I have recently acquired a brand new BB 9800, I charged the batery for over 18 hours before first use (but I did transfer data from my previous phone whilst it was charging)
I currently get less than 12 hours use from the battery, this includes about 2 hours of calls and maybe an hour of data use in the 12 hour period.
Battery life should get a little better than that, especially after the first few charges. I would give it week or more, and see where you are with it.
Battery life may be better if you replace the stock OS with either .448 or .450. There are threads around touting the virtues of each. Most brand new devices have .246 OS.
The reason why your device says its already the latest version available is O2 hasn't released any newer versions officially. You will need to download either a leaked OS or an official OS from another carrier.
Install the OS once you download it.
Use Blackberry Desktop Manager to back up your information
You can use BBSAK to back up your third party apps
Go to: C:/ > Program Files (x86) > Common Files > Research in Motion > apploader
Delete vendor.xml
Run loader.exe to install the OS
I've had mine since November and I can happily play 4 hours of music and a couple of hours of calls, as well as using BBM and Facebook daily and charge it overnight.
I keep my Torch on 2G unless I'm surfing the net or downloading something. For regular BBM/email/text it's always on 2G with Wifi disabled. Also turn your screen brightness down as well.
As I mentioned in a different thread, with my new Torch, I am getting at LEAST a day and a half, usually more, with the phone. That's with 3G constantly on, no tethering, heavy texting, moderate web usage, a few brief calls throughout the day, and random but brief BBM/App usage throughout. For me personally, battery life less than a day is unacceptable, but so far the Torch has proven itself well.
