I'm not so sure that's true on a phone such as this, with a 5" 1080p display.
If I turn up the brightness on my S4, the screen can take up over 70% of the battery life over the course of a day.
I seriously doubt the the display makes up the difference. The soc and radios make a Much larger difference than that.
Battery tests, for better or for worse, are better than anecdotal experiences. I certainly wouldn't call the OGP battery life disappointing, but in every test I've seen it's somewhere between the S4 and the Note 2. I think the disappointing comment probably was in relation to it's competitor (N2) and the expectation that a newer phone would do better.
Compared to pretty much any other Android phone (except the Note 2 and Razr Maxx), the OGP has very good battery life.
I'm probably sure screen uses more battery than the SoC and radios.I seriously doubt the the display makes up the difference. The soc and radios make a Much larger difference than that.
Direct from the review:
"It can yield more than a full day's use, but not the phenomenal two day's worth we've enjoyed on the Note II."
Most consumers charge their phones at night. So if it can make it a full day with no problems, how is it disappointing? Compared to the N2? And you make that a con in the menu to your review? Seriously? I should also point out that most other reviews spoke glowingly of the G Pro for AT&T.
Mine is supposedly getting in today. All I'm asking for is a comfortable day of battery life. My galaxy s3 does not give that to me at this point. If it's noticeably better than what I have then I'll be happy.
I've spoken glowingly about the OGP to friends and for those looking for a phablet in the last month, I've advised them to get the OGP now if they don't need a stylus or care about dev support (most friends look at me with a 'huh?'). Otherwise, I recommend they wait for the upcoming wave (Note 3, HTC phablet).
However, is it really that surprising that the OGP gets compared directly to the only competitor it has, the Note 2? It wouldn't make sense to compare it to older phones or the 5" flagships.
In my experience as a 'heavy' user in a poor coverage area and starting at 100% at 7AM, my S3 would die in the afternoon without a charge. My Note gets me to midnight, normally around 15-20%. So I've decided I'm not buying a phone that gets any worse battery life than the Note 2 which is why I punted on this gen of 5" flagships - I can't go backwards on battery life.
Mine is supposedly getting in today. All I'm asking for is a comfortable day of battery life. My galaxy s3 does not give that to me at this point. If it's noticeably better than what I have then I'll be happy.
I've spoken glowingly about the OGP to friends and for those looking for a phablet in the last month, I've advised them to get the OGP now if they don't need a stylus or care about dev support (most friends look at me with a 'huh?'). Otherwise, I recommend they wait for the upcoming wave (Note 3, HTC phablet).
Looks like a nice phone. Let us know how you like it
I have the OGP and bounce on over to XDA about once a day to see what's up with it. It does look like a lot of progress has been made lately.
I'm a light user, currently my battery stats are 21% remaining, usage 116h 43m with 2h 40m of screen on time.
I saw it at a store and it's really a hard call between the S4 and the S4 Active if I were in the market. On one hand the S4 Active seems better in almost every regard (save camera), but what I've learned from my friend who uses the S4 without screen protector (she has one of those flip covers, negating some risks of screen scratches) is how smooth the Gorilla Glass 3 is. I have always applied screen protectors for all of my touch-screen devices and when I played with my friend's S4 with its naked GG3, I felt like I'd been missing out.
So I compared the GG2 (S4 Active) and GG3 (S4) at the store and they felt different - i.e. GG3 felt better. Is it a legitimate difference, or am I being prejudiced?
FWIW, I noticed the GG difference on my S4 (when compared to my previous S3) immediately, and I refuse to put a screen protector on it because I think it just feels superior without one. No scratches after a month...I saw it at a store and it's really a hard call between the S4 and the S4 Active if I were in the market. On one hand the S4 Active seems better in almost every regard (save camera), but what I've learned from my friend who uses the S4 without screen protector (she has one of those flip covers, negating some risks of screen scratches) is how smooth the Gorilla Glass 3 is. I have always applied screen protectors for all of my touch-screen devices and when I played with my friend's S4 with its naked GG3, I felt like I'd been missing out.
So I compared the GG2 (S4 Active) and GG3 (S4) at the store and they felt different - i.e. GG3 felt better. Is it a legitimate difference, or am I being prejudiced?
Not going to read the whole review, but 1:20 screen time, really? That's awful. Maybe it's just a really screen-off heavy test...but that certainly doesn't inspire confidence in the test, for me. Any S4 should have no trouble getting 3h and I would really consider 2.5-4h the norm.S4 Active Battery Test:
New S4 Active Review claims battery equal to the original S4 results from AnTuTu Battery Test
"The (S4 Active) device also kept pace with its forerunner in terms of battery life, (S4 ACTIVE) scoring a 489 to the Galaxy S 4′s 470 in the AnTuTu Battery Test. In real-world terms, that means the Galaxy S 4 Active put up with over 15 hours’ worth of photo-taking, texting, talking, browsing, and constant S Health background activity before hitting the 10% mark, with a screen-on time of 1 hour and 20 minutes."
Full Review
http://wideupdates.com/index/samsung-galaxy-s4-active-review/
... it's annoying we have to disable features the phone is made to use just to get through a day. That's applicable to pretty much all phones though, not just this one. I should be able to keep all email syncs enabled, and not have to toggle GPS on every time I want to use it.
Not so much.
You get that kind of screen-on time with everything enabled? Email sync, gps, weather updates, etc? Seems to me that most people get stuff like that after some pretty heavy mods and limitations which just hurts what a smartphone can do. If you can get that with everything enabled then I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter.
That's with everything enabled and syncing a crap ton of stuff. Wifi and bluetooth were off though (my work wifi seems to eff up a lot of messenger apps).
Stock Touchwiz rom that has been debloated and custom kernel (latest perseus).
Total uptime is not so great with that screen time though (think it was about 14 hours).
I should probably mention that I use the official Samsung extended battery I suppose.
Damn...That sucks. You claim it's better than your Galaxy S III, well that sucks too.So it's near the end of the day (~9pm here) and I'm at 35% with a screen on time of right at 1 hour. I didn't use it much today because I was golfing, so the battery life seems a little short but still better than my galaxy s3 was at. However I did some digging and found that Maps was defaulted to automatically update location which I disabled on the S3. I just noticed that so I'll have a better idea tomorrow how much difference it makes with it disabled.
Still... it's annoying we have to disable features the phone is made to use just to get through a day. That's applicable to pretty much all phones though, not just this one. I should be able to keep all email syncs enabled, and not have to toggle GPS on every time I want to use it.
On both the Galaxy S II and Nexus 4, I've never had to disable email sync, GPS, WiFi, or weather updates.You get that kind of screen-on time with everything enabled? Email sync, gps, weather updates, etc? Seems to me that most people get stuff like that after some pretty heavy mods and limitations which just hurts what a smartphone can do. If you can get that with everything enabled then I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter.