Smartphone Battery Life?

[SYNACK]

When is it that 'lasts almost a whole day of moderate usage' became something to brag about rather than something to make fun of. I have been looking at 'upgrading' my Touch Pro 2 which does push email, internet (although slowly) and most of the other nessisaries. It easily lasts me anywhere from two up to almost four days on a charge.

 

Now looking at forums, reviews etc. the current trend appears to be phones that 'can last a whole day' if your careful. What the hell is the point of a 'mobile' device that is pretty much required to be tethered to power the whole day just to keep it working.

 

I thought that this was limited to Android with its sprawling powerhungry mess of an OS but even the mighty iWhatevers seem to have simmilarly tiny runtimes and the Windows Phone stuff is not that much better, if at all.

 

I could deal with loosing a day of battery life and as I don't really use it that much for calls or even lots of data thanks to the insane prices of it over here they may well last the two days at a push.

 

Is anyone else bitterly dissapointed at the 'progress' in battery life? It seems that it has gone back to the 22h charge of my first ever motorola.

[Quackers]

I get almost a day out of my Samsung Galaxy SII, and i have always charged my phone every night since my first Smart Phone the Nokia 7650 back in 2003.

 

I did earlier in the week buy the larger capacity battery for my phone, because if something cropped up after work, by 7-8PM my phone would be dead without a charge.

If i go on a day trip it will last all day so long as i do nothing but make calls or texts, if i start to regularly use apps or the net bye bye battery. So i am hoping the jump from a 1300mAh battery to 2000mAh battery will help a lot. Nokia had the right idea with there Coca Cola powered phone Nokia Concept Phone Runs on Coke | Inhabitat - Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building in all seriousness i think the 1 spec smart phone makers should be jumping on is battery life. I do not mind the phones being a little heavier or bigger than they are now if i could get 2 days usage out if a smartphone with reasonable usage or 1 full day extreme usage.

[sted]

Its one of the things im fed up with smartphones add poor voice calls (ive lost count of the number of times ive had half a conversation either i can hear them or they can hear me but not both) and data connections that dont work says you have a signal but try getting a web page and phone says no. Im going back to a brick next time every smartphone ive used they seem to get clever people working on features and let a work experience kid do the phone part

[localzuk]

I treat my phone like I would have treated a PDA of old. Basically, in the office and at home it is 'docked'.

 

The biggest drain on battery I've found is travelling. Take last weekend, I got on a train around 11:30am, and got to my destination at around 5pm. My battery was down to about 5%. If I stay in range of a single tower and a wifi network, my battery will easily last 18 hours.

 

Its why I will only buy phones with user replaceable batteries - so I can buy spares for when I go travelling.

[markcuk]

get 5 days out of my wildfire s

 

just turn on the features when I need them no problems

[bossman]

Normal usage means that I can wring on average 2 days off my Blackberry Bold 9900.

 

I have been reading of the University of Sheffield that they have developed a fluid battery which will be further developed which holds a larger and longer charge although this will be another 10 years in development.

 

It does seem that until a battery can be developed which can last longer than a few days that we will all be tethered to the power lines, what would be cool is while we were connected to the ISP that they could charge through the wireless connection, or even solar panels built into the shell of the unit.

 

With future developments of software and the way in which the OS communicates with the hardware should allow apps to work without too much drain on the power.

[arwen]

With mobile data turned on, wifi and BT turned off, in a decent signal area, and various apps syncing back and forth at various intervals I can get around 17hrs out of my GS2 with the standard battery.

When is bad signal areas this can drop to 10hrs or less.

 

But with data turned off, like I did at the weekend cause I was in Hay (terrible signal) it lasted me from 3pm on Friday, till around 4pm on Saturday with no problems. It was still at 40% charge when I plugged it in on the Saturday. During this time I checked twitter, emails etc every few hours, then turned data back off. I was also texting frequently and 3 or 4 short phone calls.

 

 

So the batteries can manage to power the phone for extended periods of time, it just communication that eats up the battery power. Better management would probably solve it I think, rather than just constantly increasing batteries.

[jamesbrown]

I normally get a day out of my Sony Ericsson Xperia neo with data turned on and wifi turned off. Charge it every night

[broc]

I have been putting off changing my phone for exactly this reason; It seems that the current trend of slimmer, lighter phones with bigger & higher resolution screens & multi-core processors is not helping. I can make my HTC Desire last a couple of days or more by reducing it's capabilities to the level of the Nokia phone I had previously i.e. turning off data, Wifi, GPS, not using any apps but then what's the point of having a smartphone?

[Geoff]

I get 2-3days out of my Samsung Galaxy S2. However I'm running a custom rom with a custom kernel and modem firmware plus most of the bloatware removed.

[aerospacemango]

Here's my view!

 

On Monday, I took the family to Skegness, from Northants, and whilst in the car I put the phone into "airplane mode" and gave it to my son so he could play lots of games (BMX Boy, Pool Master, Angry Birds etc). The drive took 2 hours and when we arrived I was pleasantly surprised to see that there was still bags of charge.

 

Turning airplane mode OFF, I updated twitter/foursquare/facebook throughout the day, and STILL had lots of charge for the journey home and the inevitable playing of games.

 

This is all on a Galaxy S.

 

Mind you, if I keep everything on, and I'm at work, the battery tends to last until about 4pm!

[pete]

SGS2, custom rom. 2-3 days or thereabouts with bluetooth and GPS off unless I need them.

[jinnantonnixx]

Let's not forget that these devices are as powerful as a laptop from a couple of years ago.

 

You can get apps that switch off 3G, data and Wifi between say, midnight and 7am. This might help.

[SYNACK]

Was talking to someone here with an S2 and they usually manage a couple of days but with push email turned off. Despite the feature lack I'm still leaning back towards the Nokia Lumina series just because with actual usage they sound like they last longer after the firmware update.

 

The problem is that no-one seems to review the standby time or MP3 playing time at all. Sure the reviews would be useful if I was planning to sin on the thing for six hour at a time plating games but that is not exactly my usage pattern. I want details about how long it lasts with a few texts and email accounts, including push turned on, or how long it can play MP3s before the battery quits. Our networks are also hack, we have alright coverage but this fancy 3G stuff is only just getting reliable outside the main centers so battry life of these devices is just a complete unknown for the most part.

 

My workday would easily outlast most of the runtimes as I tend to work for really long stretches at a time.

Edited June 6, 2012 by SYNACK

[Geoff]

A lot of the battery drain will come from the phone trying to get a signal, it's litterally shouting and trying to be heard. This can kill your battery fast in poor signal areas. How is the mobile coverage down in NZ? I'm guessing terrible outside the townships?

[Michael]

It's a well known fact that all so called 'Smartphones' have many apps running in the background and these use more processing power. By properly closing the apps, this will save a considerable amount of battery life.

 

Personally I have a small brick which does this thing called phone calls and text messaging. It lasts upto 4 days (depending how much I talk) or text. Bearing in mind I spend a lot of the time in front of a PC, I see little point requiring a Smartphone.

[SYNACK]

A lot of the battery drain will come from the phone trying to get a signal, it's litterally shouting and trying to be heard. This can kill your battery fast in poor signal areas. How is the mobile coverage down in NZ? I'm guessing terrible outside the townships?

 

The coverage is not really that bad, we have great GSM coverage for the most part. 3G is alright in the main centers but not spectacular and faster UTMS is very limited in scope. As such most of the standby and usage times hold little relivance here as you may well be on a signal two generations behind most of the time.

[sted]

It's a well known fact that all so called 'Smartphones' have many apps running in the background and these use more processing power. By properly closing the apps, this will save a considerable amount of battery life.

 

Personally I have a small brick which does this thing called phone calls and text messaging. It lasts upto 4 days (depending how much I talk) or text. Bearing in mind I spend a lot of the time in front of a PC, I see little point requiring a Smartphone.

 

it can actually be quite hard to properly kill them you have to go into taskmanager or whatever its called and kill them) and even if you do ive noticed google maps for one just starts itself again

[Michael]

it can actually be quite hard to properly kill them you have to go into taskmanager or whatever its called and kill them) and even if you do ive noticed google maps for one just starts itself again

 

I can't speak for every Smartphone, but here's how to do it on the iPhone. You'd be surprised just how many rows of apps you end up closing.

[arwen]

For comparison on what's eating the battery life... I drove 440ish miles on friday, phone plugged into car stereo and playing music through it (Winamp app), also using Google Navigate (GPS on), with the display always on, but 'dimmed' when no immediate instructions. The phone was also plugged into my car charger which is rated at 500mA (No idea if it is, I don't have a thingy to check). It took a grand total of 250 miles before it died!

On the return journey I didn't use it for music, only Navigate, got out the car at home and it was still fully charged. No idea how playing music can use up all the juice!!

[SimpleSi]

I've got a large battery for my S2 as it would start to conk out about 6-7pm if I'd used a lot during the day

 

Si

[jinnantonnixx]

Anecdote time. I recently bought a Motorola Defy Mini (Asda is selling them unlocked for £79). It's not a brilliant phone, but it's perfectly adequate, and water 'resistant' too (though I won't deliberately test that claim).

 

Since its last charge, I've used the GPS to track a 90 minute walk, used the music player for 4x30 min sessions (with headphones, not speaker), a spot of Youtube, auto-checking 3 email accounts every 30 minutes and I've made a few calls and taken a few photos.

 

So far, it's been on battery for exactly 48 hours and still has 25% charge left.

 

Not bad at all.

 

Mind you, it has a smallish screen and fairly low power processor, but it's OK for my modest requirements of the phone. It has a power conserver tool built into the ROM which I've configured to switch off data between 11pm and 7am. I'm sure this helps significantly.

Edited June 13, 2012 by jinnantonnixx

[SimpleSi]

It has a power conserver tool built into the ROM which I've configured to switch off data between 11pm and 7am. I'm sure this helps significantly.

I find sticking my phone on charge between 11pm and 7am helps a bit more significantly

Si

[aerospacemango]

I find sticking my phone on charge between 11pm and 7am helps a bit more significantly

Si

 

2nd funniest thing I've read today!

 

Which is precisely what I do... Go to bed, stick it on charge!

[mac_shinobi]

2nd funniest thing I've read today!

 

Which is precisely what I do... Go to bed, stick it on charge!

 

Don't have an android based phone but I normally put mine in aeroplane mode before going to bed and if it needs a charge then shove it on charge in aeroplane mode, wireless and bluetooth are disabled unless I need them and I turn the screen brightness down