5 ms·

> which is quite justified by the way, I am using iPhones for 4 years now and they've consistently won over any of the 13 Android devices that I've used in the

by jsight 5y ago

> which is quite justified by the way, I am using iPhones for 4 years now and they've consistently won over any of the 13 Android devices that I've used in the years before (and sometimes during). I find this a bit shocking. Were all of these Android low battery devices? I don't have a good point of comparison, as I've only used Android on phones, but there are a lot of Android devices with really large batteries and very long battery life. It'd be pretty amazing if iOS were beating them in the real world.

pdimitar 5y ago
There's no magic in iPhone's batteries, they are basically identical to all others. The secret sauce ingredient is the idle battery life. The Android devices I used -- all 13 of them, without exception -- routinely lost anywhere from 15% to 40% battery when I was out and about without me picking them up even once. We're talking anywhere from 2 to 5 hours with them being in my pocket or a backpack, in the middle of a big city, with excellent 4G coverage, so it should not be a constant radio antenna activity (although if their antennas were of lower quality that might just be it). I installed all sorts of root apps to try and pinpoint the culprit and inevitably hit a brick wall when all the apps can do is point at a system service without any way to drill down further. In contrast, the iPhones that I've used -- 6S Plus, 8 Plus and 12 Pro Max -- are all extremely frugal on using battery when the device is idle. I've grown used to picking the phone from my bed at 100% battery in the morning on days where I had to do a lot of stuff outside, be out and about for 4-5 hours and only pick up the phone once or twice, and then get back home and find the phone at 98% battery.
- 015a 5y ago
  As someone with an iPhone 12 Pro and a Galaxy S21 Ultra, swapping my SIM between each every ~two months; this situation has absolutely changed sometime in the past couple years. Android's idle power draw, at least on the S21 Ultra, is fantastic. I'll sometimes leave this phone on, with no SIM in it but connected to WiFi, sitting on my desk, using it every once in a while for Tik Tok or whatever, and it'll last a week or more. The iPhone is pretty similar. But display-on time, apples to apples; the iPhone has fallen behind. With the 12 Pro, most days I'll end at 5-10%. At least once every couple weeks, the day will end with the iPhone having already shut down. In comparison, on the S21 Ultra: I give it ~20-40 minutes of charge every day while I'm working, just unplug my USB-C laptop and plug it into the phone, and that's it. I don't charge it at night. Its battery life is ungodly; by the time I go to bed, its at 50-60%. Wake up, plug it in while I'm showering and making coffee, good to go.
  - pdimitar 5y ago
    I think you are aware that 4G radio can draw a lot of energy so that might be an unfair comparison with the iPhone. A more objective test would be for both to have SIM, or both to not have a SIM. Then again, iPhones have objectively weaker batteries compared to a lot of Androids (as in, less mAh). I am not claiming that there are no better Android devices nowadays btw; not at all. I'd be happy if the OEMs finally caught up with this nasty problem! I am only saying that back in 2017 -- when I finally lost patience with Android -- things were looking pretty bad for it and for me that was the tipping point that made go for iPhones.
    - jsight 5y ago
      > I am only saying that back in 2017 -- when I finally lost patience with Android -- things were looking pretty bad for it and for me that was the tipping point that made go for iPhones. I'll respond to your earlier post too, but this is actually the answer that I was looking for. The Android world was a very different place back in 2017. The best battery life that I got out of an Android back then was an LG G2. I think that it was competitive with the iPhone, but many other Android devices of the era were not.
    - 015a 5y ago
      Both the iPhone 12 Pro and S21 Ultra have 5G radios (though their usage here is probably 80% on wifi, 20% on non-UWB 5G most days). My point is comparing their battery lives when they have the SIM in them. So, not which one lasted the longest yesterday, one with the SIM and one without, but rather comparing across time, how did the S21 (my current phone) fair today, versus how did the iPhone generally fair a few weeks ago when the SIM was in it. Not exactly scientific; just what I've observed and felt. And the unscientific conclusion I've drawn is that the idle time is pretty similar between the iPhone 12 Pro and S21 Ultra, but the "active" radios-on SIM-in screen-being-used-all-day time definitely favors the S21 Ultra. > I am only saying that back in 2017 -- when I finally lost patience with Android -- things were looking pretty bad for it and for me that was the tipping point that made go for iPhones. You're 100% right; Android's track record has been pretty darn bad when it comes to standby time. But, I think its actually gotten a lot better. There are some reports that Samsung's Android flavors, specifically, are very aggressive when it comes to background app killing; that may be it (and, frankly, I don't notice any negative side-effects from it. if its happening, its transparent). Or maybe it was something more general in a later version of Android. Or maybe just huge batteries. But; something has changed.
- tomc1985 5y ago
  > I've grown used to picking the phone from my bed at 100% battery in the morning on days where I had to do a lot of stuff outside, be out and about for 4-5 hours and only pick up the phone once or twice, and then get back home and find the phone at 98% battery. Is this true when the device is a year or two old? I've always found iPhone battery life impressive... but only until its about a year old or so. My iPhone 11 plus now requires nightly charging, or I will inevitably hit a Low Battery situation
  - pdimitar 5y ago
    I held on to my 8 Plus for little over two years and it remained excellent most of the time -- although I had to replace the battery before reselling it because it was at 83% capacity. I also always charge my phone overnight even if it's at 70% (which it routinely is) because I've been bitten by going out and about with 60% charge and having to spend 12h outside and my phone died. So I just started conservatively charging it each night no matter what I expected for the next day. But yes, for most people an iPhone can easily last two full days and still be at 15-20% when you finally plug it in on the second day's end.
  - dont__panic 5y ago
    iPhone batteries are only rated for 500 cycles of 100% -> 0%. Or, to look at it differently: You can charge 1 percent of your battery 50,000 times on your iphone before Apple no longer guarantees under warrantee that your battery will hold 80% of its original capacity. Caveat: every percent is not equivalent. Charging above 90% is harder on your battery than charging from 40-50%. Charging and even just using your battery while it is very hot (90 degrees or above) or very cold (below freezing) is also very hard on it. Apple defines operating temperatures as: > Use iOS devices where the ambient temperature is between 0º and 35º C (32º to 95º F) and claims that using the phone outside those temperature ranges can permanently shorten battery life. Bit silly when you live someplace like I do where 60% or more of days are outside of that operating range, but I guess Apple is really just designing for Cupertino temperatures. Basically after just 365 days of phone ownership, you're probably already over 50% of your way through your battery and capacity might be reduced by over 10%, up to 19% is still OK under warrantee. I've had a 2016 iPhone SE for over 5 years now, and I've replaced the battery twice in that time. Seems to be essentially required once every two years.
- edgyquant 5y ago
  Yeah this. I’ll leave my iPad on my bed for 10+ hours and when I come back it’s lost maybe a percent or two of battery life. With my Android tablet I had it had to be on the charger constantly. My phones battery lasts about a day with all my apps on it, where my old android I had to charge mid day.
  - handrous 5y ago
    The ha-ha-only-serious joke when I was at a place developing for iOS and Android, so had tons of test tablets for both, was that the Android tablets would be completely dead after a long weekend (or sometimes just a normal weekend...) in a drawer, and the iPads would still have enough charge to do something useful, and still wake up effectively instantly, if you forgot about them for a month. As for the phones, I find I get 2-day charge out of a new iOS device. After 2-3 years it's about as bad as a new Android. 10% low-battery warning, and put in low-power mode right at bed time? It'll still have enough juice for the morning alarm and some morning HN reading. I mean, I try not to rely on that, but it does work. Difference has got to mostly be the software & firmware.
- soperj 5y ago
  I'm sorry, this is ridiculous. I don't even lose 15% of my battery life in 2 hours on my galaxy S3 without using it, and it is nearly a decade old at this point.
  - pdimitar 5y ago
    There are likely other factors that I can't account for because I was only using those phones in a single city -- with rare exceptions going to a rural area for 1-2 days. Still, your anecdotal evidence does not nullify mine.
    - soperj 5y ago
      No, but from your multiple posts on this article, I don't know that I can take your android posts in good faith.
      - pdimitar 5y ago
        You might be biased? I have no axe to grind with any company. I am looking for what serves me best. We don't have a perfect option, sadly. I evaluated Android quite fairly, for about 5 years, and found it lacking. I find the iPhone lacking as well, but in departments that I care less about. Do with my posts what you will, I'll only say once that I have no bias either way. IMO both sides of the duopoly suck... but I do need a smartphone. I picked what served me better at the time.
        jsight 5y ago
        I don't think its fair to say your are speaking in bad faith either. I had similar experiences with some older devices (Nexus One, Galaxy S2, etc). There was a long period of time when Android devices were really bad on battery, even with relatively large (for the time) batteries on board.
        soperj 5y ago
        I'm currently using an S3, have for nearly a decade. It has never dropped 15% with no use in 2 hours.
- pier25 5y ago
  > The Android devices I used -- all 13 of them, without exception -- routinely lost anywhere from 15% to 40% battery when I was out and about without me picking them up even once. That hasn't been my experience. My current (very crappy) Mi A1 still lasts 3-4 days with moderate use.
  - pdimitar 5y ago
    I agree Xiaomi's devices are better. I used one for a few months before I switched to Apple and liked them best of all Androids before.
- jsight 5y ago
  > The secret sauce ingredient is the idle battery life. The Android devices I used -- all 13 of them, without exception -- routinely lost anywhere from 15% to 40% battery when I was out and about without me picking them up even once. I think Android and newer chips have mostly fixed this. The Pixel 5 on my desk right now has gone from 100% to 81% in the last 7.5 hours with 1.25 hours of screen on time during that period. Last week, I had a session of 18 hours with screen on of 4.5 hours that went from 100% to 34%. IMO, idle draw is likely still a little higher, but then again I run a lot of little background apps (eg, tasker, the pebble app, wear os connectivity and others). Most of my previous Android devices wouldn't have fared nearly so well, even back when I cared enough to spend time trying to find wakelock culprits. Thankfully, I haven't needed to do that in years either. :)
  - pdimitar 5y ago
    It's really good to hear that wakelock hunting is no longer an expected practice. ^_^ I'm super interested in getting a Xiaomi (and modifying it enough so I can be reasonably sure that it doesn't stream all noise around it 24/7) at some point so hearing about how Android got better in this regard is exciting.
- cmurf 5y ago
  I've got an older Moto X4 and it consumes 2% per hour when in my backpack. I guess the only remarkable thing about the configuration is no social media apps.
  - soperj 5y ago
    Same answer for me. No social media apps.
- 2pEXgD0fZ5cF 5y ago
  > In contrast, the iPhones that I've used -- 6S Plus, 8 Plus and 12 Pro Max -- are all extremely frugal on using battery when the device is idle. As a iPhone user (that uses an android device for work) myself, I can't confirm this at all.

by jsight 5y ago

pdimitar 5y ago

There's no magic in iPhone's batteries, they are basically identical to all others. The secret sauce ingredient is the idle battery life. The Android devices I used -- all 13 of them, without exception -- routinely lost anywhere from 15% to 40% battery when I was out and about without me picking them up even once. We're talking anywhere from 2 to 5 hours with them being in my pocket or a backpack, in the middle of a big city, with excellent 4G coverage, so it should not be a constant radio antenna activity (although if their antennas were of lower quality that might just be it). I installed all sorts of root apps to try and pinpoint the culprit and inevitably hit a brick wall when all the apps can do is point at a system service without any way to drill down further. In contrast, the iPhones that I've used -- 6S Plus, 8 Plus and 12 Pro Max -- are all extremely frugal on using battery when the device is idle. I've grown used to picking the phone from my bed at 100% battery in the morning on days where I had to do a lot of stuff outside, be out and about for 4-5 hours and only pick up the phone once or twice, and then get back home and find the phone at 98% battery.

015a 5y ago
As someone with an iPhone 12 Pro and a Galaxy S21 Ultra, swapping my SIM between each every ~two months; this situation has absolutely changed sometime in the past couple years. Android's idle power draw, at least on the S21 Ultra, is fantastic. I'll sometimes leave this phone on, with no SIM in it but connected to WiFi, sitting on my desk, using it every once in a while for Tik Tok or whatever, and it'll last a week or more. The iPhone is pretty similar. But display-on time, apples to apples; the iPhone has fallen behind. With the 12 Pro, most days I'll end at 5-10%. At least once every couple weeks, the day will end with the iPhone having already shut down. In comparison, on the S21 Ultra: I give it ~20-40 minutes of charge every day while I'm working, just unplug my USB-C laptop and plug it into the phone, and that's it. I don't charge it at night. Its battery life is ungodly; by the time I go to bed, its at 50-60%. Wake up, plug it in while I'm showering and making coffee, good to go.
- pdimitar 5y ago
  I think you are aware that 4G radio can draw a lot of energy so that might be an unfair comparison with the iPhone. A more objective test would be for both to have SIM, or both to not have a SIM. Then again, iPhones have objectively weaker batteries compared to a lot of Androids (as in, less mAh). I am not claiming that there are no better Android devices nowadays btw; not at all. I'd be happy if the OEMs finally caught up with this nasty problem! I am only saying that back in 2017 -- when I finally lost patience with Android -- things were looking pretty bad for it and for me that was the tipping point that made go for iPhones.
  - jsight 5y ago
    > I am only saying that back in 2017 -- when I finally lost patience with Android -- things were looking pretty bad for it and for me that was the tipping point that made go for iPhones. I'll respond to your earlier post too, but this is actually the answer that I was looking for. The Android world was a very different place back in 2017. The best battery life that I got out of an Android back then was an LG G2. I think that it was competitive with the iPhone, but many other Android devices of the era were not.
  - 015a 5y ago
    Both the iPhone 12 Pro and S21 Ultra have 5G radios (though their usage here is probably 80% on wifi, 20% on non-UWB 5G most days). My point is comparing their battery lives when they have the SIM in them. So, not which one lasted the longest yesterday, one with the SIM and one without, but rather comparing across time, how did the S21 (my current phone) fair today, versus how did the iPhone generally fair a few weeks ago when the SIM was in it. Not exactly scientific; just what I've observed and felt. And the unscientific conclusion I've drawn is that the idle time is pretty similar between the iPhone 12 Pro and S21 Ultra, but the "active" radios-on SIM-in screen-being-used-all-day time definitely favors the S21 Ultra. > I am only saying that back in 2017 -- when I finally lost patience with Android -- things were looking pretty bad for it and for me that was the tipping point that made go for iPhones. You're 100% right; Android's track record has been pretty darn bad when it comes to standby time. But, I think its actually gotten a lot better. There are some reports that Samsung's Android flavors, specifically, are very aggressive when it comes to background app killing; that may be it (and, frankly, I don't notice any negative side-effects from it. if its happening, its transparent). Or maybe it was something more general in a later version of Android. Or maybe just huge batteries. But; something has changed.
tomc1985 5y ago
> I've grown used to picking the phone from my bed at 100% battery in the morning on days where I had to do a lot of stuff outside, be out and about for 4-5 hours and only pick up the phone once or twice, and then get back home and find the phone at 98% battery. Is this true when the device is a year or two old? I've always found iPhone battery life impressive... but only until its about a year old or so. My iPhone 11 plus now requires nightly charging, or I will inevitably hit a Low Battery situation
- pdimitar 5y ago
  I held on to my 8 Plus for little over two years and it remained excellent most of the time -- although I had to replace the battery before reselling it because it was at 83% capacity. I also always charge my phone overnight even if it's at 70% (which it routinely is) because I've been bitten by going out and about with 60% charge and having to spend 12h outside and my phone died. So I just started conservatively charging it each night no matter what I expected for the next day. But yes, for most people an iPhone can easily last two full days and still be at 15-20% when you finally plug it in on the second day's end.
- dont__panic 5y ago
  iPhone batteries are only rated for 500 cycles of 100% -> 0%. Or, to look at it differently: You can charge 1 percent of your battery 50,000 times on your iphone before Apple no longer guarantees under warrantee that your battery will hold 80% of its original capacity. Caveat: every percent is not equivalent. Charging above 90% is harder on your battery than charging from 40-50%. Charging and even just using your battery while it is very hot (90 degrees or above) or very cold (below freezing) is also very hard on it. Apple defines operating temperatures as: > Use iOS devices where the ambient temperature is between 0º and 35º C (32º to 95º F) and claims that using the phone outside those temperature ranges can permanently shorten battery life. Bit silly when you live someplace like I do where 60% or more of days are outside of that operating range, but I guess Apple is really just designing for Cupertino temperatures. Basically after just 365 days of phone ownership, you're probably already over 50% of your way through your battery and capacity might be reduced by over 10%, up to 19% is still OK under warrantee. I've had a 2016 iPhone SE for over 5 years now, and I've replaced the battery twice in that time. Seems to be essentially required once every two years.
edgyquant 5y ago
Yeah this. I’ll leave my iPad on my bed for 10+ hours and when I come back it’s lost maybe a percent or two of battery life. With my Android tablet I had it had to be on the charger constantly. My phones battery lasts about a day with all my apps on it, where my old android I had to charge mid day.
- handrous 5y ago
  The ha-ha-only-serious joke when I was at a place developing for iOS and Android, so had tons of test tablets for both, was that the Android tablets would be completely dead after a long weekend (or sometimes just a normal weekend...) in a drawer, and the iPads would still have enough charge to do something useful, and still wake up effectively instantly, if you forgot about them for a month. As for the phones, I find I get 2-day charge out of a new iOS device. After 2-3 years it's about as bad as a new Android. 10% low-battery warning, and put in low-power mode right at bed time? It'll still have enough juice for the morning alarm and some morning HN reading. I mean, I try not to rely on that, but it does work. Difference has got to mostly be the software & firmware.
soperj 5y ago
I'm sorry, this is ridiculous. I don't even lose 15% of my battery life in 2 hours on my galaxy S3 without using it, and it is nearly a decade old at this point.
- pdimitar 5y ago
  There are likely other factors that I can't account for because I was only using those phones in a single city -- with rare exceptions going to a rural area for 1-2 days. Still, your anecdotal evidence does not nullify mine.
  - soperj 5y ago
    No, but from your multiple posts on this article, I don't know that I can take your android posts in good faith.
    - pdimitar 5y ago
      You might be biased? I have no axe to grind with any company. I am looking for what serves me best. We don't have a perfect option, sadly. I evaluated Android quite fairly, for about 5 years, and found it lacking. I find the iPhone lacking as well, but in departments that I care less about. Do with my posts what you will, I'll only say once that I have no bias either way. IMO both sides of the duopoly suck... but I do need a smartphone. I picked what served me better at the time.
      - jsight 5y ago
        I don't think its fair to say your are speaking in bad faith either. I had similar experiences with some older devices (Nexus One, Galaxy S2, etc). There was a long period of time when Android devices were really bad on battery, even with relatively large (for the time) batteries on board.
        soperj 5y ago
        I'm currently using an S3, have for nearly a decade. It has never dropped 15% with no use in 2 hours.
pier25 5y ago
> The Android devices I used -- all 13 of them, without exception -- routinely lost anywhere from 15% to 40% battery when I was out and about without me picking them up even once. That hasn't been my experience. My current (very crappy) Mi A1 still lasts 3-4 days with moderate use.
- pdimitar 5y ago
  I agree Xiaomi's devices are better. I used one for a few months before I switched to Apple and liked them best of all Androids before.
jsight 5y ago
> The secret sauce ingredient is the idle battery life. The Android devices I used -- all 13 of them, without exception -- routinely lost anywhere from 15% to 40% battery when I was out and about without me picking them up even once. I think Android and newer chips have mostly fixed this. The Pixel 5 on my desk right now has gone from 100% to 81% in the last 7.5 hours with 1.25 hours of screen on time during that period. Last week, I had a session of 18 hours with screen on of 4.5 hours that went from 100% to 34%. IMO, idle draw is likely still a little higher, but then again I run a lot of little background apps (eg, tasker, the pebble app, wear os connectivity and others). Most of my previous Android devices wouldn't have fared nearly so well, even back when I cared enough to spend time trying to find wakelock culprits. Thankfully, I haven't needed to do that in years either. :)
- pdimitar 5y ago
  It's really good to hear that wakelock hunting is no longer an expected practice. ^_^ I'm super interested in getting a Xiaomi (and modifying it enough so I can be reasonably sure that it doesn't stream all noise around it 24/7) at some point so hearing about how Android got better in this regard is exciting.
cmurf 5y ago
I've got an older Moto X4 and it consumes 2% per hour when in my backpack. I guess the only remarkable thing about the configuration is no social media apps.
- soperj 5y ago
  Same answer for me. No social media apps.
2pEXgD0fZ5cF 5y ago
> In contrast, the iPhones that I've used -- 6S Plus, 8 Plus and 12 Pro Max -- are all extremely frugal on using battery when the device is idle. As a iPhone user (that uses an android device for work) myself, I can't confirm this at all.