Thursday
Oct112012
Does your Smartphone battery life limit your usage patterns?
Thursday, October 11, 2012 at 3:00AM With Smartphones with larger screens and superb resolution, I find I am using my Galaxy Note I and SIII more than my tablets and laptop. So for me battery life is becoming a real issue. Does your Smartphone battery life limit your usage patterns? Thanks again to Jah.
Reader Comments (14)
Spare battery FTW :o)
I don't think battery considerations affect my usage patterns all that much.
Jah it might be worth looking on the XDA S3 forums if you haven't already; they have tips on how to conserve battery. For example I think there was an issue where the radio wouldn't go back to sleep quickly enough after checking for, say, email and that caused additional battery drain. In fact flashing a different radio to your phone can make a huge difference. The best radio for you will depend on what country you're in and which carrier you're with.
When I am travelling out of the greater metropolitan area, I find I have to remember to switch to Flight mode, or my phone (HTC ChaCha) will flatten it's battery from fully charged to powered down before lunch as it tries to extract a signal where none exist (similarly with my HTC HD2 with Android ROM).
One up for Apple, my wife's iPhone 3G seems to take a more sensible approach to out-of-signal areas, and conserves it's battery better.
@Bug, when I suggested this QOTD I did not have my Note II, which seems to have fantastic battery life, and better than my S3. For both my devices I always have over 50% left before sleep time :-)
The iPhone 5 seems ok to last a day. To be honest my car charger is never too far away. But if I was going to be out for a long day without power I would manage the phone accordingly.
Not since I bought an extended battery
Not really. I have a car charger and a battery extender for long flights if needed. Come to think of it, that extender won't work with my iPhone 5.
On both the Galaxy Note 2 and HTC One X battery life is significantly more than a day however hard I push them. The Lumia 800 will run a full day if I'm careful with it.
As I always charge overnight anyway that's as much as I need.
@Jah my gf got her (grey) Note II yesterday. She's been using it a lot today and barely made a dent in that huge battery so far. Her old Galaxy S would have been close to dead by now.
She's also getting reception where she works, which she didn't with the S. That probably makes a difference too; the S would have been ramping up the power trying to get something.
Battery life is a very big deal to her because it was the one thing she hated about the S.
She's loving the Note II for quite a few reasons btw :o)
@Bug that's great news. Battery should get better after a few full charges.
I used my Note to record gadget shopping list.
My S2 seems to be better than my S was. It's when on holiday that I get paranoid. I read, use gps, internet, listen to music more than I do when I'm working. Lately it seems to be lasting especially well for some reason. Would the update to 4.03 have anything to do with that?
@vboelema could be. Perhaps a new radio was included in the update, or some inefficency was corrected. Could even be as random as a cell tower near you being upgraded so the phone doesn't have to strain to get a signal.
Apparently the biggest thing in Android 4.2 is greatly improved power management, so the battery life should get better still.
@Jah I'm getting her to completely run the phone down once, which I've always understood to be a good thing to do with lithium-ion batteries (and then avoid running it below 10% because that damages the battery and reduces the capacity).
Without actually trying to run it down she did manage to get it down to 35% by the time she got home, but she used it a lot more than she would normally and she'd have had to charge her Galaxy S twice on a normal day.
Interestingly the only other person in her office who has the Note II is a tiny Chinese woman, who was walking around clutching it lovingly to her chest like a shield.
I never give that much use to my devices, so never had issues with batteries. And I do charge them everyday, even if they are 99% ;-) On average I reach the end of the day at 70-80% - I work all day, you know ;-)