out of it. Each workday may include 3-4 short phone calls, and a dozen or so emails.

My biggest concern is the battery drain overnight when the device is (supposedly) off. I've charged it up in the evening so the status is telling me 100%, unplug it and turn it off again (after only checking the status for 30 secs) and by morning it is down to 85%.

Is the radio continuing to operate after you have shut the unit down?

I've searched numerous forums, and the only solution seems to be to 'turn all connections off' using the 'manage connections' function prior to switching the unit off. This seems absurd (at least to me). I can understand certain functions such as alarm continuing to run, but why would the radio connections continue to function?

Any others experiencing this (I know there are) or have any answers?

cheers

[sunkast]

Sounds more like there is an application on your device that is draining the battery.

[Sunshyn]

How are you shutting it off? I shut mine off at night the auto on/off option and notice no noticable decrease. It also stops the radio connections, or at least my speakers stop staticing off and on. I don't think I experienced any battery drain when I was first shutting off by holding the red phone button either.

[PoCoMotion]

Sounds more like there is an application on your device that is draining the battery.

No extra apps running, only the default ones which you can't shut down

[PoCoMotion]

How are you shutting it off? I shut mine off at night the auto on/off option and notice no noticable decrease. It also stops the radio connections, or at least my speakers stop staticing off and on. I don't think I experienced any battery drain when I was first shutting off by holding the red phone button either.

I'll try setting the auto function.

I've been using the red power button

[Sunshyn]

Sounds more like there is an application on your device that is draining the battery.

I'm just curious. An application draining the battery makes sense, but which applications use power while the BB is turned off?

[sunkast]

What about themes?

[gm_eng]

I was experiencing fast battery drain also. On mine it was caused by the phone continually trying to access the mobile network while in an area with no signal. Now I turn off the mobile network access until I'm in an area with a strong signal and I need access to my email or the browser. After accessing what I need, I turn the mobile network off again. Another reason I turn it off is because my Pearl was getting all the same emails I was getting on my home computer, and I got tired of deleting the ones I had already read.

[ChiefT]

FYI some apps that require web access do not close when you hit the Escape key. Your best bet when in dought is hit the menu key and select close or you can pull the battery out and restart and do not start any apps and see if you have the battery drain problem?

[PoCoMotion]

FYI some apps that require web access do not close when you hit the Escape key. Your best bet when in dought is hit the menu key and select close or you can pull the battery out and restart and do not start any apps and see if you have the battery drain problem?

Thanks, yes I've made sure there aren't any additional apps running.

Last night I used the 'manage connections' function to turn all wireless connections off and used the icon to power off and selected 'full power off'. The battery was at 100% when I shut down at midnight. At 7 am I turned it on and the battery status was 90%

My next experiment will be to remove the battery overnight and see if it's holding the charge....something just isn't right

[Gadgetgeek]

Have you done a hard reset since the poor battery performace began? If not, give that a shot before leaving the battery out all night.

[PoCoMotion]

I was experiencing fast battery drain also. On mine it was caused by the phone continually trying to access the mobile network while in an area with no signal. Now I turn off the mobile network access until I'm in an area with a strong signal and I need access to my email or the browser. After accessing what I need, I turn the mobile network off again. Another reason I turn it off is because my Pearl was getting all the same emails I was getting on my home computer, and I got tired of deleting the ones I had already read.

Thanks. I've read a number of posts that suggest that accessing the data network is a problem in fringe areas. I'm not in a fringe area, but I've turned off the data access this morning so it is now 1X and not 1XEV. I'll see how this goes for the rest of the day. My Pearl is a CDMA device and I've also read that these are much less efficient than GSM devices.

Regardless, I sure don't see how this thing could approach the 9 days standby time that RIM is promoting.

[PoCoMotion]

Have you done a hard reset since the poor battery performace began? If not, give that a shot before leaving the battery out all night.

yes, I've gone through many resets

[Motion713]

It might be a defect in your phone as well. If it's been less than 30 days of the purchase of the phone or you have insurance on it, look into getting a new phone.

I just got my Pearl last Tues and I had a couple problems but the forums really helped. My battery is excellent and yours should be too. If your paying that much money for a top-notch phone...you should get top-notch quality. Hope you figure it out!

[PoCoMotion]

It might be a defect in your phone as well. If it's been less than 30 days of the purchase of the phone or you have insurance on it, look into getting a new phone.

I just got my Pearl last Tues and I had a couple problems but the forums really helped. My battery is excellent and yours should be too. If your paying that much money for a top-notch phone...you should get top-notch quality. Hope you figure it out!

Thanks, those are my thoughts as well. I've already been back to exchange the battery. I can't believe the number of posts I've read that have people saying their battery is fine, yet they are needing to charge it almost daily. These things are supposed to have a 9 day standby time. I'm coming to the conclusion there may be a design fault with these BBs...particularly the discharging overnight when it is off!

[Kernel Kurtz]

Sounds more like there is an application on your device that is draining the battery.

I'm sure this has been asked and answered a hundred times, but is there a "top" or "task manager" like function that shows what apps are running?

[sunkast]

Yes, Press the menu button twice and select switch application. This will show you what applications are running. Note that some applications cannot be closed. Also RIM has acknowledged that using switch application roughly 25 times will use up all the device memory.

[f_c_liu]

I'm having the same battery problem as you. I found that my battery drains fast only when I was in certain area. I'm wondering if it's related to the signal strength? But for sure my battery doesn't last close to 9 days as they have claimed. The most I can get out of it is 3 days.

[Member_No.1]

I'm having the same battery problem as you. I found that my battery drains fast only when I was in certain area. I'm wondering if it's related to the signal strength? But for sure my battery doesn't last close to 9 days as they have claimed. The most I can get out of it is 3 days.

Most definitely. If you are in a low service area, the device will constantly be trying to seek the strongest cell tower.

[f_c_liu]

Does building structure matter too? I found my battery drains fastest when I was shopping at Costco.

[Member_No.1]

Does building structure matter too? I found my battery drains fastest when I was shopping at Costco.

Yup... Steel content, proximity to outside walls, size of building, type of lighting, lots of factors.

[PoCoMotion]

Thanks, those are my thoughts as well. I've already been back to exchange the battery. I can't believe the number of posts I've read that have people saying their battery is fine, yet they are needing to charge it almost daily. These things are supposed to have a 9 day standby time. I'm coming to the conclusion there may be a design fault with these BBs...particularly the discharging overnight when it is off!

I'm having the same battery problem as you. I found that my battery drains fast only when I was in certain area. I'm wondering if it's related to the signal strength? But for sure my battery doesn't last close to 9 days as they have claimed. The most I can get out of it is 3 days.

So I didn't charge it last night and it went from 60% to 50% overnight. I powered it off using the power Icon and selecting 'full power off'. After doing some more reading of reviews and comments, I've come to the conclusion that there is a serious design problem with the phone, whether it's a hardware, software or network connection problem I don't know.

I still like all the features the Pearl has to offer, and I guess I'm just going to have to live with the fact the battery life is crap. As a workaround, I'm taking one commenter's advice of shutting off the data connection during the day when I'm in the office - this has slowed the battery drain. I guess I'll be plugging it in whenever I can, which seems a real pain I still need to leave the battery out overnight to check on why it's discharging when turned off, and perhaps do a few deep cycles to condition the new battery. I'll be returning the phone if it proves out there is a problem, otherwise I'll likely order the extended battery.

Overall, I think RIM has a good product in the Pearl, but should be ashamed of themselves for pushing a long battery life.

[raven666]

What I do is to Off Data Services and enable Firewall.