Mine will last a day of fairly heavy usage - but I do have a charger at work just in case.
It's about the same as I get out of WinMo or Symbian devices with large screens and HSDPA / WiFi usage - except the iPhone is so much better

If only the iPhone had a replaceable battery eh?

Wonder why they took that stance!

P

In fairness, there is one good reason for screwing in the battery - they can make it slimmer and lighter that way, without having to engineer in a door and user-accessable compartment for a battery that most users are never going to change anyway.

In all honesty, I've owned various smartphones over the last 5-6 years, but never once carried a spare battery or changed it through the day - you just re-charge when you need to, usually each day if you're a heavy user - the iPhone's no different, in fact it's battery life is very similar to the Tytn II, and not only did I not have a spare for that either, but getting the battery cover off was so fiddly they may as well have screwed that on as well!

In an ideal world yes, it would be nice to know I could change the battery, but it's misleading to pretend that they're be no down side to that - you'd end up with a thicker, heavier phone, and lose a lot of that trademark sleekness. Unless you are going to carry around a pocketfull of spare batteries routinely, you'd have to ask - why do it?

Ok, batteries are consumables and if you keep the phone for 2+ years, the chances are you will need to change it - but bear in mind, even Apple's charge for replacing it is only £55, that doesn't compare too badly with the price of a genuine battery from HTC or the like (and of course you can buy a kit and DIY for much less).

The G1's door may just be its back, but what's underneath, bare circuitry? I'm guessing not, I'm guessing there's a plastic user-servicable compartment in there, and enough material to give it structural rigidity to offset the flexibility of the removable back, am I right? All of that adds some weight and thickness.

I'm not saying Apple's approach is the "right" one, or not without its drawbacks, I can just see there are some advantages in this case. Making the iPhone a sealed unit makes it slimmer, it also makes it more solid and less prone to the ingress of dust and moisture etc. Virtually every picture I took on my old Tytn II was rubbish because of the amount of dust and crap collected on the inside of the camera lens, set into the removable back - the iPhone's camera is a similar arrangement set behind a skylight on the back of the phone, but it stays clean on the inside and the pictures are better for it.

If you're used to changing batteries regularly then the iPhone's not for you, but for the rest of us the design isn't so silly.

Actually the g1 has a thin plastic covering inside the battery area. The iphone has shielding between battery and other componants as well as, otherwise the 'bare circuitry' ( and there is none, all surfaces at the back of the 1st gen iphone I took apart had plastic membranes over everything) would short on the metal back plate wouldn't it (!) so IMO it's as complex a design as a removable battery and if you compare the actual thickness of the compartment the g1 has for the battery, it's thinnner than the iphone's battery area. The handsets are comparable in size also despie the g1 having a sliding screen.

I never said the iphone was 'silly' or 'not for me'

.. iphone is unneccesarily awkward and can pose real issues for some people who need more performance from a daily phone and not just a 'style statement' to look at while sipping their latte....

We're into comparing apples and oranges now though - I don't know how the battery sizes compare between the two, for one thing (the G1 reportedly has abysmal battery life, but whether that's the OS, hardware, or a lower capacity slimmer battery I don't know). I'm curious as to whether you've completely dismantled your G1 to confirm it has only a "thin" plastic covering inside the battery area.. if you're right and the room for the battery is actually smaller than that in the iPhone, then that right there is your tradeoff - more space needed for the compartment itself and a smaller battery (and lower life) as a result.
No, but then you go and spoil it all by something stupid like:
Which is just latte-bashing twaddle.

Making the iPhone a sealed unit makes it slimmer,

if you compare the actual thickness of the compartment the g1 has for the battery, it's thinnner than the iphone's battery area. The handsets are comparable in size also despie the g1 having a sliding screen.

MS - not everyone is as technically minded as you or as capable of changing a battery...

Best take it to a service center