[jonmorris]

Qualcomm's Toq smartwatch (concept) uses a colour e-Ink screen, but I've not seen it in the flesh and am not going to CES where I expect I'd have been able to see both that and other concepts.

But whether that's ever going to replace normal screens on a smartphone or tablet is debatable, or at least when it will happen.

There's at least one device with both an LCD display and an e-Ink one, which isn't a bad idea. If one of the big makers did it well, it could certainly work well. Samsung and Nokia have opted to just use OLED screens and show notifications or a clock that way - nowhere near as good, but still good enough for the time being.

I use a Pebble, so I can get notifications and read new messages and alerts without even taking the phone out of my pocket. I have to confess to being particularly happy about being able to read a new SMS via my watch when changing a nappy!

[jonner101]

Quote:

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

A new technological breakthrough such as... e-ink?

There are phones with e-ink displays. And hybrid displays.

I didn't word it as well as I should have, I meant technological advance in battery to get the same sort of performance as an e-ink reader like a kindle which can last weeks on one charge. I've seen some colour e-ink efforts and they are a bit pants right now to be honest.

At the moment people prefer the OLED or IPS type of screen and a powerful processor with a powerful operating system for their smartphone and don't mind the relativity small inconvenience of a nightly charge.

If you are going to compare phone battery life properly then there must be a controlled scientific test of some kind and you would need to ensure that both phones were running the exact same software and running everything in an identical fashion for the same amount of time. There would be variations but most smartphones(with their standard battery) would be more or less in the same ballpark in battery life.

[jonmorris]

I believe if a proper scientific test was carried out on a range of similar phones, the Nexus 5 would always be worse simply because of its smaller battery.

However, it would be interesting to see the differences on similar setups, such as the handsets I've mentioned before (Note 3, Z1, G2 etc) - which have the same chipset and similar specifications (but more important; batteries of 3,000mAh or more).

Some of the usage scenarios mentioned on here are quite modest, and even older phones with sub-2000mAh batteries (remember when 1200-1500mAh batteries were considered pretty heavy duty on a smartphone?) would likely cope.

For those that are glued to their phone, the Nexus 5 really does need to be used in conjunction with some easy means of charging whereas the others have that extra capacity that might be overkill for some, but vital for others.

[Gormond]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jonmorris

I believe if a proper scientific test was carried out on a range of similar phones, the Nexus 5 would always be worse simply because of its smaller battery.

However, it would be interesting to see the differences on similar setups, such as the handsets I've mentioned before (Note 3, Z1, G2 etc) - which have the same chipset and similar specifications (but more important; batteries of 3,000mAh or more).

Some of the usage scenarios mentioned on here are quite modest, and even older phones with sub-2000mAh batteries (remember when 1200-1500mAh batteries were considered pretty heavy duty on a smartphone?) would likely cope.

For those that are glued to their phone, the Nexus 5 really does need to be used in conjunction with some easy means of charging whereas the others have that extra capacity that might be overkill for some, but vital for others.

I always find GSM Arena's battery tests to be quite good, where the Nexus 5 gets an endurance rating of 40 hours compared to say 75 hours for the Note 3.

As you say the N5 battery is fine for many people but not everyone.

[Stiggles]

Quote:

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

Scroll up:


As for your "this year" comment - you do realize smartphones have existed for longer than a day, right?

What a pointless comment...

Anyway...

What HTC is this that lasts so long? Last one i had that got close to that was the HTC Desire. But unless i never used it, i don't think it ever got to 5 days on normal use.

[qasdfdsaq]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stiggles

What HTC is this that lasts so long? Last one i had that got close to that was the HTC Desire.

Once again, scroll up.

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showt...3#post70537753

[jonner101]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gormond

I always find GSM Arena's battery tests to be quite good, where the Nexus 5 gets an endurance rating of 40 hours compared to say 75 hours for the Note 3.

As you say the N5 battery is fine for many people but not everyone.

Given the size of the Note 3 and the battery, it's not too surprising but again in reality all this really means is that you have to charge the note every other day, perhaps every 3rd/4th day and a Nexus 5 every day or every other day. I've seen some other phones give a score of 54 like the iPhone 5s and moto g which is very much in the same sort of ballpark as the Nexus. Again all these phones will go though a day with ease for most people.

The market has decided that the public prefer powerful smartphones with good screens that are as compact as possible but can last a day with moderate to heavy use.

Again there are loads of options out there to extend battery life in certain scenarios.

Lets see how far you would get selling an older design smartphone that has a 5 day battery life but has a low resolution screen and single core processor which can perhaps just about run a calendar app or similar.

[jonmorris]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jonner101

The market has decided that the public prefer powerful smartphones with good screens that are as compact as possible but can last a day with moderate to heavy use.

Yes and no.

I think an awful lot of people moan most about battery life on their smartphone. Many will be used to better battery life on older (feature) phones, while some will be coming around to accept that the battery won't last a day and you hear people saying 'my phone is about to die' or that it has.

Manufacturers have for ages gone for smaller/lighter/slimmer as being the best way to sell a new device - but you can now see that more and more are starting to promote battery life, such as Samsung and most recently Motorola with the Moto G.

Of course, the ideal scenario is to design a phone with a slim shell but still with a larger battery (e.g. the Xperia Z1) but lots of people raved about the Motorola Razr Maxx when it came out - and it's such a shame it never really appeared in the UK (along with other Motorola devices that also had good battery life, like the Razr i).

I am pretty sure that the flagship models released in 2014 will be continuing to push battery life as a key feature, as it's now a selling factor. Apple always makes a big deal of battery life, which has probably played a part in the whole industry starting to do so.

I would fully support some standardised testing though. The manufacturer supplied data is still based on the old days, where you look at standby and talktimes without taking into account the power consumed by a display, or the GPU running at full power to render the latest blockbuster 3D game - and I don't mean by some of the more technical websites, but an actual industry-led benchmarking system.

[flagpole]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gormond

I always find GSM Arena's battery tests to be quite good, where the Nexus 5 gets an endurance rating of 40 hours compared to say 75 hours for the Note 3.

As you say the N5 battery is fine for many people but not everyone.

I think their battery tests are as good as any. but there is a real problem with battery tests.

when you average out the usage like that. not just that YMMR. but the type of usage could change the order of phones.

[qasdfdsaq]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jonner101

Lets see how far you would get selling an older design smartphone that has a 5 day battery life but has a low resolution screen and single core processor which can perhaps just about run a calendar app or similar.

I still have people wanting to buy my HTC Desire.

It even plays Angry Birds!

[qasdfdsaq]

Quote:

Originally Posted by flagpole

I think their battery tests are as good as any. but there is a real problem with battery tests.

Which is why they publish battery life separately under multiple common usage conditions - calls, browsing, video, music, etc.

[jonner101]

Quote:

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

I still have people wanting to buy my HTC Desire.

It even plays Angry Birds!

A good phone in its day but it seems like a piece of junk compared to a Nexus 5.