Wasn't the whole idea of excluding LTE for better battery life? I didn't PICK the worst Android phone in battery of its generation for the sake of choosing a phone with bad battery. In some ways this is pretty disappointing considering the Galaxy Nexus sucked in that aspect and they really couldn't improve this phone.You picked the worst-battery Android phone of its generation and you're complaining?
In real-world conditions the S4 will idle longer than any iPhone.
That's the right price and they'll sell a lot of these.
The Snapdragon 800 power efficiency is stressed too often. If your screen is off and your phone is in your pocket, you will get great idle time. The issue with Android right now is wakelocks, and if the OS, apps, and hardware are setup properly, idle times should be great. Look how long an iPhone can idle for as an example.
The Nexus 4's battery issues were plagued by the msm_hsic wakelocks which came from the hardware design. If that gets addressed in the Nexus 5, I'd be willing to bet the battery will skyrocket. Remember, battery life is a domino effect in Android. Syncs for example typically happen opportunistically, so when the phone wakes up, a sync might try to take advantage of that wake time by the radio and perform the sync. So the more you have the phone waking up, the more it will sync. This sorta explains why my Google+ can sync for 5 minutes a day when I get like 2 posts a day in my news feed.
The funny thing is on the past few phones I've used, the Moto Milestone/Droid, Nexus One, Nexus S, GS2, I've felt that they're barely enough to get through the day. Interestingly enough, almost 4 years later, I'm still facing the same issues on my Nexus 4. And even then I swear I used my Motorola Milestone/Droid with similar usage patterns.
You picked the worst-battery Android phone of its generation and you're complaining?
In real-world conditions the S4 will idle longer than any iPhone.
And here's the Verizon version.
Everything you said makes a lot of sense and in terms of stand by time your points are valid. However, all of that might be great for stand by times but for screen on times I'm not so sure. The biggest power usage of any phone is the screen. The Nexus 5 has a 5" 1920x1080 IPS LCD vs the Nexus 4's 4.7" 1280x768 IPS LCD. The Nexus 5's screen is about 10% bigger in total area which means it will take more power. The screen also has more than twice the number of pixels. That means more work for the GPU and therefore higher power usage. It would help a lot if the Nexus 5 had the same GRAM that the LG G2 had but based on what I saw in the leaked service manual I don't think it does.
I really want this phone so if there is something I am missing please correct me. I want my next phone to get ~4 hours of screen on time over a period of ~16 hours. From what I can tell that isn't going to happen with the Nexus 5.
This is a really YMMV and I didn't really want to bring this into an iPhone versus Android conversation, but in general you need to consider how an iPhone works compared to an Android phone.From what I've seen battery life under "real world conditions" for the S4 are pretty bad. From 100% to shutting down in 9 hours with 6.5 hours of that time in stand by. I've never owned, used or monitored use of an iPhone for an extended period of time. Is the idle time really worse than the S4?
But with their tiny battery there's little buffer for these issues.Budiu has also experienced problems with iOS 7 personally. When she installed the new OS on her older iPhone, it drained the battery much faster. When she got the latest iPhone 5s, she thought that would fix the issue, but the new phone's battery is still draining quicker, she said.
The battery problem may be caused by iOS 7's ability to have many apps running at the same time. In previous versions of the OS, only one or two apps could run at the same time, limiting battery usage, Budiu noted.
I was never making this an Android sux iOS rules thread. I was explaining to him WHY the N5 should have much better battery life and I was pointing out that the Snapdragon 800 isn't as big of a reason as most people make it out to be. It's the modem design changing that will help it out. The N4 does much worse because of wake issues, and that's likely to be solved in the N5.I leave all sync on including photos, Google location updating and Now, leave wifi on but never connect, run LTE on variable signal a lot (unlimited unlimited) all around NYC, and battery rundown is still a function of screen on time. I'm calling BS on the 9 hour claim.
Apparently Apple may be discovering the multitasking problem:But with their tiny battery there's little buffer for these issues.
Anyway, please stop threadjacking this into "Android sux, iOS rules". The N4, as basically the first quadcore, was always terrible. The N5, as a tweaked G2, should have excellent battery life.
Oh I agree with you regarding the screen, but in general I'd say we've gotten better SOT over the ages of smart phones, and I'm not planning on keeping my screen on for 10 hours a day. I just don't want it to drain to hell in my pocket like my Nexus 4 does.
This is a really YMMV and I didn't really want to bring this into an iPhone versus Android conversation, but in general you need to consider how an iPhone works compared to an Android phone.
First of all, iOS uses push exclusively. iOS7 might add a bit more multitasking so you can have more background tasks, but if you're pushing the standard email, Facebook, etc, your battery won't drop much on iOS. On Android on the other hand, these apps sync. Gmail syncs. Google+ syncs. It's push and sync. Facebook and Twitter used to force you to sync in order to get push notifications.
Depending how you set up your Android phone, it can be one major battery nightmare, or it could be pretty decent. On the other hand iPhones are harder to drain to hell unless maybe you turn on Find my Friends or somehow an app gets locked in place using the GPS.
I've used quite a few Android phones and from what I've seen, iPhones run great in idle. My iPhone 5 is pretty good even on vacations where I take hundreds of photos and have Google+ sync using LTE.
You hear stories of people getting great battery life on Android, but typically those users stick to Wifi, or disable a lot of features here and there. For example, my friend told me this weekend that his Nexus 4 needs to charge 3 times for his gf's 1 charge on the Moto X. While that may be true, I'm pretty sure it's because she turns everything off and runs solely on Wifi. She has a mini 200mb plan and has to do everything to prevent running over that.
Anyway, it's a long discussion, but I have yet to see anyone run any idle/standby battery tests. Those synthetic benchmarks and rundown tests only tell you about screen and SoC efficiency. They don't really tell you how the phone behaves in idle. I may be putting too much emphasis on idle, but honestly, a lot of phone usage is idle for many people. It sits in their pocket until a notification comes in. If we're all limited to around 4-6 hours of screen on time, the the rest of the screen off time better be idle and not awake, and that's where the different devices start showing their strengths and weaknesses.
Coming back to the S4, if we base the battery life on GSM Arena's "endurance rating," it's pretty solid. It's twice as long as a Nexus 4 which makes me think its amazing. But who knows? Until we have some sort of controlled idle test (i.e. push 2 gmails every hour, 2 facebook notifications an hour, Google Now on, Google+ syncing, etc.) it's really hard to determine how phones really do in your pocket. There's just too many variables. Now with apps like Google Now, and other location based apps that continuously ping you for your location, I bet idle times also differ if you're moving around versus if you're stationary.
Anyway, please stop threadjacking this into "Android sux, iOS rules". The N4, as basically the first quadcore, was always terrible. The N5, as a tweaked G2, should have excellent battery life.
Might dump my Note 2 for this. IF the battery like is decent AND the camera is respectable. Should tide me over till a Moto phablet comes out.
I'm actually thinking about dropping my Note 3 for a Nexus 5 which is odd considering I briefly had a G2 and wasn't particularly a fan of it. This is of course if that rumor about a N5 with a 3000 mah battery is true.
And here's the Verizon version.
Listen, honestly, whoever made that picture should take it down. I think you're giving Verizon what they would think is a really great idea...
Imagine, in the world of shrinking bezels, being able to have your logo on the face of the device ALL THE TIME. I'm, quite honestly, surprised they haven't done this yet.
I'd be happy with ~16 hours of total on time with 4-6 hours of screen on time and the rest stand by. That would be way better than my current Galaxy SII Skyrocket which gets me about 12 hours off the charger with about 1.75 hours of screen on time. Overall I really like what I know about the Nexus 5. My only issue is I'm very skeptical about the the battery life I want which I don't think is very intense anyways.
Wait. These won't work with Verizon right?
D:
fml
I'm actually thinking about dropping my Note 3 for a Nexus 5 which is odd considering I briefly had a G2 and wasn't particularly a fan of it. This is of course if that rumor about a N5 with a 3000 mah battery is true.