New iPhone 4S owners are starting to fill forums and Twitter feeds with complaints about their handsets' battery life. Although some are suggesting that iOS 5 has also had a negative effect on power usage on other iDevices, it is the new Apple phone that is attracting the most frustration.

Apple's own forums are seeing the most amount of messages from concerned customers, with one user, Scarface, posting, "My iPhone 4S battery seems terrible! Almost equivalent to my 3GS and its terrible battery life."

Richardfrombromley states that the battery drain is much worse than on his original handset: "Have been using iPhone 4 and the battery has been OK," he says. "But since getting the 4S I am experiencing terrible battery drain in comparison."

Apple forumite kaleibear is also dismayed at the 4S issues: "My iPhone 4S battery life is terrible. I'm always experiencing a 10-15% drop per hour. I unplugged my phone this morning at 8:20 and it's now 12:15 and my battery is on 53%."

Even tech journalists are venting their frustrations. Ex-Pocket-linter (now at TheNextWeb) Courtney Boyd Myers (@CBM) posted the following tweet: "woah. iphone4s fail. went to sleep with 50% batt, iphone died in the night. no alarm. yikes!"

And Nate Lanxon (@NateLanxon), editor of Wired.co.uk, tweeted: "iPhone 4S battery is down to 75% after 1 hour 50 mins of standby since fully charged. Something's gotta be up right?"

However, it does seem as if some users are starting to figure out solutions. Nate himself suggests that if you turn off all push notifications system-wide, you'll see an immediate benefit. And some are suggesting that it is better to back up the handset and restore it from the back up, although Pocket-lint isn't quite sure why this would work.

Nearly all, though, agree that this is an issue that is likely to be addressed by Apple with an update to iOS 5. But when that might happen is anybody's guess.

Thanks Sam.