Apple's iPhone: The Future is Here
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 2, 2007 6:13 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
Battery Life
Using the iPhone you already know it's not going to last very long on battery; I didn't have enough time to run the full suite of battery tests, but those that I did run will give you a good idea of what to expect.
The first test is a strict email benchmark. I created a gmail address and signed up to receive all of the latest postings from some of the most popular newsgroups through Google Groups via email. The end result is a mailbox that gets over 5000 messages a day, and a perfect worst case scenario email test.
All three devices were run on the Edge network to be the most balanced, but keep in mind that the Blackjack supports 3G and the iPhone can run over WiFi. Bluetooth was enabled during the test, but remained unpaired with any devices.
The Blackberry Curve was the only device out of the three that could receive emails instantly, and it did so much faster than either the Blackjack or the iPhone. Both the Blackjack and iPhone automatically checked the mailbox at 15 minute intervals, but in actual email download speed the iPhone was clearly faster than the Blackjack.
Battery life for email was a clear victory for the Curve, lasting just over a full day doing nothing but checking emails. Keep in mind that all three devices were set to their silent profiles, meaning that the Blackberry was constantly vibrating as it received multiple emails each minute.
The iPhone more than measured up to Apple's own estimated 6 hour battery life during Internet use, lasting 6 hours and 53 minutes. The Blackjack on its standard battery came in last at a bit over 5 hours. From our experience, the extended battery would probably bring the Blackjack up to the iPhone's battery life.
It's important to note that these tests are best case scenario as I'm not walking around town with the phones while testing them, which would be far more stressful on battery life. That being said, the Blackjack and iPhone simply don't cut it for high volume email devices, there's just no replacing the Blackberry. For casual email though, either will work fine.
Our other battery life test is strictly web surfing; we loaded a series of nine web pages stored on a local server and looped the test until the batteries ran down. The screen was left enabled on the Blackjack and iPhone but we couldn't force the Curve to do the same, so its results are slightly inflated by having a screen that went to sleep after the first 30 seconds of use.
This time on WiFi, the iPhone comes in closer to its estimated 6 hour internet battery life. Again, you're looking at best case scenario battery life; watching a lot of videos on YouTube will run the battery down
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jay401 - Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - link
Now that's practically an unpardonable sin, given that it's such a basic request and something absent from most phones because most providers think people are dumb enough to pay money to download a ringtone (like hell would I ever do that nonsense).
So why not just let people use their mp3s? I already do that on my cellphone but since I can't do it directly I do it in a round-about way by sending myself the mp3 clips as attachments to messages sent to my phone, which I can then download and assign as a ringtone.
Why not just make it straightforward and easy? You'd think this is one thing Apple could do right. :(
jay401 - Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - link
from page 11:If I could read any of the incredibly tiny text in that picture, maybe I would be able to. ;P
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - link
Seriously, the PDF looked shockingly good. Once you stretch to zoom in so you can actually read the slides, it's amazing. Yes, I realized being excited about how good a PDF looks on a phone is silly, but I figure after waiting in line for five hours for said phone, I've got nothing more to lose :)Take care,
Anand
Griswold - Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - link
You can't make videos on the phone, you can't copy/paste, there's no IM client, you can't replace the battery on your own, you can't add applications to it, there's no Flash/Java support, it's heavy and the list goes on. But here's the catch: there isn't a phone out today (smart or not) that doesn't have at least as long of a list of issues.But for a price tag like this, I expect a shorter list. And unfortunately, many of the things on this list are important to me.
Still, after being so skeptic about the iphone, I'd still like to have one (yea, it does have this star trek datapad feeling!!) but due to the flaws and shortcomings, i'll just wait for the next incarnation that will most likely hit the street within a year.
I dont believe in early adopting gear from a company with zero experience on this particular field, and while apple did most of their homework, my motto (rightfully) stands.
The next iphone will most likely be much better suited for me.
mongo lloyd - Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - link
Comic Sans? Really?plinden - Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - link
No - http://www.searchfreefonts.com/fonts/m9.htm">Marker Felt Thinmongo lloyd - Wednesday, July 4, 2007 - link
Oh ok. Equally terrible font, I'd say. Is that a standard-use font for Apple? Yikes to that.Sunrise089 - Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - link
Lots of personality, info that wasn't just a run down of specs, and best of all telepathy.I was actually thinking while I read this "I wonder if I'd be able to watch TopGear clips on this, since often they get pulled from Youtube. I scroll down the page, and see Clarkson staring back at me. Amazing.
One more thing, about the homeless guy's choice between the Enzo and the Veyron - between ugly and boring, I don't know which I'd pick either. After all these years, McLaren F1 FTW!
Yongsta - Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - link
Nice Review, the iphone sounds great but $600 is out of my budget. Hopefully Apple in the future releases new types of iphone's at affordable prices. Maybe Samsung/Nokia/Motorola will try to make a copycat phone but they probably cant match Apple's UI.Locutus465 - Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - link
I do love the looks of the iPhone... However if everything I hear about it is true then it would not interest me. Complete lack of 3rd party software support? If this is true then yikes! I've got my Windows Mobile phone running with quite a bit of 3rd party software and for me that's a huge must... Like my Trillian like all in one chat client, Pocket Putty, CISCO VPN client and of course, pocket mahjoong (spelling?).Also, I've heard for a closed system they missed the boat on what would be some truely killer features (which could be solved via allowing 3rd party software). For instance it has (google?) maps, yet from what I hear no GPS integration? Why not? At least in windows mobile you have options (though yes, it's not built into that platform either).
It would however, be nice to see more cell companies consentrate on end user experience... It's appriciated that is for sure.