Originally Posted by jonmorris:
“But you CAN benchmark phones and it is surely possible to pretty accurately predict usage based on specific tasks. You can find out the consumption of specific apps in real time with the right 'tools', work out the consumption of the CPU and GPUs and loads of other things.
The thing is, most review sites (if not ALL, even the really focussed ones like Anandtech) cannot do that level of testing, and still be accused of not testing every combination of apps/games/screen on, or indeed how apps are used. A game being loaded isn't the same as being played heavily etc.
I think a good general rule is screen on time. That gives you a fairly good idea, and if you are glued to your smartphone every day - but generally only for fairly simple things like using social media, reading email, IMing and surfing the web then you'll likely get closer to the maximum SoT than if you're watching video that's streaming using mobile data, using GPS navigation (with the screen on updating maps in real time) or playing games.
Likewise, using the camera on some phones is another killer - and especially recording video.
I don't think any site has yet found a way to properly measure or compare battery life. Talking about a device lasting a full day is equally vague. I'm guilty of this myself sometimes, but there are just so many variables.
Ultimately though, if you've got a phone with a 4,000mAh battery then it will almost certainly beat one with a 3,000mAh battery, even if the latter phone has loads of power saving options. Chances are nearly all of those power saving options are when the phone is in a near or actual sleep state.”
Although you are right that someone could make a test it would still be fundamentally flawed as they wouldn't be able to factor different things like poor reception and this is pretty important to some people . I agree that we all like to us SoT as a measure but I am certain some people who post screen shots on XDA spoof this by not actually doing anything with the phone other than having the screen on minimum brightness – so yes the will get 6 hours.
Having an efficient OS without to much bloat in the background will also make a big difference. A phone should not drain significantly on standby. iOS is (from what I’ve heard) very good at this. A clean build of Android can be good as well (are you listening Samsung) and hopefully the improvements in 6.0 will help.
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