4900 battery life?

The 4900 does seem to drain the battery a bit faster when you are using vision. Not sure why. I am really pleased with the standby time though. I set my phone to a 5 sec. sleep mode and a 8 sec. lights off.
Mark

 

When using the phone (pressing buttons, playing games, websurfing, etc.) the backlight remains on. This is a sure-fire way to drain your battery. The expected battery life is measured against basic telephone usage, primarily making and receiving voice calls. Luckily, I haven't had any battery life issues and I play several games a day on my 4900 during my commute.

 

the 4900 has the best standard battery life out of all sprint phones so far. If you use your phone for purposes other than conversations, then it most certainly will drain battery quicker. If you use the internet a lot, it drains quicker. My 5150 has good battery life when i dont play on the web too much. This is true for most phones. Oh and make sure your phone says "charging complete" otherwise you could be getting false full charges

 

hmm
i seem to have issues with my battery life as well.. i live in charlottesville virginia.. and it doesn't stay on longer than 36 hours with few mins talking max... i heard its cause i live in bad reception area it has to change out and in of towers alot that i have bad battery.. could that be true??

how can i test agast a bad battery? or bad fone??

Thanks

 

I have also had issues with battery life. I have been using the web some, mostly for picture downloads, but I don't think its been that much, maybe 15-20 minutes some days, less other days. I've had to charge my battery after about 3 days, like jainey. I know web usage and lots of button presses decreases battery life, but I would also like to know if there's a way to test for a bad battery

 

You can really only test batteries with a Multimeter (a trick from working at RadioShack), but that just ensures you that the thing is delivering the voltage its supposed to deliver. Other than that, if the battery discharges abnormally quickly, it's probably bad. Also, if your phone jumps in and out of Sprint mode, the battery will drain faster. The battery is most efficient when it stays locked on Sprint and doesn't lose it.

 

In Sprint digital it lasts longest, Vision definately takes a lot of juice. My lasts as long as advertised minus web usage. If you use Vision alot I would invest in the extended battery that is available for the phone.

 

My friend just got the 4900 - claims to have only gotten 2.5 hrs talk time despite being digital/sprint mode. Specs say closer to 4.5. I will advise re the possible "false" full charge indicator and see if that helps.

As for arbntmare - when you say it's switching, is it leaving sprint mode and then reaquiring it? If it goes to analog it will suck the life out of your battery. Do you have the roaming set for sprint mode only? Or does it then just keep dropping service altogether?

 

well i have it set to sprint mode only, my area has some really bad dead spots and i walk alot, i go to college so i tend to go into alot of different buidlings... some buildings have good services while others don't have it at all... so thats why i say it keeps tryign to search for service...

 

I sprung for the extended battery life. If I used Vision a lot, I would go through the battery in a day, and I don't like the thought of running out of battery. I still charge my battery everynight, just to be on the safe side. On weekends I tend to use my phone and Vision a lot, so for me it was worth the additional cost.

 

Vision, weak signal areas, analog mode will all drain battery life much quicker. Estimated battery info is only for continuous talking. If you leave your phone on standby for days, that counts towards your talk time as well. As of right now, the 4900 has the longest battery life out of any sprint phones. So if that is still not enough, then your expectations might be a bit too high. Extended battery is always an option, but they are quite expensive (60-70 bucks)

 

Double checked with my friend - 2.5 hrs continuous talk time from full charge - no standby - 3-4 bars. That does not sound good. I suspect the phone should go back as specs say 4.5 hrs.

 

What does "sleep mode" mean?
I thought it meant that the phone couldn't find any Sprint... or any digital...or any analog... service at all.

How often does your 4900 go into that "sleep mode"?

Mine does it all the time. Even while showing "sleep mode" *AND* 1-2-3 lines of "signal strength" on
the screen at the same time. Huh? Is that right?

It won't accept any calls during that period... everything that coming in... goes to voice-mail instead.

But I can "hit any key"... to take it out of "sleep mode"... and call outbound... just fine.

Do I have a value set wrong somewhere? (I have it set to "auto" for Sprint VS Roaming.... so that I
can have all the best possibilities for connecting to *SOMEONE'S* tower.)

Thanks.

 

Sleep mode does nothing more than put your phone to sleep, so to speak. After a pre-defined amount of time it goes into a power save mode also known as sleep mode when it is not being used. One of the advantages of sleep/power saver mode is longer battery life.

Once you hit any key on the phone, the phone will "awaken" and return back to its normal state because now it is in-use again.

And no.....you dont have any "values" set wrong; sleep/power saver is a function of the phone, which you can change to your liking or shut off all together.

I dont know what servise is like in your area; I have found that setting my phone to SprintPCS only works very well for me and I wont run the risk of having to roam.

 

I agree (as usual) with ScandaLEX about sleep mode -BUT if BillGo's calls are "not being accepted" and being sent to voicemail, as he stated, he may have something else set "wrong" -because sleep mode ends when a call comes in, so if calls are actually being sent to voicemail, it's being caused by something else.