Terrible battery life the cause of delays?

[mpf]

Im not saying that its not complicated, because of course it is. Im saying that people who know what they are doing are hired to work on that exact issue. Even the final build would have been tested... That's how it becomes the final build. Say it did tweak the batt life, it would most likely be a minor delay if it was ok previous to the changes. Im not saying that battery isnt an issue, Im just not convinced that it alone would be causing the delay when everything we've seen before this points to other issues.

I've been in the SW industry for close to 20 years now, and having been the one getting the "oh ..." calls in the middle of the night just days before delivery, I can assure you that no matter how good the people you hire are, no matter how modern your process, the "final build" can contain what we call show stoppers that will delay a schedule.
Looking at this a little logically, this phone has to do something none of it's predecessors have had to do - run two cell-type radios simultaneously and switch off between them seamlessly without impacting the rest of the software. This is different from the 802.11b/g/n because nobody expects that connection to hand off without impact. The boundary conditions for this kind of problem are too numerous to simulate in a lab in my opinion. Add on that this is the first out the door with this technology.
So I can see why there would logically be issues with the release of this phone.

That does not mean I like it.

Currently I have a aging storm 1, which constantly has memory and sound quality issues. The battery life is only so-so and I have to do a batt pull several times a week to unfreeze it when it doesn't reboot itself inexplicably on it's own. BB and Vzw also pretty much stopped supporting it. I've been looking at the thunderbolt as my next phone for a while now, because it has a good processor, plenty of ram, and I'm hoping the noise cancellation addresses my sound quality experience. But my main reasons for lusting after this phone is that HTC phones have the best track record of ongoing support, not just from the manufacturer and carrier but also unofficially from the community. To me that tells me that my investment is less likely to become a frustratingly pretty brick before my 2 yrs are up than my poor experience with my storm.

As a SW developer I would be more than happy to have this phone early and be part of working out the bugs and issues, but one only has to look at last years antenna-gate fiasco to understand why any company would be skittish.

Still, I am impatient and frustrated and want something official to plan my purchasing around.

 

[tucker_dahlin]

Add on that this is the first out the door with this technology.

They've taken so long that it's gonna be second, now

 

[brownhornet]

Its easy to say "yea ill carry around two batteries" before you actually have to do it. But trust me, as an Evo user that **** gets annoying as hell after a while. Considering I was gonna buy this phone this makes me pretty much want to stay where I am since I finally got my evo battery life pretty decent with a custom kernel. But having had to do the extra batter, charger in the car.. charger at my desk.. charger everywhere thing im not going through that again.

 

[spooluptheFTL]

I wasn't expecting the best battery life on the market in the first place, but these rumors have me seriously re-considering Thunderbolt altogether.

I pre-ordered from Best Buy, but I'll definitely be waiting for reviews before I commit to TB now.

 

[Joelist]

Keep in mind Engadget is an Apple shill site - I would not put a lot of stock in anything they say. I had a DINC, and once I put the Seidio 1750 battery in it (which does not change the form factor at all) my battery life was just fine.

 

[Droid800]

They have a fully functional network. In 40 plus cities so I am not sure why you don't think its possible to test against a fuller network. Also, simulating data usage and battery drain in a lab is down right easy.



Sent from my ADR6300 using Tapatalk

They've had one since December. This phone has been in development for at least a year.

And no, you cannot simulate normal conditions of battery usage in a lab. If they could, there would be no reason at all for them to do field testing.

 

[thedeceiver]

They've had one since December. This phone has been in development for at least a year.

And no, you cannot simulate normal conditions of battery usage in a lab. If they could, there would be no reason at all for them to do field testing.

Since December? No my friend. That's when they started selling devices for it. It's been around longer and they have had this device since November. They didn't just build it out in a day, turn it on, then start selling the next.

You are right. There is no way to test a battery in a lab environment using estimated data and device usage.

You really think they just get these in a box and turn them over to people to walk around and let them know how it is?



Sent from my ADR6300 using Tapatalk

 

[Droid800]

Since December? No my friend. That's when they started selling devices for it. It's been around longer and they have had this device since November. They didn't just build it out in a day, turn it on, then start selling the next.

You are right. There is no way to test a battery in a lab environment using estimated data and device usage.

You really think they just get these in a box and turn them over to people to walk around and let them know how it is?



Sent from my ADR6300 using Tapatalk

Of course its been around since before then, but not all cities were active, and it certainly wasn't stable enough for Verizon's testers like BMX to be stress testing batteries using it.

As for your last question; yeah, they do. People like BMX, other network engineers, etc. How are they going to know how well its going to perform in the real world without testing it? They're out there, and people have been using them in plain sight.

 

[tucker_dahlin]

Of course its been around since before then, but not all cities were active, and it certainly wasn't stable enough for Verizon's testers like BMX to be stress testing batteries using it.

As for your last question; yeah, they do. People like BMX, other network engineers, etc. How are they going to know how well its going to perform in the real world without testing it? They're out there, and people have been using them in plain sight.

He works for verizon. The phone is 95% tested and finished by the time he gets it. And it only takes a couple LTE towers in one location to test. There is no need for multiple cities for testing data usage/tower changing vs batt life.

If they were selling devices in dec, then it was stable enough to test on it long before then. Which means theres no way that verizon would have been oblivious to battery problems until now.

2 other phones run lte with no problems. Verizon and htc would have used a larger battery from the beginning if they though that it would cause the mess that it supposedly has.

 

[pstellato73]

Well, not saying I believe any rumors any more, but my local best buy said the reason for the "delay" was because of Skype mobile not working as it should and they are in the process of removing it from all devices then it will ship. They didn't predict a release date.

You have to think it can be any number of things as to why it's taking so long to release. Software is funny like that. You change/fix one thing and it breaks something else. They will finally get it right and release it when its ready. I would rather wait for a quality phone than to have a crap phone that everyone is going to b*tch about anyway.

 

[Droid800]

Well, not saying I believe any rumors any more, but my local best buy said the reason for the "delay" was because of Skype mobile not working as it should and they are in the process of removing it from all devices then it will ship. They didn't predict a release date.

You have to think it can be any number of things as to why it's taking so long to release. Software is funny like that. You change/fix one thing and it breaks something else. They will finally get it right and release it when its ready. I would rather wait for a quality phone than to have a crap phone that everyone is going to b*tch about anyway.

Meh. If that's the reason why, they could have just pulled it off with an OTA on first launch.

 

[TBolt2011]

Meh. If that's the reason why, they could have just pulled it off with an OTA on first launch.

But denying that update would be an option, thus accomplishing nothing. I, personally, agree that they should have gone the route you said, but seeing from their point of view... why risk that?

 

[Nitros7]

Meh. If that's the reason why, they could have just pulled it off with an OTA on first launch.

Go to BlackmanX's web site he states that Verizon is playing this one close to the chest because they don't want it to be like the Storm1... If you didn't use the storm1 ask any of us who have, its not a great phone and when it dropped on VZW it was down right horrendous, you think the waiting game is bad this phone was unusable for almost a year.

yeah it can be pulled by a OTA update but not everyone dose those.

 

[Droid800]

But denying that update would be an option, thus accomplishing nothing. I, personally, agree that they should have gone the route you said, but seeing from their point of view... why risk that?

They could make it mandatory. (as in, your phone will not be able to access the network without it)

 

[ncbryan]

My thought is if in fact there is a battery life issue, and supposedly they can fix it with firmware......Then why haven't they updated the firmware on the Dinc that would improve battery life? I don't think battery life is entirely fixable with firmware, thus I think the problems with battery life are more significant and they are finding that the fix isn't as easy as updating the software.

 

[anon(157335)]

My thought is if in fact there is a battery life issue, and supposedly they can fix it with firmware......Then why haven't they updated the firmware on the Dinc that would improve battery life? I don't think battery life is entirely fixable with firmware, thus I think the problems with battery life are more significant and they are finding that the fix isn't as easy as updating the software.

If the poor battery life is due to the 4G radio then that may be something that could be improved with a firmware update.

Obviously the DInc doesn't have a 4G radio and is just a battery hog (much like I expect the TB to be even without using 4G).

 

[ncbryan]

My point exactly....If the battery life is poor without turning on the 4g radio then I can only imagine how poor it is subject to be with the 4g radio turned on.