It's Not Your Imagination: Smartphone Battery Life Is Getting Worse (washingtonpost.com) 160
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Washington Post: For the last few weeks, I've been performing the same battery test over and over again on 13 phones. With a few notable exceptions, this year's top models underperformed last year's. The new iPhone XS died 21 minutes earlier than last year's iPhone X. Google's Pixel 3 lasted nearly an hour and a half less than its Pixel 2. Phone makers tout all sorts of tricks to boost battery life, including more-efficient processors, low-power modes and artificial intelligence to manage app drain. Yet my results, and tests by other reviewers I spoke with, reveal an open secret in the industry: the lithium-ion batteries in smartphones are hitting an inflection point where they simply can't keep up.
"Batteries improve at a very slow pace, about 5 percent per year," says Nadim Maluf, the CEO of a Silicon Valley firm called Qnovo that helps optimize batteries. "But phone power consumption is growing up faster than 5 percent." Blame it on the demands of high-resolution screens, more complicated apps and, most of all, our seeming inability to put the darn phone down. Lithium-ion batteries, for all their rechargeable wonder, also have some physical limitations, including capacity that declines over time -- and the risk of explosion if they're damaged or improperly disposed. And the phone power situation is likely about to get worse. New ultrafast wireless technology called 5G, coming to the U.S. neighborhoods soon, will make even greater demands on our beleaguered batteries. If you want a smartphone that excels in battery life, you pretty much have two options: Samsung's Galaxy Note 9 and Apple's iPhone XR. According to The Washington Post's tests, the iPhone XR and Note 9 topped the list with times of 12:25 and 12:00, respectively.
"Batteries improve at a very slow pace, about 5 percent per year," says Nadim Maluf, the CEO of a Silicon Valley firm called Qnovo that helps optimize batteries. "But phone power consumption is growing up faster than 5 percent." Blame it on the demands of high-resolution screens, more complicated apps and, most of all, our seeming inability to put the darn phone down. Lithium-ion batteries, for all their rechargeable wonder, also have some physical limitations, including capacity that declines over time -- and the risk of explosion if they're damaged or improperly disposed. And the phone power situation is likely about to get worse. New ultrafast wireless technology called 5G, coming to the U.S. neighborhoods soon, will make even greater demands on our beleaguered batteries. If you want a smartphone that excels in battery life, you pretty much have two options: Samsung's Galaxy Note 9 and Apple's iPhone XR. According to The Washington Post's tests, the iPhone XR and Note 9 topped the list with times of 12:25 and 12:00, respectively.
Easy solution (Score:5, Interesting)
All that has to happen is that smartphone makers (Apple I'm looking at you) need to stop the obsession with making every device thinner than the last one and add a bigger battery pack or make a decent interface for a battery case that doesn't involve a clumsy and bulky pass through of the USB port.
There are a lot of us (myself included) who wouldn't mind a modestly thicker device in exchange for a bigger battery, better camera, etc. I'm going to put a case on anyway so why not facilitate putting some real utility into the case while we are at it? In an elegant way rather than the clumsy hacks we've seen to date. It would be trivial to allow people to add the audio jacks to the case for those who want one while permitting those who don't care to add something else. As big as the market is currently for smartphone accessories I think it could be a LOT bigger than it currently is if Apple and others would get their head out of their designers asses and look at how people actually use these things.
Easier solution (Score:1)
Re: Easier solution (Score:2, Insightful)
This is the simplest and most reasonable answer to this problem. This was a non issue 10 to 15 years ago. For obvious spy on you reasons, most manufacturers will not allow this anymore.
First they take away your battery, then stupid problems arise, and we have to read stupid articles about something with a very simple solution to battery problems, which again, were a nonissue.
Second answer in addition to above is stop the stupid app craze that has access to everything and sends data at 5am when sleeping, e
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I wish removable batteries would come back, I really do...
But it'll never happen. Consumers are cheap, they'll buy the cheapest battery on Amazon, then when their house burns down sue the phone manufacturer. Which is why they went away in the first place...
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My $19 bar-phone has a removable battery -- and that battery gives OVER TWO WEEKS of operation per charge.
Sure, I don't have a fancy "retina" touch-screen, octo-core processor or the ability to surf the web but hey, all *I* want is a phone to talk on and send SMS/receive SMS messages.
For *real* computing tasks I have an array of different computers (tablets, laptops, desktops).
Horses for courses!
This tiny phone is small enough to fit nicely in my shirt or jacket pocket without even causing a bulge so even i
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I have an Android phone that gives me over a week without charge. The trick is no never register a Google account on the device. It's an old phone with a degraded battery. I reset the device, gave it to my kid in middle school so she can call and message me if needed. She hardly ever charges the thing. If you skip the part about registering it to a Google account, it doesn't phone home at all, and saves a ton of battery life.
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I'd happily have a 25% thicker iPhone for better battery life. I think you're missing the point of cases somewhat about cases though as even with a thicker phone I'm going to put it in a case to avoid damaging the device itself even if the device was bigger. I might have risked dropping an old plastic nokia that cost ~£150 but no
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Or integrate the case into the phone, making them much larger than they are now, but still relatively small compared with a phones from a few years ago.
Make the phone indestructible out of the box, and use that extra space for a MUCH larger battery. I think my cases triple the thickness of my phones.Could probably get 10x battery life if they wanted.
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Re:Easy solution (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as I'm concerned they can also stop making them larger (those bigger screens require more power as well). Then again it seems to be what the market is asking for,
This,
The newer generation of SoC's are allegedly meant to consume less power, however more screen real estate means that any savings are being eaten up by the most power hungry component of the device. I've noticed a recent trend of making phones longer rather than wider (I.E. a 19:9 ratio screen rather than 16:9).
My Nexus 5x packed it in last week so I went and bough a Nokia 7.1, after nearly 3 years the battery on my 5x only lasted a day max, 18 or so hours with typical usage so the new phone is going to have a better battery life.
Re:Easy solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Easy solution (Score:3)
The fact that companies like Zerolemon exist and have consistently made a profit for years now means that there is definitely a viable market for bulkier phones with significantly better battery life. You would think that at least one major phone manufacturer would have the balls to at least try and court that market.
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Re: Easy solution (Score:2)
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Indeed. People would buy a phone with a plastic banana stuck on the end of it if Apple sold one. This ladies and gentlemen is what the Hawthorn effect means in terms of marketing. Every year the brand has to change its product slightly and it will sell merely because it is different from last years product. They could sell a phone that sterilizes your gonads and people would still buy it if it was different from last years model. You just have to wait years for a phone with actual decent physical characteri
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The funny thing is: just 1mm more thickness would already make a lot of difference and probably solve the problem.
I think there's also a weight problem. I didn't put my hands on new iphones yet, but the iPhone X certainly is ridiculously heavy.
Ridiculously heavy? It's people like you that are responsible for this ever decreasing trend in size/weight. It weighs 6 ounces, about an ounce more than my Pixel 2. And while I don't like to brag, I can lift 6 ounces in my bare hand without my arm getting tired.
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Why do we even need a separate case? All those super thin phones are pointless if you need to put them into a bulky case to protect them. Make the phones themselves thougher and case-like protection, add a bigger battery and camera, and you'll have a far better device that's not any bigger than a thin phone in a case.
Cases have utility (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do we even need a separate case? All those super thin phones are pointless if you need to put them into a bulky case to protect them.
The modularity of the cases has actual utility. It's cheap to replace a damaged or worn case. Plus it provides an opportunity for people to personalize their device both aesthetically and functionally. The problem is that Apple and others have ignored the function component of cases. It's a huge missed opportunity.
And some people like the thin phones and some don't bother with a case. So by making cases as functional as possible you increase utility to the largest quantity of smartphone users with the fewest trade-offs. Speaking for myself I'd like a case with a bigger battery and better camera optics. Other people would probably like a 3.5mm audio jack or a SD card slot. By making a way for the case to provide this functionality people can get the device they want and Apple/Samsung/etc can focus on making the core device as tight as they like.
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Well, with my Fairphone 2, the body itself is modular. If it gets damaged, I can replace the body while keeping the rest of the phone. Having the body and the case as two separate things is useless.
I'm fine with some smartphones being super thin, fragile and having no battery life if that's what some people want, but I'd like there to also be phones that are more sturdy and have better battery life. Buying a separate case that adds bulk without adding battery life is a wasted opportunity.
Consumer reports says battery life did NOT go down (Score:5, Interesting)
Consumer reports did the same sort of tests and reports the opposite finding at least on the iphone X series.
What did they do differently? well consumer reports uses a robotic finger to run the test suite the same way that a human finger would. The Washington pose it appears used programatic control to drive the phone.
It appears that perhaps the User interface engineers have discovered how to let the phone rest between finger taps or to anticipate what finger taps follow others such that it actually improves power efficiencny.
Now as for your comment about case modularity. Well it's a nice thought and the argument makes sense down to the point where it defeats the overall objective. Here things have scaled down to the point where the case is taking up a significant portion of the volume. Having two cases is nuts when you could have a bigger battery in the same volume.
One could imagine having a replaceable cover on a phone without a structural inner case.
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One could imagine having a replaceable cover on a phone without a structural inner case.
That's how phones actually are in general now. Flimsy AF but with an included slim case that gives it basic physical integrity.
Don't make perfect the enemy of good (Score:2)
Now as for your comment about case modularity. Well it's a nice thought and the argument makes sense down to the point where it defeats the overall objective. Here things have scaled down to the point where the case is taking up a significant portion of the volume. Having two cases is nuts when you could have a bigger battery in the same volume.
There are several problems with your argument. Here are just a few: 1) None of the smartphone makers are going to change from the current case paradigm for a variety of reasons. 2) There is utility in a second casing since the device remains useful without the outer case. This allows multiple cases for different purposes. 3) Obviously people are fine with adding secondary cases. 4) User applied cases are going to have substantial problems with water and dust proofing. (they definitely won't be waterpr
The walkman (Score:2)
Sony engineer: We cane make it smaller if we leave out the recording function.
Sony marketing Exec: No one will want a tiny cassette tape player without a record function.
Someone decided to try--
Apple removed the floppy and every howled.
taking away things that have always been there isn't always a bad thing,
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One could imagine having a replaceable cover on a phone without a structural inner case.
You could imagine it but it wouldn't be a very good idea in day to day use for most people.
It works perfectly fine with my Fairphone. I think it's a good idea.
Single data point (Score:2)
It works perfectly fine with my Fairphone. I think it's a good idea.
judging by sales you are in a vanishingly small minority. Please note I'm not being critical of your choice of device, just observing the reality that most people demonstrably have approximately zero interest in repairing their own device or digging around in the guts of them or dealing with the tradeoffs involved. It's cheaper and easier for most of them to take their phone to a store and get a warranty replacement or whatever accessories they need.
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Most people have never even heard of the Fairphone, and just buy from major brands.
The Fairphone is far from perfect, mind you, but the modular approach seems like a good idea.
Modularity (Score:2)
Most people have never even heard of the Fairphone, and just buy from major brands.
And it seems unlikely they ever will. I like the spirit of the thing. I just think economic reality is going to bludgeon it to death in its crib. (though I'd be pleased to be wrong about that) The problem is that designing a product that is modular and easy to repair costs extra and most people don't seem to care much about that these days.
The Fairphone is far from perfect, mind you, but the modular approach seems like a good idea.
Modular can be a very good thing and I think their approach is a reasonable one. But modular comes in many flavors and the on the Fairphone has taken is just one of
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Pity their latest product is from 2014, stuck on Android 6
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Are you willing to take a "good" camera and add an integrated FLIR camera? If so, you just described the Caterpillar S61. Milspec for drop, water, and dust. Giant battery. The optical camera is a generation old, but the FLIR more than makes up for it. I used the FLIR to check my repairs on my dryer vent and my air conditioning. Plus, I use it to check the heat dissipation on my laptop. The air quality sensor, and the laser measuring tool (which is accurate to the millimeter) are just gravy.
I switched
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If so, you just described the Caterpillar S61. Milspec for drop, water, and dust. Giant battery.
Interesting. I hadn't heard of it, but from reviews it sounds incredibly sturdy, and a builtin heat camera is really cool.
Although from what I understand, the battery isn't all that giant. It's certainly not small, but much of the energy saving comes from the underpowered processor.
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Yeah, but if people have different needs, shouldn't they be buying different phones? Why should everybody get the same phone and then customise it with inefficient add-ons that ruin the efficiency of the original design?
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Reminds me of the people that buy a new car, and then ride around with an old bath towel on all the seats in order to "protect the car's value".
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Or imagine them covering the outside in rubber to protect the paint, ruining the streamlining in the process.
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The obsession with thinner phones is mind boggling. By building thinner phones companies can shave a couple of cents here and there. Multiply that by hundreds of millions of phones sold worldwide every year and those cents add up very quickly. Even companies that hord a trillion dollars like Apple are not in business of making good durable products. They're in the business of making obsolete shit that lasts 2-3 years at the most. And for that you need to make the damn phone as fragile as it gets without ann
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Who knew that Caterpillar had a line of smartphones?? They have one for $450 that comes with a 5,000 mAH battery, 3.5 mm headphone jack, and SD card slot.
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Go with a Kyocera instead. Same features, lower cost.
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Some companies like Caterpillar do make rugged phones/smartphones. But they ain't sexy and you can't get laid by showing a lady your shiny new yellow caterpillar brick, even if comes with a flir camera and go days without recharging.
You're dating the wrong crowd.
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Their thinness is partly a sham anyway. Camera bumps could easily be eliminated by making the whole phone just a tiny bit thicker.
Re:Easy solution (Score:5, Informative)
"(Apple I'm looking at you) "
It is funny that you call out Apple when they trend for iPhones has been towards increasing thickness for the past four years. The iPhone X is thicker than the iPhone 5.
"make a decent interface for a battery case that doesn't involve a clumsy and bulky pass through of the USB port."
There already are cases that use wireless charging instead of a pass-though connector, such as: https://www.ugreen.com/product... [ugreen.com]
"There are a lot of us (myself included) who wouldn't mind a modestly thicker device in exchange for a bigger battery, better camera, etc. "
iPhone battery capacity has been trending up for for the past nine years. iPhone Camera sensor size (not pixel count but physical size) is also trending up.
"It would be trivial to allow people to add the audio jacks to the case "
So trivial they already exist; for example: https://www.amazon.com/Headpho... [amazon.com]
Basically, the things you want already exist.
Clumsy "solutions" (Score:2)
It is funny that you call out Apple when they trend for iPhones has been towards increasing thickness for the past four years. The iPhone X is thicker than the iPhone 5.
The difference is 7.7 vs 7.6mm. That is hardly what I'd call a meaningful difference. Actually I just took a pair of calipers to my X and it was 7.62mm. And let's not pretend that Apple doesn't keep bragging about how thin their devices are every time they announce one. They are thinner than is functionally necessary.
There already are cases that use wireless charging instead of a pass-though connector
That's fine but it is both A) inefficient and B) doesn't transmit data. I can't put an SD card or other equipment onto a case and make use of it unless the case has a clumsy and bulky USB
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"The difference is 7.7 vs 7.6mm. That is hardly what I'd call a meaningful difference. "
I mentioned the iPhone 5 just to point out where on the downward trend last had this same thickness. The thickness bottomed out at the iPhone 6 and has been getting thicker since them.
"That's fine but it is both A) inefficient and B) doesn't transmit data"
Those are also criteria you did not previously list.
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OP was specifically referring to battery-containing *cases* that did not use a pass-though connector. Your reference to charging *pads* is a bit of a non-sequitur. In particular, the case maintains alignment.
Re:Easy solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Two easy options to solve essentially all battery related smartphone problems:
1. Increase phone thickness, and use this change to increase battery volume.
2. Return to having a user replaceable battery that can be replaced in a few seconds by popping the rear panel off, taking the empty battery out, putting a full one in and closing the rear panel. As essentially all phones in 1990s allowed you to do.
And suddenly battery problems all go away. But with those changes, phone's effective life increases significantly, so sales will go down. Therefore, it will not happen.
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Increase phone thickness, and use this change to increase battery volume.
And to add a slide-out keyboard. Hey, a guy can dream.
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Two easy options to solve essentially all battery related smartphone problems:
1. Increase phone thickness, and use this change to increase battery volume. 2. Return to having a user replaceable battery that can be replaced in a few seconds by popping the rear panel off, taking the empty battery out, putting a full one in and closing the rear panel. As essentially all phones in 1990s allowed you to do.
And suddenly battery problems all go away. But with those changes, phone's effective life increases significantly, so sales will go down. Therefore, it will not happen.
(checks my Moto that I bought last year) Huh, I can still replace my battery as you describe, just like the the 1990s!
Maybe the problem is that some people are buying the wrong phones.
Re:Easy solution (Score:4, Insightful)
>Those incovinences are why user replacable batties went out of favor
A blatant lie. They went out of favour because they prolonged useful life of the most common entropic failure point in the phone. Inability to easily change batteries translates directly to more phones sold.
Considering that spare battery literally fits into your wallet in most cases, and popping a battery into a dock next to your phone to charge has been the simplest thing for decades, your bullshit is particularly egregious.
Not going to even bother with your whining about the rest. You're literally regurgitating a common marketing BS item that has been used to sell people more less capable and more expensive things for longer than I have been alive.
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Apples latest generation is not thinner than the last, on the contrary.
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Maybe that is "all" for you. I have a far longer list of demands. Firstly, they can stop with what must be the dumbest marketing idea in the history of smart phones - rounded, convex screens. They absolutely guarantee you will fat palm the screen when you pick it up. Instead do the reverse - a slightly raised edge that tries to prevent touching the wron
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Re:Who the hell gets a thin phone, and then a case (Score:5, Insightful)
Are there a lot of chunky Android smart phones out there with increased battery capacity?
Yeah, but they are loaded down with so much unremovable bloatware - often you can't even disable it - that usage goes up and down. I don't know what happened last month, but something that had been running all the time was nixed, and my phone battery life improved.
I mean, "GlanceViewMk" is supposedly something about "Notification listener in use. Tap Settings to manage it."... tapping settings does nothing. My fingers itch at the idea that some swivel-eyed middle manager has more of a say in what runs on my phone than I do.
Dude why don't you just root your phone lolol
Because I shouldn't bloody have to.
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Because I shouldn't bloody have to.
Yet you sound like one of the very VERY few people who specifically have a use case to tinker with the inner workings of your system.
Yes you should definitely have to. If one thing has been proven time and time again by an internet full of infested malware it's that average users are not able to be trusted to maintain their own security.
I still remember hooking up a Windows 2000 machine directly to the internet to prove a point several years after Blaster first came out. It lasted a whole of 10 seconds. lit
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I just "upgraded" because my Samsung 5 started to be unreliable. I'm still not sure that it wasn't because of a Verizon "security update". But, I got a Kyocera. Every bit as good as the Samsung, submergible down to several feet, Qi charging, and rugged. Still thin enough to carry in my pocket.
Maybe make the batteries larger? (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop trying to make the thinnest phone. Make them thicker, use the extra space for a larger battery, and make them durable enough to not need a case. They'll still be thinner than you end up with today.
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Stop trying to make the thinnest phone. Make them thicker, use the extra space for a larger battery, and make them durable enough to not need a case. They'll still be thinner than you end up with today.
So all the latest flagship phones on the market are the same size or thicker than their previous generations.
All the latest flagship phones on the market have a larger battery capacity than their previous generations.
All the latest flagship phones on the market have a variety of structural enhancements including stronger glass, more durable shells and waterproofing to boot.
What's your point again? Just buy a damn phone, they have literally made exactly what you're asking for.
Anorexia’s the elephant in the room. (Score:5, Insightful)
It’s amazing how the entire thing dances around the elephant that fills up 90% of the room because he had to eat all the food that the retardphone makers denied their products.
None of the non-mainstream phones have a battery life problem. You get phones with 10Ah from a load of manufacturers now.
The "problem" is, that you can't cut your wrist with them because they're not thin like a knife for no freaking reason, and you can't hold them like a boom box because they're so impractically oversized. They may weigh a bit, but that's because they got actual batteries in them. And actual tough cases, if you want. And "worst" of all, they don't cost $1000 e-penis fee on top of the $150 manufacturing costs, so you can't compensate your tiny dick/tits with them.
Sorry, if you buy that "thinspiration" crap, you got only yourself to blame. I hope you slit yourself on them.
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Although my Moto Z2 IS unreasonably thin and large, but it still lasts two days on a charge, or a day of extreme usage. The mainstream phones are just overrated, overpriced and not the best for everyone.
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There is also the option of buying older phones like the note4. They still make & sell it. The battery lasts several days, and is replaceable too if you travel where you cannot charge. There is the 3.5mm jack. And it was a flagship in its day - so the screen and camera isn't bad either.
And for those of us that already have a phone that is not thin, it is even easier. Don't buy at all. You already got the best phone there is, so don't buy anything new. New is worse, not better. The same happened to
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What good phones have huge batteries?
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Samsung Galaxy Tab A? I'm kidding. I'd have to sew an A4-size pocket on to my pants to hold it.
Re: Well, what do you need? (Score:2)
There's a middle ground between 4GHz hexadeca-core CPUs and $100 devices that is completely underserved. That said, I think it's even worse at the high end, where everything is derivative and you have no options to get a device that works for you unless you happen to want exactly what the manucturer tells you to want.
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Sorry, if you buy that "thinspiration" crap
I'm sorry if you buy this crap as well given that all the phones on their market are as thick or in most cases thicker than their past several generations.
The iPhone XS is the same thickness as the iPhone 5. The thinnest model was the iPhone 6 then they all started getting thicker again.
Likewise the Galaxy S9 is the same thickness as the Galaxy S5, the S6 was also the thinnest model.
Battery sizes have been increasing in all phones as well. WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT!
Thin phones and BloatOS/ware (Score:5, Insightful)
Make phones thick and OS/software light again! Back to basic please.
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They have literally been doing that for the past 5 years. The thinnest iPhone was the iPhone 6 and the thinnest Galaxy was the S6.
They have been getting thicker with each generation.
mobile has been off the track for years now (Score:1)
The contemporary phone scene is extremely bizarre.
Why are people buying thinner phones? Why are they asking to remove useful features as for a few millimeters? Or a tiny bit more screen real estate?
"Smart" phones are losing tons of useful features in the name of.....what exactly?
Make it a little thicker, beef up the battery. Get rid of nitches, make the screen normal and add in a headphone jack an removable storage.
Why are most manufacturers not doing all these things?
Why are consumers voting for worse devi
Get rid of the social media (Score:1)
I have a Moto G4 running LineageOS with GAPPS Mini on it. No social media. Chrome, Spotify, Amazon, Strava, Signal, Chik-Fil-A, Weather Underground, Waves, banking stuff, and tons of other apps... but no social media.
Guess what? My battery lasts for 2-3 days. I tried putting FB messenger on it because one of my church groups uses it, and all of a sudden, I'm having to carry a battery pack around with me. So, that got killed real fast.
Get rid of the social media and you'll instantly get twice the battery lif
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Battery-powered Bullshit (Score:5, Funny)
"...the lithium-ion batteries in smartphones are hitting an inflection point where they simply can't keep up."
Lithium-ion performance tends to degrade when processing bullshit features no one asked for, to include Bendgate-grade designs. Perhaps vendors could do us a favor and stop giving us more "innovation".
Of course, that might result in more reliable products that could last longer. Greed N. Corruption won't stand for that shit, and consumers don't care enough to change the inevitable path towards the destruction of ownership. The obvious solution is to rent you shitty hardware instead of improving it.
Data collection (Score:1)
It takes a lot of battery power to collect every conceivable piece of data on you and monitor you constantly so they can sell it to ad companies...
Android (Score:5, Interesting)
At least in regard to Android Google is obsessed with adding new background daemons which wake up your phone a lot more frequently than it was done in the past and, consequently, your battery life starts to suck a lot.
Does a new Android phone do much more than its 3 years old ancestor? I don't think so, yet Google Play Service have gotten almost a magnitude bigger (wrt to RAM/CPU usage) and while your old device spent most of its battery on its screen, nowadays if you are a light Android user (e.g. use your phone for less than two hours a day) then the two first and most battery offenders are Android OS and Android System by a large margin. And it doesn't even matter that your cellular data is off, GPS is off, Bluetooth is off, play market doesn't autoupdate apps and NFC is off.
Of course, batteries cannot keep up with this shit.
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At least in regard to Android Google is obsessed with adding new background daemons which wake up your phone a lot more frequently than it was done in the past and, consequently, your battery life starts to suck a lot.
I'm not sure I buy this reason - Android's memory management has got way better in the last few releases, I'm sure I see noticably better standby life in Oreo & Pie on the same physical hardware. Which makes sense, doze and app standby are specifically there to reduce wakeups.
The problem I think is in the screen-on time. And for that I blame constantly larger screens that have to emit more light, with ridiculous pixel densities. 300 DPI was perfectly fine, I really can't see why we're pushing to 600DPI
Re:Android (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, really [xda-developers.com]. And that's why Android OS occupies close to or even more than 1,5GB of RAM in modern Android releases?
More light? How so? The screens have become a lot more power efficient recently.
Yeah, exactly, except my five years old Nexus 5 has a FHD 5" screen and modern phones have basically the same resolution for 6-6.5" screens, so if anything the pixel density has increased.
Except Pie is worse [slashdot.org] for your battery than Oreo before it. Maybe next time research a little bit more before spewing out BS.
Android has become a complete resource hog recently and Google even released a special version of it (Android Go) which could fit in 1GB RAM smartphones. I vividly remember previous Android releases had no troubles fitting in such low-memory devices and being able to even run apps. Wow. Nowadays people with 4GB of RAM complain that Android kills apps when there are no (visible) background apps running.
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Yeah, really [xda-developers.com]. And that's why Android OS occupies close to or even more than 1,5GB of RAM in modern Android releases?
Argh. "power management". I meant power management.
Maybe next time research a little bit more before spewing out BS.
Oh, you're an arsehole! You didn't have to be, you could be civilised, but no. I'm not 100% agreeing with you, so you immediately resort to insults. How disappointing.
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Screen power (Score:2)
Does increasing the resolution of the screens increase the battery usage? I ask because manufacturers keep increasing resolutions completely pointlessly, and if it comes at the expense of battery life I want them to stop.
Trying to think this through: It would use more RAM, and more CPU to update the screen. On the other hand, the biggest battery drain is probably the backlight which remains the same. In the case of OLED, the pixels themselves product light, but it's the same overall luminance and surface
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Just why (Score:3)
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Why do you have to choose from these overpriced phones? There are plenty sub 200 dollar phones with 3000-400mAh batteries.
Suggestions?
extra battery (Score:2)
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Then, companies will lose money for people who keep using their old phones. [grin]
Re: extra battery (Score:2)
How about a phone with two battery slots, then you could swap out one battery while running on the other?
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That would mean to reboot your phone everytime you change the battery.
If only... a phone had some sort of capacitor built into it, that could let it maintain its settings after you remove the battery, for, say, sixty seconds, or however it takes a thumb-fingered fool like me to swap batteries...
Javascript becoming a problem (Score:2)
Developers' obsession with Moore's Law (Score:2)
For years it's been a given that this year's computers have more available resources than last year's. This goes for processor speed, RAM, storage, GPU speed.
So the usual MO for many has been to use those extra resources to the fullest extent, leaving only a small gain in functional speed for the consumer to notice.
Apparently it hasn't fully sunk in yet that battery capacity (like pretty much everything else in life) does not conform to Moore's Law and that including the kitchen sink software-wise is going
Marketing People Should Not Design Products (Score:2)
Get rid of the curved screens, too! I already broke 2 screen protectors on my Galaxy Note 8. I liked the Galaxy Note 4 Better.
Java probably doesn't help (Score:2)
If smartphones used native apps rather than simulated computers, they'd probably retain power for longer.
Removing autoincorrect might help.
My kingdom for a battery! (Score:1)
Get a phone with a bigger battery (Score:2)
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I did...my last 3 phones have had 4,000mAH batteries, and were great!
Which ones?
Solid State Lithium Batteries (Score:2)
Hopefully the technology will become available in consumer devices at a point when it still has the power to impress us with a charge that can last a few days.
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