Linux-Based Phone Lasts 200 Hours on Standby

An anonymous reader writes "Motorola is showing off a Linux/Java phone with a claimed battery life of 200 hours on standby, or 200-250 minutes when talking. If those figures prove true, Linux sure is improving quickly on the power management front. That kind of battery life also suggests that the E895 might be the first single-chipset phone ever to run a complex OS, whether Symbian, Windows Mobile, or Linux. Other features are user-upgradable memory, 1.3MP camera, video capture, multimedia slideshows, and more. Hopefully a more U.S.-friendly version will follow, as happened when Mot's Linux-based quad-band A780 came out a year or so after it's tri-band forebear, the A768, shipped in China."

Comments

I dunno...

[Mac Degger]

...this sounds like typical phone talk/standby times. And that's including the many Symbian phones out there, as well as the Treo's. Dunno what Hiptops do, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's in the same order.

Re:Linux Improving Battery Life?

[Shisha]

No it does. It says that Linux is the first os in it's category to run on a single chipset phone, _hence_ improving the battery usage.

Re:Linux Improving Battery Life?

[William Robinson]

Nowhere in the article does it say that linux is the reason behind the batteries long standby time

It does....See this from TFA.

If true, these figures suggest Linux has made great progress in consumer electronics power management, possibly through the efforts of MontaVista, which has supplied the Linux used in all of Motorola's previous Linux phones.

Read this too.

Re:Too less of user memory?

[freitasm]

The memory is 10MB, but TransFlash cards can be used - with cards up to 512MB available and compatible with the phone.

The OP says user-upgradable memory, which is quite not correct - the memory card is in addition to the 10MB but it's not a on-board upgrade. It's just an expansion - like in any other current smartphone or even featured phone in the market.

Re:Something smaller, more efficient; yes. but...

[mikolas]

As someone who has been forced to do some Symbian programming in the past, I can tell you that Symbian is not the right platform for efficient software development. From that perspective, going with Linux or Windows CE is a wise decision. And even more important, Windows and Linux have fairly large software base that can be easily ported to mobile devices' limited API functionality. Well, more easily than to Symbian at least.

Re:linux, linux, linux

[mtenhagen]

Motorola uses montavista linux.

Battery life depends on signal strength

[Wills]

The real problem is any battery life measurement depends very much on how strong a signal you are getting from the basestation. If you're a long way from the nearest basestation and have a mountain or two in between, you won't get much signal, which makes the phone use up the battery much more quickly during calls and really eats into your available talk time.

Cellphones with better battery life than Motorola's existed even four years ago. For instance, the Sony Ericsson T65i was the market leader in 2002 having a standby time of 300 hours and a talk time of 11 hours. In practice, I found that phone never lasted more than 200 hours standby and 6.5 hours talk time even with a brand new battery in an area with good reception close to a basestation. In areas with poor signal strength, standby was ~80 hours and talk time was ~3 hours. I expect Motorola's battery life figures fall off similarly quickly with signal strength.

Learn to spell "its", for frigging sake.

[Anonymous Coward]

Spelling matters.

Re:Qtopia?

[nerdyH]

Mot licensed Qt/Embedded for their phones, but they do their own interface based on that, rather than using the Qtopia stack for phones