Is There A Smartphone That Actually Runs 16 Hours?

1/30/2014, 3:22 pm, General

I want a cell phone that:

Has service where I live, travel and work (North Berkeley hills, The BART train system, The Bay Area)
Run from 16 hours (7am to 11pm) on a single charge (like me)
Does smartphoney things including: email, calendar, web, view local documents (like PDF train schedules because sometimes the web sucks)
Doesn’t cost $1,500 per year

It appears that my only option is getting an unlocked Droid Maxx on Aio Wireless. Droid Maxx claims to run 48 hours on a charge. Aio Wireless uses AT&T Mobility (AKA the old Cingular network) for good coverage for $40/month ($500/year)

It is silly that I seem to have so few options for a phone. What am I missing?

On the matter of battery life, every cell phone rep I’ve asked (at least 7 now) has told me that their personal cell phones run until about 7pm if they use them during the day, and they all seem to be OK with that. After my phone died unexpectedly one evening, leaving me stranded, I knew that a dead phone completely sucks. I’m not telling the truth: one AT&T rep told me that all of her phones run well into the night, every night, apparently due to her own special pixie dust.

Virgin Mobile is inexpensive but has crap coverage everywhere in the east bay (their coverage map lies like a rug)

2 Comments

lee says:

1/31/2014 at 12:39 pm

I just had an online chat with Aio Wireless. I asked about a phone that would “…run for 16+ hours”

The agent wrote back: Karen I. CastaÃ±eda: Well Lee, Couldn’t tell you, I think there is not a device that can hold that much without connecting it to its charger.

This is stupid.
lee says:

2/5/2014 at 10:02 am

Samsung Galaxy Note II – Nope. TechRadar writes (summary: normal usage = 12 hours run despite Samsung’s claim to have 890 hours standby time on it’s 3100 mah battery)

Here’s where we found our usage left us: we took the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 off charge at 8am. It was all set up with Facebook and Twicca updating, one Gmail account (email plus calendar) and one Exchange Mail account. Dropbox was also set up to automatically sync all photos taken to our account over Wi-Fi. Over the course of the day, we surfed the internet for around two hours in total. We tweeted a dozen or so times, sent one email, made about 30 mins worth of phone calls, shot 36 photographs and 11 videos and had Wi-Fi and GPS enabled constantly. By 8pm, the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 was gasping for juice, down to 4%.

Moto X and Moto G – Probably! Motorola claims “all day usage” and a guy at Motorola told me “Mixed usage up to 24 hours”

Sony Xperia Z1 – Yes! A guy sitting next to me in Neurobiology showed me at 10am that his phone was at 50% after him not charging it the night before! It’s a bother that it’s a $700 phone :-(

Lee.org