Hollerings | Digital & IT

The draining reality of smartphone batteries

Smartphone battery

Smartphones crippling battery life is something that triggers everyone. That dreaded moment when you hit 1% and you’re out and about catching up with people – but all you can think about is “what’s an acceptable time to leave so I can sort out this nightmare…”

Or you have to try and charge it through your car which takes up to 30 minutes to actually restart the phone if it dies! Especially when the car charger you bought in 2006 has frayed wires to the point you have to do the charger shuffle to get that crucial extra percent so you can press send.

Low Battery Warning

When people say “Just try to use it less” what a genius idea, of course why didn’t I think of that? I swear it just loses battery even if it just sat there doing nothing on airplane mode. Even if you try to “turn down the brightness” the sun glares and you end up turning it back to full. What’s the point in saving battery when you’re terrified to send a text as you watch your battery fly from 89% to 30% in a matter of seconds.

Trying to save battery

“Low battery mode” has actually decreased my battery life to the point where my phone won’t even survive without it! Don’t even start with the iOS updates, if you have an iPhone 5 and are pestered every single day with the reminder ‘If your phone is on charge from 2:00am to 4:00am your phone will be updated’. It might update automatically, making the phone basically unusable because the latest iOS isn’t really designed for the battery life of an iPhone 5…  but just to trick you into buying the latest model!

Apple Update
Always Low Battery
Battery tweet with Emoji

You keep calm though because although frustrating, you can charge your phone all night.You wake up excited to start the day with 100% battery… But wait what’s that? One press of the home button and nothing, try the lock button and nothing. It wasn’t on charge the whole time, so guess it’s another day of pestering your colleagues for a USB lead.

How, in the past 10 years of development, has the battery life worsened? I swear my mum still has her Nokia 7160 in her drawer that has been switched on since 1999.

Nokia vs IPhone

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