By 
Every year a new trend makes its way to the forefront of the smartphone industry. Front-facing cameras, NFC, and ever expanding screen sizes are just a few examples of how the industry often pushes one aspect of mobile technology. Sometimes the features stick. Other times a manufacturer is going out on a limb with a dual screen setup (Kyocera Echo) or ticker display (Samsung Continuum). It’s still early, but it sounds like battery life will play a big part in this year’s crop of Android smartphones. A focus on extending the uptime of mobile devices seems like a no-brainer, but it has often been overlooked in favor of faster processors, brighter displays, and next-gen LTE radios. It also doesn’t help that longer battery life usually equates to a bigger battery and a thicker overall device profile.
The first salvo in the name of battery life is Motorola’s RAZR MAXX, which gladly takes on a few extra millimeters to provide extended battery life. Samsung’s VP of product innovation Kevin Packingham says better battery life will be a focus of the Korean manufacturer in 2012 as well. The hope is to provide devices that will last a full day on a single charge under normal use. This will be achieved through a combination of software and hardware optimizations, but it may also mean bucking the trend towards thinner and thinner smartphones in favor of beefed up batteries. It’s a trade off we’ll gladly take.
[via CNET]
I love the battery life on my galaxy player 5″ I get 10 to 15 hours of battery time. As for my new Nexus I’m lucky to get 6 hours. Thin doesn’t mean anything when you don’t have battery life. I wish they would come out with a new back cover that had a battery to bring it to 10 hours. Then life would be good again.
Lol 10 to 15 hours? That’s nothing. Also, I’m pretty sure the Nexus had better battery life than that.
Yeah the Nexus definitely has better battery life than that. I’m currently at 54%, with 7h 29m 30s on battery… and that’s with “Time Without Signal” being 80% and WiFi on the entire time (although I didn’t have WiFi the entire time, maybe only about 30% of it)
Of course I’m not using a stock rom either. I use http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1424701 as the rom and http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1422956 as the kernel. I haven’t tried many of the other roms but these two in combination make the phone noticeably snappier.
Shoulda used a yellow top :)
Coolness!
The battery pictured on this article will extend my time between recharges to over two full days!
Yea make them batteries last! I have no serious complaints on my 3VO battery life but that’s because I have a charger everywhere and have gotten use to my battery not lasting thru the day.
Didn’t some highschooler swap the cathode used and make a battery that lasts like 12 times longer
Android devices have been falling into the laptop performance trap. I don’t want a 2.4Ghz laptop, just one that lasts all day.
Android performance is good enough now, time to focus on battery life. I’d rather have a 2 day phone than quad core.
At the same time however, quad core would have a net result of longer battery life.
damn. that guy really wanted you to know that quad core = better battery life. lols.
i would gladly carry around a bigger phone if the battery lasted longer
Looks like the MAXX scared Samsung a little. Most users would happily sacrifice speed for battery life. If Samsung or HTC doesn’t come out with a longer lasting phone soon, the MAXX will be my main choice.
exactly, i am TOTALLY OKAY with CPU slowing down its upgrade slope a little in order to focus on batteries. give me a GSII in all specs but a battery that lasts even %50 longer sometime this year and i will by it… battery is one of my biggest concerns now a days, phones have gotten plenty fast enough to last a while even in the last year alone
Thank you Thank you Thank
I have been saying this for at least a year – don’t give me the super thin, give me a phone that lasts all day.
It is a matter of safety – if I go out slumming until the early hours of the morning, I need to know my phone will call a cab to rescue me from wherever the heck I am!
Battery life on my Samsung Galaxy S2 is REMARKABLY better than the HTC Shitsation I had previously.
Samsung, please, do the hardware/software optimizations you’re talking about AND just put bigger batteries in the stupid phones. I love my Galaxy Nexus, but I’m sick and tired of sticking it on the charger twice to three times a day. I USE my smart phone like a power user. I play games, I use email apps for work, I text message a lot and look up things all the time in the browser. It’s not just a phone for me, but a mobile computing device that makes phone calls. I would LOVE a few extra millimeters if it meant a battery with 50%-100% more life. Your “extended” battery that’s only 13% bigger is pathetic.
Seriously. Just stop making the phones so damn thin. With the cases that I see on these things these days anyways, it’s not like anyone gives a damn about thin.
I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating because the manufacturers haven’t heard me say it yet.
I don’t care if the battery doesn’t last all day. What I want is a phone that has a tiny internal battery that will hold enough charge for just, say, ten minutes. That way I can carry extra batteries with me and pop them in without having to power down the phone.
It seems like such a simple, inexpensive solution. I don’t know why there are no phones with this feature.
Maybe because that’s a ridiculous idea. Spending your entire day switching batteries every 10 minutes…
He means 1 additional small battery that would keep your phone on while changing the main battery.
It’s not a bad idea but it would get annoying carrying around a 2nd battery all the time. Not to mention if you can only charge it when it is in the phone. I suppose a secondary small battery to keep the phone active while the battery is swapped is not a big deal if it doesn’t add too much bulk, weight or cost to the handset. Even those who don’t use it wouldn’t be suffering from it’s drawbacks then. However, I’d much prefer a phone that has a battery that would last the whole day from the single battery itself.
THANK YOU!! I don’t really get the reason as to why the phone has to be uber thin. -_-
LoL!! I actually prefer thicker phones. I know that the phone is in my hand and that I won’t accidentally throw it. :P
Let’s see where this goes.
Does that mean they are removing that bloatware touchwiz, the battery would last a lot longer without that. They might also consider adding a millimeter or two to the thickness and making the battery bigger, that would help too.
thank god! i absolutely love what MOTO did with the RAZR MAXX… the razr is a beautiful phone, but the maxx is STILL CRZY THING and yet has a batter that would make most shout with joy! this is what i want in EVERY phone
So when will the new LTE chips and radios start making their way into phones?
It’s about time. I’m extremely tired of mobile phones improving in all areas except the most important (battery life). I realise that we’ll never get to the levels of the good ol’ dump phone Nokia but at least make smartphones last a full 24 hours under heavy usage. I would gladly scarifice some of the phone’s skinniness for a larger battery.
All the focus on thin phones is stupid. Pretty much everyone I know has a case protective case which adds bulk anyway. The only point in slimming down the phone is to accommodate that.
My take has been that the protective case should be hold an extended battery, and plug directly into the usb port (with a passthrough). Now that android has USB OTG, It would make sense to add a keyboard to the case as well, since the slider phones are all POSes. Gamepad cases would also allow decent phones to have the cool controls of the weak xperia play.