7 ms·

Anker batteries come in a zillion sizes, are cheap and are safe to plug into public chargers. With how hungry phones are these days, I don't know how people li

Anker batteries come in a zillion sizes, are cheap and are safe to plug into public chargers. With how hungry phones are these days, I don't know how people live without portable batteries.

brianwawok 4y ago
It is almost impossible to drain my iPhone to 0 unless I am doing something really unhealthy, like staring at it for 10 hours. I take a charger with me on trips so I can charge over night, but otherwise.. it's literally not possible in my reasonable life to run my phone out of juice. Back when I used android, it was much more common that runaway apps would drain my phone in 2 hours. But now? Doing a anker battery would be lugging around a bunch of dead weight.
- iLoveOncall 4y ago
  Just go on a trip where you use your GPS a lot and take pictures with your phone and it will last half a day at best.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Especially if your phone isn't new and doesn't hold quite as much charge any longer. I've definitely ended up plugging my phone into a portable battery when traveling. But usually if I'm out and about and using GPS and camera a lot, I'll have some sort of small bag with me for water, snack, additional clothing, etc. anyway so easy to throw a battery and cable in.
    - jstarfish 4y ago
      Some of them are solar-equipped or have hand-cranks for emergency charging. Usually a built-in flashlight too.
  - jahewson 4y ago
    Why would GPS use more power? It’s only receiving.
    - 1123581321 4y ago
      The phone’s not always using true GPS (reading satellites.) When it does, it uses more energy. In a difficult environment it scans for more satellites than usual, which uses even more energy. Basically, the phone’s battery life depends on disabling hardware components, or running them in a low power mode, as much as possible.
    - pja 4y ago
      There’s a fair amount of signal processing going on inside a GPS device. Modern GPS chips only need around 25mW apparently - older chips can pull 100mW though. Scanning needs a bit more power than tracking.
      - pastage 4y ago
        Is it the same on sport watches? They seem to easily do 24h when doing GPS tracking. That is the popular models there are watches that can track more than 100h (but they always have bigger batteries). This is impressive for me since I remember doing tracking back in 2005 and that meant using lots of batteries. On phones I think the problem mainly is that the GPS needs to wake up an app that need to handle the GPS data and then do some calculations. You can easily get data ten times a second that is alot of wake up from sleep, and probably draws lots of CPU.
        pja 4y ago
        Yes. same chips. I suspect you’re right - it’s not the GPS itself that’s the problem but waking up the main CPU to run whichever App has requested location data.
    - joncrocks 4y ago
      When people are using their phone's GPS they typically have the screen on (using maps/navigating etc.) more than usual. I think most of the drain comes from that rather than the GPS unit itself. But people might say "using my phone's GPS uses a lot of battery."
  - Accacin 4y ago
    If my phone is at risk of running out, I just take my wall charger, find a nice cafe to sit down in and plug in my charger whilst having some lunch. I've never had anyone complain at me about it, although I'm normally buying food and drinks so I'm not just leaching electricity.
  - brianwawok 4y ago
    My iPhone has not had this problem in years.
- have_faith 4y ago
  Ditto. I haven't took a spare charger with me on my last few (city) trips. I just charge in the hotel and it lasts all day.
kitsunesoba 4y ago
For my own needs, carrying a compact foldable GaN power brick like the Anker 511 (or 747, if carrying my laptop) has been sufficient. Sleeping MacBooks also work as extremely fancy extremely high capacity power banks if the need arises, which in the past has covered the odd case where I'm not near an AC outlet.
- TheNewsIsHere 4y ago
  I also travel with a compact Anker GaN charger and I _love_ that thing.
stametseater 4y ago
I usually go a week between charging. But then again I use my phone for checking and sending messages, not for gaming or browsing the net or anything like that.

Anker batteries come in a zillion sizes, are cheap and are safe to plug into public chargers. With how hungry phones are these days, I don't know how people live without portable batteries.

brianwawok 4y ago

It is almost impossible to drain my iPhone to 0 unless I am doing something really unhealthy, like staring at it for 10 hours. I take a charger with me on trips so I can charge over night, but otherwise.. it's literally not possible in my reasonable life to run my phone out of juice. Back when I used android, it was much more common that runaway apps would drain my phone in 2 hours. But now? Doing a anker battery would be lugging around a bunch of dead weight.

iLoveOncall 4y ago
Just go on a trip where you use your GPS a lot and take pictures with your phone and it will last half a day at best.
- ghaff 4y ago
  Especially if your phone isn't new and doesn't hold quite as much charge any longer. I've definitely ended up plugging my phone into a portable battery when traveling. But usually if I'm out and about and using GPS and camera a lot, I'll have some sort of small bag with me for water, snack, additional clothing, etc. anyway so easy to throw a battery and cable in.
  - jstarfish 4y ago
    Some of them are solar-equipped or have hand-cranks for emergency charging. Usually a built-in flashlight too.
- jahewson 4y ago
  Why would GPS use more power? It’s only receiving.
  - 1123581321 4y ago
    The phone’s not always using true GPS (reading satellites.) When it does, it uses more energy. In a difficult environment it scans for more satellites than usual, which uses even more energy. Basically, the phone’s battery life depends on disabling hardware components, or running them in a low power mode, as much as possible.
  - pja 4y ago
    There’s a fair amount of signal processing going on inside a GPS device. Modern GPS chips only need around 25mW apparently - older chips can pull 100mW though. Scanning needs a bit more power than tracking.
    - pastage 4y ago
      Is it the same on sport watches? They seem to easily do 24h when doing GPS tracking. That is the popular models there are watches that can track more than 100h (but they always have bigger batteries). This is impressive for me since I remember doing tracking back in 2005 and that meant using lots of batteries. On phones I think the problem mainly is that the GPS needs to wake up an app that need to handle the GPS data and then do some calculations. You can easily get data ten times a second that is alot of wake up from sleep, and probably draws lots of CPU.
      - pja 4y ago
        Yes. same chips. I suspect you’re right - it’s not the GPS itself that’s the problem but waking up the main CPU to run whichever App has requested location data.
  - joncrocks 4y ago
    When people are using their phone's GPS they typically have the screen on (using maps/navigating etc.) more than usual. I think most of the drain comes from that rather than the GPS unit itself. But people might say "using my phone's GPS uses a lot of battery."
- Accacin 4y ago
  If my phone is at risk of running out, I just take my wall charger, find a nice cafe to sit down in and plug in my charger whilst having some lunch. I've never had anyone complain at me about it, although I'm normally buying food and drinks so I'm not just leaching electricity.
- brianwawok 4y ago
  My iPhone has not had this problem in years.
have_faith 4y ago
Ditto. I haven't took a spare charger with me on my last few (city) trips. I just charge in the hotel and it lasts all day.

kitsunesoba 4y ago

For my own needs, carrying a compact foldable GaN power brick like the Anker 511 (or 747, if carrying my laptop) has been sufficient. Sleeping MacBooks also work as extremely fancy extremely high capacity power banks if the need arises, which in the past has covered the odd case where I'm not near an AC outlet.

TheNewsIsHere 4y ago
I also travel with a compact Anker GaN charger and I _love_ that thing.

stametseater 4y ago

I usually go a week between charging. But then again I use my phone for checking and sending messages, not for gaming or browsing the net or anything like that.