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Next Generation iPhone Battery Only Marginally Higher Capacity

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Apr 12, 2001
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Part photos of the new battery for the next generation iPhone have been posted by 9to5Mac. The part shows only a minor increase in capacity from 3.7V/1430mAh/5.3Whr in the iPhone 4S to 3.8V/1440mAh/5.45Whr in the rumored iPhone 5. No dimensions are provided to compare the size of the battery to the current iPhone batteries.

The next generation iPhone is believed to be a taller but thinner device. The increased height, however, is more than offset by the reduction in thickness which results in a decreased internal volume of the device as compared to the iPhone 4 and 4S. If this part leak is to believed, Apple hasn't been able to significantly increase the battery capacity on the new iPhone.

The new iPhone is expected to include LTE data networking for the first time. LTE has traditionally required more power than the currently supported 3G networks. Apple's Tim Cook has said that the reason that Apple hadn't used LTE in iPhones is due to the "design compromises" required to build such a device. This has widely believed to have referred to the increased power requirement of existing LTE chips. Qualcomm is poised to release a new LTE chip that Anandtech believes will "likely increase LTE battery life to reasonable levels".

Article Link: Next Generation iPhone Battery Only Marginally Higher Capacity
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2012/08/10/next-generation-iphone-battery-only-marginally-higher-capacity/
I guess they feel confident in their SoC to preserve battery. And the Gobi chip.

It'll be interesting to see the battery stats they give at the announcement.
 
Sucks

My girlfriends 4S eats the battery compared to my 4, it would suck if the iPhone 5's battery can't even compare to either of them AND has 4G on top of it. It'd be disappointing if the phone can't even last a full day without needing to be charged =/
 
That's not good :(

The iPhone 4S battery isn't as good as the 4 and now the new iPhone will have even greater battery needs.
 
aight apple, i don't care about how you change the phone's design, but if the next iPhone's battery is gonna suck more than my current 4S (which, is also horrible), then I will look for other phones. :mad:
 
Here's hoping this is the battery for the $99 4S....

/denial

From the sounds of it the next iPhone is going to be even more power hungry( bigger screen and LTE) and Apple is still sticking with relatively the same battery? Battery life is going to take a hit and the 4S's battery life isn't that good to begin with.... I don't even think a Cortex A15 based "A6" will be able to maintain current battery life( let alone getting it back to the 4's level).
 
"Apple's Tim Cook has said that the reason that Apple hadn't used LTE in iPhones is due to the "design compromises" required to build such a device."

The design compromises include antenna design. They tried the racetrack antenna (4-4S) which was a valiant attempt and proved no better than banding at the bottom and top of the device as originally envisioned way back in 2004-7.

The LTE chips will be "barely acceptable" in terms of battery usage and will need to be used sparingly. The iPhone 5 battery life under all but LTE will be about the same.

The design compromise is not intended to be battery life. It is antenna design and thickness. They overcame thickness as a limit by making the phone taller and thus about the same volume.

Rocketman
 
quagmire said:
Here's hoping this is the battery for the $99 4S....

/denial

From the sounds of it the next iPhone is going to be even more power hungry( bigger screen and LTE) and Apple is still sticking with relatively the same battery? Battery life is going to take a hit and the 4S's battery life isn't that good to begin with.... I don't even think a Cortex A15 based "A6" will be able to maintain current battery life( let alone getting it back to the 4's level).
Click to expand...

The next iPhone won't be getting an A6, it will be getting an underclocked A5X, much like what Apple did with the 4S and 4. In which case, there will be no CPU upgrade in the next iPhone, only a speed bump for the integrated GPU.

My bet is on the one after this, that is the one which will have a true quad-core CPU and possibly 8-core GPU. But I'm just guessing.
 
Then the new iPhone's components have to be much better at power-saving. The iPhone 4S has much worse battery life than the 4 :(.
 
strausd said:
The next iPhone won't be getting an A6, it will be getting an underclocked A5X, much like what Apple did with the 4S and 4. In which case, there will be no CPU upgrade in the next iPhone, only a speed bump for the integrated GPU.
Click to expand...

Wasn't saying the next iPhone would be getting the A6 per se. Was just saying that an A15 based A6 probably couldn't save the phones battery life( since the A15 is supposed to be really power efficient) with the increase in power needs in the screen and radios using the same battery as the 4S.
 
Note to Apple designers: it's thin enough. If you can make the phone guts any thinner, then make the battery bigger to keep it the same overall size of the 4S. I have heard no complaints that any of the iPhones are too thick -- ever, really.
 
I would have preferred the kept it the same thickness and increased the battery size.
 
Must admit that the iPhone looks less and less interesting to those living outside the US. Maps, Siri, 4G, LTE would all seem to have limited use outside the US networks (and maybe a few others).

If all this additional stuff just eats up space/battery/cost for me to use normal 3G and WiFi I may as well buy the crappy Samsung for the bigger (in both dimensions) screen. No point "upgrading" when all the additional functionality I'm paying for won't be of use to me until the networks here catch up some time in 2016...
 
well, thats the deal breaker. Was on board for the longer screen and smaller parts only if there was a huge battery inside. Will evaluate other options now.
 
macaddiict said:
Note to Apple designers: it's thin enough. If you can make the phone guts any thinner, then make the battery bigger to keep it the same overall size of the 4S. I have heard no complaints that any of the iPhones are too thick -- ever, really.
Click to expand...

From my own POV it's thin enough, but I heard from people around me for several times that the iPhone is "thick" (when compared to larger Samsung devices). Samsung has done a very good job as flattening and expanding the phone's size to make the phone thinner. :(
 
I fear the stupidity of this is becoming a reality. I really don't want to see a longer iPhone.
 
apple's attitude is, "who cares, millions will buy it anyways. our loyal fans got suckered with the 4s. they will buy anything from us."
 
Very well written and concise Arn. A+ job citing both the reference by Cook and the Gobi chips...off to read about the chips now that I'm worried.
 
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