WE DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THIN PHONES. WE WANT BIG BATTERIES THAT LAST MANY DAYS.
Sorry for an all-caps comment that is only tangentially relevant to this particular article/phone, but I am goddam sick and tired of NO mainstream phone manufacturers getting out of this "We'll compete on fractions of millimeters that you'll never notice, we'll tell you what you want, we'll condition you to plug in your phone every chance you get like some kind of direct-current junkie"
I totally agree and we are working on this. Mozilla is a small company and building an OS is no easy feat - but power is definitely one of the metrics on our radar.
Edit - we are working on this from the software side of things obviously. The hardware side of things is mostly out of our control for production devices, but I do hope to see longer battery life for all.
Large battery and a QWERTY keyboard please. I don't care if it's three times as thick as an iPhone, that's what I want. My HTC Desire Z isn't going to last forever, I need an upgrade path.
There's that feeling of loneliness when you want something, but the market moves away and leaves you with only out of date devices fully matching your needs. I sympathize.
And if there is a market for 5mm case+battery packs (and really, aren't these almost only available for iPhones?) there should be a market for a phone with twice or more battery life from the start, built-in. I don't think nakedrobot2 is the only one wanting that.
> And if there is a market for 5mm case+battery packs (and really, aren't these almost only available for iPhones?)
For phones with replaceable batteries such battery cases are somewhat unnecessary as you can just make/use an extended battery with a replacement back cover. Check out this beauty, for instance: ;)
I had spare batteries when using feature phones. And most of the time I'd want to use one the spare would be dead, because:
1. the main battery is dead because I didn't think about charging it. The chances I would have remembered charging the spare were abysmal as well.
2. I also need a spare charger for the spare battery. Or I'd need to swap it in the phone when I have access to an outlet, and it would take twice the time to charge the main battery and the spare. Again, time and preparation.
All in all, an extension to the phone is clunky, but still the best trade-off if I needed it.
> There's that feeling of loneliness when you want something, but the market moves away and leaves you with only out of date devices fully matching your needs. I sympathize.
I sympathize as well, but manufacturers aren't 100% to blame here. They make what people buy, and people want thin phones because it makes them feel like they're living in the future™.
> And if there is a market for 5mm case+battery packs there should be a market for a phone with twice or more battery life from the start, built-in. I don't think nakedrobot2 is the only one wanting that.
You're asking the wrong question. There's a "market" for just about anything. The question is, how big is it? How big are companies like Morphie? Are they big enough that a company like Samsung --- forget Apple, because we all know it takes Jupiter-sized markets for Apple to add new SKUs -- to roll variants of their current line up to serve this market?
Sorry for the truckload of rhetorical questions. We already know the answers to those questions, because we can observe the market. I'm just glad the market is large enough to support companies like Morphie, because otherwise, we'd be out of luck entirely.
I could join the bigger battery crowd. We are stuck with the same battery life an iPhone 1 had. The incremental battery and efficiency gains are consumed by displays and more and more apps running in the background and we still don't have a phone that can last a day on moderate burn.
Or just make a standard for batteries like AA and just let people replace them. Its revolutionary idea that has been around for the last couple of decades.
I am pretty sure that 100% of the market does not want only thin phones :) But that is what the market is currently offering.
I am pretty sure that frequent travellers, workers who are constantly on the move, using maps, etc. etc. want a battery that doesn't die before lunch time.
If you want features like that, you'll have to go for the relatively unknown Chinese brands, since they rely less on advertising and more on functionality.
Check out Lenovo S860 or Huawei Ascend Mate 2, they have 4000 mAh batteries.
Also check the Nokia Ashas, they have good battery life and decent size (you can just put it in your pocket), but are just "feature phones" with shitloads of closed source stuff in it.
Uh, well, I like thin phones. 18 hours on a charge is enough for me.
What I would like is to have an external rechargeable battery to come with my phone instead of buying one from a third party, as I find that a great compromise.
I for one just want a regular sized phone. One I could put in my pocket. But no, manufacturers decided that they will push being huge (and being thin as you mentioned) as something people want. The phones that I might consider buying are now labeled as mini or compact. And they are still huge.
That's because people buy them. Many of the best selling Android phones are the huge models. The thing is once you start going to 5" and above, with high PPI, your phone can start replacing small tablets. I used to carry around a 4.3" lower res phone and a 7" tablet, but with a 5" 1920x1080 display I just gradually stopped using the tablet entirely. When my may use is not as a phone but for data while commuting, huge is great.
People buy them because they are told it's a desirable feature. Some prefer it, sure... But majority of users have no clue and will buy whatever they are served via marketing. Then you have people who are forced into it, because alternatives are scarce and more expensive. Same thing as with wide-screen laptops. Because all people do on laptops is watch movies. Doesn't matter that it's worse for everything else.
The rule of thumb is that screen cannot be larger than 4" to be fully accessible using thumb only. Often you have only one hand available, which makes most of allegedly "awesome" 4.5"+ smartphones inconvenient at best and useless at worst. I don't get this whole 5"+ mindset. If you want something bigger (what for? watching movies?), isn't it better to have 7" tablet while leaving your phone handy?
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I'm user of Galaxy Ace 2 / i8160 with 3.8" screen and 480 x 800 resolution. I'll change it only for something with 1280x768, but with screen no bigger than 4". Good pixel density (i.e. ~250+ ppi) is really important for comfortable reading. And better battery is a must.
I have Motorola Defy. Over three years old, great build quality, waterproof, 3.7", 480x854 (265ppi). I'm okay with the phone itself (a bit too thick perhaps), but the support is crap. The original android was 2.2 and was unusable. With cyanogen mod it's somewhat usable, but noticeable slow. I could live with a bigger screen, but not too much. It was quite cheap too. After over two years of usage not a scratch on the screen and the body still holds together. I drop the phone all the time (oftentimes when tossing it into air, or trying to land it into bed). No extra covers on it either.
Now I'm looking for a new phone.. and there's nothing. I'll most likely end up with a 4.3" phone...
I have a 5" smartphone and holding it in one hand, I can just reach all of the screen with my thumb; 5.3" or 6" would be too large for me. I wouldn't consider my hands large either - they're probably slightly below-average in size. People's hands definitely vary in size, so it's understandable that what someone finds 4" just right would have trouble with anything bigger, and likewise in the other direction.
You know, I'm not a technology luddite, and I have a smartphone (iPhone), but I have to wonder about all those complaining about battery life.
Your problem isn't battery life. Your problem is you spend many, many hours a day staring at that phone and depleting its quite reasonable battery life. What the hell are you doing that takes you all so much time?
And what's with "last many days". I mean, don't you sleep? Where you sleep, is electricity not available? Honestly, I want to know.
I don't think you're "some kind of direct-current junkie", I think you're a smartphone junkie.
This is too one-sided, so here's another angle: ease & peace of use. As in: not constantly having to worry you won't be able to use your phone because you forgot to charge it. I don't have a very smart phone, use it mainly for calls and messages. The thing barely lasts a couple of days even if it gets hardly used. So relying on it for emergencies for instance (no fixed line) means having to take really good care of it. I for one would be much happier with a bulky smartphone that would have weeks of battery life and doesn't require paying that much attention to battery life. (I know maybe I can get a plain cell phone that lasts longer, but that would mean having to give up some handy features of the typical smartphone)
Your problem is you spend many, many hours a day staring at that phone
nope
quite reasonable battery life
let's call that an opinion. I also have a music player that gets used hours every week and lasts months. There's no smartphone in the world, even when you'd turn of the screen and all services except music playing that can do that, so I don't consider it that reasonable.
Where you sleep, is electricity not available?
definitely not always, no. And then we're back at the reliability part. You see, the reason I originally bought a cell phone, long before there was such a thing as a smart phone, was because we used to take trips to rocky areas in the middle of nowhere to do trials riding. One day a guy broke his leg, open wound etc. In no condition to be moved by us to the car, let alone be moved sitting in a car. Having no cell phone meant it took over an hour to get help there. Luckily he didn't bleed to death. So then we decided a cellphone would be of use. Well, if the battery isn't dead of course.
My Nexus S (which admittedly is not new, but battery is) lasted about a day if I used it a bit and up to two days if I turned the cell data and wireless off and didn't touch it. Wifi, location and bluetooth were turned on strictly on need basis and for as long as I needed them.
A bit means turning the screen on for a minute 3-4 times a day and not more than one call lasting <5 minutes.
I do sleep, but not always somewhere I could plug it in (camps, cheap hotels without plugs...), but to be honest even if I can, I don't particularly like tending to my phone like it was some kind of tamagotchi.
I have to agree.
If you take phone, turn off cell data, leave on wireless, and put in drawer, it should already last for quite a while (days, if not weeks).
I don't like this kind of argument. The user wants a certain experience, and the hardware isn't able to provide it properly. Your answer is to change the requirements, to tell the user to behave differently? The product should be shaped after the use, not the other way around.
I think it's more along the lines of 'this phone is designed for a certain type of use case' and the user is trying to use the smartphone as their primary PC and media device, which it's designed to complement, not replace.
I would very much prefer an easy way to go 'off the grid' - one button to disable all the shit that is draining your battery. 3G, data, location services, Wi-Fi.
Jailbreak used to help on iPhone and they did introduce the swipe bar to disable Wi-Fi, but put so many more obstacles to disable the rest.
Disabling location services will now prompt you whether you are sure you want to disable AFTER A FUCKING DELAY.
I would like very much that Google Maps wouldn't point me in a middle of ocean when my location services are disabled and I just want to peek at a map, not to find out where is some badly SEO'd shop.
But most of all, I would like apps to keep the data I opened 5 minutes ago. I just hate when you are in the tube, had your route planned and suddenly all the info is gone. Or the comment you wrote on HN and switched a tab is gone after refresh. Apple, PUT SOME FUCKING RAM ON YOUR IOS DEVICES.
WE DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THIN PHONES. WE WANT BIG BATTERIES THAT LAST MANY DAYS.
Sorry for an all-caps comment that is only tangentially relevant to this particular article/phone, but I am goddam sick and tired of NO mainstream phone manufacturers getting out of this "We'll compete on fractions of millimeters that you'll never notice, we'll tell you what you want, we'll condition you to plug in your phone every chance you get like some kind of direct-current junkie"
Ugh.