HTC Desire and Battery Life

I love my HTC Desire, but there’s a major problem with it that I haven’t seen addressed anywhere – the battery life. I understand that it’s a high tech phone with a lot of features, but if it can’t last more than 24 hours with medium level usage then it becomes extremely frustrating. Have I just got a bad battery, or is this a problem with all the Desires?

Part of the problem is the phone seems to use so much battery when it’s on standby. I can understand it being battery intensive while playing games or watching video, but even the iPhone seems to retain battery life better when it’s not in use. Looking at my battery usage, it seems that WiFi takes up about a third of the battery life (on a side note, does anyone know how to turn off the WiFi without it turning itself back on?).

Yes, I could turn off the live background, go without WiFi and various other things, but the whole reason I bought the phone was to use these features! If I go on a quick train journey to London, I don’t want to have to be thinking about the battery life even if I left with full charge.

So for now, my only option is to charge the phone every night. Not the end of the world, but hopefully by the time I need to get my next phone the batteries will be a lot better. Aside from the battery life, the phone is brilliant and does everything I want, so it’s a shame to be let down by this fundamental problem. I don’t think it’s something that just affects the Desire though – more smart phones have big issues with battery life.