7 ms·

"I recall the days of mobile phones that ran for a week of usage" do you mean talk time or standby? Because I do not remember this. Seems much more likely we

by jp555 6y ago

"I recall the days of mobile phones that ran for a week of usage" do you mean talk time or standby? Because I do not remember this. Seems much more likely we just used our "single-app" mobiles WAY less. Maybe you were on cellphone calls 4-6 hours a day? But I do not remember any cell phone in the 90s and early 2000s that had a 30+ hours talk-time (plus 150 hours of standby).

iamben 6y ago
Standby. I'd get a week (at a push?) out of my phone at university in the late 90s/early 00s. I don't think 3-5 days was at all unreasonable back then - for me that would be multiple text messages, a few games of snake, and a handful of calls a day. I get a day (at very best) out of my phone now if I don't touch it at all.
- Hamuko 6y ago
  I charge my iPhone 11 Pro every other day now because not leaving the house means that I'm using it way less now. I think I got about 3 days of standby when I really pushed not charging it. I don't think getting 3 days standby out of a current smartphone would be that impossible. It's just that no one uses their smartphone so that it just sits there, not doing anything.
  - piva00 6y ago
    Staying home has seen my phone usage drop to 1/3 of the normal, my XS Max has been lasting around 3 to 3.5 days on a single charge. My usage report shows about 2.5 hours/day of screen time, makes sense as I'm using my phone only in the mornings and late evenings. Pretty good battery life when on low usage, I feel like trying turning on low battery mode from full charge and see how long it would last.
  - nicoburns 6y ago
    Indeed. Samsung phones (I have the S7) have an "Ultra power saving mode" which enables a bunch of power saving features including throttling, reducing display resolution / brightness. But the thing that makes the biggest difference is disabling background data. I once got 4 days of usage at a festival in this mode. And I was using it to keep in touch with people and as a camera (I probably took ~150 photos). The trick was to use it as little as possible, and keep in airplane mode unless I was specifically expecting a message (I would periodically take it out of airplane mode to check for messages).
- jp555 6y ago
  That's odd, my 6S can last a couple days at least on standby if I don't touch it (something I recently discovered in being stuck at home surrounded by PCs and iPads, not needing my iPhone much). And my unit is a total lemon, turns off randomly and I get max 2 hours actual use out of it (although the replacement battery health says 85%).
- acdha 6y ago
  You’ve gotten 3-5 days on iPhones for years - if you only use it for calls. I have forgotten to plug my work iPhone 8 in over the weekends and it’ll be at least 80% on Monday.
- wastedhours 6y ago
  My work iPhone 11 Pro I use as a glorified RSA token, monitoring Slack when needed, and use it to browse Instagram for about 30 mins a day. At the moment I'm getting basically a working week out of it (essentially standby). Am guessing that will get worse over time, but am thoroughly impressed with where it is for battery life right now.
- rechristened 6y ago
  Maximum power saving mode on a modern Samsung will last a week and still have more features than those old phones.
ubermonkey 6y ago
To be fair, that was a pretty brief moment in cell phones. Yeah, I had a Nokia in the mid-late 90s that would go for days without a charge, but - We didn't talk on them that much back then; and - The phone was just a phone. The difference as I understood it was the newer digital signal tech instead of legacy AMPS. At the same time, service costs dropped dramatically -- AT&T introduced the "OneRate" plan on the back of one of these phones, and for me personally that reduced my cell bill by like 65-75%. But the phone didn't do anything but talk. I guess we could text, but my friends & coworkers & I didn't do much texting until we got phones with keyboards after the turn of the century. Anyway, the "insane battery life" era was short (because we all went to more power-hungry PDA-type devices pretty quickly, from Palm or Blackberry on (ugh) WinMo). The Nokias got broad acceptance around 97 or so, but by 2002 we were all chasing PDAs. The other thing is that the "insane battery life" we remember is a little bit false, because we only asked those devices to make calls. Now, we get a full day's usage out of a smartphone that we're touching constantly. In real terms, we're getting more usage per charge, I suspect.

by jp555 6y ago

iamben 6y ago

Standby. I'd get a week (at a push?) out of my phone at university in the late 90s/early 00s. I don't think 3-5 days was at all unreasonable back then - for me that would be multiple text messages, a few games of snake, and a handful of calls a day. I get a day (at very best) out of my phone now if I don't touch it at all.

Hamuko 6y ago
I charge my iPhone 11 Pro every other day now because not leaving the house means that I'm using it way less now. I think I got about 3 days of standby when I really pushed not charging it. I don't think getting 3 days standby out of a current smartphone would be that impossible. It's just that no one uses their smartphone so that it just sits there, not doing anything.
- piva00 6y ago
  Staying home has seen my phone usage drop to 1/3 of the normal, my XS Max has been lasting around 3 to 3.5 days on a single charge. My usage report shows about 2.5 hours/day of screen time, makes sense as I'm using my phone only in the mornings and late evenings. Pretty good battery life when on low usage, I feel like trying turning on low battery mode from full charge and see how long it would last.
- nicoburns 6y ago
  Indeed. Samsung phones (I have the S7) have an "Ultra power saving mode" which enables a bunch of power saving features including throttling, reducing display resolution / brightness. But the thing that makes the biggest difference is disabling background data. I once got 4 days of usage at a festival in this mode. And I was using it to keep in touch with people and as a camera (I probably took ~150 photos). The trick was to use it as little as possible, and keep in airplane mode unless I was specifically expecting a message (I would periodically take it out of airplane mode to check for messages).
jp555 6y ago
That's odd, my 6S can last a couple days at least on standby if I don't touch it (something I recently discovered in being stuck at home surrounded by PCs and iPads, not needing my iPhone much). And my unit is a total lemon, turns off randomly and I get max 2 hours actual use out of it (although the replacement battery health says 85%).
acdha 6y ago
You’ve gotten 3-5 days on iPhones for years - if you only use it for calls. I have forgotten to plug my work iPhone 8 in over the weekends and it’ll be at least 80% on Monday.
wastedhours 6y ago
My work iPhone 11 Pro I use as a glorified RSA token, monitoring Slack when needed, and use it to browse Instagram for about 30 mins a day. At the moment I'm getting basically a working week out of it (essentially standby). Am guessing that will get worse over time, but am thoroughly impressed with where it is for battery life right now.
rechristened 6y ago
Maximum power saving mode on a modern Samsung will last a week and still have more features than those old phones.

ubermonkey 6y ago

To be fair, that was a pretty brief moment in cell phones. Yeah, I had a Nokia in the mid-late 90s that would go for days without a charge, but - We didn't talk on them that much back then; and - The phone was just a phone. The difference as I understood it was the newer digital signal tech instead of legacy AMPS. At the same time, service costs dropped dramatically -- AT&T introduced the "OneRate" plan on the back of one of these phones, and for me personally that reduced my cell bill by like 65-75%. But the phone didn't do anything but talk. I guess we could text, but my friends & coworkers & I didn't do much texting until we got phones with keyboards after the turn of the century. Anyway, the "insane battery life" era was short (because we all went to more power-hungry PDA-type devices pretty quickly, from Palm or Blackberry on (ugh) WinMo). The Nokias got broad acceptance around 97 or so, but by 2002 we were all chasing PDAs. The other thing is that the "insane battery life" we remember is a little bit false, because we only asked those devices to make calls. Now, we get a full day's usage out of a smartphone that we're touching constantly. In real terms, we're getting more usage per charge, I suspect.