6 hours of battery life is driving me nuts!! help

I picked up my Blackberry Torch 9800 about a month ago, and it has been a fantasy come true, the features are amazing and i cant put it down, however i am having an issue with battery life.

I read some reviews here and i turned off my Wifi which was suggested by almost everybody, then i turned down the backlight brightness to 30sec. then i turned off the auto dim feature for the backlight, and im still getting 6 hours of battery life!!?? if im on the phone for for a period of time i can feel it get warm, i really need some help because i love the phone and i dont want to get rid of it, my old phone which wasnt a blackberry, got 2 days of battery usage! i dont email, i dont SMS, i dont have instant messaging set up, i have about 4 or 5 applications on the home screen and cant see that as a problem since friends of mine have double that with no issues. If there is a logical reason why this is happening please let me know, if there is something i am doing wrong, please let me know of course.

I am a first time blackberry user by the way!

Hold down the Blackberry button (menu button) and see which apps you have running. Some apps are known to use a lot of battery.

Do you live in an area with poor signal? If so, the battery will drain faster as it constantly searches for 3G. My guess is you have something running in the background because you say the phone gets warm. Do as suggested above, it should help you determine what you should turn off.
Also, check on how frequently your feeds are updating.
If I might suggest one app that will help you determine battery drain - MeterBerry. It's available here.

TLS, i have a translator application, but thats the only one. Everything else is "stock"

Mine did the same thing and it was because of the 3G. I live just out of 3G range so it was constantly searching for 3G signal and draining the battery. I would get about 6hrs of life also. Then I changed the settings to 2G only and now I get a full day plus some. It made a huge difference in battery life.

Could be a bum battery. If you don't have any Facebook or Twitter apps constantly updating..or GPS on contantly tracking your location..then I'd chalk it up to a bad battery. I had one that would last me 3-4hrs of heavy use only..so I got a different battery and problem solved. I'm now on day 2 with a single charge (although I didn't use my phone a ton on day one). If you really love the phone don't let a bum battery ruin it for you.

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it's a faulty battery.

I'm getting 2 days out of mine with heavy email messaging, light texting bbm, very light phone call usage, WiFi on all the time whether within range or not.

If you are in an area that doesn't have good 3G coverage that would definitely be a culprit... you could try switching to 2G/Edge only.

The biggest battery drainers are apps that are running without you knowing it... WiFi and BT turned on without being within range... Vibrate alerts... Screen brightness should be set as low as you can take it (I have mine at 10 and it's still great)... Backlight Timeout set as low as possible (I have mine at 10)... Auto Dim should be ON... LED coverage OFF.

If you're only getting 6 hours and you've done all that... then I'd be taking it back for a battery exchange.

Originally Posted by thornburg24

Mine did the same thing and it was because of the 3G. I live just out of 3G range so it was constantly searching for 3G signal and draining the battery. I would get about 6hrs of life also. Then I changed the settings to 2G only and now I get a full day plus some. It made a huge difference in battery life.

This is the best advice to try first. I gave this advice to a buddy of mine after reading it on another forum who was complaining about his battery life on his Torch. Now he's getting a day and half out of his battery with heavy messaging and App use.

the applications i have on the home screen are (and what came with the phone) facebook, myspace, bloomberg, cnn, fandango ect...i added a translation app, "scoremobile" for team scores, YPmobile, colorID, and WHERE app. when i hold down the blackberry button, the only 2 apps that come up are the translator and AT&T maps

when i go to switch it to 2G, it says "mobile network none" meaning what exactely...

RickRoller, how do i turn the GPS tracking my location off? i didnt try that yet

Turn off social feeds! That useless app is a battery murderer!

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Originally Posted by Optics1

RickRoller, how do i turn the GPS tracking my location off? i didnt try that yet

Using universal search..just start typing gps. Select the Options icon when it comes up..then select Location Setting and select GPS Off.

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my impression was battery life with the original installed os, os6.0.0.141, was not all that great. battery life is much better with .246, which is now available through at&t.

i've heard the thing about the social feeds being a drain but that's not been my experience. a concern i have: under "options," then "device," there is something called "location settings" that randomly gathers your location data using the device gps. with .141 this feature could be turned off (disabled). thought i'd done the same thing with .246 but it still appears to be collecting locational data. if anything, this is something that is likely causing a drain.

apart from that: would double check what you have on and running (wifi, bluetooth) and if you're really using all that. my experience with .246 has been outstanding with better than 2 days per charge to date.

would say, if you've done all this and you're still getting that little battery life, it's the battery.

I get from 6:30am - 11:30 on heavy heavy useagean and I still have about 30 % left

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notification settings: turned the "notify on feed updates" off along with "integrate with message application" what about address recognition? should i turn that off too?

You shouldn't have to turn things "off" that you deem important/useful to you in order to boost battery life. You need to be able to use your BlackBerry as you want to without applying unreasonable restrictions.

If you've ensured that your 3G has a strong signal, your screen brightness/backlight/auto dim are all at an acceptable level, there are no apps running in the background, WiFi is off when not connected, and you're not using the vibrate alert non-stop, then you've done what needs to be done to gain a little "up-time". If you're still getting horrid battery life after all of that then I would say you need to get a replacement battery as yours is mosty likely defective.

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cestlavie: i just think its something im doing wrong, maybe i have too much running, but i dont...no bluetooth/GPS, social feeds are stopped, i pretty much did everything! ill re-charge it now and see what i get

Could be just a faulty battery, but those are pretty rare, right?

install os .246 make sure your feeds refresh every 2 hours or more otherwise you should be getting tons of life if your running screensavers or background changers make the backgrounds change at a larger interval 2-3 hours and screensavers would bother with em your pocket cant see those fancy star fields or ribbons orwhaver they may be

Originally Posted by Optics1

cestlavie: i just think its something im doing wrong, maybe i have too much running, but i dont...no bluetooth/GPS, social feeds are stopped, i pretty much did everything! ill re-charge it now and see what i get

If I were you, I'd pay the 3 or 4 bucks and buy MeterBerry... It'll tell you where your battery usuage is going. It's a great app and has a ton of other uses. Check it out.

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Bad battery. Had a customer with one, same issue.

"Optics1", the above poster "Totalimmortal363" is a sales-rep (I believe)... I'd go with their opinion and try to get your battery swapped out.

Get a new battery and update to OS .246. I am getting more than 40 hours on a single charge since updating to the new OS. Also follow some of the other suggestions for increasing battery life.

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