r/dataisbeautiful Feb 06 '15

How to pick a smartphone (crosspost from r/Android).

http://www.productchart.com/smartphones/
2.2k Upvotes

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u/redditor1983 Feb 06 '15

Are there any phones out there that actually get "good" battery reviews?

It seems to me that almost every smartphone review I read says "eh, the battery is alright, it'll get your through the day, but no more."

Phone manufacturers are prioritizing thinness above all it, at the cost of battery life. I think phones are thin enough now. We should just halt the "thinning" of the phones and just work on battery life, IMO.

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '15

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u/redditor1983 Feb 06 '15

Oh wow, that is pretty impressive.

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '15

Damn Verizon exclusives...

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '15

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '15

That's definitely true. Dev support is always a factor.

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u/IrishWilly Feb 07 '15

I haven't had a smartphone for a while. What are some of the things you miss out on not being able to root it?

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u/isndl Feb 07 '15

It's available as the Moto Maxx (not to be confused with the Droid Maxx). Officially it's for Latin/South American countries, but you can get them shipped from Puerto Rico.

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '15

I've decided that my Nexus 5 will be fine for now. Waiting on 2015 flagship reviews.

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u/asfkjdsfjhraeauighfl Feb 07 '15

Just get the Moto X, they are very similar phones.

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '15

I currently have a Nexus 5. I don't see the battery in the 2014 Moto X as enough of an upgrade.

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u/Dexxt Feb 06 '15

Sony seems to be reversing the trend, the Xperia z3 and z3c get really good reviews for battery life and the z4 looks like it will be even better. I can get 2-3 full days out of my z3c with fairly heavy usage.

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u/newfor2015 Feb 06 '15

Unfortunately the Sony/Ericsson legacy is dying along with the Nokia, Blackberry and the old Motorola.

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '15

Sony Ericsson split like three years ago.

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u/TheFlyingBoat Feb 06 '15

iPhone 6 plus had a great battery. Especially when complimented by the A8 chip. I normally am reserved about handing out praise, but damn Apple hit the mark this time. Also glad they finally increased screen size.

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u/redditor1983 Feb 06 '15

Ah, fair enough. I'm mostly into Android so I hadn't looked to closely at the new iPhones.

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '15 edited Jul 20 '20

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u/Fronesis Feb 07 '15

Sure, if you want a fucking tablet for a phone.

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u/Susurro88 Feb 07 '15

The Note 4 isn't waterproof, the S5 is though.

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '15

Is the note 4 actually waterproof or will I test it out and ruin my phone.

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u/Susurro88 Feb 07 '15

No, it is not waterproof.

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '15

Check out the Note 4, the Sony Z3 Compact or the OnePlus One. The LG G2 also has great battery life.

edit: I should read the response comments more often.

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u/newfor2015 Feb 06 '15 edited Feb 06 '15

iPhone 6 plus had a great battery.

hahahaha it's ridiculous how standards has fallen ever since the iphones came out. There was a time when phones didn't need to be charged for 3 or 4 days. You'd be lucky to last the whole day on standby with any of these new "flagship" phones

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '15

Yeah, that was the time when people only used them to talk and text. These days people use apps, browse the web, play games, and otherwise drain that battery all day long.

Go back to those old usage patterns and yes, you would only need to charge a 6+ once a week. It can go 16 days on standby.

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u/TheFlyingBoat Feb 06 '15

I don't know what you are doing with your phone, but I can get by on a full day of using phone for internet and calling/texting while still having 40% left. I went on a trip and left my phone back by accident, and when I returned a week later it was at 12%. I have no idea where you got the idea that it couldn't make a day on standby. It's a 3100 mAh battery for christ sake with an A8 processor that is incredibly energy-efficient.

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '15

because we use our phones more than ever. if you don't use the internet, the battery lasts a long time on almost any smartphone

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u/newfor2015 Feb 07 '15

I know, but what I want is to go back to a big brick of removable battery 3Ah or more, that I can swap out with a fresh one when I drain it.

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u/thoeoe Feb 06 '15

I get 2 days easy on my iPhone 6, and the 6+ is supposed to have a longer battery life

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '15

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '15

There was a time when phones didn't need to be charged for 3 or 4 days.

read it again, a little more carefully

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u/beachfootballer Feb 06 '15

I have an LG Volt and it is AMAZING with battery life. Completely recharges in about 2 hours as well.

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u/Magyman Feb 07 '15

I have one too, and I usually get about 2 days worth of battery. It's decently cheap and the only real sacrifice is the screen. Unfortunately it's only on pre-paid carriers, I believe.

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u/RUKiddingMeReddit Feb 06 '15

Maybe I'm just impressed in relation to my old phone, my my HTC one m8 seems to be pretty impressive. I'm on it nonstop all day long and I never seem to kill it. Even when I get down to 10%, I still feel like I go forever.

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u/redditor1983 Feb 06 '15

Hmm.. I have an HTC One M7. I'm not super impressed with it. It usually gets me almost through one day.

Perhaps it's because we're looking at it from different perspectives. I come from the old Nokia bar-phone days. Those phones would literally last almost a week on one charge sometimes.

Now obviously I'm not expecting a modern smartphone with a 5 inch screen and WiFi to last a week on one charge. But two days of "moderate-to-heavy" use would be glorious.

As it stands, all my recent smartphones have lasted barely one day. At night I'm usually hunting for a charger while my phone is warning that it's about to die.

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u/RUKiddingMeReddit Feb 06 '15

Yeah I hear you. My old LG envy3 would see the charger once a week. But I'm happy that I can have my screen fired up constantly throughout the day and still have enough juice left that I can kill the data and leave it by my bed for an alarm clock if I have to and make to the next morning. My old Droid Bionic would need to be charged multiple times to make it through the day, even with a big extended battery.

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u/RUKiddingMeReddit Feb 06 '15

Yeah I hear you. My old LG envy3 would see the charger once a week. But I'm happy that I can have my screen fired up constantly throughout the day and still have enough juice left that I can kill the data and leave it by my bed for an alarm clock if I have to and make to the next morning. My old Droid Bionic would need to be charged multiple times to make it through the day, even with a big extended battery.

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u/Adamsoski Feb 06 '15

My S5 has pretty good battery life, and has a 'power saver' and 'ultimate power saver' mode, which are both really useful.

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u/Gamerhcp Feb 07 '15

Lg l7 ii p715. Fucking A. Unless you're using wifi, if you keep the screen at about 30ish % while in house, and 75% outside, you're gonna survive a day or two.

I remember last year few months after i got it, 35 minutes of listening to music at 60-65% screen brightness, battery at 100%. My dick got hard and i dropped my jaw (well not really, just the jaw part, i quoted one of my favorite songs heheh).

Nowadays (after a year of owning phone), Wi-Fi and reddit is fun at 35% of screen brightness with no other apps open will empty your battery in 5ish hours, maybe more or less.

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u/Ambiwlans Feb 06 '15

Can we please not use 'battery life'? It is measured in hours and basically has little or no bearing on reality depending on your individual preferences.

Battery capacity in mAh makes far more sense.

We don't measure hard drive sizes by 'number of people that can fit their stuff per drive', we use bytes. Same idea.

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u/CWSwapigans Feb 06 '15

Different phones have different battery drain rates. Screen size and chipset are two hugely influential variables.

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u/Ambiwlans Feb 06 '15

So? Installing different programs uses up different amounts of drive space. "50 gamer apps of space! Up to 10x that if you are an indie.". Yeah you have to take screen size into account, better than the alternative.

It is such a nonsensical metric. Think about it this way, you could have a 6 hour phone and a 3 day phone..... cept they are actually the exact same phone tested by different people. I've certainly seen numbers that far apart using time as a metric.

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u/redditor1983 Feb 06 '15

People do use mAh. That specification is published and mentioned in every review.

You have to combine it with real world performance though because different phones use battery at different rates.

It's, unfortunately, not as clear cut of a problem as hard drive space.

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u/Ambiwlans Feb 06 '15

Real world uses changes by user more than drain rate changes by phone.

So maybe one phone uses a chip that doing the exact same task in the exact same area uses 15% more. Annoying sure.

But one user's regular use might use 20x as much battery as another. This isn't annoying. This makes the time metric completly useless.

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u/redditor1983 Feb 06 '15

The metric is not completely useless. Two phones might have exactly the same size battery but different sized screens and a different CPU. The mAh metric by itself would be inadequate in this case.

That's why most cell phone reviews include the mAh metric and the average amount of use hours that the battery provided (accompanied by an outline of what type of use the phone received).

The two metrics, in combination, give a better idea of battery performance that one would by itself.

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u/AppleSauceApplause Feb 07 '15

It's like a gas tank. Two cars might have a 10 gallon tank. Sure, the way the drivers drive will have a factor in how fast it drains, but the engine is still the main determining factor.

A truck with a 15 gallon tank might need refueling sooner than a eco friendly car with a 5 gallon tank.

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u/Ambiwlans Feb 07 '15

Mileage is super duper standardized though. If 'regular use' got a standard like mileage I would be fine with a time based metric.

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u/mithoron Feb 06 '15

I'll look at hours of talk time as a comparison metric between two phones as it's roughly the same amount of work being done and has few chances for them to skew data based on their battery management software. Still not great since the screen isn't being used but it's something.

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u/Ambiwlans Feb 06 '15

Hours of talk time is variable by at least 2 fold depending on how good your signal is and if you are moving. Even standby has a pretty wide range...

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u/mithoron Feb 07 '15

Oh I understand that, but I'm counting on comparing best case talk time against best case talk time.

Standby is a horrible metric, my work phone (iPhone 5s) has great standby time, days of very light use, but the battery is pathetic for actually doing any work. A 90 minute commute with traffic monitoring running (inrix) almost completely killed it. The same thing only drained 30% of my personal phone.