Mar 02 2005
Cell/mobile phone battery life
I would like to know exactly where cell phone manufacturers get their figures for call and stand-by time when it comes to battery life? With the phone I have now a Motorola V220 the Stand-by time is quoted at 10 days, 10 days??? Is that in Binary or what? I hardly use my phone, I just have the occasional quick call and send the occasional text message and my battery life is lucky to last 2 days at the absolute maximum and that is after having the battery replaced.
What happened to the days of phones like the legendary Nokia 8210 (I think that’s the right model, the little one with a blue screen)? That phone used to be a little workhorse and it’s battery would last the better part of a week even while it was being used sporadically. Who really cares about having a camera and a colour LCD in their phone?
Now stop and think about that question for a moment, temporarily erase all the advertising BS that gets rammed down our throats about camera phones being the best thing since sliced bread and think how you actually use your phone and how you would like to be able to use it. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a small (but not too small) phone you can keep in your pocket or purse for the ladies that doesn’t cause a big bulge and not have to worry about hooking it up to the mothership to charge every night?
The camera in the V220 is so crap that the argument that it’s good to take spontaneous photo’s at parties and isn’t valid, that is unless your parties are under flourescent lights or in sunlight, so the only thing I do use it for is to replace the traditional photo in my wallet of my girlfriend and that just isn’t a conmpelling feature as printing a photo to put in my wallet isn’t enough of an inconvenience for me to want to suffer through a chunky phone with poor battery life.