Battery size and thinness ..

Phil Nickinson

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Apr 21, 2009
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So you might have seen a few headlines out of the HTC Frequencies thing (I'm at it here in Seattle) regarding battery capacity (and thus size) versus consumers' desire for thin phones.

Don't read too much into it.

They're referring to some internal polling they did. But the message got taken a little out of context (that happens even when we're all in a room together like this). Nobody's "shaved" batteries to get them into phones.

And we have no idea how the question was presented. "Would you rather have a larger phone with better battery life, or a thinner phone with not as much battery life." Which would you pick? Never mind that even the thin/less answer might well still end up with a perfectly awesome phone. (O hai HTC One X.)

It's easy to think of the Droid RAZR MAXX versus the HTC One X when you're talking about this. But it's not a fair comparison. They're not the same phone.

Also, we don't know when that polling was done. And that makes a difference.
 

movielover76

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The razor maxx proves that the phone doesn't have to be huge to have a better battery, in general ill take a little extra size for a 2000+ mah battery, I'd prefer near 3000 mah like my thunderbolt extended battery or the razor maxx
 

pppilot

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Personally, as a moderate to heavy user, I'll take a thicker, heavier phone with a battery that will take me through the day without having to worry about charging over the thin and light option where I'm searching for an outlet halfway through the day. I have a spare battery for my GNex but it's still a hassle to have to carry that with me and inconvenient to change out the battery while I'm on the go. I'll take the "function" over "form" option any day. And really, a phone that's a little thicker to accommodate a higher-capacity battery doesn't have to look bad if it is designed well.
 

paul-c

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Always form over function for me. The DROID RAZR set the bar for being thin and light. Hard to turn back now.
 

E_man

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One comment I want to add, this is a difference between HTC and Apple. Apple will do what it thinks the user wants, whether they know it or not. In a lot of ways, they introduce many people to things that is better than what they wanted. HTC's One line seems to be "by the book" for what the customer wants. It's a great line, and I want one (only waiting on the SGS3 to compare), but I can't help but think they should have ignored any polls, and gone with what most people would appreciate in the long run.

Thinness wears off, it's not as amazing in 3 months. Not charging in two days affects you every time you pull out the phone.
 
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icebike

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You'd need to get your head examined if you wouldn't trade 2mm of thickness for nearly twice the battery.

True This.

At 9.29mm, the One X is thin enough. Put 2mm back in and dedicate it all to battery, and maybe some to a microsd slot.

If you can't get on a plane or hop in a car and use your phone for game and music and still have enough battery at the end of the trip the the thin-shark has been jumped, and its time to return to functionality.
Give me 24 hours under typical use and I'm happy.

Was the Nexus One too thick at 11.5 mm? No.
 

AndroidBlizzard

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Why does everyone make battery life to be an issue?

As long as it gets through the day and can charge nightly, its a fine battery. No need for this removable battery thing. I have had devices with 1000 mAh that lasts be throughout the day in to the night and still has 20% left.

The fact that HTC One series has battery from 1650 mAh to 2000 mAh is a huge improvement and is a luxury to me. Battery life has never been a problem, I commend the carriers for a unibody non removable design to have a sleek design and have decent battery life rather than a big device with unnecessary longer battery life.
 

icebike

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Why does everyone make battery life to be an issue?

As long as it gets through the day and can charge nightly, its a fine battery. No need for this removable battery thing


If you sit home all day on wifi fine, You can get by. And if not, you can plug in, (and then forget that you do so when posting in forums).

But if you are out and about, or your work doesn't have WIFI, and you can't rush right home to an outlet, you DON'T make it thru the day. Or you put off waking the phone and doing with it what you bought it for just so you can eek by till you can recharge.

If you make it thru the day, that's fine for you. But the fact that other people are complaining about battery life should be your first clue that an awful lot of people don't make it thru the day. I would have thought this was obvious. I'm astounded you have to ask in red letters.



34 hours on a Nexus One. 12.5 hours on HTC One X. and much of that is on WIFI. So yeah, I'm noticing.
 
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UCLA 15

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Why does everyone make battery life to be an issue?

As long as it gets through the day and can charge nightly, its a fine battery. No need for this removable battery thing. I have had devices with 1000 mAh that lasts be throughout the day in to the night and still has 20% left.

The fact that HTC One series has battery from 1650 mAh to 2000 mAh is a huge improvement and is a luxury to me. Battery life has never been a problem, I commend the carriers for a unibody non removable design to have a sleek design and have decent battery life rather than a big device with unnecessary longer battery life.

"Everyone" makes a big issue of it because for many people the average phone does not last long enough. Sure, there are many days where I only sparsely need to use my phone and it can last all day, but then there are also rare hectic days where I'm listening to Pandora on the way to class, making calls to talk classes with my parents, using my camera to snap a shot of the board if I don't have time to write notes down and class just ended, browsing news while I eat on campus in between close classes, texting friends, and doing the like. Those are days when my phone doesn't last through the day, and I'm not even what would qualify as a heavy user. Some people game, navigate, and watch videos on top of what I do. Battery life is the biggest problem for a lot of people, so good for you for not needing much battery life, but that doesn't lessen how problematic it is for many people.

The other reason that people complain about battery life is the fact that battery tech has been one of the least evolving aspects of mobile devices for a long time. Processors are always getting faster, cameras are getting to the point where there's no reason to have a point-and-shoot, RAM is increasing, screens are getting larger, resolution is increasing, screen tech is improving, memory is increasing (though this too is somewhat slow), data speeds are increasing, designs are getting slimmer and slimmer, software is getting faster and better designed (Sense), seemingly everything but battery tech is improving. My Sensation is only some 10 months old, but newer phones like the One X absolutely crush it in almost every way-except for battery life. Any old average 2011 phone can get battery life just as good as a 2012 phone.

So there are people out there who justifiably would take an extra 2mm of thickness for a 2500+ mAh battery. And while I think companies need to figure out how to cram larger batteries in, the whole battery tech world needs to start innovating because the battery tech itself hasn't improved much in a while.
 
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Daniel Ratcliffe

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I use TWO batteries for my HTC TITAN and still often can't make it through the day. I would take extra thickness for a removable battery and a higher capacity battery any day!
 

katamari201

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With a removable battery, you get the option to have both a thin and light phone as well as a slightly thicker but more powerful phone with an extended battery. Or you can go the Razr route and release two different sized phones, both of which are still extremely thin and light. Releasing two models however is a pain in the ass in a lot of ways and more expensive for the consumer. Having a removable battery allows the option for a much bigger one, as well as swappable batteries.

The whole built-in battery to make things thinner is utter BS. Look at the Galaxy line of phones. They are 9mm and under and all have removable batteries. The HTC Titan has a removable unibody where the whole body comes off and it's under 10mm. The gains are very minimal for the taking away of consumer options.

Personally I think 10mm is the point of diminishing returns. If the Razr MAXXX can stuff a 3000+mah battery in under 10mm, so can other phones. There is nothing inherently special about the components used in the Razr. In fact, it freakin' has LTE, which is known to fatten things nicely, like the HTC Rezound or Thunderbolt. So there is no excuse since they don't have a monopoly on super skinny futuristic chips. It's how they put it together that made the phone so skinny, and other manufacturers need to take note.

The norm I would want is sub 10mm phones with 3000+mah batteries.
 

Kevin OQuinn

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How many average consumers actually ever change the battery, unless it goes bad? We're the minority (heck I've never changed my battery), and the companies have to cater to the majority. Having the option is nice, but I think changing the battery is a niche use case.

Look at it this way....how many of the 400,000+ android devices sold daily are ever going to have the battery cover removed other than to swap sim cards or microSD cards? Maybe a reset, but phones with built-in batteries have a hard button combo for this.
 

Iamdunne

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I have a Skyrocket and read on the forums, and have since bought one myself, how the nexus extended battery fits (mind you very tightly) in my phone. Purchased at Verizon for $25 and it was $ well spent. So much better to have a bigger battery and use the old one as a spare especially for times when I use the phone out of town and am snapping a lot of pictures. The skyrocket is pretty thin.
 

jeffeboi

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Got every person who complains about battery life I'm sure there are 10 who get by.

I use my one x on mobile data all day. I play games/listen to music/watch videos for around 1.5 hours a day on my commute. Use it for work emails when I'm out of the office, and sometimes have the gps on if I'm driving... Rarely do I need to charge it during the day. If I'm travelling I have a battery bank with around 5000 mAh capacity for when I need an extra boost.

That being said, I'd be happy to sacrifice some size for a bigger battery, but it's not a deal breaker. I have faith that with software updates the battery will improve, just like it did for my desire hd.
 

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