Which Android Devices Sacrifice Battery-Life For Performance?

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Which Android Devices Sacrifice Battery-Life For Performance?

Posted by Soulskill on Monday October 20, 2014 @11:50AM from the definitely-mine dept.

MojoKid writes: A couple of weeks ago, Futuremark began handing out copies of PCMark for Android to members of the press, in an effort to get its leaderboards filled while the finishing touches were being put on the app. That might give you pause in that the results, generated today, are not going to be entirely accurate when the final version comes out, but that's not the case. Futuremark has encouraged publication of results generated with the benchmark. What makes PCMark for Android useful benchmark is that it not only tests for performance, but also for battery-life and performance combined. As such, you can easily figure out which devices sacrifice battery-life for performance and which ones have a good blend of both. The HTC One M8 really stands out, thanks to its nearly balanced performance/battery-life ratio. A result like that might make you think that neither value could be that great, but that's not the case at all. In fact, the battery-life rating on that phone places far beyond some of the other models, only falling short to the OnePlus One. And speaking of that phone, it becomes obvious with PCMark why it's so hyped-up of late; it not only delivers solid performance, it boasts great battery-life as well.

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all by turkeydance · 2014-10-20 12:01 · Score: 3, Funny

of them?
1. Re:all by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-20 12:18 · Score: 0
  
  A current iPhone will go a lot longer than a week without a charge. Not only that, their CPU is faster than any of the Android devices listed here.
2. Re:all by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-20 12:30 · Score: 0, Informative
  
  A current iPhone will go a lot longer than a week without a charge.
  
  Cognitive dissonance or RDF? You decide...
  
  But...that battery life. I use my iPhone as a hub. It pairs with tons of wearables and fitness trackers. It connects to my car. I stream music nearly constantly. I'm web-browsing, tweeting, emailing, taking notes. I take photos. I make the occasional phone call, too.
  This morning, the iPhone 6 is already down to 84 percent at 10 a.m. Not bad. Not great. It'll reach a point by mid-day where I consider a quick recharge. I want to get past that point.
  To be clear: the iPhone 6 battery isn't bad. It's disappointing. There are other phones that do better. If you're an iPhone user already, you know what to expect.
  http://www.cnet.com/au/news/my...
3. Re:all by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-20 12:36 · Score: 0
  
  Please wipe the Jobs job off your chin...
4. Re:all by carlhaagen · 2014-10-20 12:37 · Score: 1
  
  http://i.imgur.com/JadV3L1.jpg http://i.imgur.com/YxZjboT.jpg
5. Re:all by carlhaagen · 2014-10-20 12:42 · Score: 0
  
  I get between 4 and 5 days (which includes ~4-5 hours of total use) per charge on my 3 years old iPhone 4S, with 3G enabled. If I play and surf a lot more the time obviously drop; if I don't do much more than handle calls on it a charge gets me one week.
  
  I took this screenshot yesterday for an "Android friend" who refused to believe any smartphone would reach into a 2nd day on a charge: http://i.imgur.com/YxZjboT.jpg
6. Re:all by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-20 12:57 · Score: 0
  
  So if you don't use your smartphone as a smartphone, you get great battery life. Awesome?
  Buy a feature phone and you will get triple the battery life for less money in a smaller phone, since you don't use the 3g anyway.
7. Re:all by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-20 13:04 · Score: 0
  
  Note "I stream music nearly constantly. I'm web browsing, tweeting, emailing, taking notes. I take photos. I make the occasional phone call too".
  This guys i a very heavy user of their phone. I can guarantee you that if you do all of the above no Android phone will get more than a day. A quick google reveals that for a heavy user of an S5 you get about 9 hours out of the battery. The iPhone 6 (and more so the 6+) beats that hands down. The S5 is even one of the better scoring phones in the benchmarking above.
8. Re:all by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-20 13:13 · Score: 0
  
  Name one single smart phone that if you actually use as a smart phone will get more than 24 hours of battery life. Note – only one of the phones in this study will get more than 12 hours of heavy use, and that's the One. It won't make it to 24 hours. The iPhone 6+ will.
9. Re:all by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-20 13:17 · Score: 0
  
  He's been dead for two years. Time for a new joke.
10. Re:all by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-20 13:36 · Score: 0
  
  Time for a new sycophantic relationship, you mean?
11. Re:all by slaker · 2014-10-20 14:59 · Score: 2
  
  The Note 2 and Note 3 are, based on my observation, good for a couple days without charging. Like the iphone 6+, this probably has more to do with the form factor than anything else.
  I can get about a day and a half out of my S4, but I'm an atypical user since I don't use any messaging aside from E-mail (SMS is stupid and I hope it dies soon).
  It's somewhat silly to try to define "using a smartphone as a smartphone" since that's really the ultimate movable goalpost. I use mine primarily to read things on the web while I'm away from a bigger computer and I listen to locally-stored music. I don't really launch other apps, maintain social connections, play games, make calls or look at pornography while on the toilet, all of which might be part of someone else's definition of justifiable smartphone-ing.
  
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12. Re: all by AvitarX · 2014-10-20 15:04 · Score: 1
  
  I would expect that long with most of my phones with that little use.
  
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13. Re:all by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-20 15:14 · Score: 0
  
  The Note 2 and Note 3 are, based on my observation, good for a couple days without charging. Like the iphone 6+, this probably has more to do with the form factor than anything else.
  Actually, a quick google search says that heavy load makes a Note 2/3 last "only" about 18 hours. If you max out its CPU continuously, 7. A 6+ manages 32 hours of heavy usage before dying, or 12 hours of continuous 100% CPU.
  
  It's somewhat silly to try to define "using a smartphone as a smartphone" since that's really the ultimate movable goalpost.
  Right. Using a smartphone as a smartphone is a very silly metric. Most people play around in the browser, the messaging app, and a couple of games for an hour or two a day. Under that load, an iPhone will get several days battery life.
14. Re:all by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-20 16:25 · Score: 0
  
  Bullshit
  
  There are at least 7 Android phones that beat out the iPhone 6 Plus for battery life.
15. Re: all by phoenix_rizzen · 2014-10-20 16:28 · Score: 1
  
  4-5 hours screen-on time isn't that great. That was the benchmark in 2013 before the LG G2 came out. It's normal to get 7 hours SoT with the G2, and more if you tweak things or use it as an ereader.
  The number of days of standby time is irrelevant. My phone lasts 3+days if all I do is check the odd text message; it's amazing how long you can drag out 8 hrs of screen time if you don't actually turn the screen on.
16. Re:all by WuphonsReach · 2014-10-20 16:32 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Battery life depends on a bunch of things...
  - What you leave running in the background
  - Whether bluetooth / wifi / cell / GPS are on/off
  - Whether you have a good cellular signal (more bars = less power needed to talk with tower)
  - Quality of the WiFi signal / network congestion
  - Screen brightness
  
  With the HTC One (m8), I have to charge it every 2-4 days. Depends on how much I'm using it, what the weather is like outside, how many hours I spent on the phone that day, and where it spent most of the day.
  
  I spent about 2.5 hours on conference/phone calls today and the phone has been off the charger for about 18hrs. Battery is at 66%. GPS, WiFi and Bluetooth are all turned on. That's not fabulous but not horrible either.
  
  --
  Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
17. Re:all by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-20 16:34 · Score: 0
  
  Right. Using a smartphone as a smartphone is a very silly metric. Most people play around in the browser, the messaging app, and a couple of games for an hour or two a day. Under that load, an iPhone will get several days battery life.
  lol! No, no it won't. "Most people" absolutely do not get several days battery life with their iPhones. So either your definition of what "most people" do is wrong or your battery life assumption is wrong, either way you don't appear to have based your post on any actual facts.
18. Re:all by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-20 16:54 · Score: 0
  
  And?
  If the device was clocking their CPU lower, or running more aggressive power management at the cost of performance, it would last even longer.
  Its ALWAYS a tradeoff, so I don't get why OP has been moderated Troll...
19. Re:all by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-20 17:12 · Score: 0
  
  See above, and you'll see a screenshot of a pretty typical iPhone user's battery usage screen. 5 days of idle, and 5 hours of usage is not unusual for a 5S. Significantly more than that is the norm for a 6 or 6+.
20. Re: all by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-20 17:40 · Score: 0
  
  7 hours screen on time... but with no standby at all. 5 days worth of idle will translate happily into another few hours of screen time. And hell, that's for a device that's over a year old, and doesn't have as high a capacity as a 6 or 6+. Add to that that the A8 CPU uses less than half the power of the A7, and you're looking at a 6 and 6+ managing over 24 hours of screen on time. That's pretty impressive compared to your 7 hours.
21. Re:all by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-20 18:04 · Score: 0
  
  lol! No, no it won't. "Most people" absolutely do not get several days battery life with their iPhones.
  So says Samsung. The various screenshots we can see in this thread suggest that actually most get between 3 and 6 days even from a 5S.
22. Re:all by Geeky · 2014-10-20 22:03 · Score: 1
  
  I get between two and four days from a Nexus 5, depending on usage. My take on it is that it's a smartphone only when I need it to be. Most of the time I'll use it for no more than email, sms and calls which I agree could be handled by a feature phone (although not as easily for sms and emails - the larger screen and keyboard come into play there).
  The difference for me is that it has all the features when I need them - better browsing capability, gps and a good screen for maps, half decent camera (within the limitations of the form factor, obviously) and all the other stuff.
  I have considered the alternative of a feature - or even dumb - phone for battery life and then taking a tablet when I need more, but the phone does it all for me at a convenient size. The battery lasts long enough, and I know the trade off when I use the features that make it "smart".
  
  --
  Sigs are so 1990s. No way would I be seen dead with one.
23. Re:all by Overzeetop · 2014-10-20 22:20 · Score: 1
  
  I owned every other iPhone from the 3G on. If I left it idle most of the time (take calls, check mail occasionally, get notifications), it could make it to the evening of the second day. I currently own an LG G3 as well, and under the same conditions it lasts almost the same length of time (last week I forgot to set it on the charger at night and when I went to bed the second night it was at 10%).
  
  --
  Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
24. Re:all by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-21 02:09 · Score: 0
  
  LOL, I can throw out random numbers too..
  My Galaxy S5 manages 192 hours of heavy usage, or 36 hours of continuous 100% CPU.
25. Re: all by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-21 02:14 · Score: 0
  
  LOL, you actually believe the marketing BS about 50% more battery efficiency?
  I can pull out random BS out of my back pocket too. The LG G3 has 393% more battery efficiency (because you're comparing a 2 year old LG G2 to a phone released a week or so ago). With that percentage, the LG G3 can last 48 hours of screen on time!
  That's nothing comparing to your pitiful 24 hours!
26. Re:all by synapse7 · 2014-10-21 03:24 · Score: 1
  
  Any phone that can run a game is sacrificing battery for performance. If you set the cpu limit to 800mhz you still will be able to "work" from your phone and will gain 12-24 hours of battery time.
27. Re:all by skids · 2014-10-21 03:50 · Score: 1
  
  Add:
  - whether your stupid home button sticks out and turns on the screen in your pocket. Thanks for nothing Samsung.
  
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  Someone had to do it.
28. Re:all by blackomegax · 2014-10-21 04:29 · Score: 1
  
  LOL no my 5S is always down to 30% at the end of a work day even when I barely touch it. 5 days my fucking ass.
29. Re:all by default+luser · 2014-10-21 05:43 · Score: 1
  
  Turn on Power Save mode and turn off Wifi? Check to see if you have any CPU-heavy applications, and force-quit them while not in-use?
  Also, the amount of power used depends entirely on how powerful a signal you are getting. For example, my Galaxy S4 typically uses 30-35% battery per-day at normal home/work day, but this last weekend I went up to the middle of nowhere, PA. The house barely got 3G at one bar, and because of the shit signal my phone was down to 30% every night. If your place of work is inside a large building, it can play havoc on your signal.
  
  --
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  And occasionally whores for Karma.
30. Re:all by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-21 09:48 · Score: 0
  
  So says Samsung. The various screenshots we can see in this thread suggest that actually most get between 3 and 6 days even from a 5S.
  If you bothered to read the screenshot rather than getting all excited about the first thing you saw you would see that the screenshot in fact says: TIME SINCE LAST FULL CHARGE. Easy to get that if you are just giving it a boost by charging it when you jump in the car.
31. Re:all by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-21 10:04 · Score: 0
  
  See above, and you'll see a screenshot of a pretty typical iPhone user's battery usage screen. 5 days of idle, and 5 hours of usage is not unusual for a 5S.
  I see the screenshot, it is not typical and it is the time since the last full charge. Despite your interpretation that is not a measure of time between charging, if you're just putting it on the charger for an hour or so when you get in the car or stop in at somebody's place or plug it into your laptop to get some extra juice that won't be counted in that metric, you could easily have an iphone run its entire lifetime without a full charge.
32. Re:all by NithinGowda · 2014-10-22 20:31 · Score: 1
  
  Use GSAM Battery Monitor https://www.apkmos.com/android...
33. Re: all by phoenix_rizzen · 2014-10-23 11:30 · Score: 1
  
  Standby time is irrelevent. Turn the screen off, put it in airplane mode, and it will last a month. Turn the phone off completely, it will last for years. Never take it out of the box, and it will last indefinitely.
  How long the battery lasts when you don't use it isn't really a metric worth debating.
  How long a battery lasts while you use the phone on a regular basis is what matters. And 4 or 5 hours of SoT isn't anything to brag about. Not when the LG G2, Droid Razr Maxx, and similar phones get 7+ hours of SoT.
  4-5 hours in 2014 is pathetic.
Who cares about performance? by gnu-sucks · 2014-10-20 12:02 · Score: 3, Insightful

Besides gamers, who cares if it takes a few more milliseconds to launch a web browser or process an image?
Seeing as all these phones are pretty decent, from my point of view, I just want the greatest battery life.
1. Re:Who cares about performance? by omtinez · 2014-10-20 12:24 · Score: 1
  
  Besides old timers, who cares if it takes a couple more hours to deplete the battery?
  Seeing as all these phones are pretty decent, from my point of view, I just want the greatest performance.
  FTFY. In other words, it doesn't fit my use case ergo no one else can benefit from it.
2. Re:Who cares about performance? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-20 12:40 · Score: 0
  
  Though I can see you point, gamers are not the only ones who want processors to be really powerful, in general, people who want to calculate something that is fairly complex would also like to have a great processor because it reduces the time that is taken to do that calculation.
3. Re:Who cares about performance? by Gr8Apes · 2014-10-20 13:12 · Score: 1
  
  in general, people who want to calculate something that is fairly complex would also like to have a great processor because it reduces the time that is taken to do that calculation.
  Use a computer?
  
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4. Re:Who cares about performance? by swillden · 2014-10-20 14:40 · Score: 2
  
  Besides gamers, who cares if it takes a few more milliseconds to launch a web browser or process an image?
  I do... because that's a few less milliseconds my CPU isn't idle, which reduces battery life.
  Seriously, does anyone understand this benchmark? I see pairs of performance and battery life numbers which seem to have no real-world meaning, so it's not at all clear to me why it makes sense to compare them. In addition, it's common that for a given set of tasks, a device with better performance will use less power because it spends more time in an idle state. The notion that devices trade off performance against battery life makes little sense in the ARM world.
  Maybe this actually does say something useful, but if so I'm too dense to see it.
  
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5. Re:Who cares about performance? by thegarbz · 2014-10-20 14:48 · Score: 1
  
  Besides gamers, who cares if it takes a few more milliseconds to launch a web browser or process an image?
  Based on the comments pre-project butter Android vs iOS articles ... everyone.
  A fast responsive system is the number 1 thing that matters to most people. I can excuse graphical missmatches and occasional bugs, but if I click the little Phone icon and I have to wait for it to pop up there will be murder.
6. Re:Who cares about performance? by Visarga · 2014-10-20 15:04 · Score: 1
  
  No, if I slide to camera from the lock screen of my phone and it takes 20 fucking seconds to finish the iris animation and actually give me the video feed on the screen, then the photo opportunity is long dead and buried and I can take a selfie of myself crying in frustration instead. Many modern phones are SLUGGISH with opening the camera - this should not happen - there should be less than 0.5s delay between the moment I want to shoot and the moment I shot the photo.
7. Re:Who cares about performance? by WuphonsReach · 2014-10-20 16:23 · Score: 1
  
  It does matter. When I compare my older Asus TF700T (tablet, but same resolution as the phone) with a Quad-core 1.6 GHz Cortex-A9 compared to my HTC One (m8) with 2.3 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801, the difference is immense. The HTC device is extremely responsive and snappy in comparison.
  
  On the tablet, I'm constantly having to wait on it to pull up email, or switch to the chat program, or open browser pages. I'm not sure if that is because it is one Android revision behind the HTC or if Asus did something with the UI or if the Cortex A9 chip is just that much worse then the Snapdragon 801.
  
  Now, once you get past the "knee" where you can switch apps in under about 0.25sec and where you are not stuck waiting 3-10 seconds for something to happen, then further performance increases won't matter anywhere near as much.
  
  (It's just more obvious if you use multiple devices for a few weeks.)
  
  --
  Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
8. Re:Who cares about performance? by Anne+Thwacks · 2014-10-20 18:24 · Score: 1
  
  Besides old timers, who cares if it takes a couple more hours to deplete the battery?
  Most people who leave their mother's basement for more than the above-mentioned few hours!
  
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  Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
9. Re:Who cares about performance? by Overzeetop · 2014-10-20 22:26 · Score: 1
  
  I'm curious what calculations you would be doing on a smartphone which would take a noticeable amount of time on a regular basis. GPS is pretty intensive, though that's done in dedicated HW. Video playback and scaling is intensive, but that's done in dedicated HW. The only things you see on a regular basis, outside of games, are UI animations and JIT code compilation. Maybe long trip calculations in a mapping programs - those do take several seconds for trips of hundreds of miles - but those calculations are generally one once at the beginning when you notice, and then are optimized in the background (for traffic aware apps like Waze) with no apparent lag.
  
  --
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10. Re:Who cares about performance? by Daniel+Hoffmann · 2014-10-21 00:07 · Score: 1
  
  It took two decades for the personal computer to reach a point where the average rig performance was "good enough" for everyone but gamers, it took 7 years for the same thing to happen to smartphones. Which is good for the users, not so much for the big companies.
  The big companies are probably going to jump to the next bandwagon soon, what remains to be seen is what that will be. VR headsets, AR headsets, smartwatches or something completely different.
11. Re:Who cares about performance? by tlhIngan · 2014-10-21 02:56 · Score: 1
  
  It took two decades for the personal computer to reach a point where the average rig performance was "good enough" for everyone but gamers, it took 7 years for the same thing to happen to smartphones. Which is good for the users, not so much for the big companies.
  The big companies are probably going to jump to the next bandwagon soon, what remains to be seen is what that will be. VR headsets, AR headsets, smartwatches or something completely different.
  You do realize the war on "retina" has gotten to the silly point of basically needing a powerful processor just to present a decent UI. Because pushing 500dpi's worth of pixels (that unless you're an eagle eye or hold the phone to your nose, you won't notice. And no, those people are the exception) consumes a whole lot of power for the display and processors behind it.
  They've chased spec sheets the whole time. First with was CPU+RAM. Then it was screen size. Then it was DPI and screen resolution.
  Hell, iOS's reachability is a hack (it works like one too, but it DOES work). Perhaps that's something Google should concentrate on - implementing something similar so single-handed use of a big screen is possible.
  Heck, it's probably going to be peripherals and all sorts of other crap. I expect the RAM wars to re-start the moment 64-bit SoCs become propular. 4GB, 8GB, 16GB of RAM (the same as internal storage!).(The main reason to go AArch64? Speed. ARMv8 in AArch64 mode is MUCH faster than ARMv8 in AArch32 mode).
12. Re:Who cares about performance? by dotancohen · 2014-10-21 03:04 · Score: 1
  
  Besides gamers, who cares if it takes a few more milliseconds to launch a web browser or process an image?
  My Note 3 cat get _three days_ out of a single charge because I don't leave the internet connected and I don't have faceschmuk / viber / fartsapp pinging home every N seconds. I charge it every night anyway.
  Don't make me wait to open the camera, give me the best performance and don't spare the battery just because _other users_ can't disconnect from the internet ever.
  
  --
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13. Re:Who cares about performance? by Daniel+Hoffmann · 2014-10-21 04:23 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, they are chasing the new and the better and trying to push that down the users throat just like they still do for desktop, yet people are not upgrading their desktops and laptops as often as they used to do, the same thing is beginning to happen in the smartphone/tablet market.
14. Re:Who cares about performance? by Remus+Shepherd · 2014-10-21 04:37 · Score: 1
  
  Apps and Android OS both continue to get more bloated as time passes, so the better the performance, the longer the device will remain relevant and useful. It's a measure of lifetime. A weak phone might not be able to run the apps that will be released two years from now. A strong phone might still be able to run apps four or more years in the future.
  If you upgrade your phone every two years like clockwork, then it doesn't matter to you. Those who prefer to delay upgrading until its necessary will appreciate a phone that's powerful enough to age well.
  
  --
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15. Re:Who cares about performance? by gnu-sucks · 2014-10-21 17:42 · Score: 1
  
  I was wondering the same thing too.
  I have a decent 8-core xeon at work as my workstation. When I have intense computations to run, I do it on one of our clusters. The idea that someone would do intense calculations on a phone is pretty ridiculous. You've outlined a few good examples, but like you said, most of that is done with dedicated hardware, and seemingly instantly.
  The only app that needs to be fast, and I mean really fast, is the app switcher and the Phone app. And they are pretty light on the computation anyway.
Weight by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-20 12:05 · Score: 0

I can get great battery and performance if I sacrifice form factor.
How many kW/hr/g ?
How many iops/g ?
Volume ?
Area of largest face ?
1. Re:Weight by Anne+Thwacks · 2014-10-20 18:33 · Score: 0
  
  Lack of exchangeable battery and SD card mean the whole discussion is pointless. I mean, who the hell would leave the house without a spare battery? - or a means to change data between home and work or different clients?
  Oh, they don't leave the house! That explains it!
  
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Benchmarks are pointless. by Moppusan · 2014-10-20 12:12 · Score: 1

You can configure your phone (well, Android phone) to give it max performance and 3 second battery life, or the other way around. I guess it would be helpful for casual Androiders who don't get into custom ROMs, custom Kernels, and the tweaking of each.

--
You can dance if you want to.
I think they way you tune it can be bigger by Sycraft-fu · 2014-10-20 12:31 · Score: 2

I mean sure if you use heavy usage games lots then maybe this matters, but most of your use is standby and cell network stuff. I've got my Note 3 lasting 3-4 days on a charge. How?
1) Turning off background services that slurp up battery. Just took some looking at the battery monitor and then considering what I needed and didn't.
2) Turning off additional radios like Bluetooth and GPS when I don't need them. It doesn't take long to hit the button if I do, and even when they aren't doing things actively they can sip some juice.
3) Having it on WiFi whenever possible. In good implementations on modern phones it uses less power than the cell network. Work has WiFi and I have a nice AP at home so most of the time it is on WiFi.
4) Using WiFi calling. T-mobile lets you route voice calls through WiFi. When you do that, it shuts down the cellular radio entirely (except occasionally to check on things) and does all data, text, and voice via WiFi. Uses very little juice and an hours long call only takes a bit of battery.
The WiFi calling thing has been really amazing. When you shut down the cellular radios battery goes way up. Not just in idle, but in use. Prior to that (when I first got it T-Mobile was having trouble with the feature) standby life was good, though not as good as it is now, but talk seriously hit the battery. Two to three hours could do it in almost completely. Now? I can do that, no issue, and still have plenty left.
1. Re:I think they way you tune it can be bigger by MSG · 2014-10-20 13:28 · Score: 1
  
  Having it on WiFi whenever possible. In good implementations on modern phones it uses less power than the cell network.
  Interesting note: that's not always the case. If you're on a network with a lot of broadcast traffic, WiFi will keep the phone from entering deep sleep, and your battery life will be terrible. It took me quite a while to figure out that my battery life's turn for the worse coincided with starting a new job, where the WiFi network is really big.
2. Re:I think they way you tune it can be bigger by jon3k · 2014-10-20 14:39 · Score: 1
  
  Note 3 lasting 3-4 days on a charge. How?
  Oh Oh let me guess! By having a phone the size of a tablet so the battery is huge?
3. Re:I think they way you tune it can be bigger by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-21 00:33 · Score: 0
  
  Yawn. The batteries are the same physical size as any others. Try taking a look at the mAh ratings of the batteries, not physical size of the entire device. You'll probably be surprised.
4. Re:I think they way you tune it can be bigger by Andy+Dodd · 2014-10-21 01:44 · Score: 1
  
  This is only if the phone's broadcast/multicast filters are broken.
  A proper wifi chip SHOULD filter out broadcast/multicast when the device is suspended.
  Unfortunately, it's a common item for vendors to screw up. The Nexus 4's ARP offload was broken for example, leading to all sorts of issues. The original Galaxy S2 had a Broadcom chip that fully supported ARP offload and broadcast/multicast filtering - but Samsung disabled the filters, allowing everything through!!! (They do this on a regular basis on multiple devices...)
  
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  retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
5. Re:I think they way you tune it can be bigger by adolf · 2014-10-21 04:28 · Score: 1
  
  1. Can be taken further, in a manner not dissimilar to disabling the retarded pre-load-at-boot that such things as Open Office and Adobe Reader like to do on Windows:
  Keeping seemingly-innocuous apps from doing non-productive things, triggered by system events that they have no business keeping track of, is something I've found to be very good for both performance and battery life.
  As an example Pandora, the popular music streaming service, wakes up (runs) on all of the following universally-useless intents by default: After startup (why?), locale changed (eh?), application replaced (any app!), timezone changed (!), time changed (!!).
  I don't want Pandora to run on boot, or any other time that any of those things -- booting is already slow enough as it is. And what business is it of Pandora's when I update an application? I want Pandora to run when I run Pandora.
  I use Autostarts to do kill these hooks, and many other hooks for other apps. (Requires root and Xposed,)
  2. Turning off radios helps, but not like you think it does. Modern Bluetooth sips so little battery in the idle state that it's silly to bother with adjusting it if you use it for anything, ever.
  Manually GPS off is laughable: It's -always- off unless an app (navigation, etc) requests access. Some apps do use GPS when their needs are better suited using cell/Wifi geolocation (Weatherbug's first Android releases did default to GPS years ago), but I don't see it anymore because.... Rule #1: Look at permissions when installing...if an app doesn't need to know precisely where you're at and requests GPS access, just find another app.
  One radio does make a difference: I found massive improvements in battery on VZW by having disabling LTE when the screen is off.
  By default, both the LTE (data only) and CDMA radios are always on (this is how voice calling works), and I don't care if I have fast data if I'm not looking at the phone.
  3. Yep. A good ROM will also disable LTE when connected to Wifi. Another big improvement: Turn on WMM in your access point if there are options for it. Without WMM, the client radio is always listening for a packet when connected, with WMM packets can scheduled and client is allowed to sleep for a short period. (This seems to be enabled by default on home routers lately, but it wasn't always the case. Hence the option in standard Android to turn off Wifi when the screen is off. WMM is what makes Wifi battery-friendly, and without it it can be very thirsty when connected, even if seemingly idle.)
  4. I wish. (VZW.)
  Also: 5. Greenify FTW.
  
  --
  Kid-proof tablet..
6. Re:I think they way you tune it can be bigger by adolf · 2014-10-21 04:37 · Score: 1
  
  That's one issue that I hadn't heard of, but it makes sense: Of course the wifi chip, in an age of nearly-universally-smart NICs, should be able to filter broadcast traffic without waking up the rest of the system or even generating an interrupt...unless an application is actually using broadcast traffic.
  The other issue is WMM, which is a function that requires support from the access point. It involves some packet scheduling, rather than shout-ASAP-into-the-collision-domain that Wifi was initially designed to do. This lets the RX portion of the radio to sleep when connected to an AP, whereas without WMM it cannot.
  
  --
  Kid-proof tablet..
As per running Android... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-20 12:36 · Score: 0

...I'd say all of them sacrifice battery, but not always getting performance out of it. Life with Android isn't particularly mobile.
http://i.imgur.com/JadV3L1.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/YxZjboT.jpg
Not my LG... by damn_registrars · 2014-10-20 12:47 · Score: 2

... my LG Android device doesn't perform well or get good battery life. It's a slug that is constantly running out of internal storage (which makes apps run like crap and prevents them from being updated) and gets about 6-8 hours of battery life on standby most days. I don't do any apps more complicated than google plus on it, and I don't view any videos of any kind on it.

--
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
1. Re: Not my LG... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-20 12:54 · Score: 0
  
  I am rocking a Moto G LTE, 2days battery and decent performance. 200$ on Amazon typically and unlocked. Other variants are cheaper can't comment on them.
2. Re:Not my LG... by SirAudioMan · 2014-10-20 13:10 · Score: 1
  
  My Google Nexus 4 (LG makes it) has never been that good with battery life. I've owned it for close to 2 years now and it's only gotten marginally worse than when it was new. I charge it each night fully, and get about 14-16 hours of life before it's in the red (warning comes on at 14%). That's with:
  - Checking it regularly for slashdot, emails, messages, facebook, etc, for short bursts of 1-2 minutes.
  - Probably put about 1-2 hours of internet browsing on it (mix of wifi and cellular) during lunch or before bed when I read news
  - The occasional 10-15 minute phone call to my wife. I hardly talk on it ever, and never for very long.
  - Leave Bluetooth on so that it syncs up with my Ford Sync automatically
  - Leave off GPS to keep Big Brother from tracking my movements unless I need mapping.
3. Re:Not my LG... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-20 16:52 · Score: 0
  
  There's your problem right there: you have Location Services turned off. I find that all Google phones - and AOSP ROMs flashed with gapps - will hammer the battery with "where are you now? where are you now?" requests until you turn the Location Services back on. So much so that the phone won't even sleep in some cases. I get about 2x as much battery life with Location Services on (GPS on, power saver mode, wifi sniffing off) than I get if I have it off.
  Other things that may unintentionally drain the battery quickly are leaving the camera on with location services turned on (again with the "where are you now?" business), and about 1/2 as fast when location services are turned off.
4. Re:Not my LG... by phantomfive · 2014-10-20 19:04 · Score: 1
  
  - Leave off GPS to keep Big Brother from tracking my movements unless I need mapping.
  FWIW that won't work, they can triangulate based on cell towers.
  
  --
  "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
5. Re:Not my LG... by AmiMoJo · 2014-10-20 19:56 · Score: 1
  
  "LG Android device"? Couldn't even find the model name?
  Must be an old, low end phone. LG make the G3 and Nexus 5, both of which have excellent battery life.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
6. Re:Not my LG... by savuporo · 2014-10-20 20:10 · Score: 1
  
  Do you have an adb trace or something to show how that hammering goes, or wireshark trace or something ? I actually got a feeling its the opposite, turning off location services significantly helps my battery survive, also on nexus 4
  
  --
  http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashdot.org Errors found while checking this document as HTML5!
7. Re:Not my LG... by Overzeetop · 2014-10-20 22:46 · Score: 1
  
  I'm not sure the G3 should be held up as a poster child for good battery life. I have one, and when it's running full out it can chew through a battery. It's the downside of the hires screen. It's not bad, but under normal conditions I'll be at 35-40% after a full day of use, and if I'm going to be on it continuously I can burn through the battery in 5-6 hours. OTOH, it's got a replaceable battery, so there's never any real battery anxiety. I think the G2 was pretty good with battery life, though.
  
  --
  Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
8. Re:Not my LG... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-20 23:28 · Score: 0
  
  Trilaterate. Triangulating is when you find the location of a third point by measuring the angle from at least two other points on a plane not parellel to the third. Point A (known) measures the angle between point C (unknown) and point B (known, on plane with A). Point B measures the angle between point C and Point A. Take the two and and apply high school trigonometry . Trilateration is where you find a third point in the intersection between two or more areas. The area of coverage of each tower is known, so a phone can be located by listing which towers are available to the device and checking coverage maps.
9. Re:Not my LG... by enrevanche · 2014-10-21 06:11 · Score: 1
  
  it's the slashdot main page. close it when you're not using it and your battery will last much longer. I noticed this on my tablet. email doesn't seem to make a difference. I don't know about facebook, I don't use it.
10. Re:Not my LG... by strikethree · 2014-10-22 02:20 · Score: 1
  
  If at all possible, I would recommend rooting your phone and killing/removing apps. You could also try Cyanogenmod if it is supported on your device... which it likely is.
  
  --
  "Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
Seriously? Comparing desk calculators to PCs by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-20 12:56 · Score: 0

....well at least 10.1 inch tables to 5" phones. Ludicrous. Tablets and phones may run the same OS and feature a lot of common technology but screen size is hugely taxing on battery life.
The HTC One M8 really stands out by danbob999 · 2014-10-20 13:05 · Score: 0

The HTC One M8 really stands out, thanks to its nearly balanced performance/battery-life ratio
No it doesn't. Just because an arbitrary "performance" number equals another just as arbitrary "battery life" number doesn't mean the device is any balanced.
1. Re:The HTC One M8 really stands out by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-20 13:38 · Score: 0
  
  Actually, yes. Yes it does. Neither number is relatively larger than the other, unlike most of the other devices tested. The numbers may be arbitrary, but the numbers are relative to each other and all the phones run the same test, so it is "balanced".
2. Re:The HTC One M8 really stands out by danbob999 · 2014-10-20 14:39 · Score: 1
  
  Why isn't "balanced" to have 200% in battery compared to performance? Where does the 1:1 ratio comes from?
3. Re:The HTC One M8 really stands out by thesupraman · 2014-10-20 14:42 · Score: 1
  
  I assume you do realize what it means when one completely arbitrary number equals another completely arbitrary number, right?
  its called a 'coincidence' at the best.
  Really, this is either a desperate attempt to shill for the M8, or a huge statistics fail that someone has decided to run with.
  And, not only that.
  If you look at, for example, the Oneplus One, it has basically the same performance but much more battery life.
  In what way is that less good that the M8? Of course there is none - it is better.
  NOTHING AT ALL is conveyed by these graphics or figures - they are purely arbitrary.
  Hell, multiple the battery number by 2 (which is may as well be, as it has no physical meaning) then the Note III is suddenly 'the most balanced'
Apples and Oranges by Frescard · 2014-10-20 13:07 · Score: 2

"Balanced features" in this context means nothing -- you have some random index indicating performance (which could be anything they want it to be), and compare that to some other random index for the battery life.
Yes, by itself those two indices might be useful, if you're looking for a phone to match your personal priorities, but talking about some "balance", just because the two indices are near each other is quite nonsensical.
one plus one by najay · 2014-10-20 13:55 · Score: 1

I want to know where i can get an invite.
1. Re:one plus one by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-20 16:58 · Score: 0
  
  Go on YouTube and look for smash the future (or whatever their tagline was). Reach out to one of those folks, and surely one will be able to hook you up. Or strike up a conversation with someone who has one in the street, see if they have any invites left.
2. Re:one plus one by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-21 02:35 · Score: 0
  
  They start taking orders on Oct 27th, you can preorder now.
Re:I care about performance? by Bite+The+Pillow · 2014-10-20 13:58 · Score: 1

When I push a button and nothing happens, I wonder if my man hands confused the sensors. And I wonder if the signal has gone because certain kinds of wind interfere with both 3G and OTA TV. And I wonder if it was a "select" click instead of a"go" click.
I wonder all kinds of things in the time it takes for me to click on something and when it responds. And if it can be fast enough to do what I ask when I ask, then I care.
I realize that most of my complaints are based on shitty UI design. I can't control that, unless I want to rewrite lots of apps. But I can control performance. Until the fucktards who write shitty UIs die in a fire, I care about speed balanced with battery life.
When the UI makes sense and gives me feedback and is okay with large fingers, I'll only care about the battery.
they cheat by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-20 14:57 · Score: 0

I personally wrote the code which forces the HTC OneX and Xiaomi Mi3 to burn the battery in order to hit some performance targets. I'm almost positive they adapted the code to boost the performance test apps. I never got the sour taste out of my mouth because it's not like they were making a battery/performance tradeoff in general... they were just forcing the device to act differently to fool customers.
1. Re:they cheat by blackomegax · 2014-10-21 04:55 · Score: 1
  
  I personally wrote the code to your mom.
Re:I care about performance? by Visarga · 2014-10-20 15:00 · Score: 1

> When I push a button and nothing happens, I wonder if my man hands confused the sensors.

[rant]
I've always been irked when UI doesn't prioritize the user over other async events and work - for example, blocking an app while resolving DNS. What if the user wants to cancel? What if it was a mis-click? The buttons should always work.

This sometimes happens because the software is not well written in an async style, but other times the computation itself slows down the system too much to be useful any more - for example - when the Bash console doesn't respond any more because of huge system load - how is the user supposed to kill processes then? At least free 5% of the cpu for the console! [/rant]
thanks for the article by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-20 15:15 · Score: 0

i should run run Futuremark on my $50 smartphone just to see how slow it is. lol I think it is a single-core 1 GHz phone.
To hell with battery life by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-20 15:18 · Score: 0

I want an Android tablet with a big screen and fast processor. It won't ever leave the house/office, or be far away from its dock so who cares about battery life?
I have a Note Pro 12.2, running its primary app (these things are bought to run a specific number crunching business app), it will drains its battery in about 4 hours with the screen on. Who cares. They spend their time plugged in on the desks.
I'd like double the screen size, 4x the pixels count, stick that 8 core 64 bit chip in it, a mass of ram and do it for $1000, and don't care about the battery... AND THE BATTERY ISN'T IMPORTANT, because not all Android devices are about portability!
I have the Razr Maxx by Richy_T · 2014-10-20 15:21 · Score: 2

Didn't really want it (I had a Samsung in mind) but it's what work gave me (it was that or an iphone). Gotta say, the battery life is impressive and it doesn't sacrifice much performance, only lagging occasionally. I actually intended to run the battery flat a couple of weekends ago but it was still going late Sunday from being taken off charge Friday AM.
I'd forgotten how nice having decent battery life is. I had an L7089 in a past life and that would go out to seven days. I would gladly sacrifice quite a few "niceties" for battery life. Where are the e-ink android phones? (I have a Motofone F3 somewhere but sadly it doesn't work on the frequencies here)
1. Re:I have the Razr Maxx by Overzeetop · 2014-10-20 22:40 · Score: 1
  
  They should seriously try a Taichi*-like phone with a pair of screens. IPS/OLED on one side and eInk on the other. A B/W interface would work fine for 90% of the time, and the color screen would be there for camera ops, video, and the like. Apple put glass on two sides of a phone and it made for a pretty damned durable device, imho.
  *Asus' dual screen laptop/tablet hybrid, with a screen on both sides of the lid (though both were IPS).
  
  --
  Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
2. Re:I have the Razr Maxx by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-20 23:31 · Score: 0
  
  I take a Nokia 6310i camping. It's been trodden on, dropped in puddles and peat bogs, used in the rain... I get at least four days *with spotty GSM signal*, and it's still on its original battery. It's now over a decade old.
There is none. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-20 16:06 · Score: 0

There is none. Android battery life appears to be approximately around 5 hours, regardless of model, for my usage. It's absolutely stunningly bad. And I swear to Christ, I am not even trolling.
1. Re:There is none. by NoZart · 2014-10-21 01:42 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe you shouldn't charge your Tesla with your phone. ;)
you lose some smarts that way by Chirs · 2014-10-20 16:46 · Score: 2

The more things you turn off, the less "aware" your phone is of its environment.
For example, I have a friend who uses Tasker on his phone. He gets in the car and it pairs with the bluetooth ODB2 port and starts displaying engine info. He goes to the movie theater and it detects the wifi access point and switches to vibrate. He sets location-based reminders (next time I'm within 5 miles of store X, go pick up item Y).
I guess it's all about what's most useful to you...
It's not the absolute values that matter by Chirs · 2014-10-20 16:54 · Score: 1

It's the placement relative to the other devices. In other words, the numbers are arbitrary, but the charts are useful.
So the HTC One M8 is middle-of-the-pack on performance, but second-best on battery. The OnePlus One is a few percent worse than the HTC on performance, but 15% better on battery life. They could have removed the numbers entirely and this would still hold true.
1. Re:It's not the absolute values that matter by marsu_k · 2014-10-20 21:30 · Score: 2
  
  But I'm really not sure what they're measuring with the arbitrary battery life score. As an anecdotal example, I have an Xperia Z2. I get a full day of heavy use out of it, or 2-2 1/2 days of moderate use. According to pretty much every review, Z3 has slightly better battery life. So, assuming the scale is linear (and my Z2 would thus score slightly lower than a Z3), OnePlus One should have a 4-5 day battery life? Which I really don't think it has.
Who cares? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-20 18:39 · Score: 0

Go Windows Phone!
Re:I care about performance? by reikae · 2014-10-20 19:56 · Score: 2

We had buttons that give feedback, but most people stopped buying such devices.
Re:I care about performance? by savuporo · 2014-10-20 20:00 · Score: 1

Dedicated hw core to keep controls processing. Not a dedicated thread or process. Run a partitioned off small RTOS core doing just user interface inputs and outputs, and controls.
Some embedded systems actually do something like that, and some consoles keep dedicated hw for system processing.

--
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashdot.org Errors found while checking this document as HTML5!
Trade off and flame war. by jellomizer · 2014-10-20 22:08 · Score: 1

Nothing like a difference in opinion of what trade offs some one chooses to cause a flame war.
Performance vs battery life. Some people want a responsive device while they charge their phone daily so it isn't an issue. Others want there phone to charge less option so they use it more.
The thing is people use their devices differently and have different habits so they accept different trade offs to best meet there needs.
But so many people feel that just because someone has their preference it is threationing theirs too.

--
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Power matters little, Battery life matters less by Overzeetop · 2014-10-20 22:35 · Score: 1

Power on a cell phone? Maybe to the rarified gamer on /. but to little Andrea or her grandmother all they want is a phone that doesn't stutter and plays music and videos. And they make up 90% of the market segment for smartphones. That's not to say having a fast phone isn't nice, especially since the UI designers seem to be determined to max the bling, requiring lots of processing for that stutter free experience.
And if you are worried about your phones power, then battery life matters even less when you can swap in a fresh battery in a matter of seconds. It matters a lot when a dead phone means an hour or two soak at a charging station before you can go anywhere, or so you can play your physics-charged games untethered. Apple was the company which has so famously cheered the "no extra batteries, no extra memory" mantra which has cause battery life anxiety over the past couple of years. It's the copycat part of Android I like the least. (okay, I like it as little as the fixed-memory condition)

--
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Irrelevant. Comes down to users. by danknight48 · 2014-10-20 22:51 · Score: 1

Which Android Devices Sacrifice Battery-Life For Performance?
The ones owned by people who dont know about background processing?
The majority of users have no clue why/how the battery drains, each device and its user will get different "real world" results.
At the end of the day, those users probably couldn't care less because they can magically charge it with electricity!
1. Re:Irrelevant. Comes down to users. by Andy+Dodd · 2014-10-21 01:47 · Score: 1
  
  This.
  I've had so many devices that people claimed had shitty battery life, when I had no issues whatsoever. Like the Nexus 4.
  (The N4 DID have some issues on initial release with the GPU frequency governor and broken wifi ARP offloading, but once these were fixed the device was great.)
  Same with the Nexus 5. Google had some nasty power management bugs that killed battery on some wifi networks, but they had commits on AOSP within days that fixed the issue on the next OTA.
  
  --
  retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Major errors in benchmark by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-20 23:36 · Score: 0

There seems to be major errors in how they benchmark. Sony Xperia Z3 has been named king of battery life by everyone who's tested in (magazine reviews as well as consumers) - only falling behind Sony Xperia Z3 Compact.
http://www.phonearena.com/news...
What the question should be: by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-21 00:52 · Score: 0

Which apps suck down battery like a cheap whore?
Speaking of cheap whores, Tinder is a prime example of such an app.
Some strange kind of slashvertising? by flopsquad · 2014-10-21 01:44 · Score: 1

Right now I am irrationally exuberant over the HTC One M8, wetting myself with glee over the OnePlus One, and magical ponies are flying out of my ass because the PCMark app is so amazing and primetime-ready.

Am I reading too much into this? Being overly cynical?

--
Nothing posted to /. has ever been legal advice, including this.
Re:I care about performance? by Bite+The+Pillow · 2014-10-24 12:25 · Score: 1

Could the people selling devices which people buy also give feedback? It is not mutually exclusive.
Or another way, I will not buy a device that does not give feedback. If I have my current device for as long as I live, I will not be disappointed more than I am. If I have the opportunity to buy a better device, I will not hesitate. A trade-off is not acceptable.
Slashdot wants to take me to my own profile, because JS is disabled, so I don't know who "we" represents, if you have otherwise specified.
I am a niche market - it takes me years to buy anything. But I do not think that my desire for near-instant feedback is misplaced or otherwise specific to me.
I considered clarifying that the UI responds.. eventually. But I thought that was clear.
Regardless, buying a device is not about a single feature.
Re:I care about performance? by Bite+The+Pillow · 2014-10-24 12:26 · Score: 1

How do I take any advantage of your comment? It is good advice in general, but if I am a consumer, how do I modify my purchasing?