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Ask Slashdot: Best Big Battery Phone?

Posted by timothy on from the all-day-is-a-nice-minimum dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Samsung's announcement today of the Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6+ was a disappointment to a lot of power users. The phones both use a 3,000 mAh, non-removable battery. This is presumably part of Samsung's quest for thinner and thinner phones, but it's bad news for those who prize function over form — particularly from a phone line that is ostensibly made for power users. So, those of you who have the pulse of the mobile industry: what's my best bet for a high end phone that doesn't compromise on battery life? Are there any devices on the horizon that are likely to have big batteries? I'm also wondering if I should just get a cheap phone to tide me over to the next generation of flagships. My current device is old and doesn't have the fast/quick-charge tech that modern ones do — does that work as advertised?

6 of 208 comments (clear)

  1. Buy a battery case by StormCrow · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think the ship has mostly sailed on phones with larger batteries. Buy a battery case or just an external battery pack.

    1. Re:Buy a battery case by Grishnakh · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah, and what good is your phone? The only thing you can do on it well is talk. That's one of the rarest things I do on my phone, and I avoid it whenever possible. For texting, navigation, web browsing, dating apps, voice mail, etc., your phone is useless. You need all those sensors and a big touchscreen to do those things (yes, including texting; texting on a 0-9 keypad is idiotic and unusable) (and yes, including voice mail too; listening to voice mail is so 1990s, these days I read my voice mail with Google Voice).

  2. Add-ons by American+AC+in+Paris · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Getcherself a battery-backup case/portable battery. Alternatively, invest in a few extra charge cables and scatter 'em about your domain.

    But then again, you're a power user. You know this already.

    --

    Obliteracy: Words with explosions

  3. Re:note 4 by roc97007 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I mean what's really the benefit of getting the latest phone? Note 4 has a removable battery and a microsd card. It has a great screen, can be used as a vr screen. Honestly why bother getting anything else?

    To manufacturers, this is a problem. When phones are good enough that there's nothing substantially better to upgrade to, people tend not to buy new hardware. A way has to be found to force them to upgrade. Hence, the lack of SD cards (no way to put in a bigger one) and the lack of a replaceable battery.

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  4. Re:If you truly want function over form by macs4all · · Score: 1, Insightful

    ...or last 6 hrs (iOS)

    Liar.

    The only way I could get my iPhone 6 Plus to last only 6 hours was to do turn-by-turn navigation; which not only cranks up the high-current-draw GPS hardware, but more significantly, wants to keep the backlight lit so you can see the scrolling map.

    Otherwise, my iPhone gets about 3 to 4 DAYS of average use. I chatted the other day with some friends on a cellphone call for nearly 6 hours, and it STILL had about 30% left, and IIRC, it only went into that call with about 62% capacity.

  5. Re:LG G4 by fnj · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Apple ... realized that the vast majority of people did not buy spare batteries for laptops ...

    Bullshit. Gross gooey bullshit. Apple found it easier and more profitable for THEM to make the batteries non-replaceable. They relied on idiot fanbois to keep buying their shit anyway, and on regulators not to give a fuck about doing their job and keeping waste minimized by REQUIRING all batteries in all consumer goods to be replaceable.