Gravity Battery Life

We just got a Samsung Gravity a week ago Tuesday. The one problem that we are having with it is the apparent lack of battery life. After about four hours of receiving a full (overnight) charge and being disconnected from the charger; during that time making about 30 minutes of phone calls, and one or two text messages, the battery meter is showing about half a charge.

That seems like quite bad battery life for a gsm phone. Has anybody else noticed poor battery life on their Gravity? Has anybody heard of any forthcoming firmware updates that might help the battery life?

The phone was receiving a strong signal during that time, so that shouldn't be an issue.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Did you calibrate the battery before use?  Let it run down till it shuts off then charge it overnight.  I wouldn't think that the Gravity would have really bad battery life - it's not a 3G phone and is pretty basic.  Maybe you've got a faulty device...

Welcome to TMoNews, by the way

I have not tried this...will try it over the weekend and see what happens.


Thanks!!

I think the gravity has a displaying area. The first few bars go really fast. It stays at 1 bar and flashing for about 3 hours.

Same with me. But if you notice it will keep the charge at 1 bar for hours. So it's probably a displaying error.

I think the gravity has a displaying area. The first few bars go really fast. It stays at 1 bar and flashing for about 3 hours.

No need to start up another Gravity Battery Thread. 

Merged.

Thanks kny. After training the battery for about 3 nights, I get much better battery life.

Thanks kny. After training the battery for about 3 nights, I get much better battery life.

No problem!  Good to hear that's it's working better for you now!

I've heard  a lot of people complain about that, my mom has one and hers seems to drain really quick too.  I guess its just the display because it drops down to 2 bars right away then she puts it on a charger again.

I just ordered a Gravity via customer service (I live in Puerto Rico an our local store did not have the white and aqua one for my wife). The CSR was a very knowledgeable person, and he told me about this issue. As a matter of fact, he told me his wife owned it, and that TMO  and Samsung were aware of the issue. He said that a firmware update should be in the works to fix this.

thats good my sister has one to and her dies real quick

A rep at the T-Mobile store confirmed to us today that T-Mobile is going to offer a software upgrade ( in a month or so ) to fix the battery problem with the Gravity ( T459) phone. Not sure if this is really true. Have no idea how they will contact customers... told us to keep checking in at the store.. I see nothing on the web in reference to this but he assured us that all the T-Mobile employees were aware of this problem and solution. He also told us that the Gravity actually had 40% power when it dropped to one bar. I don't think he is correct since it drops so rapidly.

 

 It's very frustrating to know that T-Mobile continued to sell these phones at Christmas with no mention to the customer of the battery problem or advise on saving battery power. At this time the battery will be fully charged overnight and have one bar by 3pm and no power by dinner- with virtually no use of the phone.

 

Anyone else hear of this software upgrade?
 

In my case, I returned the phone, as I did not want my wife to put up with such an issue. Too bad, as it looks like a great phone.

Does anyone know when the software update will be out?

The battery is fine on the Gravity. It has been confirmed by T-Mo and Samsung. Previous phones had 3 bars of battery and the new Samsungs have 5 bars. The algorithm that tells the bar how much power is off because it is basing itself on the 3 bar and not 5 bars. There is a fix in the new gravity’s but I don’t know if it will come out for the first group. Nothing is wrong with the phone. Just charge it every night and you won’t have any problems.

Why charge it every night? The specs are:

#  Talk time   Up to 360 min
# Standby time Up to 288 h

I'm on my third one and it is giving me just total HELL. First off I get maybe 5 or 10 minutes of talk time for every full charge not the "up to 360 minutes" as the specifications state. Standby time if I do not use my phone is about 5 hours or 300 minutes not even close to specifications. This was pretty much the same on my first two Gravity phones. My third phone is about the same. I did the let it day and fully charge thing three times. I even let it get to the red flashing bar before I charge it up. Funny that it takes just 30 minutes average to fully charge my phone from total dead battery same as the prior others that Tmobile swapped out. I had everything swapped out including battery and charger. It is just flat out ridiculous to say "Just charge it every night and you won't have any problems" Everyone has been having issues with the Gravity phones. I'm not one to piss and moan about anything but this phone is just total crap and a joke. I wish I would have never purchased this phone. Tmo said they will give me a new phone of my choice if this third phone does not work out. If they do not do as they say I'm going to break my contract and pay whatever and move to a different cell company just to get away from this piece of total garbage. As you can tell I'm so frustrated with the phone. I depend on my phone for personal as well as emergency issues. Why have a phone you can not depend on if it never has any power or dies in one call or less?

Why charge it every night? The specs are:

#  Talk time   Up to 360 min
# Standby time Up to 288 h

I'm on my third one and it is giving me just total HELL. First off I get maybe 5 or 10 minutes of talk time for every full charge not the "up to 360 minutes" as the specifications state. Standby time if I do not use my phone is about 5 hours or 300 minutes not even close to specifications. This was pretty much the same on my first two Gravity phones. My third phone is about the same. I did the let it day and fully charge thing three times. I even let it get to the red flashing bar before I charge it up. Funny that it takes just 30 minutes average to fully charge my phone from total dead battery same as the prior others that Tmobile swapped out. I had everything swapped out including battery and charger. It is just flat out ridiculous to say "Just charge it every night and you won't have any problems" Everyone has been having issues with the Gravity phones. I'm not one to piss and moan about anything but this phone is just total crap and a joke. I wish I would have never purchased this phone. Tmo said they will give me a new phone of my choice if this third phone does not work out. If they do not do as they say I'm going to break my contract and pay whatever and move to a different cell company just to get away from this piece of total garbage. As you can tell I'm so frustrated with the phone. I depend on my phone for personal as well as emergency issues. Why have a phone you can not depend on if it never has any power or dies in one call or less?

If you're only charging it for half an hour, there's your problem.  Just because you see the indicator as full does NOT mean it is fully charged.  Charge it overnight, then actually use it until the battery is dead and the phone powers itself off.  That last bar lasts a LONG time!  I know, that's been stated above but obviously it wasn't read. 

I work in a T-Mobile store, and we sell LOTS of these phones.  I see a tiny percentage come back with battery issues, and it's as simple as explaining to people that the battery indicator is not linear - each bar does not represent a specific amount of talk time.

It's like a car - you fill your tank, and the needle stays at full for a while even though you're driving around.  Does this mean you're not using gas?  Do you get mad when the needle moves progressively faster as you get closer to empty, then freak out at the car manufacturers?  I know it's not exactly the same (the issue with the Gravity is actually the reverse) but you should get my point.

I just purchased my phone Jan 2010 and the battery doesn't do 12 days of standby time. I called and got new battery and checked the user manual on how to charge the battery, it says nothing about conditioning it. I did 4 hrs from manual and battery was down in less than 12 hrs. I guess I will try and find out how to do an update, no bluetooth on my computer. My music experss phone has great battery life, its not a yr old. I think I will try the conditioning.