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DEAR PHONE MANUFACTURERS: WE DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THIN PHONES. WE WANT BIG BATTERIES THAT LAST MANY DAYS. Sorry for an all-caps comment that is only tangen

DEAR PHONE MANUFACTURERS: WE DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THIN PHONES. WE WANT BIG BATTERIES THAT LAST MANY DAYS. Sorry for an all-caps comment that is only tangentially relevant to this particular article/phone, but I am goddam sick and tired of NO mainstream phone manufacturers getting out of this "We'll compete on fractions of millimeters that you'll never notice, we'll tell you what you want, we'll condition you to plug in your phone every chance you get like some kind of direct-current junkie" Ugh.

arrrg 13y ago
Who is “we”? Please speak four yourself.
- samastur 13y ago
  Him and me. I think that is already enough for we ;)
- hrktb 13y ago
  There's that feeling of loneliness when you want something, but the market moves away and leaves you with only out of date devices fully matching your needs. I sympathize. And if there is a market for 5mm case+battery packs (and really, aren't these almost only available for iPhones?) there should be a market for a phone with twice or more battery life from the start, built-in. I don't think nakedrobot2 is the only one wanting that.
  - leoc 13y ago
    > And if there is a market for 5mm case+battery packs (and really, aren't these almost only available for iPhones?) For phones with replaceable batteries such battery cases are somewhat unnecessary as you can just make/use an extended battery with a replacement back cover. Check out this beauty, for instance: ;) http://www.amazon.co.uk/5200mAh-Extended-GT-I9505-18-Month-Warranty/dp/B00CPLEKTO/ http://www.amazon.co.uk/5200mAh-Extended-GT-I9505-18-Month-W...
    - hrktb 13y ago
      I had spare batteries when using feature phones. And most of the time I'd want to use one the spare would be dead, because: 1. the main battery is dead because I didn't think about charging it. The chances I would have remembered charging the spare were abysmal as well. 2. I also need a spare charger for the spare battery. Or I'd need to swap it in the phone when I have access to an outlet, and it would take twice the time to charge the main battery and the spare. Again, time and preparation. All in all, an extension to the phone is clunky, but still the best trade-off if I needed it.
  - bradleyland 13y ago
    > There's that feeling of loneliness when you want something, but the market moves away and leaves you with only out of date devices fully matching your needs. I sympathize. I sympathize as well, but manufacturers aren't 100% to blame here. They make what people buy, and people want thin phones because it makes them feel like they're living in the future™. > And if there is a market for 5mm case+battery packs there should be a market for a phone with twice or more battery life from the start, built-in. I don't think nakedrobot2 is the only one wanting that. You're asking the wrong question. There's a "market" for just about anything. The question is, how big is it? How big are companies like Morphie? Are they big enough that a company like Samsung --- forget Apple, because we all know it takes Jupiter-sized markets for Apple to add new SKUs -- to roll variants of their current line up to serve this market? Sorry for the truckload of rhetorical questions. We already know the answers to those questions, because we can observe the market. I'm just glad the market is large enough to support companies like Morphie, because otherwise, we'd be out of luck entirely.
- ape4 13y ago
  He isn't speaking two you?
- Dylan16807 13y ago
  I'm sure it's plenty more than 1% of the market so let's just say 'millions'.
- venomsnake 13y ago
  I could join the bigger battery crowd. We are stuck with the same battery life an iPhone 1 had. The incremental battery and efficiency gains are consumed by displays and more and more apps running in the background and we still don't have a phone that can last a day on moderate burn. Or just make a standard for batteries like AA and just let people replace them. Its revolutionary idea that has been around for the last couple of decades.
- nakedrobot2 13y ago
  I am pretty sure that 100% of the market does not want only thin phones :) But that is what the market is currently offering. I am pretty sure that frequent travellers, workers who are constantly on the move, using maps, etc. etc. want a battery that doesn't die before lunch time.
girvo 13y ago
Uh, well, I like thin phones. 18 hours on a charge is enough for me. What I would like is to have an external rechargeable battery to come with my phone instead of buying one from a third party, as I find that a great compromise.
rplnt 13y ago
I for one just want a regular sized phone. One I could put in my pocket. But no, manufacturers decided that they will push being huge (and being thin as you mentioned) as something people want. The phones that I might consider buying are now labeled as mini or compact. And they are still huge. (this is mostly about android market)
- vidarh 13y ago
  That's because people buy them. Many of the best selling Android phones are the huge models. The thing is once you start going to 5" and above, with high PPI, your phone can start replacing small tablets. I used to carry around a 4.3" lower res phone and a 7" tablet, but with a 5" 1920x1080 display I just gradually stopped using the tablet entirely. When my may use is not as a phone but for data while commuting, huge is great.
  - rplnt 13y ago
    People buy them because they are told it's a desirable feature. Some prefer it, sure... But majority of users have no clue and will buy whatever they are served via marketing. Then you have people who are forced into it, because alternatives are scarce and more expensive. Same thing as with wide-screen laptops. Because all people do on laptops is watch movies. Doesn't matter that it's worse for everything else.
- przemoc 13y ago
  The rule of thumb is that screen cannot be larger than 4" to be fully accessible using thumb only. Often you have only one hand available, which makes most of allegedly "awesome" 4.5"+ smartphones inconvenient at best and useless at worst. I don't get this whole 5"+ mindset. If you want something bigger (what for? watching movies?), isn't it better to have 7" tablet while leaving your phone handy? --- I'm user of Galaxy Ace 2 / i8160 with 3.8" screen and 480 x 800 resolution. I'll change it only for something with 1280x768, but with screen no bigger than 4". Good pixel density (i.e. ~250+ ppi) is really important for comfortable reading. And better battery is a must.
  - 13y ago
kevining 13y ago
I totally agree and we are working on this. Mozilla is a small company and building an OS is no easy feat - but power is definitely one of the metrics on our radar. You can read about our testing methodology here: https://wiki.mozilla.org/B2G/Performance/Power_Testing https://wiki.mozilla.org/B2G/Performance/Power_Testing Edit - we are working on this from the software side of things obviously. The hardware side of things is mostly out of our control for production devices, but I do hope to see longer battery life for all.
mnem 13y ago
Like everything else, it was better in the 80s.
Nux 13y ago
Check out Lenovo S860 or Huawei Ascend Mate 2, they have 4000 mAh batteries. Also check the Nokia Ashas, they have good battery life and decent size (you can just put it in your pocket), but are just "feature phones" with shitloads of closed source stuff in it.
userbinator 13y ago
If you want features like that, you'll have to go for the relatively unknown Chinese brands, since they rely less on advertising and more on functionality. Like this one for example: http://www.gizchina.com/2013/11/07/jiayu-g5-unboxing-hands-on-video/?ModPagespeed=noscript http://www.gizchina.com/2013/11/07/jiayu-g5-unboxing-hands-o...
mantrax 13y ago
You know, I'm not a technology luddite, and I have a smartphone (iPhone), but I have to wonder about all those complaining about battery life. Your problem isn't battery life. Your problem is you spend many, many hours a day staring at that phone and depleting its quite reasonable battery life. What the hell are you doing that takes you all so much time? And what's with "last many days". I mean, don't you sleep? Where you sleep, is electricity not available? Honestly, I want to know. I don't think you're "some kind of direct-current junkie", I think you're a smartphone junkie.
- DannyBee 13y ago
  I have to agree. If you take phone, turn off cell data, leave on wireless, and put in drawer, it should already last for quite a while (days, if not weeks).
- stinos 13y ago
  This is too one-sided, so here's another angle: ease & peace of use. As in: not constantly having to worry you won't be able to use your phone because you forgot to charge it. I don't have a very smart phone, use it mainly for calls and messages. The thing barely lasts a couple of days even if it gets hardly used. So relying on it for emergencies for instance (no fixed line) means having to take really good care of it. I for one would be much happier with a bulky smartphone that would have weeks of battery life and doesn't require paying that much attention to battery life. (I know maybe I can get a plain cell phone that lasts longer, but that would mean having to give up some handy features of the typical smartphone) Your problem is you spend many, many hours a day staring at that phone nope quite reasonable battery life let's call that an opinion. I also have a music player that gets used hours every week and lasts months. There's no smartphone in the world, even when you'd turn of the screen and all services except music playing that can do that, so I don't consider it that reasonable. Where you sleep, is electricity not available? definitely not always, no. And then we're back at the reliability part. You see, the reason I originally bought a cell phone, long before there was such a thing as a smart phone, was because we used to take trips to rocky areas in the middle of nowhere to do trials riding. One day a guy broke his leg, open wound etc. In no condition to be moved by us to the car, let alone be moved sitting in a car. Having no cell phone meant it took over an hour to get help there. Luckily he didn't bleed to death. So then we decided a cellphone would be of use. Well, if the battery isn't dead of course.
Leynos 13y ago
I'm of the opinion that a need for daily charging is a perfectly acceptable trade-off for a phone that fits unobtrusively into one's trouser pocket. If I'm going to be away from a USB port or wall socket for an extended period of time, I can always bring an external USB battery.
mike-cardwell 13y ago
Large battery and a QWERTY keyboard please. I don't care if it's three times as thick as an iPhone, that's what I want. My HTC Desire Z isn't going to last forever, I need an upgrade path.
clouds 13y ago
I would very much prefer an easy way to go 'off the grid' - one button to disable all the shit that is draining your battery. 3G, data, location services, Wi-Fi. Jailbreak used to help on iPhone and they did introduce the swipe bar to disable Wi-Fi, but put so many more obstacles to disable the rest. Disabling location services will now prompt you whether you are sure you want to disable AFTER A FUCKING DELAY. I would like very much that Google Maps wouldn't point me in a middle of ocean when my location services are disabled and I just want to peek at a map, not to find out where is some badly SEO'd shop. But most of all, I would like apps to keep the data I opened 5 minutes ago. I just hate when you are in the tube, had your route planned and suddenly all the info is gone. Or the comment you wrote on HN and switched a tab is gone after refresh. Apple, PUT SOME FUCKING RAM ON YOUR IOS DEVICES.
- lucian1900 13y ago
  This may be predictable, but all those things are a lot less of an issue on Android.
  - clouds 13y ago
    Agree with you, but that's like putting on your trousers over your head. 3 crappy UXs daily vs. hundreds? No thanks.
davidgerard 13y ago
YMMV. I for instance LOOOOVE thin gadgets. I never knew how much I wanted really thin gadgets until I had them. I mean, presumably the market is speaking here.
ilitirit 13y ago
Correction: We want SMALL/THIN batteries that last many days. I still miss my Nokia E52.

arrrg 13y ago

Who is “we”? Please speak four yourself.

samastur 13y ago
Him and me. I think that is already enough for we ;)
hrktb 13y ago
There's that feeling of loneliness when you want something, but the market moves away and leaves you with only out of date devices fully matching your needs. I sympathize. And if there is a market for 5mm case+battery packs (and really, aren't these almost only available for iPhones?) there should be a market for a phone with twice or more battery life from the start, built-in. I don't think nakedrobot2 is the only one wanting that.
- leoc 13y ago
  > And if there is a market for 5mm case+battery packs (and really, aren't these almost only available for iPhones?) For phones with replaceable batteries such battery cases are somewhat unnecessary as you can just make/use an extended battery with a replacement back cover. Check out this beauty, for instance: ;) http://www.amazon.co.uk/5200mAh-Extended-GT-I9505-18-Month-Warranty/dp/B00CPLEKTO/ http://www.amazon.co.uk/5200mAh-Extended-GT-I9505-18-Month-W...
  - hrktb 13y ago
    I had spare batteries when using feature phones. And most of the time I'd want to use one the spare would be dead, because: 1. the main battery is dead because I didn't think about charging it. The chances I would have remembered charging the spare were abysmal as well. 2. I also need a spare charger for the spare battery. Or I'd need to swap it in the phone when I have access to an outlet, and it would take twice the time to charge the main battery and the spare. Again, time and preparation. All in all, an extension to the phone is clunky, but still the best trade-off if I needed it.
- bradleyland 13y ago
  > There's that feeling of loneliness when you want something, but the market moves away and leaves you with only out of date devices fully matching your needs. I sympathize. I sympathize as well, but manufacturers aren't 100% to blame here. They make what people buy, and people want thin phones because it makes them feel like they're living in the future™. > And if there is a market for 5mm case+battery packs there should be a market for a phone with twice or more battery life from the start, built-in. I don't think nakedrobot2 is the only one wanting that. You're asking the wrong question. There's a "market" for just about anything. The question is, how big is it? How big are companies like Morphie? Are they big enough that a company like Samsung --- forget Apple, because we all know it takes Jupiter-sized markets for Apple to add new SKUs -- to roll variants of their current line up to serve this market? Sorry for the truckload of rhetorical questions. We already know the answers to those questions, because we can observe the market. I'm just glad the market is large enough to support companies like Morphie, because otherwise, we'd be out of luck entirely.
ape4 13y ago
He isn't speaking two you?
Dylan16807 13y ago
I'm sure it's plenty more than 1% of the market so let's just say 'millions'.
venomsnake 13y ago
I could join the bigger battery crowd. We are stuck with the same battery life an iPhone 1 had. The incremental battery and efficiency gains are consumed by displays and more and more apps running in the background and we still don't have a phone that can last a day on moderate burn. Or just make a standard for batteries like AA and just let people replace them. Its revolutionary idea that has been around for the last couple of decades.
nakedrobot2 13y ago
I am pretty sure that 100% of the market does not want only thin phones :) But that is what the market is currently offering. I am pretty sure that frequent travellers, workers who are constantly on the move, using maps, etc. etc. want a battery that doesn't die before lunch time.

girvo 13y ago

Uh, well, I like thin phones. 18 hours on a charge is enough for me. What I would like is to have an external rechargeable battery to come with my phone instead of buying one from a third party, as I find that a great compromise.

rplnt 13y ago

I for one just want a regular sized phone. One I could put in my pocket. But no, manufacturers decided that they will push being huge (and being thin as you mentioned) as something people want. The phones that I might consider buying are now labeled as mini or compact. And they are still huge. (this is mostly about android market)

vidarh 13y ago
That's because people buy them. Many of the best selling Android phones are the huge models. The thing is once you start going to 5" and above, with high PPI, your phone can start replacing small tablets. I used to carry around a 4.3" lower res phone and a 7" tablet, but with a 5" 1920x1080 display I just gradually stopped using the tablet entirely. When my may use is not as a phone but for data while commuting, huge is great.
- rplnt 13y ago
  People buy them because they are told it's a desirable feature. Some prefer it, sure... But majority of users have no clue and will buy whatever they are served via marketing. Then you have people who are forced into it, because alternatives are scarce and more expensive. Same thing as with wide-screen laptops. Because all people do on laptops is watch movies. Doesn't matter that it's worse for everything else.
przemoc 13y ago
The rule of thumb is that screen cannot be larger than 4" to be fully accessible using thumb only. Often you have only one hand available, which makes most of allegedly "awesome" 4.5"+ smartphones inconvenient at best and useless at worst. I don't get this whole 5"+ mindset. If you want something bigger (what for? watching movies?), isn't it better to have 7" tablet while leaving your phone handy? --- I'm user of Galaxy Ace 2 / i8160 with 3.8" screen and 480 x 800 resolution. I'll change it only for something with 1280x768, but with screen no bigger than 4". Good pixel density (i.e. ~250+ ppi) is really important for comfortable reading. And better battery is a must.
- 13y ago

kevining 13y ago

I totally agree and we are working on this. Mozilla is a small company and building an OS is no easy feat - but power is definitely one of the metrics on our radar. You can read about our testing methodology here: https://wiki.mozilla.org/B2G/Performance/Power_Testing https://wiki.mozilla.org/B2G/Performance/Power_Testing Edit - we are working on this from the software side of things obviously. The hardware side of things is mostly out of our control for production devices, but I do hope to see longer battery life for all.

mnem 13y ago

Like everything else, it was better in the 80s.

Nux 13y ago

Check out Lenovo S860 or Huawei Ascend Mate 2, they have 4000 mAh batteries. Also check the Nokia Ashas, they have good battery life and decent size (you can just put it in your pocket), but are just "feature phones" with shitloads of closed source stuff in it.

userbinator 13y ago

If you want features like that, you'll have to go for the relatively unknown Chinese brands, since they rely less on advertising and more on functionality. Like this one for example: http://www.gizchina.com/2013/11/07/jiayu-g5-unboxing-hands-on-video/?ModPagespeed=noscript http://www.gizchina.com/2013/11/07/jiayu-g5-unboxing-hands-o...

mantrax 13y ago

You know, I'm not a technology luddite, and I have a smartphone (iPhone), but I have to wonder about all those complaining about battery life. Your problem isn't battery life. Your problem is you spend many, many hours a day staring at that phone and depleting its quite reasonable battery life. What the hell are you doing that takes you all so much time? And what's with "last many days". I mean, don't you sleep? Where you sleep, is electricity not available? Honestly, I want to know. I don't think you're "some kind of direct-current junkie", I think you're a smartphone junkie.

DannyBee 13y ago
I have to agree. If you take phone, turn off cell data, leave on wireless, and put in drawer, it should already last for quite a while (days, if not weeks).
stinos 13y ago
This is too one-sided, so here's another angle: ease & peace of use. As in: not constantly having to worry you won't be able to use your phone because you forgot to charge it. I don't have a very smart phone, use it mainly for calls and messages. The thing barely lasts a couple of days even if it gets hardly used. So relying on it for emergencies for instance (no fixed line) means having to take really good care of it. I for one would be much happier with a bulky smartphone that would have weeks of battery life and doesn't require paying that much attention to battery life. (I know maybe I can get a plain cell phone that lasts longer, but that would mean having to give up some handy features of the typical smartphone) Your problem is you spend many, many hours a day staring at that phone nope quite reasonable battery life let's call that an opinion. I also have a music player that gets used hours every week and lasts months. There's no smartphone in the world, even when you'd turn of the screen and all services except music playing that can do that, so I don't consider it that reasonable. Where you sleep, is electricity not available? definitely not always, no. And then we're back at the reliability part. You see, the reason I originally bought a cell phone, long before there was such a thing as a smart phone, was because we used to take trips to rocky areas in the middle of nowhere to do trials riding. One day a guy broke his leg, open wound etc. In no condition to be moved by us to the car, let alone be moved sitting in a car. Having no cell phone meant it took over an hour to get help there. Luckily he didn't bleed to death. So then we decided a cellphone would be of use. Well, if the battery isn't dead of course.

Leynos 13y ago

I'm of the opinion that a need for daily charging is a perfectly acceptable trade-off for a phone that fits unobtrusively into one's trouser pocket. If I'm going to be away from a USB port or wall socket for an extended period of time, I can always bring an external USB battery.

mike-cardwell 13y ago

Large battery and a QWERTY keyboard please. I don't care if it's three times as thick as an iPhone, that's what I want. My HTC Desire Z isn't going to last forever, I need an upgrade path.

clouds 13y ago

I would very much prefer an easy way to go 'off the grid' - one button to disable all the shit that is draining your battery. 3G, data, location services, Wi-Fi. Jailbreak used to help on iPhone and they did introduce the swipe bar to disable Wi-Fi, but put so many more obstacles to disable the rest. Disabling location services will now prompt you whether you are sure you want to disable AFTER A FUCKING DELAY. I would like very much that Google Maps wouldn't point me in a middle of ocean when my location services are disabled and I just want to peek at a map, not to find out where is some badly SEO'd shop. But most of all, I would like apps to keep the data I opened 5 minutes ago. I just hate when you are in the tube, had your route planned and suddenly all the info is gone. Or the comment you wrote on HN and switched a tab is gone after refresh. Apple, PUT SOME FUCKING RAM ON YOUR IOS DEVICES.

lucian1900 13y ago
This may be predictable, but all those things are a lot less of an issue on Android.
- clouds 13y ago
  Agree with you, but that's like putting on your trousers over your head. 3 crappy UXs daily vs. hundreds? No thanks.

davidgerard 13y ago

YMMV. I for instance LOOOOVE thin gadgets. I never knew how much I wanted really thin gadgets until I had them. I mean, presumably the market is speaking here.

ilitirit 13y ago

Correction: We want SMALL/THIN batteries that last many days. I still miss my Nokia E52.