Moto X Battery Life (Alex vs Phil)

[Rohan Mukkolath]

I am really confused about whether i should go for moto x because Alex Dobie in his review stated that battery life is slightly above average in this article Moto X in Europe: The Android Central casual review | Android Central
and Phil Nickinson in his 6 month usage stated that it had excellent battery life Moto X — six months on | Android Central.I really dont know who to believe.

So is it due to the difference in the European and US models OR just differences in the usage?

 

[Golfdriver97]

Re: Moto X Battery Life

I am really confused about whether i should go for moto x because Alex Dobie in his review stated that battery life is slightly above average in this article Moto X in Europe: The Android Central casual review | Android Central
and Phil Nickinson in his 6 month usage stated that it had excellent battery life Moto X ?€” six months on | Android Central.I really dont know who to believe.

So is it due to the difference in the European and US models OR just differences in the usage?

Welcome to the forums.
It depends on usage, carrier, etc. The X is one of my better devices for battery use.

 

[Rohan Mukkolath]

Re: Moto X Battery Life

It depends on usage, carrier, etc.

thks for the quick reply

So is it possible for the battery life to be affected by carrier?

 

[Golfdriver97]

Re: Moto X Battery Life

thks for the quick reply

So is it possible for the battery life to be affected by carrier?

Signal strength is a better way to phrase it.

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[Phil Nickinson]

Re: Moto X Battery Life

Absolutely network affects battery.

But all things being equal, I believe that Phil guy.

 

[garublador]

Re: Moto X Battery Life

To be fair, the first reviewer called it "comfortably above average" not "slightly above average."

Neither of them gave any actual data, so you're right to not know who to believe. Not that I blame them. It would be a lot of work to take the data needed to really compare batteries. You'd need to show exactly what was running all the time (I have yet to find an app that gives anything close to what would be necessary to give good numbers on that), what your signal strength is like for all the radios all the time, what the screen brightness was, how much the screen was on, how much data was transferred, how much the touchscreen was activated and probably several other things I haven't thought of. You'd really want to isolate and control each of those to find out how the phone fares under different circumstances. For an example of how difficult this is, Google Now has been out for quite a while now and the only way I've seen to figure out how much battery it uses is by watching battery usage for a long time with it on and then with it off while isolating all those other variables and comparing battery life. There's nothing in the software that tells you how much battery it uses and it can be significant.

And after all that most readers would still just say, "Yeah, but it depends on how you use it," anyway, so it's not worth it. It would be a ton of work for little payout. It would be interesting to find out just how much each of those things affects battery life, but I really doubt there's the financial incentive to do it.

The only actual measurement I've seen (not that I've looked that hard) is in regards to the display, and the numbers are very impressive:

Display on Moto X called groundbreaking by researcher | Mobile - CNET News

If you want my take, the battery life seems to be above average, but you also get several useful features that would kill the battery of most other phones.

 

[dcastillo]

Hands down the best battery life I've ever had in a phone... And I've had a lot of Android phones (though never one of the Droid max phones)
I use my phone more then the average and sync all sorts of stuff, every previous phone had to be charged either at work or in the car... With the X, i have had less then 5 days in 3 months that i had to plug it in before i went to bed, simply amazing...
But like others have said, signal /network is everything.
I live /work in Tampa fl, i never drop signal, ever...
But when i go to my parents place in the mountains, i literally get less then 6hrs of battery life till my phone dies...
That right there tells you how much signal strength affects battery life
-Danny

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[redeyss]

Best battery life I've ever had on a smartphone by far. I can hammer it all day and never charge it until night. Gaming would be a battery killer but I don't game on my phone currently.

Sent from my XT1053 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[realitydigg]

I am really confused about whether i should go for moto x because Alex Dobie in his review stated that battery life is slightly above average in this article Moto X in Europe: The Android Central casual review | Android Central
and Phil Nickinson in his 6 month usage stated that it had excellent battery life Moto X ?€” six months on | Android Central.I really dont know who to believe.

So is it due to the difference in the European and US models OR just differences in the usage?

We have 4 Moto X's in the family and we all get great battery usage. All on the same network, but in different locations. Hands down the best battery usage I have seen. In part, because the phone itself is designed to give you so much information without turning it on fully. Active notifications save a lot of power throughout the day. The rest of the design, CPU, Screen, etc. also help as well. You could get poor battery just because you work in the basement of a government building (Bad carrier connection), but that would apply to any phone.

 

[GadgetGator]

I am really confused about whether i should go for moto x because Alex Dobie in his review stated that battery life is slightly above average in this article Moto X in Europe: The Android Central casual review | Android Central
and Phil Nickinson in his 6 month usage stated that it had excellent battery life Moto X ?€” six months on | Android Central.I really dont know who to believe.

So is it due to the difference in the European and US models OR just differences in the usage?

I routinely...as in daily...get over 1 full day (24+ hours) on a charge with 4-5 hours screen time. Battery life is one thing you should not worry about on this phone. It's outstanding.

 

[blackberriquero]

I just bought the moto x 1 day ago and I must say that I am very impressed with the battery and the phone

Sent from my XT1058 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[Aquila]

I just bought my 2nd Moto X and my wife inherited the original. She is SUPER happy and impressed with the battery life. When I picked her up from work on Tuesday she said she was at about 80%, when her old phone would be struggling to not power itself down by the end of her shift. The most impressive part of the X is it's slow idle drain, but it's not bad in managing screen on time (720p helps), especially with active notifications meaning that you don't have to turn the screen on and off all the time just to know what's going on. The X8 is pretty marvelous and by far the most advanced silicon we saw released in 2013 for mobile. It doesn't have the same theoretical throughput, but it does work MUCH smarter and has better sustained performance in real world tasks due to not constantly firing up and shutting down useless cores.

 

[natehoy]

Depending on signal strength and usage, the Moto X battery life for me ranges between "Impressive" and "Epic". I'm an Ingress addict, and running constant data, screen, GPS, and 3D rendering means I'm looking for my portable battery pack 3-4 hours into a session (compared to 2 hours max on any other phone I've ever owned).

If I'm in a very marginal cell signal area, that number decreases by quite a bit - but the cell radio on this phone seems to be able to lock onto the vaguest hint of a signal and squeeze something out of it, where my wife's S4 and my old Optimus G Pro have thrown their hands up and said "Game over, man, game over!". So a strong radio means major battery drain. I can live with that compromise.

On WiFi at the office I once left the screen on for a good chunk of the day (auto, in fluorescent lighting, so it was probably at 30-40%, with one hour at 100% bright) and squeaked more than 7 hours of screen-on time with 12 hours of overall battery life. That included about an hour of using it as a WiFi hotspot (with the screen off) on LTE. That data point is an outlier, but no other phone I've ever owned could even consider such a thing.

 

[JungleLarry]

Might I suggest that the key to the Moto X's superior battery life lies in its ability to manage itself uniquely in a low power standby state. Features such as Active Notifications change the way you interact with your phone so you no longer have to turn your screen on to check your alerts, thus saving battery.

Power users who have their screens on all the time are still better off with larger batteries. The only thing that helps the Moto X there is its 720p screen vs 1080p of the other flagship devices.

As for me, I get 24 hours easily. I'm at 22 hours right now with 39% battery left. I consider that more than satisfactory for my needs. Your experience might be different, obviously.

 

[Murphy5111]

People way over exaggerate the battery life of this phone. Bottom line, If you're a heavy user you will need to plug in at some point. The battery on this phone is about 10% better than I had on the gs3. I couldn't get through a full day with that either. Sorry but this battery is very good but doesn't walk on water.

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[GadgetGator]

People way over exaggerate the battery life of this phone. Bottom line, If you're a heavy user you will need to plug in at some point. The battery on this phone is about 10% better than I had on the gs3. I couldn't get through a full day with that either. Sorry but this battery is very good but doesn't walk on water.

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24+ hours with 5-6 hours screen time IS walking on water for me given the size of phone. It's enough for me to easily make it through morning to bed.

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[Murphy5111]

24+ hours with 5-6 hours screen time IS walking on water for me given the size of phone. It's enough for me to easily make it through morning to bed.

Posted via Android Central App

That's great but I don't think that's the norm. I don't think I've ever seen more than 5 hours screen on time.

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[dyastrab]

I can usually go through a 15 hour day without worrying about the battery finishing at about 50% left. This is with about 30 minutes of phone calls, 40-50 texts and email synch set for 15 minutes. I have location services off, screen brightness set to about 15%, and GPS/Bluetooth off. Probably have the screen on for about 30-45 minutes. Battery gets a worse if I'm heavily gaming.

 

[KWKSLVR]

It easily has the best battery life of any smart phone I've ever had... short of maybe my old BlackBerry Curve.

On Verizon LTE I usually see 15-18 hours with 3.5-4 hours screen on time. That screen on time is mostly reading web pages. Using stuff like Chromecast or streaming music obviously changes the picture.

If you're a heavy user that plays a lot of games or streams a ton of content, then you're not going to experience the same type of battery life that we are talking about. I use my Moto X the same way I used my Galaxy Nexus. My GNex was horrendous. I'd get 2 hours screen on, max, and it would be dead. That's 3-4 hours total on time.

The Moto X has great battery life. And when it gets low, I have my 16800 mAh battery pack to take up the slack.

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[GadgetGator]

That's great but I don't think that's the norm. I don't think I've ever seen more than 5 hours screen on time.

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Going by people's reports on various boards I would say that is the norm. Now if you are gaming all day or watching hours of Netflix videos then no...you won't get that kind of battery life. But then how many phones WILL you get that much life with under those circumstances? Precious few I would say.

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