Ahh yes..but the chart is completey immaterial. No matter how long the battery lasts you still can replace it when it dies. Even if you have to carry 2 or 3 spares of another in your brief case, you can still take care of all your business in a day. Why not replaceable batteries?
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iPhone 3G Battery Life Not Great, But Better Than Most
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Because no one cares about them? Working in a building with hundreds of smartphone users, I can count on one hand the number of people that have a spare battery. Most people, in the entire time they own a phone or laptop, never even open the battery compartment.
Between homes, offices, conference rooms, Starbucks, and car chargers, almost nobody is in a position where their phone dies and they're stranded. Even the train has power outlets.
It's the same with notebook computers. People just don't carry all that crap around with them anymore. It's not cheap and it's totally unnecessary, not to mention that you'd have to remember to charge and keep charged at least twice as many batteries. It takes time and money and gives very little in return.
"Because no one cares about them? Working in a building with hundreds of smartphone users, I can count on one hand the number of people that have a spare battery. Most people, in the entire time they own a phone or laptop, never even open the battery compartment"
Apparently you work with a bunch of desk jockies. In my office filled with Road Warriors (I had my 64th of the year last Friday)..I don't know of ANYONE that doesn't carry extra phone batteries..most have an extra laptop battery as well. I would be nice to sit at a desk all day (or "Starbucks") all day near an outlet; but for those on the road it just isn't realistic.
Apparently you work with a bunch of desk jockies. In my office filled with Road Warriors (I had my 64th of the year last Friday)..I don't know of ANYONE that doesn't carry extra phone batteries..most have an extra laptop battery as well. I would be nice to sit at a desk all day (or "Starbucks") all day near an outlet; but for those on the road it just isn't realistic.
Actually, we all rather wish we had the opportunity to sit at our desks all day.
Personally, I travel quite often (usually by air, admittedly) and have never had a problem with any of my last three phones. The last time I carried a spare battery was in 2002.
Random capitalization aside, they're clearly not road warriors, or they'd have car chargers. Hell, taking some trips with government employees, I see most government cars have power inverters so passengers can plug their laptops in while on the road. Unless you're out camping in the wilderness as part of your job, you're just not being realistic.
the chart includes other CDMA devices so there is no reason not to incude CDMA BBs. unless you want to leave out a major competitor on purpose.
There's a reason not to include 2G BlackBerries. Why neither of the 3G BlackBerries was included, I do not know. I did not commission the study. Neither did Apple, nor a pro-Apple publication. I doubt the magazine who performed this test considers RIM a major competitor.
That being said, the 3G Curve claims 4.3 hours talk time, so it falls in under the Motorola Q9, taken at face value. The 7130 gets about 3.5 hours talk time according to the reviews I've seen, and it's advertised at 3 hours. Given the same advantage, the 3G Curve would come out a hair above 5 hours, somewhere shy of the Samsung Instinct.
Better Power Management Facilities?
Regardless of the battery capabilities of the iPhone, it sure would be nice to have better power management built-in.
Assuming, in fact, that 3G consumes more than 2G, it would be nice assign various, non-urgent, applications to use 2G, and other, more urgent applications to 3G. In other words, there should be a separate settings section which would allow you to assign 2G, or 3G, to weather lookups, to stock lookups, to mapping lookups, to eMail fetching, to Safari usage, etc., etc., etc.
In addition, I would be nice to be able to configure various power consumption profiles, like many laptops have. I might have a low battery drain profile active most of the time, but when I want to go Web surfing, I should be able to push an icon and the iPhone goes into high-power mode.
Of course, doing something like this would require an admission that there is actually a battery life problem. But in my mind, even if the iPhone has a better battery life than every other 3G phone out there, it would still be an advantage to better manage power consumption.
As I am typing this I am realizing that these "solutions" I am presenting are more Windows-like solutions (complex, with every option imaginable) than Apple-like solutions (simple, with just the right options). So if someone can refine these ideas, thats fine by me.
Regardless of the battery capabilities of the iPhone, it sure would be nice to have better power management built-in.
Assuming, in fact, that 3G consumes more than 2G, it would be nice assign various, non-urgent, applications to use 2G, and other, more urgent applications to 3G. In other words, there should be a separate settings section which would allow you to assign 2G, or 3G, to weather lookups, to stock lookups, to mapping lookups, to eMail fetching, to Safari usage, etc., etc., etc.
In addition, I would be nice to be able to configure various power consumption profiles, like many laptops have. I might have a low battery drain profile active most of the time, but when I want to go Web surfing, I should be able to push an icon and the iPhone goes into high-power mode.
Of course, doing something like this would require an admission that there is actually a battery life problem. But in my mind, even if the iPhone has a better battery life than every other 3G phone out there, it would still be an advantage to better manage power consumption.
As I am typing this I am realizing that these "solutions" I am presenting are more Windows-like solutions (complex, with every option imaginable) than Apple-like solutions (simple, with just the right options). So if someone can refine these ideas, thats fine by me.
Most of those phones come with a 1000 mAh battery or less. That's what the comparison was against.
I'd like to see them pop in an extended battery (which is often included in the box) in all the phones that can take one, and redo the chart.
I'd like to see them pop in an extended battery (which is often included in the box) in all the phones that can take one, and redo the chart.
Brother-In-Law and Mother have Blackberry's and their battery lives are better but they are far, far from this great battery that destroys the 3G iPhone.
This graph gets thrown out the the window once you factor in that every phone on the graph not the iphone, has a user replaceable battery. Effectively with let say with a Tilt I can have two standard batteries and get twice the life or have a extended batter life and get an extra 1 or so out of the phone, and then have the standard battery as a backup. Comes in hand when on vacation and there is no place to charge(My samsung came with two batteries and it saved me on vacation) .Also this is the reason why they chose the Motorola Q9h, because the Q9C on Sprint comes with a extended battery standard in the box. The Verizon model does not have it but can be had for a low as $15. Not sure how much more longer it is but you do get two batteries.
I agree with the other poster who suggested that there be better battery management; as in, turn on EDGE for e-mail and turn on 3G for web surfing and such. That said however, proactive battery management by the user can hopefully circumvent the need to be constantly charging the phone.
The biggest reason they adopted 3G (IMO at least) is that in Europe (and Japan) it's everywhere, while EDGE is nowhere. I struggled to find EDGE signal even in major cities, whereas with 3G I can be sitting at home with full strength and zipping through data at Mbps speeds.
But yes, 3G radios simply are more power-hungry. A couple of years ago I owned an SE K800i - disabling the 3G radio on there (no real need for it, as no real data options) was like night and day, it went from a couple of days' charge to a full week.
I am concerned at this hype, though. Yesterday I woke up around 9am and took my iPhone 3G off charge, had it with me all day with around an hour's call time, an hour's wifi and probably total 30 minutes of sending texts and emails, and it was one bar off full when I went to bed around 2am. The first section it can get away from full, that's all I'd lost.
The li-ion advice is going wrong. People think that because they don't suffer memory effect, they never need to run their battery down, when what they should be doing is doing so only occasionally in order to keep the software calibrated. Do that and most will see a dramatic improvement in 'apparent' battery life.
all day, 2.2MB data, LOL, you dont use it very much?
3G and Wifi on all day
Not sure how, but 10% warning came up at the 6 hour mark and it lasted another 2 hours after that
I think the battery indicator is not well calibrated
well...... question is, what for?
much higher? how much? high enough that it worth the battery consumption?
Actually this is the best comparison if you are shopping for a 3G smartphone. How is this a bad comparison?
That may be what the tech reports would tell you, but in practical terms, in highly built out 3g areas like San Antonio, 3g and EDGE voice quality sound the same to me.
No it's not. The improvements in audio quality generally come from a combination of: lower network congestion because of fewer 3G users, different AMR compression settings, improvements in signal noise because 3G infrastructure is a good ten years newer than GSM, and improvements in the speaker/mic of the handsets themselves.
There's nothing special about 3G that improves voice quality directly. It's still transmitted using essentially the same codec. Once everybody moves over to 3G, the compression settings will bring everything right back to the GSM level, negating whatever limited advantage it currently provides.
Unless you're talking to another 3G user in the same or nearby city, you're not going to see any real improvement. The 3G networks are not yet nationwide, so it's going to get passed through GSM equipment at some point.
The iPhone 3G has better audio quality on both GSM and UMTS.
I agree with you.
The Samsung Instinct has a 1000 mAh battery and the 3G iPhone has a 1150 mAh battery. A 15% difference in battery capacity and the 3G iphone got exactly 5 more minutes of talking time than the Instinct. Also the Instinct comes with a second battery for free.
Would also like to see the battery life comparision with the LG Dare.
The Instinct switches out of 3G for voice calls and uses plain old CDMA. The talk time comparison is of limited use, since it's effectively a 2G device.
Whether it's CDMA or WCDMA --- it's still CDMA.
The big difference is between TDMA-based GSM and CDMA. The difference between CDMA and WCDMA is very small.
I just hope a way of making 3G turn on just for things like app store and safari, when not in wifi range comes available, I suppose it's easy enough to switch it on for web browsing, automatic would be better.
Also, my touch keyboard makes the screen go haywire and jump around, ideas?
Also, my touch keyboard makes the screen go haywire and jump around, ideas?