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It's Not Your Imagination: Smartphone Battery Life Is Getting Worse (washingtonpost.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Washington Post: For the last few weeks, I've been performing the same battery test over and over again on 13 phones. With a few notable exceptions, this year's top models underperformed last year's. The new iPhone XS died 21 minutes earlier than last year's iPhone X. Google's Pixel 3 lasted nearly an hour and a half less than its Pixel 2. Phone makers tout all sorts of tricks to boost battery life, including more-efficient processors, low-power modes and artificial intelligence to manage app drain. Yet my results, and tests by other reviewers I spoke with, reveal an open secret in the industry: the lithium-ion batteries in smartphones are hitting an inflection point where they simply can't keep up.
"Batteries improve at a very slow pace, about 5 percent per year," says Nadim Maluf, the CEO of a Silicon Valley firm called Qnovo that helps optimize batteries. "But phone power consumption is growing up faster than 5 percent." Blame it on the demands of high-resolution screens, more complicated apps and, most of all, our seeming inability to put the darn phone down. Lithium-ion batteries, for all their rechargeable wonder, also have some physical limitations, including capacity that declines over time -- and the risk of explosion if they're damaged or improperly disposed. And the phone power situation is likely about to get worse. New ultrafast wireless technology called 5G, coming to the U.S. neighborhoods soon, will make even greater demands on our beleaguered batteries. If you want a smartphone that excels in battery life, you pretty much have two options: Samsung's Galaxy Note 9 and Apple's iPhone XR. According to The Washington Post's tests, the iPhone XR and Note 9 topped the list with times of 12:25 and 12:00, respectively.
"Batteries improve at a very slow pace, about 5 percent per year," says Nadim Maluf, the CEO of a Silicon Valley firm called Qnovo that helps optimize batteries. "But phone power consumption is growing up faster than 5 percent." Blame it on the demands of high-resolution screens, more complicated apps and, most of all, our seeming inability to put the darn phone down. Lithium-ion batteries, for all their rechargeable wonder, also have some physical limitations, including capacity that declines over time -- and the risk of explosion if they're damaged or improperly disposed. And the phone power situation is likely about to get worse. New ultrafast wireless technology called 5G, coming to the U.S. neighborhoods soon, will make even greater demands on our beleaguered batteries. If you want a smartphone that excels in battery life, you pretty much have two options: Samsung's Galaxy Note 9 and Apple's iPhone XR. According to The Washington Post's tests, the iPhone XR and Note 9 topped the list with times of 12:25 and 12:00, respectively.
All that has to happen is that smartphone makers (Apple I'm looking at you) need to stop the obsession with making every device thinner than the last one and add a bigger battery pack or make a decent interface for a battery case that doesn't involve a clumsy and bulky pass through of the USB port.
There are a lot of us (myself included) who wouldn't mind a modestly thicker device in exchange for a bigger battery, better camera, etc. I'm going to put a case on anyway so why not facilitate putting some real utility into the case while we are at it? In an elegant way rather than the clumsy hacks we've seen to date. It would be trivial to allow people to add the audio jacks to the case for those who want one while permitting those who don't care to add something else. As big as the market is currently for smartphone accessories I think it could be a LOT bigger than it currently is if Apple and others would get their head out of their designers asses and look at how people actually use these things.
Stop trying to make the thinnest phone. Make them thicker, use the extra space for a larger battery, and make them durable enough to not need a case. They'll still be thinner than you end up with today.
It’s amazing how the entire thing dances around the elephant that fills up 90% of the room because he had to eat all the food that the retardphone makers denied their products.
None of the non-mainstream phones have a battery life problem. You get phones with 10Ah from a load of manufacturers now.
The "problem" is, that you can't cut your wrist with them because they're not thin like a knife for no freaking reason, and you can't hold them like a boom box because they're so impractically oversized. They may weigh a bit, but that's because they got actual batteries in them. And actual tough cases, if you want. And "worst" of all, they don't cost $1000 e-penis fee on top of the $150 manufacturing costs, so you can't compensate your tiny dick/tits with them.
Sorry, if you buy that "thinspiration" crap, you got only yourself to blame. I hope you slit yourself on them.
user replaceable battery
That will solve the problem fast. Oh wait, business models rely on spying on the user and producing useless updates.
Seriously, ... how stupid does he think we are? "two options"? You mean apart from the literally hundreds of other small east-Asian manufacturers that try to stand out? They’re not all making crap, you know? They are trying to stand out, and actually have to compete like motherfuckers. Which guarantees some will stand out with superiority in all aspects you personally want, however unusual.
Why are you deliberately and systematically making it look like a false scarcity, and imply that buying those big brands is a sane option, let alone the only one?
Make phones thick and OS/software light again! Back to basic please.
Will $CURRENT_YEAR be the year of the Linux Desktop?
If I want my phone to look like a thick bulky builders' tool, then I get a thick bulky phone. Not an anorexic model with the toughness of Mr. Burns, to then wrap it up in a baby stroller tank contraption. That’s just *stupid*.
Because thin is in at Apple. Don't like it? Trade down and get an android.
12 minutes and 25 seconds as a maximum runtime for an iphone XR
and
12 minutes for a Note 9
Amazing !
Utterly flabbergasting !
Somebody promote this to world news status
forget about global climate warming change
ignore the US trillion dollar banking debt
drop the actor presidents who always try to trump each other.
and
BRING BACK CowboyNeal !!!!!!!!!!
CowboyNeal for president of the world !
If you happen to prefer iOS, there's not much choice. Are there a lot of chunky Android smart phones out there with increased battery capacity?
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Make the phones about the size or the original iPhone and the battery life would be spectacular. Might as well get rid of the top and bottom bezel too. Now that would be a beautiful and functional device that fit well in the hand and the pocket.
The contemporary phone scene is extremely bizarre.
Why are people buying thinner phones? Why are they asking to remove useful features as for a few millimeters? Or a tiny bit more screen real estate?
"Smart" phones are losing tons of useful features in the name of.....what exactly?
Make it a little thicker, beef up the battery. Get rid of nitches, make the screen normal and add in a headphone jack an removable storage.
Why are most manufacturers not doing all these things?
Why are consumers voting for worse devices by buying crap ?
I have a Moto G4 running LineageOS with GAPPS Mini on it. No social media. Chrome, Spotify, Amazon, Strava, Signal, Chik-Fil-A, Weather Underground, Waves, banking stuff, and tons of other apps... but no social media.
Guess what? My battery lasts for 2-3 days. I tried putting FB messenger on it because one of my church groups uses it, and all of a sudden, I'm having to carry a battery pack around with me. So, that got killed real fast.
Get rid of the social media and you'll instantly get twice the battery life at least, maybe more.
I have ~50% battery left when I plug it in at night. My last phone (OnePlus 3T) didn't last the whole day with my usage..
"...the lithium-ion batteries in smartphones are hitting an inflection point where they simply can't keep up."
Lithium-ion performance tends to degrade when processing bullshit features no one asked for, to include Bendgate-grade designs. Perhaps vendors could do us a favor and stop giving us more "innovation".
Of course, that might result in more reliable products that could last longer. Greed N. Corruption won't stand for that shit, and consumers don't care enough to change the inevitable path towards the destruction of ownership. The obvious solution is to rent you shitty hardware instead of improving it.
It takes a lot of battery power to collect every conceivable piece of data on you and monitor you constantly so they can sell it to ad companies...
At least in regard to Android Google is obsessed with adding new background daemons which wake up your phone a lot more frequently than it was done in the past and, consequently, your battery life starts to suck a lot.
Does a new Android phone do much more than its 3 years old ancestor? I don't think so, yet Google Play Service have gotten almost a magnitude bigger (wrt to RAM/CPU usage) and while your old device spent most of its battery on its screen, nowadays if you are a light Android user (e.g. use your phone for less than two hours a day) then the two first and most battery offenders are Android OS and Android System by a large margin. And it doesn't even matter that your cellular data is off, GPS is off, Bluetooth is off, play market doesn't autoupdate apps and NFC is off.
Of course, batteries cannot keep up with this shit.
Does increasing the resolution of the screens increase the battery usage? I ask because manufacturers keep increasing resolutions completely pointlessly, and if it comes at the expense of battery life I want them to stop.
Trying to think this through: It would use more RAM, and more CPU to update the screen. On the other hand, the biggest battery drain is probably the backlight which remains the same. In the case of OLED, the pixels themselves product light, but it's the same overall luminance and surface area. So maybe it doesn't really make a significant difference. Does anyone here know for sure?
An argument refuted by Oneplus releasing their new 6T that's a mm thicker, and has the battery size bumped from 3300 to 3700 mah. So suck my dick.
Why do you have to choose from these overpriced phones? There are plenty sub 200 dollar phones with 3000-400mAh batteries.
The related links at the bottom of the page are never related. It's just a list of the most controversial articles.
If you happen to prefer iOS, there's not much choice.
Which is why I don't prefer iOS. Their limited selections rarely match my preferences.
For the top Android manufacturers you've basically got Samsung or choose an iPhone clone.
Ironically Samsung is now good and has nothing in common with iPhone design
Even outside major Western manufacturers you see companies that either screw up the Android experience, or they screw up the hardware and remove headphone jacks and add notches and all other forms of perversion
Why do we even need a separate case? All those super thin phones are pointless if you need to put them into a bulky case to protect them.
The modularity of the cases has actual utility. It's cheap to replace a damaged or worn case. Plus it provides an opportunity for people to personalize their device both aesthetically and functionally. The problem is that Apple and others have ignored the function component of cases. It's a huge missed opportunity.
And some people like the thin phones and some don't bother with a case. So by making cases as functional as possible you increase utility to the largest quantity of smartphone users with the fewest trade-offs. Speaking for myself I'd like a case with a bigger battery and better camera optics. Other people would probably like a 3.5mm audio jack or a SD card slot. By making a way for the case to provide this functionality people can get the device they want and Apple/Samsung/etc can focus on making the core device as tight as they like.
How about making a phone with an easily replacable battery so you can carry a spare? That way you can watch it as long as your eyes can stand it.
It is funny that you call out Apple when they trend for iPhones has been towards increasing thickness for the past four years. The iPhone X is thicker than the iPhone 5.
The difference is 7.7 vs 7.6mm. That is hardly what I'd call a meaningful difference. Actually I just took a pair of calipers to my X and it was 7.62mm. And let's not pretend that Apple doesn't keep bragging about how thin their devices are every time they announce one. They are thinner than is functionally necessary.
There already are cases that use wireless charging instead of a pass-though connector
That's fine but it is both A) inefficient and B) doesn't transmit data. I can't put an SD card or other equipment onto a case and make use of it unless the case has a clumsy and bulky USB pass through.
iPhone battery capacity has been trending up for for the past nine years.
The battery pack capacity has modestly trended up but has been offset by more power hungry devices. Functionally I have effectively the same amount of battery run time as I had 8 years ago - i.e. about a day.
Basically, the things you want already exist.
What I am suggesting most certainly does NOT exist. There are crude and clumsy approximations of what I am proposing and nothing really properly supported by the OEM smartphone makers. What I want is a set of low profile contacts on the back of the case that provide an interface for high speed data and power transmission from a case to a smartphone. That does not exist on any smartphone currently on the market today that I am aware of. Preferably the interface would be standard between devices but that's probably never going to happen.
I get screens with resolutions that can be appreciated with a microscope. I get phones so thin I cut myself on them. I get more apps, more adware, and more tracking. And it's a free hand/pocket warmer. Who needs bigger batteries with features like that?! I'd shell out $5,000 even if the battery lasted for 5 minutes if they could just make it a nanometer thinner, pack more pixels onto the screen so I need a scanning electron microscope to see the pixels, remove more buttons and ports, and add more free apps that definitely cannot be disabled into the already bloated memory. Maybe they could add some kind of feature like quad AR processors that are always running so there's no lag when I want to use one of the 6 AR apps installed by default. Hell, I'd take out a loan to buy two. One for my morning coffee. The other for the rest of my morning coffee. And I'd look damn good doing it.
Are there a lot of chunky Android smart phones out there with increased battery capacity?
Yeah, but they are loaded down with so much unremovable bloatware - often you can't even disable it - that usage goes up and down. I don't know what happened last month, but something that had been running all the time was nixed, and my phone battery life improved.
I mean, "GlanceViewMk" is supposedly something about "Notification listener in use. Tap Settings to manage it."... tapping settings does nothing. My fingers itch at the idea that some swivel-eyed middle manager has more of a say in what runs on my phone than I do.
Dude why don't you just root your phone lolol
Because I shouldn't bloody have to.
Consumer reports did the same sort of tests and reports the opposite finding at least on the iphone X series.
What did they do differently? well consumer reports uses a robotic finger to run the test suite the same way that a human finger would. The Washington pose it appears used programatic control to drive the phone.
It appears that perhaps the User interface engineers have discovered how to let the phone rest between finger taps or to anticipate what finger taps follow others such that it actually improves power efficiencny.
Now as for your comment about case modularity. Well it's a nice thought and the argument makes sense down to the point where it defeats the overall objective. Here things have scaled down to the point where the case is taking up a significant portion of the volume. Having two cases is nuts when you could have a bigger battery in the same volume.
One could imagine having a replaceable cover on a phone without a structural inner case.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
One could imagine having a replaceable cover on a phone without a structural inner case.
That's how phones actually are in general now. Flimsy AF but with an included slim case that gives it basic physical integrity.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Maybe you're not like that, but let me reply to the discussion that usually results from this:
Don't tell me you need a 16-core 4GHz 32GB RAM supercomputer with a 4K screen that you can hold with one hand. Because you don't.
Yet, it would not matter what I suggest. You'd always compare it to *that*, and call it "not good" otherwise.
Any phone above $100 will realistically probably do the job. (China phone prices.)
Mine cost $180, for the added near-indestructibility. I did not have a single case where I ever thought "I need more power". And I'm a programmer / power user in a business environment.
Want long battery life and rocket-fast internet? Turn Javascript off. Yeah you can't interact with the social-media spyware plugins or comment (or read mobile slashdot) anymore, but unless one needs a piece of web outside W3C, Javascript not worth it at this point. Megabytes of analytics and useless videos wrapped in code that loops phone into a heater half the time...just from trying to read an article on CNN. Add it all up and its like tenth of the degree that will kill us all by 2050 or whatever, and that is what Javascript is doing to us from the browser today.
Battery lasts way longer on my Redmi 5 Plus than any other phone I've owned by Apple or Samsung or LG or Motorola. I can get 2-3 days of my average usage before I have to charge it. (If I'm going to watch videos all day then I'll easily get one day out of it.)
Battery life for days, wired or wireless charging, headphone jack, bluetooth, nfc, and you can TURN IT ALL OFF TO SAVE EVEN MORE POWER.
You silly people with your gimped phones.
For years it's been a given that this year's computers have more available resources than last year's. This goes for processor speed, RAM, storage, GPU speed.
So the usual MO for many has been to use those extra resources to the fullest extent, leaving only a small gain in functional speed for the consumer to notice.
Apparently it hasn't fully sunk in yet that battery capacity (like pretty much everything else in life) does not conform to Moore's Law and that including the kitchen sink software-wise is going to drain the battery faster.
Big batteries are one of the best features of a cellphone.
Get rid of the curved screens, too! I already broke 2 screen protectors on my Galaxy Note 8. I liked the Galaxy Note 4 Better.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
I just got a Moto G6 Play and it's got a 4Ah battery that regularly lasts 5-6 days on Android Oreo.
I don't do anything special except keep GPS off when I'm not actively navigating anywhere. It doesn't come with shitware like FaecesBook and I haven't had to disable anything.
If you've written any apps for it, you'll notice Android Oreo is pretty draconian about preserving the battery.
I just "upgraded" because my Samsung 5 started to be unreliable. I'm still not sure that it wasn't because of a Verizon "security update". But, I got a Kyocera. Every bit as good as the Samsung, submergible down to several feet, Qi charging, and rugged. Still thin enough to carry in my pocket.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
There is also the gemini pda
I just picked up last year's Moto Z2 Play (I won't pay more then $300 for a phone anymore. To me it isn't worth it). The Z series features a modular design where you can directly attach a variety of mods direct to a large port on the back.
I don't really have much interest in most of the mods but there's an older one that would increase my battery life by around 60% and a new one coming out soon that will more than double it. Attaching one of these mods to your phone merely makes it a bit thicker which (like yourself) I could care less about.
I can't wait for the new model battery mod to come out...
If smartphones used native apps rather than simulated computers, they'd probably retain power for longer.
Removing autoincorrect might help.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The latest OS update triggered something that caused Astro File Manager to suck up CPU and drain battery even when that app wasn't running. So even benign apps that don't chew battery can suddenly become monsters through OS updates.
Now as for your comment about case modularity. Well it's a nice thought and the argument makes sense down to the point where it defeats the overall objective. Here things have scaled down to the point where the case is taking up a significant portion of the volume. Having two cases is nuts when you could have a bigger battery in the same volume.
There are several problems with your argument. Here are just a few: 1) None of the smartphone makers are going to change from the current case paradigm for a variety of reasons. 2) There is utility in a second casing since the device remains useful without the outer case. This allows multiple cases for different purposes. 3) Obviously people are fine with adding secondary cases. 4) User applied cases are going to have substantial problems with water and dust proofing. (they definitely won't be waterproof) 5) Phone manufacturers would incur substantially increased warranty costs from users mucking around with the internals.
In principle you are correct that having a second case is wasteful of the space budget but there are important practical reasons why this does not matter so much.
One could imagine having a replaceable cover on a phone without a structural inner case.
You could imagine it but it wouldn't be a very good idea in day to day use for most people.
Sony engineer: We cane make it smaller if we leave out the recording function.
Sony marketing Exec: No one will want a tiny cassette tape player without a record function.
Someone decided to try--
Apple removed the floppy and every howled.
taking away things that have always been there isn't always a bad thing,
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
It works perfectly fine with my Fairphone. I think it's a good idea.
judging by sales you are in a vanishingly small minority. Please note I'm not being critical of your choice of device, just observing the reality that most people demonstrably have approximately zero interest in repairing their own device or digging around in the guts of them or dealing with the tradeoffs involved. It's cheaper and easier for most of them to take their phone to a store and get a warranty replacement or whatever accessories they need.
Still using my Samey S5. It still has the original battery.
I did...my last 3 phones have had 4,000mAH batteries, and were great!
Who even needs a case anymore? Iâ(TM)ve had my iPhone 6 for years with no case, and Iâ(TM)ve dropped the thing lots of times with no screen damage.
Hopefully the technology will become available in consumer devices at a point when it still has the power to impress us with a charge that can last a few days.
them. Supply and demand works. If no one buys them without replaceable batteries they will lose money and stop selling them, or bring back removable replaceable swap able batteries. Go into a store and ask for phones with swap able batteries and if they don't have one walk out and buy an older generation phone. I am still on a Galaxy Note 3 which is awesome and I have 3 batteries including a 10,000mah that I use when hiking (GPS sucks batteries). I have a G4 and V20 on standby for when the Note 3 breaks. Had the note 3 since 2013. (5 years now) and I will probably get 10 to 15 years out of it, or more. So sad that we live in a OMG .05 inches more screen and .0001 inches thinner is a reason to drop 800 bucks when the phone is a throwaway or requires an expensive battery swap and time if it goes dead. An educated consumer is every bling phone makers nightmare!
https://awa2lksa.com/%d8%b4%d8%b1%d9%83%d8%a9-%d8%aa%d9%86%d8%b8%d9%8a%d9%81-%d8%a8%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b7%d8%a7%d8%a6%d9%81/
You sure? Because it keeps typing a bunch of gobbledygook in between your words. You should probably calibrate your keyboard or some shit...
You summed up the entirety of the republican political platform in that one sentence
I see you STILL didn't mention any particular phone, not even your $180 phone. Alibaba and AliExpress also don't agree with you. You're bullshittin'.
Because I shouldn't bloody have to.
Yet you sound like one of the very VERY few people who specifically have a use case to tinker with the inner workings of your system.
Yes you should definitely have to. If one thing has been proven time and time again by an internet full of infested malware it's that average users are not able to be trusted to maintain their own security.
I still remember hooking up a Windows 2000 machine directly to the internet to prove a point several years after Blaster first came out. It lasted a whole of 10 seconds. literally years after the biggest malware event to date made the rounds in the news the internet was still full of unpatched and malware ridden machines spreading Blaster like a zero day with no resistance.
Yes users DEFINITELY should need to root their phone if they are going to start doing anything beyond installing a few apps and playing around. Hell I laughed at the idea of the internet drivers license when it was proposed in the 90s, but in retrospect yeah users should be saved from their own stupidity until they can prove they are able to do what it is they want and understand the consequences of their actions.
Pretty sure dropping my phone didnâ(TM)t make /. unable to Unicode
Most people have never even heard of the Fairphone, and just buy from major brands.
And it seems unlikely they ever will. I like the spirit of the thing. I just think economic reality is going to bludgeon it to death in its crib. (though I'd be pleased to be wrong about that) The problem is that designing a product that is modular and easy to repair costs extra and most people don't seem to care much about that these days.
The Fairphone is far from perfect, mind you, but the modular approach seems like a good idea.
Modular can be a very good thing and I think their approach is a reasonable one. But modular comes in many flavors and the on the Fairphone has taken is just one of them. I think it's unrealistic to expect Apple and Samsung to follow their lead but there are reasonable if lesser forms of modularity that they might be willing to entertain. I'm suggesting one of them which would require fairly modest changes to their devices that maybe they might consider. (doubtful but not impossible)