i-Know: Battery drainage?

Gadget Girl
marielwong, Australia

Jul 07, 2011
(First posted on cnetasia.com). Update: oct 2016

A recent incident sparked a point of interest. Why did Samsung’s latest Note flagship phone catch-on-fire. Even to the point that planes would have banned them. And this begets the question. If not Samsung, who will you choose?

 

Naturally; the next best contender will be the iPhone ‘doppleganger’ series, where every version is almost identical.

You can’t possibly go wrong with that choice, especially with the latest wireless headphones that are so ‘hard’ to lose…

Yet the base question is, why does the iPhone not have removable battery? With it constantly being on 24/7 (drained and recharged), a changeable battery would help loads. In fact, when my phone blanks out into an unconscious stupor of black or freezes, would removing-and-replacing the battery have had been the easier solution?

Here’s an interesting clip I saw on removing an iPhone battery; although a little rudimentary but it does look pretty effective. Perhaps a backup replacement would do the job. Or, a handy battery charger that can be powered up way beforehand.

This little incident I speak of is perhaps as common amongst all users who simply open far too many programs; which in most other mobiles can be easily exited via its task manager. Yet, how often are we consciously double-clicking our home button to physically remove each and every application we opened eons ago? Now, all we need is an application with a one-step ‘kill’ all task manager. Or is there one, that I am currently unaware of?

Personally, I rarely off my mobile; not because I am waiting for that important job offer but rather because waiting for it to boot up again is very much a hassle. As with all things curious, just the other night while toggling a newly downloaded application, my smartie 4 was thoroughly drained of any inkling of life.

A video-editing app that had a 999sec conversion rate, and without so much as batting my eyes; I stumbled off to bed whilst leaving the application on to ‘do its job’. This also meant that the alarm I had set was unable to activate with its usual wailing and hence, I awoken refreshed but in a hurry to rush to work. Arriving late, without the usual weightiness of my all-too-familar phone resting in my pocket; I definitely was not the happiest of campers.

Of course, besides application that drains battery life, on another level, the increment of data delivery offered over here from the varied networks has only served to exhaust my mobile’s lifespan.

For the Virgin mobile plan I had taken up that includes payment for the phone and connection; it does include $450 talktime and 2GB of data. This was a bump up from the plan I took up 2 years prior, that gave me $150 talktime and 200MB of data. With international calls starting at approximately $1 per minute, the newfound talktime certainly gave greater flexibility for me to connect with my friends and family back in Singapore. This is of course, in view that Skype which eats up quite a bit of data ( I am on a 6GB/ month plan) when I do video conferencing, and it sputters along with my rather slow-mo mobile internet. To keep track of my usage, the Application, Consume does it beautifully. Although its accuracy might have a 24-hour lag (sometimes pretty accurate), but it beats having to log on to each individual network site to track both my phone and mobile internet usage.

In Singapore, as seen from the SingTel plan that my friends have back in 2011, a whooping 12GB of data is provided via 3G to the measly 2G on 4G today…certainly is a shock to the system. That amount of data could easily allow for a 24-hour youtube streaming marathon and non-stop Facebook photo uploading. With greater amount of data connectivity available, greater time would be spent on dallying with one’s mobile or iPad 3G/ WiFi for the matter. In this case, squinty eyes and drained batteries would not simply be the issue. Yet, imagine if 12GB of data, topped with $450 talktime credit was available at my disposal; oh and that all calls made Virgin-to-Virgin and text messages are FOC. Definitely, the icing on the cake.

Although, all this does not answer the question on how long my iPhone battery lifespan can last? With gaming, especially with the new Zenonia 3 and Puzzle Quest 2, it seem charging my iPhone up to twice a day has become part of the day-in-day out process. Oh, and I have tried the following:

1. Dimming the screen’s brightness- Point of advise, never play in the dark or be prepared to up those spectacles’ degree.
2. Double tapping to off Apps when memory serves right (approximately 1-2 a day).
3. Switching off 3G when one does not use it.
4. Fully drain one’s battery before recharging- Although it gets painful when you are in the middle of a battle/farming expedition/building a new civilisation. Remember to always save.
5. When receiving mails, off the automatic function or anything ‘Push’ – Yes, that includes bluetooth and notifications such as Whatsapp and Facebook.

Anyone else has experience with dwindling battery life so far? Perhaps, getting an extended warranty on my mobile would be a good idea for now.