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Iphone Cellphones Stats

iPhone 7 Finishes Last In New Test of Battery Life (betanews.com) 292

"Pitted against the Samsung Galaxy S7, HTC 10 and LG G5, Apple's latest handset came in last place... and by some distance," reports BetaNews. Here's the results of a new test from the U.K. consumer advocacy group, Which?: We compared the iPhone 7's battery life, when making calls and browsing the web, to those of three top Android competitors: the Samsung Galaxy S7, HTC 10 and LG G5, and the results were staggering. While the iPhone 7's 712 minutes of call time (nearly 12 hours) may sound acceptable, the rival Samsung Galaxy S7 lasted twice as long -- and it doesn't even have the longest lasting battery. The HTC 10 lasted an incredible 1,859 minutes (that's almost 31 hours).

When it comes to internet browsing time, arguably the more important measurement, the results were a lot closer...but the iPhone 7 still came bottom. The 615 minutes of battery life offered by the iPhone 7 is 25 minutes less than its nearest rival, the LG G5, and 175 minutes less than the top performing HTC 10.

The researchers point out that the iPhone 7 has a smaller battery -- but that's leaving critics unimpressed. The Guardian newspaper is asking, "How good can a phone be if the battery doesn't last even a day?"
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iPhone 7 Finishes Last In New Test of Battery Life

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  • by Overzeetop ( 214511 ) on Sunday October 02, 2016 @05:46PM (#53001067) Journal

    Battery size is the old MHz (GHz) game that CPU manufacturers (mostly) used to play. It's more about system optimization and total component draw vs that battery installed. Especially now that most flagship phones don't come with easily removable batteries, and NO flagship phone allows for hotswapping of a backup battery, the unit as an assembly is what really matters most.

    • by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Sunday October 02, 2016 @06:28PM (#53001227)

      Battery size is the old MHz (GHz) game that CPU manufacturers (mostly) used to play. It's more about system optimization and total component draw vs that battery installed.

      That's funny, they don't even mention the battery capacities of each phone until you click through to the detailed blog post, just how long each phone lasts with it's battery. So what's your complaint exactly?

      • Come on, it took courage to say what he said, except what you read was not what he meant. It takes batteries, too.

        • How good? Well... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 02, 2016 @07:36PM (#53001487)

          "How good can a phone be if the battery doesn't last even a day?"

          Since it has no headphone jack, I'll never have to make that evaluation; Apple trashed the design, so it's not even in the running here.

          I guess that's what happens when your flagship computer... is a trashcan.

          • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

            by Maritz ( 1829006 )

            "How good can a phone be if the battery doesn't last even a day?"

            Since it has no headphone jack, I'll never have to make that evaluation; Apple trashed the design, so it's not even in the running here.

            I guess that's what happens when your flagship computer... is a trashcan.

            I hope you fully appreciate the courage it takes to force people to buy your propietary headphones instead of buying whatever headphones they like. Courage.

    • by p51d007 ( 656414 ) on Sunday October 02, 2016 @07:48PM (#53001527)
      What planet do you live on? I for one, DEMAND a large battery, because I don't like being a "wall wart" trying to find some place to charge my phone, just to make it through the day. My last 4 smartphones had big screens, because I like the larger screen. The Dell Streak 5, was the first in 2010, and boy the looks, laughs I got were amazing (I still have it, and it still works). Second one was the Galaxy Note, 3rd was the Mate2, and now I use the Mate8. All had batteries larger than 3,000mAH. The last 2, have 4,000mAH batteries. Both the last 2 phones, the batteries would EASILY make it through almost 2 days of use, without having to worry about needing a recharge. I'm a heavy PHONE user, 1500-2000 minutes per month, 200-500 texts per month, LOADS of spotify/pandora (before that it was playing mp3's), a ton of work related web use, and anywhere from 20-50 photos work related. On the Galaxy note, I had to charge the phone so much because the battery would just barely make it through the day after 12 months of use, I had to replace the charge/usb port 3 times in 3 years. (I got pretty good at replacing them). That's why I went with a 4,000mAH battery. Battery size DOES make a difference. If people want tiny, slim/thin phones, hey, that's their right, but I'd prefer the bigger bulky phones, which I don't stuff into skinny jeans, or pockets. I carry it in a belt case.
      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 )

        What planet do you live on? I for one, DEMAND a large battery, because I don't like being a "wall wart" trying to find some place to charge my phone, just to make it through the day.

        Something tells me a road rage incident is in your future. The color of someone's car will push you over the edge.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by macs4all ( 973270 )

          What planet do you live on? I for one, DEMAND a large battery, because I don't like being a "wall wart" trying to find some place to charge my phone, just to make it through the day.

          Something tells me a road rage incident is in your future. The color of someone's car will push you over the edge.

          I think there are two possible factors that may not have been taken into account:

          1. Was the testing accidently (or deliberately) designed to NOT allow the iPhone 7 to take advantage of the A10's two low-power cores?

          2. Was the iPhone brand new, or had the battery been properly conditioned (around 5 FULL charge-discharge cycles) before testing. It is common knowledge that Secondary batteries, even Li-ion/Li-Po batteries, don't reach their full capacity until they are run down and recharged fully several t

          • by Maritz ( 1829006 )
            How strange that would you say something like that. Still, your credibilty is perfect.
      • by rtb61 ( 674572 ) on Sunday October 02, 2016 @08:33PM (#53001689) Homepage

        Battery size also needs to take into account phone serviceability at one year, two years and even five years. Here's the really bad news the smaller your battery, the much faster you will go through recharges and the faster you will shorten the life of the battery, half the size, twice as many recharges and half the life. Fixed batteries are a major rip off and the purposeful inclusion of a phone failure device to force repurchase of that phone. I am quite simply refusing to purchase any phone without a user replaceable battery, no better lesson in this than Samsung's billion dollar fuck up. Battery powered and I can replace the battery, than they can quite simply fuck off, I am not going to buy, I am not that stupid.

    • by vux984 ( 928602 ) on Sunday October 02, 2016 @08:01PM (#53001591)

      Battery size is the old MHz (GHz) game that CPU manufacturers (mostly) used to play.

      In the sense that it doesn't really matter how big the battery is. Either it lasts 1 day of normal usage, or 2 days... or half a day... depending on the hardware that's its plugged in to right? I agree with you completely.

      However, it becomes relevant when apple brags they made the phone slimmer and lighter each generation. Slimmer and lighter is great if it already lasts 3-5 days on a charge.

      But if it can barely make it through day... well the the iphone 3 was already slim enough, would the iphone 7 last a couple days if it was as thick and as heavy as an iphone 3? Then I want THAT phone a lot more than I want a lighter slimmer one that can't get me through an entire day.

      the unit as an assembly is what really matters most.

      Absolutely true. You can't really compare phone A to phone B based on battery size. The total package matters, but that doesn't detract from the point that if you added 50% more battery to a given phone it will straight up last 50% longer... and a LOT of consumers WANT it to last longer a lot more than they want it to be another few mm slimmer than it was 3 years ago.

      • by skegg ( 666571 )

        I want [the slightly heavier, thicker] phone a lot more than I want a lighter slimmer one that can't get me through an entire day.

        Now, I agree with you. (Gimme a slightly thicker phone and triple its battery life.)

        But I'll ask you:
        Do you use battery cases? They add thickness & weight and increase the battery life.

    • Yeah, it is annoying that you cannot change the battery by yourself in most phones. Of the ones listed in that article only the G5 has a user-swappable battery, it ejects out the bottom of the phone.

    • I need Nokia battery time. Windows Phone is pretty close and does the job.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 02, 2016 @05:46PM (#53001069)

    It could've had 71.2 minutes call time, 61.5 minutes of browsing time, and cost twice as much, and people would still buy it because it's an iPhone.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 02, 2016 @08:04PM (#53001601)

      You can pretend Apple is all about loyal Fanbois, but that's not true. Under Jobs it was about Unique Selling Points. Phone after phone came out with something new that only the iPhone had. Job would bounce on stage and beam about the new camera, or Siri or whatever. Their iPod touch was revolutionary, their iPad created the market.

      Now Apple seems to be constantly playing catchup. Worse its full of hubris. Removing the floppy disk drive when it was no longer used was Jobs work. Removing the audio port for profit when its the most popular way of connecting speakers is Tim's work.

      Apple's reflect this, e.g. Q2 2016 they sold 51.2 million iPhones, a 16 percent decline from the 61 million in the same quarter the year before.

      Hubris

      • Removing the audio port for profit when its the most popular way of connecting speakers is Tim's work.

        Wireless! Wireless is critical, We need wireless computer access for ou wireless phones, Land lines and wierd wired ethernet ports are so last year,

        But speakers,the only acceptable connection is wired, Nothing but wires.

        And you know, I knew Windows PC users who were just as pissed off about Macs losing floppy drives as you are with your fake outrage about removint the phone jack. http://www.everymac.com/system... [everymac.com]

        Jobs was ridiculed for removeing the floppy drives - https://www.engadget.com/2010/.. [engadget.com]

        • by Maritz ( 1829006 )

          I only ever used the headphone jack once, long enough to tell me that my future was using bluetooth.

          You're either lying or you're nuts. Either way, you are not the typical use case. Bluetooth is fucking shite for audio.

      • by mjwx ( 966435 )

        You can pretend Apple is all about loyal Fanbois,

        Which is why 70-80% of new iphone sales are to existing Iphone users.

        a 16 percent decline from the 61 million in the same quarter the year before.

        So they are now even more dependent on loyal Fanbois.

  • Impossible (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Tough Love ( 215404 ) on Sunday October 02, 2016 @05:51PM (#53001089)

    Impossible, the test must be rigged. Because Apple says the battery is way better with the headphone jack gone.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      What the fuck is insightful about this post? Apple never made that claim. Slashshit really has hit a new low.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by Feral Nerd ( 3929873 )

        It's rigged when you don't compare it to the 7 Plus. The other phones are larger with bigger batteries.

        So yes, they rigged the test.

        What the fuck is insightful about this post? Apple never made that claim. Slashshit really has hit a new low.

        Apple deleted the analog headphone jack thus committing a crime against humanity .... eh sorry about that, ... actually it's just the normal choir of Slashdot haters singing their whining song about some insignificant shit nobody else cares about or notices. If any iPhone 7 users do miss the analog jack the vast majority of them will either use the adaptor or just hit Amazon and buy a $25-$50 Bluetooth headset instead of screaming their heads off about how the world is ending because some mobile phone manuf

        • The other day, my kid heard that the new Apple phone does not have a headphone jack. "Really??? rejected."

        • It still amazes me that people can 'just go' and blow 50 that they didn't have to for the last device. Especially since the phone is so damn expensive in the first place.
        • by Maritz ( 1829006 )
          What a strange characterisation. Most of us are simply laughing at Apple's arrogance, and interested to see the fallout. Some people are going to want to keep on buying headphones from where ever they want, and not from Apple. Enjoy your Bluetooth headphones. I can use them too, if I want, but I generally don't because Bluetooth audio is shit.
    • I thought they removed it to improve water resistance, or at least claimed so.

      But more likely the decision was solely based on the fact that it would marginally reduce production costs. Anything a company does is always for the bottom line.

      • by Maritz ( 1829006 )

        But more likely the decision was solely based on the fact that it would marginally reduce production costs.

        If you want wired headphones, you have to buy them from Apple, or someone who Apple have licensed. That's the reason.

  • Battery (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    They had all that open space from removing the headphone port and still ended up with the smallest battery? Wow.

  • by bloodhawk ( 813939 ) on Sunday October 02, 2016 @05:58PM (#53001119)
    warning anecdote incoming. My wife and I were out yesterday, both my galaxy S7 and her IPhone 7 were in constant use for photos and videos (admittedly hers probably slightly more so). both started 100% charged, hers was dead flat in 5 hours, mine still had around 50% capacity. Now that isn't the surprising part, we have seen that fairly often and she carries an external battery to compensate, BUT her comment floored me "when is the next iPhone coming out, I need to upgrade for better battery" and she was dead serious. She had the same problem with the 6, she hates the new IOS upgrade and the quality of photos in low light and yet there is not even the slightest consideration that she could want anything but another iPhone.
    • I hope they continue the SE line. I love mine, with 6s Plus internals and a big battery. I have never considered going to one of the enormous phones like the ones you're talking about. They're just clown-like.
      • The frustrating thing about the SE is that Apple treats it as the bastard stepchild of the lineup that only people too poor to afford the 7 would buy. It's got *most* of the 6s' internals, but skimps in some places like the fingerprint scanner, which is the previous, slower, generation. If they had upgraded it this cycle and given it the exact same internals as the 7 (All of them, dammit, including the dual-lens camera they obnoxiously withheld from the non-plus 7), except with the smaller screen and form

        • by dknj ( 441802 )

          I think you are missing the anecdotal story's point. Even your post proves it. People love the operating system and will suffer hardware aneurysms just to get to that coveted OS. iPhone SE for you or the latest model iPhone 8 (in OP's story) to fix the problems but give you the OS. You suffer through a lack of features on your air to continue using OSX. OP and others don't want to switch to the Samsung or HTC lineup because HTC/Android is not as unified as iOS. You don't want to switch to Mint or Wind

      • by Kjella ( 173770 )

        I hope they continue the SE line. I love mine, with 6s Plus internals and a big battery. I have never considered going to one of the enormous phones like the ones you're talking about. They're just clown-like.

        Agreed, that it's "overpowered" compared to the screen size gives it a substantial boost to battery life. And fortunately they threw out a lot of the gadgetry instead of reducing the battery, overall very happy with it.

      • I hope they continue the SE line. I love mine, with 6s Plus internals and a big battery. I have never considered going to one of the enormous phones like the ones you're talking about. They're just clown-like.

        Which is why I laugh when someone pulls out one of the ridiculous things that makes them look like an escapee from PeeWee Herman's Playhouse. So people can look like the worst sort of tool, but get outraged over a Headphone Jack The problem of course, is that pretty much the minimum size for a useable screen is around 10 inches. Even a 7 inch tablet is too damn small. So any phone that is a useable size is too large as a phonem and anything useable as a phone is too small for a decent screen. I've been hap

        • Well, most of the modern phones are water resistant, so a lifeproof case wouldn't really be needed anyway.
    • The 7 Plus solves her battery problems and also does greta with low light photos.

      Or get her a battery case for the seven.

    • Just tell her her new phone is a Samsung iPhone.

    • Go to Settings, open the Battery control panel, see if there are any apps eating up her battery. Bad cell coverage in the area perhaps? I can go the whole day taking pictures and videos with my SE and the battery doesn't die. Two months ago I was at a conference where I set my SE on a tripod and recorded 2.5 straight hours of HD video off the battery and the phone still worked for the rest of the day (although I tried to keep the use at a minimum... messages and checking maps maybe). Dead in 5 hours doesn't

  • 3G? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rick Zeman ( 15628 ) on Sunday October 02, 2016 @06:03PM (#53001137)

    Why restrict the tests to 3G when this is a 4G world (at least in the US) now?

    • If it's any consolation, no one who buys an iPhone cares what some random website thinks about their phone choice.

    • Why restrict the tests to 3G when this is a 4G world (at least in the US) now?

      So you have full 4G coverage all over the US?

      No, you spend most of your time with 3G connections?.. Maybe that is more relevant then.

      • T-Mobile has/had the worst LTE coverage in the US, but now they have it on most interstate highways and anywhere population density is more than a few people per square mile. They still seem to have the worst coverage, but 90-95% of coverage (people times time) is probably LTE. Other networks are reportedly better.

  • They're holding it wrong. And charging it wrong. And not paying for the new premium Applecare DoublePlusGood that hasn't been released yet.

  • because... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by JustNiz ( 692889 )

    That "highly useful" barometric sensor they put in place of the headphone jack uses 1.21 Jiggawatts.

  • When it comes to internet browsing time, arguably the more important measurement, ...

    For a phone?

    • by berj ( 754323 )

      I suspect that actual phone calling is a small fraction of the usage of modern smart phones.

      Personally I make phone calls on mine for maybe 10s of minutes a week, on average. The rest of the time is spent with web browsing, emailing and other data-consuming tasks.

      • I suspect that actual phone calling is a small fraction of the usage of modern smart phones.

        Personally I make phone calls on mine for maybe 10s of minutes a week, on average. The rest of the time is spent with web browsing, emailing and other data-consuming tasks.

        The modern consumer, IOW. It's so odd, in this day and age, where we can have huge screens, fat ethernet, and really fast computing devices, and so many of us choose to use the lowest common denominator device. Browsing on a Smartphone reminds me of browsing with a Raspberry Pi. Kinda works, kinda sucks.

    • Yes.
  • by Osgeld ( 1900440 ) on Sunday October 02, 2016 @06:34PM (#53001247)

    Is getting stupid, the phones are already too thin for most normal people, the screens are so large its nearly impossible to use one handed, and what do you get for all this "innovation"

    shit battery life

    my co-workers give me crap about having a smaller, fairly heavy phone (dorid turbo), but I always laugh back whenever one of them complains about their shiny new firestarters being dead 3/4 of the way though the day, and mine still has 17 hours left on it

  • by berj ( 754323 ) on Sunday October 02, 2016 @06:34PM (#53001249)

    This is a *huge* variance from Ars Technica's wifi battery testing:

    http://arstechnica.com/apple/2... [arstechnica.com]

    They found that the iPhone 7 lasted much longer in both of their web browsing tests than the HTC 10 and lasted only a bit less than the S7 and G5.

    Even on Which's 3G (why only 3G ?) web browsing testing, phones with 1.5 times the battery don't get anywhere near that much extra life.

    It's pretty hard to judge without more samples and more info on the testing methods but, taking these tests at face value:

    a) iOS 10 seems *horribly* optimized for 3G phone calling
    b) Android (along with whatever extra stuff is on the three Android phones) seems terribly optimized at the other stuff. They have *much* larger batteries but don't manage anywhere near commensurate battery life with Wifi or 3G web browsing tests.

    • I like that Ars didn't even bother to test phone usage (aka talk time or 3G/LTE) in their tests - only performance on WiFi. You know, when you're most likely to be close to an outlet and not need great battery life. Even then, the 7 was 2nd of the 4, and in the WebGL it ranked 3 of of the 4. The HTC seems like the anomaly, but there's no way to tell if the tests were wonky or HTC just has shitty wifi battery efficiency.

      • by berj ( 754323 )

        Even then, the 7 was 2nd of the 4, and in the WebGL it ranked 3 of of the 4

        But when you normalize for battery size it comes out on top...

        The other 3 phones should be *far* ahead of the iPhone 7, given that they have around 1.5 times the battery capacity.. but the most they got as far as actual battery life was 1.28 times in Which's test and around 1.07 times in Ars' tests.

        The 3G calling time seems to be the anomaly.

        So while you can use one of the other 3 phones for somewhere between 7% and 28% more time on

        • by LynnwoodRooster ( 966895 ) on Sunday October 02, 2016 @08:00PM (#53001587) Journal
          Well, you also need to consider pixels being pushed, too. The other phones have nearly 4 times the number of pixels as the iPhone 7. Meaning on those web tests, they're moving a ton more data, running the GPUs a lot harder. That right there shows they are more than equal in terms of efficiency... But I guess if you're happy with a 720p display (versus >full HD resolution), then that's not an issue!
    • Even on Which's 3G (why only 3G ?) web browsing testing, phones with 1.5 times the battery don't get anywhere near that much extra life.

      They also push 4 times as many pixels but doesn't get anywhere near a quarter of the battery life of an iPhone.

      Use LTE and things would be even worse. None of the phones get anywhere near a day of use with that, but then LTE is a rather crappy short-range standard you rarely get to use for long, and certainly not at full speed.

    • by auzy ( 680819 )

      What they don't mention, is that WiFi on iPhone is horribly broken, and it seems that every Wifi vendor has to workaround the issues (everyone from Ruckus to Unifi has to specifically target the iPhones). The only thing more broken is the Fitbit Aria.. In fact, on OSX, we discovered when a computer was in sleep mode, it kept hanging onto its DHCP address until the lease expired, even if the entire network was reset whilst it was turned off.. So junk like that saves battery life, but its bad behavior.

      Also,

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      What really puts Android ahead these days is idle power consumption. I can get up with 100%, go to work all day and get home with 90% remaining. Since Marshmallow they introduced Doze, which basically delays apps that want to wake up to check for notifications and the like until a bunch of them can do it all at the same time.

      We are talking Nokia brick phone levels of standby time, plus much better than iOS active battery consumption. Remember that the Android phones they tested are much more powerful, with

  • Could be iOS 10 (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Dixie_Flatline ( 5077 ) <.vincent.jan.goh. .at. .gmail.com.> on Sunday October 02, 2016 @07:32PM (#53001467) Homepage

    While this doesn't really excuse Apple, I greatly suspect the culprit is iOS 10, not the iPhone 7. I've been running the beta for months, and usually the battery life starts to even out and get better at some point, and I never saw that shift. So on my iPhone 6, which used to get 10-12 hours of *usage* time (not standby), I can watch the battery tick down in real time. I've even watched the battery drain while it was PLUGGED IN on the final release.

    My evidence is anecdotal, but I'm starting to get friends asking me if battery life is worse with iOS 10, and I've had to say that it is. There's something weird going on. It's still on Apple to fix it, but it's a lot easier to fix a busted background process than ship a new battery out.

    • Comparing the iPhone7 to other contemporary phones is one thing. But people pick their phones according to their favorite platform - iOS or Android: typically, they are not gonna switch from one to the other. So a Samsung Galaxy guy might go to a OnePlus or a Xiaomi, but not likely an iPhone. Thing I'm interested in - how does the iPhone 7 battery life compare to that of the 5s?
    • While this doesn't really excuse Apple, I greatly suspect the culprit is iOS 10, not the iPhone 7.

      I don't know. I have a two-year-old 6 Plus which I upgraded to iOS 10.0.2 a few days ago - and, at least so far, I haven't seen any dramatic changes in battery life. During the iOS 8 and iOS 9 days it was often almost immediately obvious when I hit a build with terrible battery life. Actually, overall I've been pleasantly surprised by iOS 10.0.2, given my past experiences with 8.0.x and 9.0.x.

      I'm not interested in the 7 specifically because of the lack of a headphone jack... but it would be somewhat surpris

  • Based on what I've seen drain my phone's battery quickly, I want to see the Waze battery test. Pair the phone to the car's Bluetooth, stream music in the background, and leave the display on in full sunlight. I doubt most phones will exceed 4 hours.

  • Finishing last would mean that it lasted the longest, wouldn't it?
  • So there's that, but of course Android fanboys will sweep that under the rug. Every year, each new iPhone is about twice as fast as the best Android competitor. So in a sense, if you wanted to compare phones that are actually comparable performance-wise, that'd be today's Android flagship and last year's iPhone 6S.

    • Not true ether. Looking at some performance benchmarks comparing the iphone7 vs the Samsung S7, no where does it show the iphone 7 is twice as fast as the S7.

      What they show is the iphone 7 is slightly faster than the S7. And these are just software benchmarks. In real world use both phones would be indistinguishable as far as speed goes.

      I know apple fans need to compensate for lack of features and smaller displays but it would be nice if you would quit making these things up.

    • It better be. It is useful to rush through ones daily chores before the battery dies.

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