[gadgetrat]

Hi Nasir, I've had a BB Bold 9900 for almost a year and I love everything about it but the battery life. It's not what you would be used to from any other phone you've had. I'm lucky if I get 8 hours. Turn on the mobile hotspot and it kills it within a half hour. Some people say they do better but I've never met any personally. I've tried side loading the 7.1 leaked OS and it's less worse. The only way it can be useable is if you buy extra chargers and sprinkle them around the house and car(s). I picked up the spare batter charger combo from CrackBerry and it's thin so I keep it in my pocket and it's been a life saver. With that I can go a full morning to night without having to plug in (unless I use the mobile hotspot which is really only usable with the BB connected to a charger). If I had to do it again I would not have bought the 9900. I've had several BB's over the years and it's the only one I've been disappointed with. If iPhone gets a keyboard I'm so outta here! In the meantime I'm hoping to wear it out.

[Jake90087]

My 9900 lasts all day with heavy usage on 3G. Just get it, make optimizations and use battery saver mode. Better than my Torch...

[NCUDS]

Had a 9700 myself, and went the android way for literally 6 months after about 2 years and some months of 9700. After two android devices, came back to BB and picked up the 9900. Personally, knowing now what I didn't know then, which is... that android is just so much hype and that its always a guess what kinda phone you are gonna get, especially on T-Mobile and all their bloatware, I wouldn't have sold the 9700 and probably would have switched over for an iPhone, maybe.

Was also scared about the battery etc issues, but so far everything seems to run smoothly on both my and my bro's 9900. Battery is not as good as the 9700, but I get a full day of usage no problem from say 10 to 10 for sure... if not more. So, if you are really fancying the 9900 go for it, if not, keep the 9700.

[mmcpher]

If you upgrade the OS to the latter a build known to have good battery performance, it shouldn't be an issue. I updated my 9900 and my Playbook updated and unless I'm running hotspot on the 9900 while it is unplugged, it has been terrific. I never bothered with tethering because the bridge works well. I normally run a BT headset, the BT Bridge connection and alternately a BT connection to my car, and still have very good battery life.

[emirozmen]

Get a spare battery, problem solved!

[SK122387]

I use 7.1.0.402 and with moderate/heavy use of twitter, web browsing, Spotify, texting, some phone calls, my batter lasts at least 20 hours before turning yellow.

[ErnieH]

Me too. Running .402 I get 18 hours of quite heavy use. Battery life used to be a problem with the 9900. Not any more.

[mzman]

What basis? I own a 9900. My mother has a 9900. My best friend has a 9900. And my significant other has a 9900. That's a start.

No I am not stretching the truth, not even a little bit. All of us get about 2 days use froma single overnight charge. Heavy usage we get a day and a half, though my best friend only get's about a day and a quarter.

Nearly every other person I know with a BB seems to have the same issue. "It's slow and the battery only lasts a few hours." I ask to see the phone to trouble shoot it and what do I see? 10 freaking apps open in the BG. I close them out, restart the phone and it's creamy smooth.

I'm sorry bud but I've dedicated my life and career to technology. In those years I've found that people are supremely ignorant when it comes to the use of their technology. Close apps when you're done using them. Set your backlight to a low setting along with using auto dim. When you're not using large amounts of data, switch over to EDGE it will save you an ungodly amount of battery life. Se the back light to time out after 10 to 20 seconds.

I follow these rules (and many more) and I get to rub it into the face of iPhone users that I don't have to keep myself tethered to a charging cable at work all day.

Just for giggles, my 9000 lasted 3 days on a charge, same with my old 9800.

EDIT: If I tether my playbook to my phone and use the playbook for web ect then yes, I do get horrible battery life. But I've never seen a phone that didn't drain quickly when bluetooth was on.

EDIT 2: I never once used the word stupid. Maybe you are the one who needs to watch the inflamitory remarks. Stop making a mountain out of a mole hill or you'll start looking like a damned Troll.

Well, what can I say? Something's up, and it's not so simple that only "ignorant" people suffer. I have an IT background, and have been using Blackberries for over 10 years. Below is a thread I started:
http://forums.crackberry.com/blackbe...esting-712600/

So no, the battery life is not "good". I would summarize that it can be good, but it's a crap shoot as to whether it will be. A lot of people have bad results, not just me.

I can assure you that looking for a problematic app was my first order of business. I generally run with zero (yes, zero) apps that are not bundled with the OS and always on.

I'd appreciate any ideas you have to fix this. Otherwise, the original poster should be aware that often poor battery life is not the result of user error.

[gadgetrat]

Switching down to 2g mode seemed like a good suggestion but it made things worse in my case. The signal was one bar at best and dropped out often and I missed a few phone calls. The phone ran warm and the battery dropped 25% in a half hour. On 3g im always full scale. We live rural and I know distance from the tower has a real impact of battery life. I know when I'm in the midst of an urban jungle like Toronto the battery gauge doesn't drop as fast. I had a 9700 before and I never had to pay any attention to any of this before and the battery lasted a good day or two. The 9700 was my best BB ever. The other disappointment from the 9900 was no autofocus camera. No longer could I focus on anything closer then about 30cm away, had to delete the QR reader as it was now useless. I gave my 9700 to my daughter and she loves it. The 9900 features and build are great but what good are they when the battery dies? Extra chargers and batteries help but it's just another thing to babysit to keep the phone alive. I'm picking up ZaggSparq2.0 later today. I'll report back on how that works.

By the way... THE MOPHIE JUICE PACK POWERSTATION SOLD AT THE APPLE STORE DOES NOT CHARGE THE BOLD 9900 DISPITE WHAT THIER CHEAT SHEAT ON THIER WEBSITE CLAIMS. YOU NEED TO BUY OR MODIFY A USB CABLE TO MAKE THIS WORK.

[jas32]

Talking from personal experience, coming from a Torch 9800, I just got my Bold 9900 last week and the battery on the Bold lasts less than 1/2 as long as the Torch. Same usage, same apps, essentially factory AT&T settings. Frankly I'm quite disappointed.

Sure some people are saying "if you set your brightness down, if you turn this off, if you run on EDGE, if you do this, or do that....." my question is why in the heck do I have to compromise the way I use my device just so the battery will last me a day. I think RIM just screwed up on this issue BIG TIME.

I have not seen a foolproof fix. I still see posts on 7.1 not fixing the problem. Gold batteries seem to work but others don't think so, etc.

Not sure what to do except to make sure I'm charging the phone every chance I get. Nice phone, nice form, but the function got left behind.