4 ms·

I always have the feeling that battery technology is holding back mobile computing. I can only play about two hours of Plants vs Zombies on my iPhone when it's

• reitzensteinm 17y ago
  It's not 3d, but it could well be consuming as much resources as a 3d game would (I don't know for certain, but I imagine that it's hardware rendered 2D). It's not hard at all for a game to consume close to the maximum power.
  • bad_user 17y ago
    Then how come portable consoles from Nintendo / Playstation can support like 5-10 hours of usage?
    • rbanffy 17y ago
      2 to 5 times more battery plus no cell radios?
    • reitzensteinm 17y ago
      I was saying only that the fact that Plants vs Zombies is 2D doesn't necessarily mean it consumes less resources. Nothing more.
    • pmjordan 17y ago
      In fairness, the DS' CPU runs at only 67MHz (DSi: 133) and has access to only 4MB RAM (DSi: 16MB); the GPU pales in comparison to the iPhone's. We're talking around an order of magnitude difference; the physical dimensions are also larger than an iPhone although it's hard to say if the extra space is mostly taken up by the second screen and the hinge mechanism. The PSP is somewhat larger than an iPhone and also less powerful. I also suspect the iPhone has been optimised for standby and audio playback battery consumption, not necessarily for max CPU/GPU utilisation and active screen.
• roc 17y ago
  Of course the battery is a limiter, but not many people are doing mobile gaming on their phones for 2 hours a day either.