As we all anxiously await the November 13th arrival of the Nexus 4, I'm sure a lot of you are concerned how the battery life will fare. Well, early results aren't very good. Based on recent unbiased and fairly scientific test results from AnandTech, the battery life on one of the most anticipated devices this fall will leave something to be desired. AnandTech did admit that they have yet to run through their entire battery life suite, but they did fully test, record, and publish the results of the most important category.
This latest test is a bit different than their previous tests, if you're familiar with their methods. AnandTech changed their battery tests to better map ‘typical' smartphone usage these days. This new method consisted of regularly loading web pages at a fixed interval until the battery died with all displays calibrated to 200 nits. As mentioned, their old test method was tweaked to more closely mimic ‘typical' smartphone usage and involved changes to the network activity and CPU load. In the end, what they ended up with, was a very good representation of constant, heavy usage beyond simple browsing.
The results were not very favorable for those hoping for nice, long sessions on a single charge. Seeing as its not even an LTE device, I'd say that these results are pretty bad, even finishing slightly below the LTE-enabled Galaxy S III (my initial estimate was within seven minutes as per my response in the Comments). Granted it does have a quad-core processor, but still, I would've liked to have seen those processors used a little more efficiently.
One caveat however, is that chances are it may outperform your current device. My device isn't even on the graph, so I'm assuming it's well below these results. Also, given a better, bigger screen and more horsepower under the hood, LG and Google managed to increase the battery life by almost 25% over the Galaxy Nexus. That's a very good achievement in and of itself given the bump in specs.
The only real question left to ask is, “How important is battery life to you?” Do any of the other devices that fared better than the Nexus 4 appeal to you? As always, as consumers, we'll have to deal with tradeoffs and make decisions accordingly. I'm sure everyone is different. Fortunately, I'm within arm's reach of a charger about 99% of the time in a normal day so it shouldn't be a deal-breaker for me.
Below are the WiFi results, while the graph above reflects the 3G/4G LTE results.
source: AnandTech
3G and LTE phones should not have been combined on the first chart. LTE phones will generally finish downloading whatever it is they’re using to test faster than their 3g counterparts, thus allowing the phone to return to its idle state faster, which equals battery savings. You can see this as a general trend in that chart- LTE phones perform better.
Just look at the non-LTE iphone 5 compared to the nexus 4. The difference is not as staggering as the LTE iphone 5 versus the 3g nexus 4.
The wifi performance is a better indication, but even then you’ve got the teeny tiny screens (iphones) versus the near 5 inch monsters that are most Android phones.
The most surprising chunk of data is that the LTE version of the GS3 STILL provides such low battery life given the LTE is on the same chip (I’m not 100% sure about that, though.)
I’m confused.
The HTC 1x has an 1800mAh battery vs the Nex4’s 2100mAh correct?
It also has the same family of processor (though only dual core instead of quad) and virtually the same screen.
How in the world could it almost double the battery life of the Nex4 even when running on LTE?
Is this a firmware issue?
These tests are easy to cheat on. GS3 is way better in battery life than what is shown here. And GN4 is going to be a very popular phone so it is going to have a very good community on xda developers and they can make miracles with the whole system, including the battery.
Or where is The note 2 at
Plus I think this is to make the iPhone look good.
Where is the RAZR HD Max at lol
LOL
I notice the Rzar HD and Maxx HD were missing from the test results. I hate subjective tests that only seek to make Apple look good.
anand is kind of an apple fanboy. but their tests are still very reliable.
Their tests of phones are far from reliable. And many results of their tests shows how laughable incorrect their “testing” is.
First time I took an eye to this was with the release of iPhone 4 where it got some very odd and incorrect results that was later changed.
This is bullshit. I the HTC One X has the worst battery life of any phone ever so this is all nonsense.
That’s a damn lie. The Galaxy Nexus is way worse than the One X
These tests are indeed bullshit. with a screen on time of 2,5 hours the One X is totally drained out of juice! so no feckin way this test can show more then 7 hours of browsing. I did a test with putting the One X on screen never off and didnt do anything else then letting it sit in the home screen. it was depleted in 3,5 hours. so while browsing white pages (wich ask more power) and using the 3G connection or wifi only make it worse. its no way the One X will hold it 7+ hours.
I think these reviewers are paid by HTC to put such a high battery time on the web. no doubt about that!
Just because YOUR device has this issue, does not mean YOU are correct about the battery usage. The variables in place here are completely unknown. How many Widgets are you using? How many Apps do you have loaded and how many of them are running something in the background? Are you using a Live Wallpaper? How well are the Apps you are using developed for longer battery life?
These are but a few things that can affect your particular device’s battery drain. So if they open them up and test them out of the box? Then they can get a lot better results than you are getting. Also how long is your screen on vs how long they had theirs on based on the testing? I own a Galaxy S3, if I take it off of charging, watch a full blown HD movie on Netflix, I promise you my Battery will be approaching 50% after. That’s an hour and a half to two hours of use.
So before you call BS on anything, analyze the variables and think about usage differences between what you do and what they’re doing during the testing. If I want, I can make my GS3’s battery last a long long time, but it’s all based on usage. The Screen is the defining factor, the more you use it, the faster your battery will drain. These bigger screens are battery killers. So the longer it’s on, the quicker it goes….
The verge did an in-depth review and said the battery was surprisingly decent. Guess we’ll see.