considering jumping ship to iphone

[Aikouka]

I find that my battery life is worse on my iPhone 5 than my 4S. Although, I'm not certain that it's a matter of the 4S vs. the 5, but possible AT&T vs. Verizon. As much as people laud Verizon's coverage, I usually get poor signal quality (3 bars or less) unless I'm close to a tower. The phone's functionality still works just fine, but the modem has to work harder to keep a weaker signal.

I think it gets even worse when I walk into stores. I get no signal once I walk past the cash registers in Target, and the phone is constantly trying to get signal back. When I leave work with around 80% battery life, and get home with around 65-70% battery life after going to Target, I usually make this face: 😱! So, while AT&T's performance was much, much worse, it's coverage beat Verizon hands down.

EDIT:

Thankfully, Target installed free WiFi in all of their stores. 😛

 

[TuxDave]

I think describing the Razr Maxx HD as iPhone like in battery life is doing it a great injustice. It's in a league of it's own that the iPhone doesn't come even remotely close to approaching.

Bigger battery comes at a cost of longer recharge rate (~3.3hrs on Razr Maxx). 3.3hrs is very manageable for people who have gotten into the habit of religiously plugging it in at home. However I suck at that and there's more than one occassion where 30-40 minutes before I head to the city I realize that my phone is low on battery and so I plug it in and get as much as I can get out of it. Anand used to have a nice metric of "battery life per battery capacity" which is a nice way of figuring out "how many minutes of usage do you get for every minute of charging". 🙂

But anyways, charging rate is still secondary to just the sheer battery life you get out of it (except in the iPad, that charge time is too stupid). I said this many times in the past but people kid themselves into thinking that "oh charge when you get to work and charge when you get home and charge when you sleep" is totally acceptable. It's totally dumb. I think the Maxx has the right idea.

 

[Red Storm]

But anyways, charging rate is still secondary to just the sheer battery life you get out of it. I said this many times in the past but people kid themselves into thinking that "oh charge when you get to work and charge when you get home and charge when you sleep" is totally acceptable. It's totally dumb. I think the Maxx has the right idea.

Before I had my Maxx I would just do "charge when I go to sleep" and I was fine 99% of the time, didn't matter what phone I had.

 

[Mopetar]

Project Roadrunner hopefully will make a big difference.

That was part of a hoax. There is no Project Roadrunner.

get any of the motorola maxx phones.

This. They have the best battery life in just about every category.

 

[TuxDave]

Before I had my Maxx I would just do "charge when I go to sleep" and I was fine 99% of the time, didn't matter what phone I had.

It's probably because you picked the right phones. The HTC Incredible couldn't make it through the day and the GN w/ LTE was terribad (unless you kept LTE off, then I guess it's normal again?). My coworkers had to make sure to charge it at work or else it would be dead before they left to go home.

 

[lothar]

If battery life is your "biggest" concern, the Motorola Droid Razr Maxx HD by far has the best battery life on the market of any smartphone.
Better than any iPhone in existence.

 

[TuxDave]

If battery life is your "biggest" concern, the Motorola Droid Razr Maxx HD by far has the best battery life on the market of any smartphone.
Better than any iPhone in existence.

Of course the trade off is that you give your Nexus-ness and so go on the "will I get the update or not?"

 

[MrX8503]

On my iPhone 5, I never turn off lte and the battery life feels as if I'm using 3G.

Lte all the time without worrying about the battery rapidly draining is awesome.

 

[cmdrdredd]

On my iPhone 5, I never turn off lte and the battery life feels as if I'm using 3G.

Lte all the time without worrying about the battery rapidly draining is awesome.

I don't trust that graph. Isn't that the one where phones suddenly lost time in the iPhone 5 review compared to other reviews where the same devices were tested?

Also look at the iPhone 5 way down on that list when off LTE. Terrible

 

[TuxDave]

I don't trust that graph. Isn't that the one where phones suddenly lost time in the iPhone 5 review compared to other reviews where the same devices were tested?

Also look at the iPhone 5 way down on that list when off LTE. Terrible

You know what changed in the testing methodology right? Do you agree with the changes or not? If anything, Anand is pretty good about not making up numbers so he's not lying, but you can question his methods.

 

[cmdrdredd]

You know what changed in the testing methodology right? Do you agree with the changes or not? If anything, Anand is pretty good about not making up numbers so he's not lying, but you can question his methods.

Changed right when the iphone came out and suddenly everything else goes down...that's crap.

Still as shown on that graph unless you get LTE full time, you're probably gonna have below average battery life anyway with the iPhone 5.

I've mentioned it before and I want to mention it here cause it's relevant. How often are we away from a charger for our device. We can charge in the car, at home in any room, from any computer, probably even can charge at the office if needed. Aside from that how long are you actually using the phone? I'd bet that if you took an average of everyone with a smartphone to determine their actual usage time in a full 12 hour day, it would be quite small compared to the supposed 4-5hours web browsing time or whatever other metric you wish to measure. Further I have never had a phone that did not last me all day and like I said chargers everywhere so it's not necessarily an issue. Your usage might differ but I've always wondered why it mattered if you can talk for 6 hours or browse the web for 4 before the battery dies. Do you really have 6 hour conversations and look at the internet for 4 hours at a time? Not to mention there are things you can do to maximize your battery life on some devices. Disabling wifi, android has some CPU sleep apps that shut off one or more cores on a CPU when in deep sleep. If you're into rooting and that on android I believe some roms have the ability to turn off the network when the device is asleep (my Transformer Infinity can turn off wifi when sleeping but come back on when I wake up the device for example).


I think any new phone will have sufficient battery life for most people. Sure watching videos will eat the battery...I think screen time uses the battery most for me. So I'd look at the software you want and whether the device fits your needs and has a feature set you'd be happy with.

 

[TuxDave]

Changed right when the iphone came out and suddenly everything else goes down...that's crap.

Still as shown on that graph unless you get LTE full time, you're probably gonna have below average battery life anyway with the iPhone 5.

I've mentioned it before and I want to mention it here cause it's relevant. How often are we away from a charger for our device. We can charge in the car, at home in any room, from any computer, probably even can charge at the office if needed. Aside from that how long are you actually using the phone? I'd bet that if you took an average of everyone with a smartphone to determine their actual usage time in a full 12 hour day, it would be quite small compared to the supposed 4-5hours web browsing time or whatever other metric you wish to measure. Further I have never had a phone that did not last me all day and like I said chargers everywhere so it's not necessarily an issue. Your usage might differ but I've always wondered why it mattered if you can talk for 6 hours or browse the web for 4 before the battery dies. Do you really have 6 hour conversations and look at the internet for 4 hours at a time? Not to mention there are things you can do to maximize your battery life on some devices. Disabling wifi, android has some CPU sleep apps that shut off one or more cores on a CPU when in deep sleep. If you're into rooting and that on android I believe some roms have the ability to turn off the network when the device is asleep (my Transformer Infinity can turn off wifi when sleeping but come back on when I wake up the device for example).


I think any new phone will have sufficient battery life for most people. Sure watching videos will eat the battery...I think screen time uses the battery most for me. So I'd look at the software you want and whether the device fits your needs and has a feature set you'd be happy with.

Again I think Anand has been very fair between Android and iOS. You can argue the timing but the data is still there. You may not like the results but it is what it is. Nothing crappy about it unless again, you find a flaw in the methods.

I don't believe in the charge everywhere method nor do I think it's reasonable for so much manual intervention of toggling this and that for battery life. I won't try to convince you since everyone is different and is willing to do different things. I think people who bought the Maxx line of phones will know what I'm getting at when get that much charger freedom.

 

[lothar]

Of course the trade off is that you give your Nexus-ness and so go on the "will I get the update or not?"

Considering the OP is considering an iPhone, Nexus-ness is obviously not important to him.
If OP goes on the iPhone...he'd also worry about whether he'd get the newest feature on iOS 7/8, or be fragmented out by Apple. 😉

I don't have a Nexus, but I predict that I will get it soon.
I'd never give up my Nexus-ness. Chargers can be found everywhere in my bedroom, on desktop computer, at work, in my car, and anyone/anywhere with a microUSB cable.
Chargers are ubiquitous and replaceable...Nexus-ness can never be replaced.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

I used an iPhone 4 while my parents took my SGS, but before I'd gotten my SGS3.

The battery life is better, and there are other benefits as well - like better screen, better sound quality, etc.

But while the battery lasts longer from a single charge, I still had to charge the phone every single day. The only difference is the iPhone would run out closer to midday, whereas the SGS3 would run out mid-morning. If it lasted twice as long all the time, sure, that would be a great advantage over Android phones. But since I'd have to charge both every day...

 

[Fingolfin269]

Changed right when the iphone came out and suddenly everything else goes down...that's crap.

/tinfoil hat?

When would it have been ok to change?

 

[zephxiii]

My Atrix 2 with extended battery does pretty well against my iphone 4. They are about the same.

Regardless of anything you pretty much have to charge a smartphone everyday. You should at least charge while sleeping at night. And typically it's a good idea to charge when u can so that you have maximum battery when you can't charge (mostly important for power users).

I charge at work, in car, and at home.

 

[lopri]

My iPhone 4 (admittedly dated by today's standard) runs out battery so fast. Especially when I'm in Manhattan. (why is that? 😕 ) It was decent but it did not last a day. The biggest mistake I made was to update it to iOS 6. It's a major battery drainer. Even disabling everything possible, it still eats battery like crazy. Wish I could go back to old iOS.

Judging from others' accounts, Android doesn't seem to fare much better, either. I wish Cell phones could last weeks, not barely a day. Gosh I miss my old Kindle that would last weeks in single charge. (Yes, yes, I know they are different things. It's just a wishful thinking on my part)

 

[Red Storm]

It's probably because you picked the right phones. The HTC Incredible couldn't make it through the day and the GN w/ LTE was terribad (unless you kept LTE off, then I guess it's normal again?). My coworkers had to make sure to charge it at work or else it would be dead before they left to go home.

I had the Incredible, as well as the OG Droid (and the iPhone 3G before that). I also had the Droid Charge which was one of the biggest offenders being one of the very first LTE phones for Verizon. I spent a good deal of the time with the Galaxy Nexus which is by far my favorite phone of all. I had an iPhone 4 for a time, now I have an S3. Only on the Charge did I ever use an LTE/3G toggle.

 

[zephxiii]

My iPhone 4 (admittedly dated by today's standard) runs out battery so fast. Especially when I'm in Manhattan. (why is that? 😕 ) It was decent but it did not last a day. The biggest mistake I made was to update it to iOS 6. It's a major battery drainer. Even disabling everything possible, it still eats battery like crazy. Wish I could go back to old iOS.

Judging from others' accounts, Android doesn't seem to fare much better, either. I wish Cell phones could last weeks, not barely a day. Gosh I miss my old Kindle that would last weeks in single charge. (Yes, yes, I know they are different things. It's just a wishful thinking on my part)

My batt life actually got better when I went to iOS6. The other thing i noticed was it became less laggy....in short iOS5 was pretty crappy on my 4.

Your battery is prob just worn out.

 

[swanysto]

Be very careful with your expectations of the iPhone battery. By no means does it go days. My wife has the iPhone 5 and I have the GS3. At the end of the day when we are going to bed, our remaining battery life is very similar. She teaches all day, so she doesn't even use it that much. I don't use mine a ton. We mostly text and look up stuff here and there. We will both be within 5% battery life of each other.

I don't know if it matters, but we are both completely stock, and we both keep wifi on, since both of our jobs have it available. I think if we didn't just go ahead and charge it every night, we could probably get a day and a half out of each.

 

[PowerYoga]

What's "so much better battery life?" I'm getting about 28-30 hours on regular usage on my galaxy s3, I can't imagine iphone having anything more than that...

 

[TuxDave]

Considering the OP is considering an iPhone, Nexus-ness is obviously not important to him.
If OP goes on the iPhone...he'd also worry about whether he'd get the newest feature on iOS 7/8, or be fragmented out by Apple. 😉

Barring any hardware limitations, you have to be kidding yourself with that. An iPhone 5 is pretty much good to go on the software side until his next upgrade in two years. My 4s is still rocking and I have one more year to go. 😛

 

[TuxDave]

I had the Incredible, as well as the OG Droid (and the iPhone 3G before that). I also had the Droid Charge which was one of the biggest offenders being one of the very first LTE phones for Verizon. I spent a good deal of the time with the Galaxy Nexus which is by far my favorite phone of all. I had an iPhone 4 for a time, now I have an S3. Only on the Charge did I ever use an LTE/3G toggle.

Then you have black magic or you've been doing a lot of tweaks on your incredible or you just don't touch it much during the day. That battery life sucked so bad I am surprised that you didn't have to leave a charger at work.

 

[cmdrdredd]

When a new android device came out like the gs3 is when i think the new testing should have been used and then use thst going forwatd. It was very poor timing to change it for the new iphone and at the same time show lower scores for othet devices. Especially bad when you show the gs3 or one x as one score during their review then when compared to the iphone it doesnt match up. Should also test the iphone using the old way to be sure.


Aside from that i stand by what i said. We have chargers everywhere and i find it extremely hard to believe that you arent able to plug the phone in at some point during your day. Still, i pick phones based on features i will use. I never had a device that ran out before i could plug it in at home.

 

[zaydq]

Don't jump ship to the iPhone 5 if you're looking for battery life. Albeit, my battery lasts longer than my wife's GS3 (I own an iPhone 5) it is not significantly longer and I find myself charging it every night despite not using it frequently.