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Nokia N900 Battery Test Results

December 8, 2009 by Nirave  
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The Nokia N900It seems that the majority of posts here at Mobile-Users recently seem to do with the N900. (I certainly apologise – the handset is keeping me very busy recently!)

One thing I’ve found is that the battery life on the phone seems to drain too quickly… My average over the week is approximately 6-10 hours with Wi-Fi/3G connected 24/7, MSN & Ovi signed in, some music play & calls / texts.

The N900 battery (BL-5J: 1320mAh – same as 5800 Xpress-Music) is officially quoted as offering:

  • 2-4 days standby
  • Up to 5 hours (3G/WCDMA) / 9 hours (2G/GSM)
  • 1 day Active Online Usage

Now, as soon as I got my N900, the battery performance was reminiscent of the Blackberry Bold… nowhere near advertised so the team got hold of a second N900 (aside from my personal one) and performed a series of battery tests over a few days.

Here’s the results:

Test 1:

Test one was the standby time with no connectivity, calls/texts or doing anything with the phone. (i.e. bluetooth, Wi-Fi & Data were all turned off).

Official: 2-4 days
Our Result: 29 hours

Test 2:

Test 2 was continuous music playback with no other connectivity.

Official: 29 hours
Our Result: 13 hours

Test 3:

Active Online usage: connected to Wi-Fi/3G/2G with IM conversations etc happening.

Official: 24 hours
Our Result: 9 hours

Test 4:

Day – to – day usage. This test was performed by me and is based upon averages over 1 week. There is no official time for this so I’ll list my findings anyways.

Our Result: 9 hours on a full charge with Wi-Fi/3G connected, IM conversations open & several short calls & texts.

The point of these tests? To judge exactly how well a 1320mAh battery from the 5800 Xpress Music does in handling the powerhouse that is the Nokia N900.

To be honest, it doesn’t do that great a job. Most people have found battery life is disappointing and all us N900 users can only hope that the next firmware update brings some power saving options & improves battery life!

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Comments

  • Tu
    my battery life is draining like crazy with no apps running at all. i bought this phone march 2010. my phone is in mint condition, no scratches, and has not been dropped. i even purchased a new battery and the battery still drains quickly. it dies within 2-3 hours.
  • Talip Kale
    I have the same problem, I think it is software error draining the battery fast did u have a solution for this?
  • GPS is a killer. Turn all GPS features off if you want to save battery.

    With GPS off, 2G only mode, Bluetooth off, disconnect Internet if not needed (esp WiFi, but GPRS too), no long-running apps and widgets, my N900 can last a whole day.

    Granted, now THAT's ironic!

    Completely agree with Robert Barring and Zeppert. To use N900 acceptably you have to disable most of its features. Turn on a feature here and there and it's dead before noon. :(
  • vignes
    my battery life is less than 8hours with occasional calls and 3g connections using battery meter shows more than 50% drop over 5hours. seriously needs some better power saving to be really productive tool without carrying a spare battery
  • danon
    We care about battery, should be 3000mAH . or 4000mah. can standby 15days to 30days.
  • I'm getting similar results. It's pretty sad. I really hope firmware updates solve this problem. Hopefully!
  • Steve
    For what it's worth. My Nokia e71 munches through the battery if I am logged into Slick IM or if I try to keep a SIP registration. Otherwise with normal 3G "email" usage I can get about two days from a charge. If I turn off all data I can get two to three days out of a charge depending on signal strength.
  • Farhad
    Test 2 says continuous music playback.
    Is that music playback on the phones speaker? Or muted sound but music playback?
    Or maybe even the phones headphones were connected?

    Can somebody please answer on this email address: farhad_uddin@hotmail.co.uk

    Thanks.
  • briggs9187
    the N900 was advertised to give a full days use...to get 9 hours of online use and all services working is great, for someone that wants 23-24 hours of continuous use is just nuts since there is no phone out there that can give that much use out of a 1320mA battery. I love my N900 and I can get a total of 13-14 hours use with moderate phone, Im and email use as well as internet, music and camera, for the most part it does the work and though it was promised to give 24 hours of use...i am happy with a total of 14 hours.
  • armanyusss
    nokia its a pice of shit...i pay 600usd for a phone that battery last 5h ..
    i will never ever by nokia in my life..they are ripping people off
    shameeee to nokia
  • Vish maloo
    i have the same battery issue !
    It completely sks, for an internet tablet with such a poor batt life !
    so Nokia ppl wants us to keep our wifi/bt/widgets/gps bla bla OFF to get a bttr batt life ? CRAP !
    waiting for a soln !
    :(
  • dfme
    maybe you guys are experiencing this here:
    http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=36438
  • Robert Barring
    What a joke. So I'm supposed to fork out a lot of money for the N900,only to be told that I can't use bluetooth or some other features because doing so knackers the battery?
    No.Instead I say to Nokia ,sort that serious problem out before bringing a phone to market. WTF is that all about.Spending a fortuine on a high tech phone that you can't use for more than 5 minutes. Stuff that.They're having a laugh.
  • ZePPerT
    Hi,

    I got my N900 last week.
    Its a GREAT PHONE but also with GREAT LACK in battery life :-(

    I had it fully filled up at 7.00 AM and now its 1.13 PM and just 1 bar left.
    I think it will not reach 8H of 'standby' time...

    I almost did not touch the phone...
    It has WIFI and 3G enabled constantly with MSN/SKYPE/SIP logged in at all times, but only made 2 calls of 1 minute each and had no conversations....

    I also disabled blue-tooth completely as I don't use it.
  • Electricity
    As you explain yourself: YOU are not in STANDBY mode. You have Wifi enabled ! + MSN + SKYPE which both ACTIVELY exchange information with the net over Wifi connection. This means you are contantly causing electric load which in not perfect circumstances is even higher than 3G phone call. Not to mention that 3G eats much more battery than normal 2G network (proven). This is even a feat that the device lasted so long......bloetooth does mater only a little as todays bloetooth has been engineered to consume miniscule amount of energy when not transferring data.
  • Electrisity
    I get roughly 6-7 day standby with Nokia 5230 (1320 mAh). I do have 1-2 short calls a day + 1-2 times going online for manual e-mail cheking when i really need it (no automatic checking). I use 2G instead of 3.5G (no wifi on this phone) as in email chekcing the speed difference is non-exsistant. Bloetooth is used only when occasionally uploading some mp3 to phone = off most of the time (i dont see why you need it on between the uses ? anyone ?). Obviously N900 has linux and you never know whats thicking behind the scene even when you switch the features mentioned off.
  • Anthony
    @RuEL
    This happened to me once. Might be something to do with GPS which I turned off. It hasn't happened since.

    Also I've had my phone for about 3 weeks now and it seems to be able to hold a charge better.
  • Dennis
    Use a stock phone, with no extras installed.

    Installing telepathy-MSN or Pidgin is a battery killer, so are many widgets.
  • RuEL
    I agree with with the comment above. I'm getting a lot less than 9 hours per charge. I work an 8 hours shift. I leave home with a full charge. I live 5 mins walk from my work. I'd check my phone an hour or two later, a quarter of its charge has already been gone without me even using it. And there have been times when the phone would get very warm just by being in my pocket. And when it is warm, it tends to accelarate the discharging rate of the battery. I'm hoping firmware update would cure this or just make a bigger capacity battery for it.
  • Natan
    Ok I think real issue is with signal strength as I'm not even getting 9 hours.

    With bad/low 3g signal the n900 eats up the battery maybe twice as fast.

    I hope this can be optimized in the next firmware. Nevertheless, for what it offers I'm still happy with my N900. Just considering getting an alternate power source with at least 4000mAh so that I can really go crazy and use the device to its full potential.
  • fmo
    I heard that the Foreca weather widget was eating up the battery really quickly
  • fmo
    Hi,

    I have to agree with tomaszf, last week I charged my phone on the Saturday early morning and didn't need to charge it again before Monday late afternoon. It was set on 2G only, I event did some Skype over wifi for at least 30/45mn
  • kokoloko
    I get 2-3 days on standby. 29 hours is very low. I think there is an issue with certain desktop gadgets like facebook's which are a cpu hog.
  • Damnshock

    tomaszf :
    “Test 1 – Our Result: 29 hours”
    How is that possible? After 24h of almost no usage, I still had almost full battery (1 bar drop only)


    That's not my case. I have some trouble with the battery life too. I want the device to at least work through a *day* and I can't seem to get that :S

    If I start using the phone at 8am at around 5pm I will have to recharge (and all this without heavy usage, just a couple of 5 minutes calls and a bit of email checking. This is totally *UNACCEPTABLE* for a 600€ device.
  • tomaszf
    "Test 1 - Our Result: 29 hours"

    How is that possible? After 24h of almost no usage, I still had almost full battery (1 bar drop only)
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