Do you have LTE turned off since you state you don't live in a LTE area? In all honesty, you're comparing a more complicated device to an older BB Curve and it's battery life...which is not the thing to do. You can not expect the same battery life (in general that is) to your BB because it's really not going to happen. The 5% drop you experienced may not be bad at all if you had what amounted to 50 minutes of use...what does it say under usage for usage and standby? You don't have to over do it to the degree you mentioned (limiting yourself to only texting and a few phone calls)...the battery isn't going to drain THAT fast, but if you're concerned or what you really want to do is more intensive acts that will help the battery drain much quicker (streaming for example) then yes, you will need to have a way to charge on standby....just in case. That could be taking your charger to work with you...or having a car charger to re-juice while traveling...not necessarily what you may have been expecting, especially coming from a BB but not something completely unheard of from most LTE devices or most current smartphones.
My own personal battery life so far is better than I expected but I am coming from the iPhone 4s so I am used to iPhone battery life. Also, maybe restoring my iPhone 5 from my 4s backup helped with the settings all being in great places automatically...I'm not sure. I don't check it every hour or anything to be able to tell you the % left (I don't have that turned on in settings...I turn it on briefly when curious but I have never left it on...no particular reason other than having the number sitting in the corner annoyed me lol), but I have used my 5 in the same manner that I have my 4s and I have not needed any additional day charges. I have gone well over 24 hours before charging was needed (when the 20% warning popped up) on most days....the shortest timeframe before having to charge again was 17 hours...and that was after spending several hours in the waiting room at the car dealership so I played long sessions of games while listening to music and responding to texts and FB messages whenever they popped up. And even after all of that, when I plugged the phone up I still had not received the 20% warning (it was at 23% when I plugged it up). I also took some pictures and 2 short videos...and checked emails...sent texts throughout the day and used FB/Twitter/Instagram throughout the day...and made some phone calls. I do live in a LTE area if that matters although the 5 is my first 4G phone. I stayed away from 4G initially because it was not in my area and because I saw the dreadful battery lives of friends with 4G Android devices (granted, there are currently Androids with better battery life). I went with the 5 concerned about the battery life because of 4G (which I have no problem turning off if the drain became too much since ultimately, I don't care all that much about it. It's nice but 3G isn't so slow that it makes use unbearable...try remembering dial-up internet and maybe you'll appreciate it a little more lol). At any rate, those are my current experiences with the iPhone 5....to me the experience feels successful, but to others the battery life I listed may seem terrible. Just thought I'd share to give you an idea of what I am experiencing...hopefully you'll see others real-use info and it will help you determine what may be "normal"....and help you figure out if you are having a battery issue that may need to be looked in to.
