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

Linux Improving Battery Life?

[Morinaka]

Nowhere in the article does it say that linux is the reason behind the batteries long standby time. You might want to read it again.

Again, it's only in Asia

[ziggamon2.0]

This isn't the first linux phone Motorola has released, and I've previously tried to get a hold of one of those babies, but it seems they are only available in Asia.

Again, TFA says:

The E895 is expected to be initially introduced in the Asia-Pacific region in Q4 of 2005.

Does anyone know why Motorola keeps doing this? Isn't there a viable market for linux-based mobile phone in Europe or the US for example?

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

[WindBourne]

Linux is not competing against a simple kernel that simply goes to sleep. It is competing against Win CE, Symbian, etc. that ARE real oses as well. They have their own share of issues that are apparently much slower and/or more overhead.

Re:By definition...

[moz25]

I would imagine something without as many features to consume less power. I'd say it's not power-saving features of Linux, but rather a better battery and/or more power-efficient electronics as a whole.

linux, linux, linux

[pedantic bore]

It seems like every tenth word in TFA is "linux". OK, so the phone uses linux internally. Why should I care; what does this get me? It's not like I'm going to ssh into my phone, fire up emacs, and start hacking on my latest C++ app.

Does it really matter what OS your phone is running? It's a closed system; you can't get at the internals.

Re:Impressive?

[Shisha]

The point is it only needs 1000mAh battery. Sure, if I have four batteries, I have standby time _four_ times as long as you.

Iff you checked the capacity of your battery and decided that your phone indeed must have lower consumption then the new phone then you have to check whether your phone runs an OS that's in the same category as Linux and _only then_ can you claim it's not impressive.

(I'm not saying you must be wrong. I'm just saying that you may be comparing apples to PCs, ooops, sorry apples to oranges)

Re:Impressive?

[imsabbel]

My 2 year old siemens s55 gets 10days-2weeks standby with a 740mAh battery.
Like the greatparent said: the phone is absolutly NOTHING to write about (except LINUX LINUX LINUX LINUX... its slashdot, alright...)