Last weekend I was fifth in line at one of my local Apple stores for a 16gb black iPhone. I was knocked out of line because I had a discount on my AT&T account and Apple basically said, if you have a discount on your account, their system throws up an error, so it’s a no go. I was told the change would take a minimum of 24 hours to even take effect, so I just watched my friend get his shiny new toy hoping that this was a sign to hold on to my silver iPhone.

Later that day, I called AT&T to remove my discount in anticipation of getting a new phone in the near future. I called a different local Apple store and asked them if they had 16gb black phones in stock and they did. When I got there, the lady at the store told me they only had white ones left so I just went for it.

After a few days of usage, I was very disappointed with the battery performance. I couldn’t believe that it was THAT bad or as bad as some on the internets were saying it was. It got so bad I started to do tests. One thing that was truly wrong was, when plugging in the phone at 10% charge in red, the phone would charge to 100% within an hour. But I was getting mixed comments from Twitterers and friends. Some say 2 hours of usage between charges was normal. Other friends were getting between 4 and 6 hours of usage with 40-50% battery left. The most I was getting was 2 hours of usage with 10% left. I knew that couldn’t be right.

Mix this with the fact that the white ones were starting to crack, I really thought it was time to get a replacement. I was able to do a retail swap for a black 16gb iPhone and the results were staggering. My usage went way up to about 6 hours of usage with 50% battery left. With this in mind it’s easy to say that the white one I was using had something wrong with it. And to the people who told me that they thought 2 hours of usage was normal should really take a look at their phone as well. When a product like this comes out to less than stellar battery reviews, it can be hard to tell if your battery is actually performing properly. I wonder how many people, like me, actually have a defective battery and think it’s normal.

I’ve had the worst luck with iPhones in general. Last generation, I had gone through two different replacements because my iPhone had the washed out black issue. I’ve actually had bad luck with Apple hardware altogether. My first Macbook Pro had a defective ambient light sensor. My current Macbook Pro had a whacked out keyboard which I just got replaced. Now, I am reading that all of the nvidia graphics cards in Penryns (mine) are defective. It never ends with me and this “luck”.

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