Save battery on smart phone?

Never hear of that one before. But it could be true?

I know the screen itself takes up a lot of power.

On standby, battery usage is 3mA.
With screen on, atleast 300mA.

 

Talking about that, I have no idea why there's obsession with thinnest devices. They are sacrificing battery life with it! Who cares if the device is slim, I find it hard to grip sometimes! Phones always slipped off my hand, even with rubber grip!

 

Same here. Plus, my phone is also my alarm clock.

 

Booting up may cost a bit more power but it doesn't take up all that much power. All phones will automatically turn off the screen during periods of inactivity anyway, so it makes it a moot point to turn off the phone at night. In fact, all phones can last 200-300 or more hours on standby.

What's more important than saving the little bit of power is staying connected. In case of emergencies, you will want to be able to quickly make or take that critical call. If you have to wait to boot up the phone to make an emergency call, you will have lost precious minutes. Of course, you wouldn't be able to receive any emergency calls if your phone is off.

Also, most of us now use our phones as alarm clocks in addition to charging it overnight. So I don't think many people would actually turn off their phones.

BTW, I found that on the Apple iPhone at least, most of the power is not being consumed by the screen (which is off whenever it's inactive anyway) but by apps that constantly check the Internet for updates (e.g. Ping, news readers).

 

Quite true, theoretical, the biggest power usage comes from the LCD its self and 3G.

3G uses more power than WiFi.

When I'm running on 3G, my battery drains really fast.

 

Yes, but unless you are actively using it, the LCD panel is usually turned off to save power. And in phones that have an ambient light sensor, the backlight automatically adjusts to save power.

But 3G definitely sucks power, which is why I turn 3G off all the time. Don't really need the speed, so it's always off.

 

That's crazy fast! You should complain to the website you bought that junk from.

 

Yeah, leaving the GPS running will definitely run the phone down real quick. It also gets my iPhone really hot if I leave it running.

 

Don't worry. Before they can hunt you down, your phone's battery would have given out.

But it will make explaining what you were doing at that cheap motel hard to explain to your wife/girlfriend...

 

Which model did you buy?

 

I have a small rechargable battery (the eGear iWalk) for emergencies.

 

I forgot to charge my phone last night

I would say, I used about 5-10% with WiFi.

 

I'm thinking of buying this.

$3.90 - AA-Battery USB Emergency Backup Power and Charger Pack - Chargers

But it is direct battery powered. Using 4 AA NiMH batteries, the voltage should be around 1.2V per cell, should be safe.

 

Wow.. That's cheap.. but I wonder how safe it is.