Does The iPhone 3GS Battery Suck?

There have been a lot of mixed reviews on the iPhone 3GS battery, you know, the battery which supposedly is much improved. I personally have not experienced extreme drain in battery life with my 3GS that other people apparently have.  The battery life seems to be about the same as it was when I had the iPhone 3G using the 3.0 operating system.  However, the same cannot be said about my girlfriend’s iPhone 3GS battery.

I have watched as her battery drains extremely quickly with only slight usage and very little stand by time.  I guess the question here is whether the problem is hardware or software related?  My bet is it’s a software problem as is usually the case with Apple products.  The reason I think it’s software is two-fold.  First, many people have experienced extreme battery drain when going from 2.2.1 to 3.0 on their iPhone 3G.  And second, according to at least one Macrumors user who is using the latest 3.1 operating system build from Apple he is seeing a substantial improvement in battery life.

“I have been experiencing bad battery drainage with 3.0 to the point that it would be 50% in about 4 hours which is pretty bad.  Currently, im on hour two with no USB connection and its still at 98%.”

That is very good. As I said, I do not notice any battery issues with my iPhone 3GS but I am not getting battery life like he is claiming. If those remarks are true, I’m impressed. Granted he’s just one user out of the millions out there, but that gives us hope.

What about you? How is your iPhone 3G or 3GS battery life running the 3.0 operating system? Let us know in the comments!