First iPhone 3G battery results
Apple iPhone 3G
(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks)We've had the iPhone 3G just three days, but we've manged to give it a good shakedown. Today, CNET Labs finished its first round of talk time testing for both the EDGE and 3G networks. On EDGE the iPhone 3G fell about an hour short of its rated time of 10 hours, while 3G calls matched the promised time of 5 hours. Those times aren't bad, but we'll run another round just to be sure. And in any case, actual day-to-day use will be the real test of the iPhone 3G's endurance. Ideally, it should last a full day with heavy use, but in our short experience thus far both the 3G and the GPS appear to be hungry applications that drain the battery quickly. We also completed our first Internet speed tests, and we can report that the 3G service positively smokes EDGE. Busy sites loaded in less than half the time it took on the previous iPhone. We still have to run music and video playback tests, so continue to check our iPhone 3G review over the next few days.
Kent German is a senior editor for cell phone reviews at CNET. When he's not testing the newest handsets on the market, he's blogging about cell phone news for Crave. In his On Call column, he answers reader questions and gives his take on the rapidly changing mobile industry. E-mail Kent. 

The iphone 3G battery life might be fair but it beats to other 3G devices.... If you turn of 3G and use Wi-Fi you will save battery life and it's also faster!
Test by PC World: (iphone gets around 5hr 38min with 3G on)
http://www.pcworld.com/article/148348/3g_iphones_mediocre_battery_life_still_beats_rivals.html
The iPhone is a great device, and definitely ground-breaking, but for feature set and ease-of-use, it is merely average here.
Cheers
Boss
The advice I got was to turn off my 3g, gps, wifi, and push email. hmmm. I'll stick to my blackberry thank you.
- by mrloon July 28, 2008 5:00 PM PDT
- I still cannot comprehend the "solution" to battery life is to turn basically all the features off. I did pick up an iPhone 3G, and regrettably am stuck with it. Had the phone on a complete full charge, called up and talked to a friend (local call) for about an hour and 10 mins, and I went from 100% charge to 5% charge. The solution of "turn off options" is mute, being that with other 3G devices, I can have all options on and easily talk for over the 5 hour mark, and easily not have to run to a charger for a few days. The other option of having a charger in your car, in your house, in your boat with a goat, etc, is insane. What happens if I'm a commuter on a train, or air, where there is no option to charge. Say I just got into my car, drove to the train station to commute to the airport; in that scenario, I'd barely have power a few mins after stepping onto the train. Add the low battery performance, with an impossible keyboard (double dare any of the "oh it's easy to type on" folks try holding onto the rail in a subway and type a few sentences in anywhere close to the type on any physical QWERTY keboard), a GPS that has no GPS app yet (though one rumoured b TomTom which will probably cost more than just getting a TomTom physical device), no way to add your own ring tone except to buy from iTunes, no way to truly customize the sounds the device has (other than a few options for the ringer and for inbound mail), and a host of other faults, it's a toy, plain and simple. If you need a device that you can use over the course of a day without the device going through detox after an hour and needing a charge, get anything, I mean ANYTHING, but don't get an iPhone. Hey, if ya don't agree with me, and looking for an iPhone, I'll gladly ship you mine free long as you pay the stupid cancelling charge for removing the device from my bill. Maybe I'll even have to post up a YouTube video of me smashing the device with the head of a passing Mac user. So, in closing, yes, the phone is *that* bad, and calling it a phone is even an insult to the old days big box phone on a rope from Alpine and such.
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