We’ve all gone through the dilemma of painful battery life on our Android devices. You root your device just install a custom ROM from one of the awesome developers in the community simply to get battery life from the optimized kernels. But the question that is asked time and time again is Why do we have to do this?
Cameron and I have both been testing out Windows Mobile Phone devices from HTC and Samsung and the battery life is simple incredible, which makes no sense at all! Cameron is using the HTC Radar from T-Mobile and I have the Samsung Focus S from AT&T. The Samsung Focus S has a 4.3″ Super AMOLED Plus Display and 1650 mAh so it compares closely to the high end Android devices we are all used to.
Windows Phone 7 Mobile is a complete multi-tasking operating system, just like Android. I have my Samsung Focus S setup almost identically to my Android devices. I’ve installed twitter, Facebook and 3 email accounts to name just a few. I’ve made multiple phone calls, surfed the web and performed the same type of activity that I would on my android devices.
So why on earth do I get almost 3 days of battery life? Cameron has had his phone turned on for almost 9 days without a charge, but this is with the phone not really being used. Still amazing!
I’m asking any developers out there to try and explain why this is the case! Why are Windows Phone 7 Mobile devices getting much better battery life from their devices? Any kernel developers out there that have any experience with both technologies or just have some extra insight that might explain the differences! We’d love to hear from someone with the knowledge to really answer this question!
About the Author
Long time no talk
I actually won a Nokia Lumia 800 direct from Nokia themselves, and the battery isn’t that good. Sometimes, it barely lasts a day. No-one at Nokia can figure out why it’s so bad. Not -all- Windows phones have good battery life.
Glad you’re still alive Dan
Hope all is well!
That’s interesting. It’s good to know that it’s not all Windows Mobile phones. Surely they cant have something in the hardware design that’s making it so much better and Nokia haven’t quiet got it yet!
If they have something in the hardware, why haven’t they used it in any Android phones yet.. LOL
Either way, the Battery life is incredible in the Samsung Focus S
There will be an update to improve the battery life on that phone, and to everyone else, it’s Windows PHONE! not Mobile, mobile is a piece of junk.
I always thought Windows Phone 7 was Windows Mobile with a fancy interface? It’s all Windows underneath, no?
Not at all. They did a HUGE re-write for Windows Phone 7. If you ever used previous versions you’d see how it’s a completely different beast.
Wow, that is amazing, you get 9 days of battery life when you let you’re phone sit in airplane mode. That’s the most useful comparison between Windows Phone and Android I’ve ever seen. I’d let my Sensation sit in airplane mode for 9 days but I have a life. Lame
So you see a hole page of texts and just ignore it all to complain about one sentence? Damn your lame.
If you used your brain and read the post you’d see that he said he got over 3 days of usage from his phone when he actually used it.
Try getting that from any android phone, and try getting 9 days standby to while you’re at it.
Google Nexus S with Android 4 can be ready for 3 days when I use it… I belive lot of batery consumes GUI tools like Sense etc…
I can try put sim into my second phone and keep it standby how long it takes to consume entire battery…
You get 9 days airplane mode from your HTC Sensation? I have the EVO 3D (same minus 3D and a few other features) and can only max get about 2-3 days in airplane mode with brightness turned all the way down. Using CM7 I can get about 3-4 days.
Right now its my cracked-screen one that I use for music in the car. I have my main Evo3D (non cracked screen) one running Senseless 2.9.5 – I’m happy to get about 17-18hrs from it with normal usage.
Android is a mess and it should have been better managed from the start, plain and simple, but there are android phones out there capable of running 3 days on a charge, easily… Also, you should never let your battery go under 40% (unless you’re calibrating the % counter), charge it as often as possible.
Microsoft is genius, they design their phone OS so no one actually wants to use it!
On a serious note, not using a phone and leaving it on airplane mode will let the battery last for days…but whats the point of having the phone then???
Android’s not a mess, but it’s not optimal yet, either. Yes, it would be interesting to know why the significant apparent difference in battery life…it may actually be for some very mundane reasons. And the good news is that, if it can be done, the legions of Android developers can take it as a goal to double, then double again, battery life by introducing efficiencies (assuming efficiency hasn’t been patented by a patent troll).
Maybe because WINDOWS PHONES ARE TEXT AND COLORED SQUARES.
Android uses aggressive garbage collection. On top of that your comparing a samsung focus to highend android devices which doesnt work. The samsung focus is more comparable to low end androids. Nice try. Oh and turn off airplane mode, duh.
Why do people keep talking about turning off airplane mode off. I haven’t even posted any photos of the Samsung Focus S.
And while it may not be a dual core phone, it’s certainly no slouch with it’s single-core Qualcomm MSM8255 S2 1.4GHz.
What’s even more surprising is that whatever I do on the phone, nothing seems to slow it down. With a similar application list running to my Android phone (which does slow down), it’s runs along at almost the same pace as when no applications where installed.
I think some of you are so focused on dissin Microsoft that you’re ignoring what an excellent job they have finally done with the Windows Phone software.
My EVO 3D doesn’t slow down when I have more applications installed
Nothing seems to slow it down because Windows Phone 7 is using hardware acceleration to render the UI; Android will be getting this with 4.0/ICS (well, phones with >256mb of RAM and a compatible GPU will get HW acceleration), but that would be one of the reasons that Windows 7 Phones appear to be so much smoother than their Android counterparts.
Wow so much ignorance in these replies. Windows Mango is an amazing OS. Anyone that has had the pleasure of using a Windows Mango phone can attest to its superiority as a mobile OS over the mess that is Android. Mangos only drawback is the lack of dev support because it was late to the party. Other than that it blows Android out of the water in the features where it most counts. Stability, battery life, ease of use.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say it blows Android out of the water, but I will say that people are ignorant. Mango is a very capable and usable OS. Totally agree that if it had the developer support it would stand a better chance of competing.
It’s certainly incredibly easy to use and configure and it’s very smooth and fast no matter what I seem to throw at it!
Have a titan myself and also few androids and yes the titan battery last me all day withoit charge help not the galaxy nexus even the gsm or any other android
It is my understanding that Windows Phone is not full multitasking like Android, and therein lies one of the major differences. Like the iPhone, Windows Phone allows limited functions to run in the background, functions that are optimized by the OS to preserve battery life.
Hmmm, I’d love to know if this is the case! and maybe, just maybe, it’s not such a bad thing. Everything I’ve needed is certainly running in the background and providing notifications. Also with the active tile system on the home screen, there must be quiet a lot running in the background. They are almost like small widgets providing active and real time information.
I know that was one of the initially criticisms of WP7, that it was a “step backwards” from WM 6.5 because it didn’t allow apps to multitask (just like the iPhone). Then Apple came out with iOS4, which allowed certain tasks to run in the background, like playing music, but using a strict OS API, so that the OS could manage the multitasking. It is my understanding the WP7 does that same, so it can more carefully manage power.
(I am an Android developer) and Android lets your app do anything in the background it wants. Everyone says Android is so great because it allows full multitasking. Well you see the tradeoff-poor battery life.
What about screen on time? That would be important info to better compare. I have a nexus s as a secondary phone, just use it to talk to my gf, no internet or anything else but I talk on it and don’t have it on airplane mode and it lasts me a bunch of days…
Obviously no one has a Galaxy S 2. My wife got 28 hours out of moderate use. I got 12 hours with moderate to heavy use.
I have an s2 unrooted and I am getting around 6 to 8 hours in wifi mode and 26hours in normal mode..no 3g and wifi..
I agree Simon. Y does our battery drain at tge rate that it does. Now on my xoom with moderate use i can last all day. On my Evo, even with an extendes battery and conservative usage settings im lucky to get 13 hours.
Great question. I’ve been on Android for 2 years now and have enjoyed it. I had a Motorola Droid and rooted it. Put custom ROMs and had a good time. I got a Droid2 by default through the insurance after I dropped my phone. It has served me well, though I left it stock.
I’m an XBox user and have been interested in the idea of a Windows phone since news of Mango was released. Aesthetically it’s quite pleasing to me, and now that some time has passed, most of the apps I might want are available. I’m on Verizon though and they don’t have but one option – and I’m not convinced I want to stay with them. My contract ends this January and I’m considering other networks as well as a new OS. Big change that would be.
What I would like to see is a controlled test with the Windows Mango, Android and iOS on similarly equipped hardware. What would the real world test results be for battery life? Since I’m considering going with an LTE phone + Dual core – battery life is of growing concern.
windows phone is not a fully multitasking device
Your the second person to suggest this, yet I see now proof on the matter.
Can someone point me to a document or info somewhere that explains how Windows Phone 7 operates?
Seems weird that I can long press the Back key and up pops all my running apps that I can switch to.
Multitasking means that apps run in the background. Just because WP7 shows you a list of previously open apps doesn’t mean it is multitasking. Those apps are suspended in the background. See http://mynokiablog.com/2011/05/24/windows-phone-7-multi-tasking-and-computer-processing-primer/
When you switch to a new app, the current app goes to sleep and doesn’t do anything or use any processing power until it is brought to the front again. In Microsoft’s parlance, this is called tombstoning. An app can use certain background agents to do some things, but these agents are limited and controlled by the OS.
While Android has a similar function to “freeze” an app in the background, it doesn’t in general freeze/kill an app until resources are low, so apps in the background are still running and can do things, which results in higher batter consumption.
Thank you!!! And you have just hit the nail on the head – WP7 is purposefully designed to freeze about the last 5 used apps at once and then close them after that. This was a decision made yo preserve battery life!!!! Good job by M$ and that is why they have my business now.
ANDROID on the other hand, took what I can only describe as an irresponsible shortcut and let every-single-app opened continue to run in the background and destroy battery life. I used Android phones for over a year and I could not take the horrible battery life anymore. So for the last year its been all WP7 for me with great success.
I am a heavy user of my smartphone and my Radar gets me through the entire day. My Androids of the past made it through about 6 hours – Vibrant, MyTouch4g, nexus S, etc. All of them were poor phones.
This battery problem, and the lack of cohesion in the UI will be the downfall of Android.
Oh, and my 1Ghz single core Radar by Htc is butterry smooth at all times and with all apps. Can you say that about your droid that you so vigorously defend? Even if you do say it here…. You know it’s not true.
Uh… You’re wrong. The only apps that run in the background and consume resources are those that run as services. Android actually kills apps as needed to preserve resources. If the developer tell the app to save the state when this happens, when you open the app again it “looks” like the app was still running when in fact it may have been killed to save resources such as battery life. And I am an Android developer.
Some days I get 12 hours out of my CM7 MyTouch 4G, last week I was pushing close to 18 hours with still 10% left in the battery, wtf is goin on? I have no idea, I get tired of messing with the piece of shit, I tried kernals, screen dim, close programs in the back, nothin works. I have 2 extra batteries because of this
My HTC Radar – I have gotten around 17 hrs of moderate use. (yeah sure this is subjective..)
My Samsung Galaxy S 2 (t-mobile) I was getting close to this in battery life until the update that included wifi calling. Now im getting 16-20 hours of light to moderate use)
On both phones I use wifi at work at home.. wherever possible. This definitely gives better battery life. Wifi calling on the galaxy is a MAJOR battery saver, and has been on all tmobile phones with it. The other companies are totally overlooking this great feature.
As far as OS stability. WIndows Phone is just about perfect when it comes to stability. The way it aggregates people and photos is really smart and efficient. As Simon said.. its just needs more apps. (and wifi calling)
However, my galaxy is also possibly the only flawless android phone I have ever used. By flawless I mean.. i do not have to reboot to fix issues.. it doesn’t lock up, doesn’t lag or stall.. and I’m running pure stock.
I’m quite torn between these two phones for their different hardware and software advantages.
So I did some checking on Windows Phone 7 and it’s semi-multitasking like WebOS and iOS. Applications have to be written to make use of full multitasking whereas the everyday app pauses in the background when you switch away from it.
So what is the ideal solution? Maybe it would be nice to have a switch for applications so you could say “Only run when in the foreground”. This way maybe we could improve the battery life on our Android devices. I mean, how many of the applications you have installed need to keep running in the background all the time?
People slam these other OSes for not being fully multitasking, but some of the pro’s are starting to out-way the cons. Battery life being a very big one for me.
Android doesn’t need a ‘don’t run in background’ switch because apps only run in the background if you explicitly code them to use a service. A normal Activity stops running as soon as it becomes invisible – it ‘freezes’ in your terms.
If you want to find out what’s ACTUALLY running, look at the ‘running services’ tab, where you’ll find serial battery hammering offenders like Google Maps but not all those apps you hit home to switch away from. Hit menu and you can find out which apps are still loaded but they aren’t running, just occupying RAM to load faster in case you switch back to or relaunch them.
Just because services are ‘running’ doesn’t mean they’re burning juice though, well written ones finish their work and go to sleep till a client calls them again.
Not all services are well written or well behaved – as above Google Maps is a serial offender. Widgets are also frequent offenders. WP7 uses the extreme solution of harsh restrictions on multitasking – originally only selected ‘partners’ apps were allowed to do it at all.
On my Xperia Play standby life dropped from 10 to 3 days as I added the apps I *choose* to use, on WP7 I wouldn’t be given that choice. Since I’m playing games enough to need a daily charge anyway I’m happy to leave the widgets running that I know are hammering my battery.
letting apps full access to the system isnt a shortcut. if users are getting poor porformance out of the system there’s offensive few reasons why. stock phone system is doing too much, users often misunderstanding what a program can do.
it seems that Google is maintaining some Linux aspects in android, like users being responsable for themselves and full potential customization. its not a bad thing really, digital Darwinism.
the option for no background activity is good, but ultimately Google seems to have left it up to programmers what to do. and when a program eats battery, users wont use it, programmer suffers. of course Google isn’t excluded from this, but that will leave the android system for the rest of us who like applications to do what they are supposed to.
find the link below, the fact about WP battery life
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1385182
do you know, ics-android 4 have a dev feature to limit the multitasking process, you can limit the running background process to only 5 running process
I just looked into this further and there are a few developer settings that are related to processes And applications, Here are two the appear to be process related:
- Don’t Keep Activities.
- Background Process Limit
I’m going to look into these more and see what I can find out.
I’ll save you some time.
‘Don’t keep Activities’ let’s us test how our apps handle being completely shutdown rather than ‘frozen’. Unless you’re short of RAM it will just slow down the phone, both closing them and when you relaunch them. The apps is closes down aren’t running.
‘Background process limit’ is similar, but for service testing. The majority of useful services will simply be restarted by the OS and all you’ll do is make the phone work harder stopping and starting them continuously.
Neither is likely to reduce consumption, if anything they increase it.
3 days on normal usage? the HTC titan has an average battery span of 15-16 hours, the HTC trophy even less. Android being a FULL multitasked device weighs down on the battery. That said, enjoy your 9$ unlock
This whole “conversation” with the article is just another pointless way of creating useless data for filling up harddrives and clouds and what ever.
Even I take part on this.
Who cares about batterylife, use your chargers or just don’t buy these energy spenders.
Happy Christmas, lights and phones off, candles on.
[...] Everyone states that we have complete multi tasking operating in Android and how awesome it is to have all that power, but I’m saying that’s it’s becoming Androids Achilles Heel. Over the last few weeks I’ve been playing around with a Samsung Focus S from AT&T that Samsung was kind enough to send me. While I have my concerns about the Interface and the lack of customization you get with Android, I have to say that Windows Phone 7 is pretty well done. It will never replace my Android phone, but it does work well. One of the main advantages is the battery life that I previously reported. [...]