I am on ATT but after 6 months I am still impressed with the battery life. I always have might brightness on like 50% full on can make you go blind lol. I habitually lock the screen. I also shut the wifi off when I leave the house because it drains the battery constantly searching for access. I don't stream much that will kill you. I keep stuff I want to hear on the drive. Uses hardly any juice to use the iPod. That's my main points. The battery is way better than my old phone and it was dumb no touch jobby. Good luck.
Friend of mine also has ATnT and I even sent him screen captures of how using text free to text him, every 2 minutes that I would be using that app/screen on the battery would go down a percent. I never even made calls for a period of time. No emails. I have textfree app on my ipod touch--which uses my home wifi. I have wifi-OFF on my iPhone.
**The tech support dude told me to charge the phone to 100% before bed. Turn phone off, then back on and close out any open apps. (This was to see if my 100%-54% drop occurs again)--This morning it stayed at 100%. I had 2 texts through textfree, 4 emails. I went for the emails first. And again went from 100% to 99%, 98%, 97%, 96% etc. Up until right now, which is at 88%. This is ONLY from checking emails which were replies from this thread and checking/replying to the other 2 texts. Is that REALLY supposed to drop like that? I took screen shots of the time/percentage and it clearly shows every 2 minutes, it's a drop in percent only by doing those things. My iPod DOES NOT drain this fast I can tell you that much...and even if it did, its understandable since it doesn't have as big of battery as the iPhone 4 does. Am I right? I will call them again today. I don't have applecare but can I still call them for info?
So is there a problem with my battery? I have deleted the text free app but I will be checking emails, and go on the web, and text through regular texting (I guess I will spend another 10 bucks for unlimited text to all carriers even though I shouldnt have to with this batt issue, but don't want textfree being some kind of nitwit).
I don't mind having to lock my screen that's totally fine. I am willing to do and try anything to make sure my battery life does not drain as fast, but I am going to keep the screen lit to MY preference which is like the above poster at 50%.
Someone intrigue me with their Verizon iPhone (or even atnt people) and turn on your battery percentage indicator (Settings-General-Usage-Battery Percentage ON). Charge fully, or check how fast your percentage drops against the time. For me, I really find it on my phone to be every 2 minutes from just being in settings and doing simple things. SIMPLE things. I am not playing any games, just what I have in email when I get an email (push, but manual fetch are my settings).
But it's like when I am using the phone it drops a percent every 2 minutes as I keep saying. I typed pretty much the same on my blackberry storm and also bbm'd and my battery would still be alive and kicking and never locked it. I have my iphone auto-lock setting at 1 minute, ever since I got the phone.