Last month our editor Mike brought you the news that BlackBerry has revealed they have experienced issues with the Torch battery on OS versions above 6.0.0.526.
This issue caused by the Phone application placing higher than normal load on the device CPU causing your battery to drain faster than normal, As a Torch 9800 user I decided to put some different OS’s to test so I could bring you our readers the best possible advice for saving your battery your 9800.
I decided to test some different OS’s from 6.0.0.448 right to the recent 6.0.0.600, To make it a fair test I used BBSAK to wipe my device to a 507 screen before loading each OS and I loaded each OS with the same Settings, Email Accounts & Apps.
Below are my findings based on 24 hours usage for each OS.
OS 6.0.0.448
Loaded: Wednesday June 22nd 10pm
Apps Loaded: UberSocial, Foursquare, BerryWeather, BerryReader, Facebook, BBM6 & WordPress
I charged the battery overnight for 8hrs until 7am and by 12pm I had noticed a drop to 85% with some general use and a bit of web browsing via WiFi, By 6pm the battery had dropped to 60% remaining so I decided to make a few more calls and also used youtube to watch a few videos and by 10pm on Thursday I had only managed to get the battery down to 30% remaining.
OS 6.0.0.526
Loaded: Friday June 24th 10pm
Apps Loaded: UberSocial, Foursquare, BerryWeather, BerryReader, Facebook, BBM6 & WordPress
I again charged my battery overnight for 8hrs until 7am and this time by 12pm I had noticed a significant drop to almost %70 and I had only used it to make a few phone calls and send some emails, By 6pm after I had made a few more calls and sent some sms I had noticed a drop to 45% and by 10pm Saturday I was down to 15% remaining after using WiFi to do some web browsing.
OS 6.0.0.576
Loaded: Wednesday 6th July 10pm
Apps Loaded: UberSocial, Foursquare, BerryWeather, BerryReader, Facebook, BBM6 & WordPress
I again charged the battery overnight for 8hrs until 7am and by 12pm I noticed a drop to 70% again same as .526 I had used the phone as usual to make some calls and send my daily emails, By 6pm though the battery had only dropped to 50% a slight improvement on the last OS so I decided to use a bit more WiFi and do a bit of web browsing and by 10pm Thursday I was down to 10% remaining.
OS 6.0.0.600
Loaded: Friday 15th July 10pm
Apps Loaded: UberSocial, Foursquare, BerryWeather, BerryReader, Facebook, BBM6 & WordPress
Finally again I charged the battery overnight for 8hrs until 7am and by 12pm I noticed a drop to 60% by far the worse OS so far and again I had used the device for some calls and emails, By 6pm I was already down to around 35% so again I fired up the WiFi and did some web browsing and this time I never made it to 10pm by around 9:30pm on Saturday I was reaching for my charger!!
I have found over the weeks that the Torch 9800 OS’s have been slowly getting worse in terms of battery life.
So my conclusion is that OS 6.0.0.448 is the best OS so far for battery life for the 9800 as it only dropped by 70% in 24 hours with moderate usage (calls & sms) and some WiFi browsing.
So if you want to help your Torch 9800 battery I would suggest that you load OS6.0.0.448 found here
And as always you can follow @BBempire, @BBerryEmpire & Me your UK Editor @just_j0e for all your BlackBerry news and reviews
Apps Loaded: UberSocial, Foursquare, BerryWeather, BerryReader, Facebook, BBM6 & WordPress