Bold 9900 - What's the battery life REALLY like?

I have found a good offer in the UK whereby I can get the Bold on a 12 month contract and it all works out relatively cheap. I've been after a new phone for a short while as I'm getting a little bored of my phone and Blackberrys just seem to "work". I currently have the Samsung Galaxy S and the battery on this phone will last me around a day, a little less if I'm using it quite often but I'm not usually away from a charging socket for more than 12 hours.

What kind of real battery life do you guys get out of your phones? I'm especially looking for answers from those of you that have had the phone for quite a while now as I understand that the battery life gets better as time goes on.

Thinking of making the switch to Blackberry, persuade me that it's worth it :)

Edit: I have also just noticed that I can have the Curve 9360 for very cheap. The cost over 12 months would be �170 which isn't bad at all. The cost of the Bold 9900 would be �290 over 12 months. Given the difference in price, what would you recommend?

Edit2: I understand that there are a number of threads on here that people have made complaining about the 9900's battery life, but surely there are people out there that are getting relatively good battery life out of this, because only the people with problems complain.

Mine lasts about 2 days at home. When I am at work between 12 to 14 hours. But reception is shocking at the hospital so I can imagine that can have an impact on the battery life.

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Originally Posted by critanime

Mine lasts about 2 days at home. When I am at work between 12 to 14 hours. But reception is shocking at the hospital so I can imagine that can have an impact on the battery life.

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That's absolutely shocking, no phone should last that long. Do you make any effort to conserve the battery or not? 12 to 14 hours would just be too short, I want it to last Saturday morning to Sunday evening when I visit my girlfriend etc.

I have to point out that signal here at work is next to non existant. So this will have an effect on the battery life as its trying to connect all the time. Plus I do a 12 hour night shift and I spend any free time playing solitare I don't think it does bad. Especially as the iphone I had couldn't even make it through a single shift without needing a charge half way through.

The two days at home is after average use. That's receiving texts, calls, emails and the usual social media. Which, again, the iphone was lucky if it made it a day.

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I also do switch radio reception off when I know I am not going to be able to get to places with even slight reception. Don't I am probably quite a heavy user and do a lot of things on my phone.

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Ah that makes me feel a little better. I don't use my phone too much so hopefully I should get a couple of days out of it at the most. I think I am going to take the plunge, after all it's on a very cheap deal.

I would agree. If I am in my group chat on bbm or texting all day it last about 14 to 12 hours. If I only have a few text and a few bbm's then a day to a day an half.

I would say that this still outperforms a lot of smartphone. My wife has the HTC HD2 and that lasts a day if she is lucky and all she pretty much does is text and Facebook. And my friends iPhone 4.... Well he does the same as me and needs to carry his charger.

If battery life is an issue then maybe see if you can get one of the OS 6 devices. I had the torch and that had great battery life.

I have gone ahead and purchased the phone. I'm sure the battery life will be better than my Galaxy S which lasts just under a day, and I'll only be keeping it for a year.

Originally Posted by alexdrans

I have gone ahead and purchased the phone. I'm sure the battery life will be better than my Galaxy S which lasts just under a day, and I'll only be keeping it for a year.

I do love this phone. I like the torch but this does feel a more solid phone.

If you have it set up right you'll get great battery life. I use mine hard most days. I take it off the charger at 6am and plug it back in before I hit the hey at around 10pm. I always have at least 30% battery life left. Most times more.

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12-14 hrs on moderate use.

But I am on Wifi all day.

I have a Droid X for any of you that have changed from the Droid X to the 9930. How does the battery life compare between these two? This is after the initial playing days get over with and the OS settles in and battery has a few good charges under its belt.

Thanks

WiFi all day, 3G all day, moderate use all day, even today WITH the blackberry outage i unplugged it at 7am and its now 10:45 at night, no mid day charges, battery is at 55%

@OP - you are going get many different answers and they are all going to be different. Some people have amazing battery life and others like myself have ridiculously bad battery life even with light use and never turning bluetooth or wifi even on. As is the norm with RIM phones, its the luck of the draw when it comes to their products.

My battery life is not good at all! By around 7:00pm, it needs charging even though I'm a moderate user. Much worse battery life than the iPhone 4 or the Samsung galaxy S2.

Today it was off the charger at around noon.
Usage today:

Browser: 2h31m
Twitter:36m
Homescreen: 21m
Facebook: 13m
And various others that total aorund 30m

It's now 7:35 and I have 15% left

This is my second 9900(got it 2 days ago). I took the first one back due to crappy battery life. This one seems no better. I loaded .440 onto this one rather then keeping the stock .216 hoping it would be better. Hoping tomorrow is going to be better.

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Originally Posted by dubai_bb

@OP - you are going get many different answers and they are all going to be different. Some people have amazing battery life and others like myself have ridiculously bad battery life even with light use and never turning bluetooth or wifi even on. As is the norm with RIM phones, its the luck of the draw when it comes to their products.

Actually it depends if when you get the phone you dont switch it on and charge it all night long. If you do that the battery will last alot longer

Originally Posted by eKafara

Today it was off the charger at around noon.
Usage today:

Browser: 2h31m
Twitter:36m
Homescreen: 21m
Facebook: 13m
And various others that total aorund 30m

It's now 7:35 and I have 15% left

This is my second 9900(got it 2 days ago). I took the first one back due to crappy battery life. This one seems no better. I loaded .440 onto this one rather then keeping the stock .216 hoping it would be better. Hoping tomorrow is going to be better.

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This is a good timing. I get worst timing.
This is all that 9900 can do with this silly battery!

1.5 days with moderate use

10 hours maximum on 3G ( 40 BBM's max, few songs, most of the time standby ) battery is bad compared to the iPhone 4(s)

Battery life is a $15 problem for a spare battery...its a blackberry not and iphone we can change batteries. As a bonus the bold 9900 is so super slim and lightweight you can possible slide it into your wallet...
Mine will last me most days...heavy web surfing, pandora music, some twitter, and a few calls...no problem/ and with my spare battery I'm never in danger of being without.

i'm a light to moderate user. I keep my bluetooth on all day for pairing my handsfree headset and playbook. Always holstered if not in use. 3G and wifi all day... good to excellent signal on most days. i take an average of 15 calls a day at 5 min each. I receive emails almost every 30 mins and reply to half of them and delete some of them. I get half as much in text messages. Use Liveprofile for 5 min. Weather app twice a day. Web browsing maybe 5 pages a day. Auto off between 2am and 7am. Fully charged at 9am and 60% by 9pm. Still way better than my LG Optimus 2x.