Bold Battery Life - Real World

So I have had the BlackBerry Bold for a while now and have had an opportunity to test real world battery life. First let me say that this thing sucks down the juice. Not unlike the iPhone 3G which needed a software update to improve battery life - so to could the Bold use a software update that improves battery life.

I was able to get 4 hours of talk time during a recent conference call I had to make. In this screenshot

You can see I was on a 4:05 min call. This was in less than ideal conditions. I was using the my bluetooth (Jawbone 1st Gen) headset and I was in the server room which cuts down the signal a fair amount. Wireless was turned off.

I have since upgraded my battery to a 1750 mah type in an effort to gain more time. The battery is still the same size as the unit that comes with the bold so no need for the extra thick cover. My informal testing so far has been to just observe how much battery life is left when I get home from work. I plug my blackberry in every night and I'm away from the house for a minimum of 13 hours at work before returning. I've been keeping WiFi off for now as it really sucks down my battery switching from WiFi to 3G as I move around at work. I've also disabled my PeekaWho application as it was really draining my battery life as well (shame really because this is a great app). I do not take many phone calls on my BlackBerry but do get a steady stream of email all day long. I already have my device tweaked for battery savings (brightness, backlight, etc.).

I really just want to be able to use it the whole day (I have to check it constantly - nature of being in IT and responding to customers) without having to plug it in at work. I can say that I'm able to do it with the Bold but just barely and after upgrading my battery to a larger capacity. My iPhone 3G is getting better battery life but I think the reason is I've set it to manual fetch of emails. I enjoy both and they both have their advantages and disadvantages. I carry both on me at all times during the day; the Bold for work and the iPhone for home. If I had to choose just one it would have to be the iPhone but fortunately I don't have to choose and can carry both and have the best of both worlds.

THN vs. THN (BlackBerry Bold App vs. iPhone App)

The Hockey News has released their mobile application on both the BlackBerry and iPhone.  Since I have both a Bold (Work) & iPhone (Home) I thought I would compare both platforms.  I'm on AT&T's 3G network with both devices.

Here are screenshots of THN on the bold:



As you can see they are not to bad but there is much less screen real estate compared to the iPhone.

Here are screenshots of THN on the iPhone:

 


One thing you should notice is that there are a lot more features on the iPhone app.  Scores, standings, player stats and schedules.  The app also loads much faster.  The BlackBerry version takes advantage of push technology and allows the app to run in the background.  You have access to everything even without network signal.  Conversly on the iPhone it has to pull everything down fresh each time you launch the app.  For my money (both were free apps) the iPhone is the better application platform when done right and provides a faster more feature rich experience.

Trapster = Battery Drain

So I had an opportunity to download try out free app Trapster. This little app provides real time notifications about "reported" speed traps, red light cameras and known police hangouts along the roads. It is updated by users and so your mileage may vary. While the app appeared to work okay it is one heck of a battery drainer. My iPhone was fully charged and within an hour it had drained my battery. So word to the wise, make sure you have it connected to power in your vehicle before leaving this thing running. It does a pretty good job but you will want to change the notification interval to 15 secs most likely. The default is 5 secs. I was in an area that had three known spots where police hang out (close together and within the half mile radius setting I choose) and the voice was constantly telling me "Police hang out here, Police hang out here, Police hang out here..." and repeat. Very annoying!



Trapster is available for multiple devices like RIM BlackBerry and several GPS Navigation units (Garmin, TomTom etc.) visit their website for more information: http://www.trapster.com/

Firmware 2.1 is a Winner!

Well it has been almost a month since I've updated my iPhone 3G to firmware 2.1 and I can report it has been rock solid.

What it fixed for me:

1) No more crashes - I have not had to reset the phone due to the OS being locked up. Sure the occasional app freezes but that is to be expected with early release of any software. Due to iTS review process it takes a lengthy amount of time before updates are released. Not the developers fault as they have updates pending in the system. Just visit a developer site/blog and you will see that in a lot of cases they have multiple releases in the system just pending approval.

2) Backup Time - The backup time is soooooo much faster. Maybe a function of iTunes 8 but I don't care. Its just faster.

3) App Icons stay put - Finally I can arrange my app icons in a manner that works for me and not have it move to the last screen whenever an update is released.

I'm sure I'm missing some things but I'm almost taking things for granted now as it just works smooth like you except an Apple OS product to work.

iPhone Stable at Last!

Well I think I will call this fixed (temporary solution) until either new Firmware or new iTunes versions are released. My phone has been stable for the better part of 4 days now. I will attribute this to the fact that I do not have to many apps installed. Here are screen shots of my iPhone pages.



As you can see I only have 3 pages and not all are ITS apps. I have several that are web apps to sites that are configured for iPhone use but do not have downloadable apps. It has been rock solid and I have even played Lumen quite a bit over the last two days. To give you an idea of how bad this issue is for folks just spend some time in the Apple Support Forums. This link http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1644828&tstart=0 has over 530 replies. All of them with roughly the same issue I was experiencing and all the different methods they have tried.

I don't even bother arranging my app icons as they will just get bumped to the last page any time there is an update. So what's the point. I guess I could put my web app icons first but really I'm just happy it's working again like it should.

So until a permanent fix is released no more trying out all these free apps as I just don't want to risk having my iPhone crash again. It's a shame really as this is the fun of the iPhone App Store.