Had a good laugh: a smart Dutch dude became so angry that his battery of his iPhone 3G drained, that he asked some manufacturers in Linkedin to built him a rechargable, strong but small battery without funny cases or cables. The product will be out in two weeks and gives, almost 70% more energy (1770 mAh) than earlier devices, f.e. Kensington or iSound (1000 mAh).
Sure the battery on iPhone 3G is not that great, but what can we do? We want small size phones, powerful features and lengthy battery life.
Just get a backup battery. I got mine from iPhoneck brands. Their new 3G backup battery is probably one of the better looking products in the market. Their website is www.iphoneck.com
Yep same here, i'm in Australia and would have bought an iPhone if it supported 3G. Such a shame. I ended up with a Samsung Blackjack and it's fantastic sofar.
Stop defending the iPhone's lack of 3G. (You seem to keep justifying their lack of the 3G feature saying how they made a 'wise' choice). In other parts of the world, and its a very well known fact that 3G drains the battery tremendously. Yet every single phone has 3G and we work within their operating limits.
From a technology/market demand/innovation perspective, adoption of new technologies will push the envelope that will benefit the end users (you and me). This pushes the manufacturer to keep innovating, unlike Apple, who decided to take one step back and provide less features and charge you a bomb for it, and you keep praising them.
Despite the hype about the justification for using old wireless standards: ie physical space and power consumption aka battery life, I think there is another important factor they neglected to mention:
Since 2G is less chips, less pcb assembly mounting and traces, and the chips themselves are simpler and more mature, THE OLD CHIPS MAKE IT CHEAPER TO MANUFACTURE THAN 3G.
Simple as that. Reduced costs of production and parts make for bigger profits.
That is the truthful reason, but they are not likely to admit that as a primary factor in the decision. It wouldn't be "cool" to tell people their equipment is outdated already.
When using MS Push I get less than 10hrs on it with 3G, I'm in NYC with full signal all day.
On GSM it lasts all day till I get to charge it at night. So even thought I have the 3G capability, it is unusable due to ridiculous power consumption.
It is not clear to me from your webpage results that the faster connection wasn't largely impacted by the fact that it simply rendered more pages. That is what is the cost of rendering the page, not just getting the data.
The talk time stuff is interesting, looks like something you could fix up in firmware easily though.
Excellent article. The first time i saw an iPhone i knew Apple wouldn't allow a user-replaceable battery. Why? It would ruin the iPhone's aesthetics. If you've ever bought a Mac before you'd understand. I expect Apple to incorporate a really slick mechanism to open the chassis without uglifying the iPhone sometime soon.
Also, when i heard that 3G would not be supported, i immediately thought about [chip]space. Maybe EL Stevo mandated that the iPhone not exceed "X" mm thickness. Hey, it happened with the Powerbook G4.
Does the h.264 implementation on the iphone vs. the likely flash-based version on the blackjack impact this at all?
Quicktime playback over the web (trailers set to loop?) might be a better way to determine EDGE/3G/WiFi battery life.
stop reviewing it. it is lemming equipment that is overpriced and hobbled with a beautiful screen. feels like 5-6 years ago Mac intellect at use. get great graphical images, get stuck in the mud hardware, hobble it all somehow, charge 1000 dollars more than you need and bam, lemmings jump. wee!
Who cares how LONG the battery lasts when loading web pages. The real test is how many web pages the battery can load per charge. Even if the battery lasts half as long over 3g, it surely must load more web pages. Is it more than double? 3g may not be so bad with regards to battery life with this taken into consideration.
"The biggest impact of all is, surprisingly enough, talk time; with 3G enabled, the Blackjack's talk time is cut in half, with absolutely no benefit realized from the higher bandwidth standard."
Do you want to know why 3G is the default for talk time as well as data transfers? 3G has more bandwidth per cell tower, and talk over 3G uses the same total bandwidth as talk over GSM.. but since 3G increases the available bandwidth, you use less of the cell company's resources if you're talking using 3G instead of GSM. So battery life be damned, AT&T wants to make more money. ;)
Well, explain that to me how was I talking with a friend and browsing DT at the same time with my nokia now ?
Even the good old GPRS allows for simultanious data/voice scenario, that is actually one of the points of the packet-based technologies.
If you have standard 4+2 GPRS/EDGE timeslots available you just have the bandwith during call reduced to 3+1 scenario as voice requires 1+1 slots for its operation.
The other thing is if you have phone bad enough that manufacturer disabled/did not implement this functionality...
No he's right it should say EDGE. Phone calls can only come over the EDGE network and not through Wifi. This is a measure of talk time which would mean a phone call. It would be nice, however, do have VoIP through Wifi for those cases where your either roaming or in a dead spot.
It's talk time with a broadband connection turned on. You can, theoretically, turn wifi off during talk to extend the iPhone life, but for a comparison between 3G and WiFi battery life they were talking with, respectively, 3G and WiFi on.
WiFi for voice would be very nice. They could even charge me the same minute fees/bucket. There are plenty of homes with very good wifi coverage but crappy wireless cell coverage... works almost like a signal booster.
The iPHone has just enough features so people will go out and buy it in rabid frenzy, while the next iteration (in probably 6 months) containing 3G, Thinner/Lighter, etc will push people like ME to buy it (The educated consumer, who really does know how backwards the innards of an iPhone actually is), plus everyone who bought the first generation will dump theirs for the much faster data transfers and buy a second gen iPhone.
I wonder if the iphone youtube results are so good because the device buffers the video. It could be that you only download the file once, then play it back from cache. Could you maybe repeat the test with different clips every time to see if this is the case?
Also, are you saying that youtube clips on iphone/wifi look better than on a desktop?
If Apple simply went with a user-replaceable battery, most of this problem (not the space issue) would go away. I'm not in the market for a cell phone, but that one point (the battery) drops the iPhone out of the competition for me.
Why would anyone, atleast outside the US mobile network, get an iPhone? Its 3-4 years behind atleast.
Take a cheaper nokia n95. You get gps, video calls (DVD quality, 30fps), TV, msn, 5Mpixel cam, MMS, 3Mbit internet, longer battery life and so on. On a 3.5G network for less than an iPhone.
The iPhone is like buying a 800Mhz P3 in a fancy design today. Inferiour products for extreme prices. The last sucker aint born yet.
well if someone would just copy the user interface they could sell craploads of phones. Take the heat for a clone but who cares as you will benefit by alot of sales.
Just like with every other Apple product, the iPhone is for people that value the experience over the specifications. My phone can do all the iPhone can (feature-wise) and more... but I hate using it. As a matter a fact, a great deal of my features go unused b/c its too much an ass-pain to get to them. Same story with my XP machine over my Powerbook... My Win box is faster, etc... but I hate dealing with it.
It reminds me of the difference between a Subaru and an Audi. Similar performance, but huge price difference. In one you to holler on the freeway, in the other, you speak. One has you tired after long trips, the other has you wanted to take longer trips. Etc, etc, etc
The point is... for a whole lot of people, spec's alone are just not enough.
America is 3-4 years behind in all cell technology because our government believes competition on standards is a good thing. Obviously, it is not. Every network has dead spots, a problem we wouldn't have if there was only 1 cell technology like Europe.
You're right. We should all be on CDMA in North America. CDMA is faster and better than GSM. That would solve all our problems. Thanks for pointing that out!
You mean its feature set is 3-4 years behind, but has a completely novel user interface. It's certainly not "best bang for your buck," but that's not Apple's goal in the first place.
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36 Comments
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James Fixen - Tuesday, July 15, 2008 - link
Had a good laugh: a smart Dutch dude became so angry that his battery of his iPhone 3G drained, that he asked some manufacturers in Linkedin to built him a rechargable, strong but small battery without funny cases or cables. The product will be out in two weeks and gives, almost 70% more energy (1770 mAh) than earlier devices, f.e. Kensington or iSound (1000 mAh).coco - Tuesday, July 15, 2008 - link
Sure the battery on iPhone 3G is not that great, but what can we do? We want small size phones, powerful features and lengthy battery life.Just get a backup battery. I got mine from iPhoneck brands. Their new 3G backup battery is probably one of the better looking products in the market. Their website is www.iphoneck.com
abpages - Wednesday, May 28, 2008 - link
Yep same here, i'm in Australia and would have bought an iPhone if it supported 3G. Such a shame. I ended up with a Samsung Blackjack and it's fantastic sofar.Ron Stark
http://www.BrisbaneWebDesign.net.au">http://www.BrisbaneWebDesign.net.au
edwinder - Sunday, July 22, 2007 - link
Hi Anand,Stop defending the iPhone's lack of 3G. (You seem to keep justifying their lack of the 3G feature saying how they made a 'wise' choice). In other parts of the world, and its a very well known fact that 3G drains the battery tremendously. Yet every single phone has 3G and we work within their operating limits.
From a technology/market demand/innovation perspective, adoption of new technologies will push the envelope that will benefit the end users (you and me). This pushes the manufacturer to keep innovating, unlike Apple, who decided to take one step back and provide less features and charge you a bomb for it, and you keep praising them.
I'm disappointed.
Edwinder
peternelson - Tuesday, July 17, 2007 - link
Despite the hype about the justification for using old wireless standards: ie physical space and power consumption aka battery life, I think there is another important factor they neglected to mention:Since 2G is less chips, less pcb assembly mounting and traces, and the chips themselves are simpler and more mature, THE OLD CHIPS MAKE IT CHEAPER TO MANUFACTURE THAN 3G.
Simple as that. Reduced costs of production and parts make for bigger profits.
That is the truthful reason, but they are not likely to admit that as a primary factor in the decision. It wouldn't be "cool" to tell people their equipment is outdated already.
Squuiid - Tuesday, July 17, 2007 - link
I have an AT&T 8525 and disable 3G on it.When using MS Push I get less than 10hrs on it with 3G, I'm in NYC with full signal all day.
On GSM it lasts all day till I get to charge it at night. So even thought I have the 3G capability, it is unusable due to ridiculous power consumption.
sprockkets - Saturday, July 14, 2007 - link
Are you saying you can use edge to make voice conversations instead of GSM? I have never heard of that. So what about GPRS.The whole point of why you get less talk time over UMTS is because it is WCDMA and is inherit in the technology. Wikipedia it and see for yourself.
While not real proof, if I use an edge connection for data, it sounds like a voice conversation over speakers. Sure you use edge for voice?
drwho9437 - Saturday, July 14, 2007 - link
It is not clear to me from your webpage results that the faster connection wasn't largely impacted by the fact that it simply rendered more pages. That is what is the cost of rendering the page, not just getting the data.The talk time stuff is interesting, looks like something you could fix up in firmware easily though.
nvmarino - Friday, July 13, 2007 - link
It would be helpful to know how long the battery lasted on both phones with the screen on but doing nothing.And what the hell did you guys talk about for 9 hours, anyway?
"Can you hear me now?"
"Good..."
:)
--Nino
kennyb - Saturday, July 14, 2007 - link
Excellent article. The first time i saw an iPhone i knew Apple wouldn't allow a user-replaceable battery. Why? It would ruin the iPhone's aesthetics. If you've ever bought a Mac before you'd understand. I expect Apple to incorporate a really slick mechanism to open the chassis without uglifying the iPhone sometime soon.Also, when i heard that 3G would not be supported, i immediately thought about [chip]space. Maybe EL Stevo mandated that the iPhone not exceed "X" mm thickness. Hey, it happened with the Powerbook G4.
Yeah, i want one. Yeah, i don't need one.
jellinek - Friday, July 13, 2007 - link
Does the h.264 implementation on the iphone vs. the likely flash-based version on the blackjack impact this at all?Quicktime playback over the web (trailers set to loop?) might be a better way to determine EDGE/3G/WiFi battery life.
MrJim - Friday, July 13, 2007 - link
Anyone know if they will add MMS-messengering in iphone?GlassHouse69 - Friday, July 13, 2007 - link
fuck iphone.that's all I have to say.
stop reviewing it. it is lemming equipment that is overpriced and hobbled with a beautiful screen. feels like 5-6 years ago Mac intellect at use. get great graphical images, get stuck in the mud hardware, hobble it all somehow, charge 1000 dollars more than you need and bam, lemmings jump. wee!
DavenJ - Friday, July 13, 2007 - link
I guess this guy isn't going to buy an iPhone.Shark Tek - Friday, July 13, 2007 - link
Yeah I bet that he can't buy it.puffpio - Friday, July 13, 2007 - link
Is there a way to get this higher quality youtube feed for computers?? I'm tired of their pixelated crap.dacramer - Friday, July 13, 2007 - link
Who cares how LONG the battery lasts when loading web pages. The real test is how many web pages the battery can load per charge. Even if the battery lasts half as long over 3g, it surely must load more web pages. Is it more than double? 3g may not be so bad with regards to battery life with this taken into consideration.Icehawk - Friday, July 13, 2007 - link
I think the exact same thing - the more important metric is how many pages you can load not how long the battery lasts with constant clicking.Araemo - Friday, July 13, 2007 - link
"The biggest impact of all is, surprisingly enough, talk time; with 3G enabled, the Blackjack's talk time is cut in half, with absolutely no benefit realized from the higher bandwidth standard."Do you want to know why 3G is the default for talk time as well as data transfers? 3G has more bandwidth per cell tower, and talk over 3G uses the same total bandwidth as talk over GSM.. but since 3G increases the available bandwidth, you use less of the cell company's resources if you're talking using 3G instead of GSM. So battery life be damned, AT&T wants to make more money. ;)
cosmotic - Friday, July 13, 2007 - link
Your graph on the talk time page shows the iphone using wifi. Shouldn't that be edge?Tegeril - Friday, July 13, 2007 - link
No, because EDGE is disabled for data during voice calls and Wifi remains on.mino - Tuesday, July 17, 2007 - link
Well, explain that to me how was I talking with a friend and browsing DT at the same time with my nokia now ?Even the good old GPRS allows for simultanious data/voice scenario, that is actually one of the points of the packet-based technologies.
If you have standard 4+2 GPRS/EDGE timeslots available you just have the bandwith during call reduced to 3+1 scenario as voice requires 1+1 slots for its operation.
The other thing is if you have phone bad enough that manufacturer disabled/did not implement this functionality...
Even my P800 form 2003 coud do that FYI..
DavenJ - Friday, July 13, 2007 - link
No he's right it should say EDGE. Phone calls can only come over the EDGE network and not through Wifi. This is a measure of talk time which would mean a phone call. It would be nice, however, do have VoIP through Wifi for those cases where your either roaming or in a dead spot.michael2k - Saturday, July 14, 2007 - link
It's not a typo, you misunderstand the test.It's talk time with a broadband connection turned on. You can, theoretically, turn wifi off during talk to extend the iPhone life, but for a comparison between 3G and WiFi battery life they were talking with, respectively, 3G and WiFi on.
VooDooAddict - Friday, July 13, 2007 - link
WiFi for voice would be very nice. They could even charge me the same minute fees/bucket. There are plenty of homes with very good wifi coverage but crappy wireless cell coverage... works almost like a signal booster.Ataraxia - Friday, July 13, 2007 - link
I'm pretty sure you guys are all wrong.The iPHone has just enough features so people will go out and buy it in rabid frenzy, while the next iteration (in probably 6 months) containing 3G, Thinner/Lighter, etc will push people like ME to buy it (The educated consumer, who really does know how backwards the innards of an iPhone actually is), plus everyone who bought the first generation will dump theirs for the much faster data transfers and buy a second gen iPhone.
It's all about business and the $$
BigLan - Friday, July 13, 2007 - link
I wonder if the iphone youtube results are so good because the device buffers the video. It could be that you only download the file once, then play it back from cache. Could you maybe repeat the test with different clips every time to see if this is the case?Also, are you saying that youtube clips on iphone/wifi look better than on a desktop?
DaveLessnau - Friday, July 13, 2007 - link
If Apple simply went with a user-replaceable battery, most of this problem (not the space issue) would go away. I'm not in the market for a cell phone, but that one point (the battery) drops the iPhone out of the competition for me.Shintai - Friday, July 13, 2007 - link
Why would anyone, atleast outside the US mobile network, get an iPhone? Its 3-4 years behind atleast.Take a cheaper nokia n95. You get gps, video calls (DVD quality, 30fps), TV, msn, 5Mpixel cam, MMS, 3Mbit internet, longer battery life and so on. On a 3.5G network for less than an iPhone.
The iPhone is like buying a 800Mhz P3 in a fancy design today. Inferiour products for extreme prices. The last sucker aint born yet.
sxr7171 - Monday, July 16, 2007 - link
N95 is not cheaper buddy. I dropped $750 on mine.tuteja1986 - Friday, July 13, 2007 - link
well if someone would just copy the user interface they could sell craploads of phones. Take the heat for a clone but who cares as you will benefit by alot of sales.halfeatenfish - Friday, July 13, 2007 - link
Just like with every other Apple product, the iPhone is for people that value the experience over the specifications. My phone can do all the iPhone can (feature-wise) and more... but I hate using it. As a matter a fact, a great deal of my features go unused b/c its too much an ass-pain to get to them. Same story with my XP machine over my Powerbook... My Win box is faster, etc... but I hate dealing with it.It reminds me of the difference between a Subaru and an Audi. Similar performance, but huge price difference. In one you to holler on the freeway, in the other, you speak. One has you tired after long trips, the other has you wanted to take longer trips. Etc, etc, etc
The point is... for a whole lot of people, spec's alone are just not enough.
AlexWade - Friday, July 13, 2007 - link
America is 3-4 years behind in all cell technology because our government believes competition on standards is a good thing. Obviously, it is not. Every network has dead spots, a problem we wouldn't have if there was only 1 cell technology like Europe.bigboxes - Sunday, July 15, 2007 - link
You're right. We should all be on CDMA in North America. CDMA is faster and better than GSM. That would solve all our problems. Thanks for pointing that out!Zaitsev - Friday, July 13, 2007 - link
You mean its feature set is 3-4 years behind, but has a completely novel user interface. It's certainly not "best bang for your buck," but that's not Apple's goal in the first place.tuteja1986 - Friday, July 13, 2007 - link
Battery life was the problem .. well no iphone sales in Australia as we are 3G.