We run our battery life tests using the default settings that the phone uses, doing a factory reset before each test. And this poses an issue for the iPhone; by default, the WiFi scanning is enabled, so the iPhone is constantly scanning for WiFi networks (but not connecting to them; we did not set up a WiFi network for these tests). When time permits, we’ll be running additional tests to determine the real effect of WiFi scanning on battery life.

Talk Time (4.86)
We test talk time by setting up a call to the phone (with voices speaking at both ends) and timing how long the call lasts before the phone hangs up. The iPhone has a pretty good sized battery in there (according to iFixit, who took one apart), but the battery life of the iPhone making calls wasn’t great; we measured it at 4 hours and 3 minutes in our first test (we’re running additional tests to verify this result). That’s comparable with the Helio Ocean, but is significantly shorter than the LG Prada and the N95. And it’s less than half that of the BlackBerry 8800, which lasted over 10 hours. If you are thinking about this in terms of how long you can go without having to recharge, we wouldn’t recommend going for more than a couple of days. And remember that the battery life will be even shorter if you are using the iPhone as a music or video player as well as making calls. For most users (such as commuters), we’d reccomend that you charge it every day.

Web Browsing (5.73)
Our Web browsing battery a phone a serious workout; it uses a series of linked web pages that refresh every 10 seconds until either the battery runs out, or the phone stops the web browser from working because of low battery power. We timed the iPhone in our first test as having a battery life while browsing of 3 hours and 11 minutes. The iPhone kept on browsing until the battery was almost completely exhausted; some phones (such as the BlackBerry and N95) shut down the web browser before they reach this point, saving a small amount of battery power to allow you to finish writing an email or make an emergency call.

3 Hours and 11 minutes is definitely on the short side; It’s a bit under a third of the over 9 hours the BlackBerry 8800 managed, and a lot shorter than the just over 6 hours of the N95. It’s also well off from Apple’s own figures; they claim up to 6 hours of browsing battery life, although their test is a lot less arduous than ours, with only occasional web browsing. It seems that given this, Apple’s decision to use a relatively low power EDGE data connection (the same type that the BlackBerry 8800 uses) was sound; if they would have gone with a 3G connection, it would have been even shorter. But the low power requirements of the EDGE connection are counterbalanced by the screen; the big screen of the iPhone makes browsing a pleasure, but it takes a lot of battery power to keep it illuminated.

Our conclusion would be that the iPhone is fine for web browsing on a short commute, but it won’t be good enough for anything longer. This is especially a concern if you were planning to get around the lack of any third-party software by using online applications (such as Google’s web applications); you aren’t going to get more than 3-4 hours use out of them before the battery runs out.

Video Playing Time (Not scored)
Coming Soon!

Idle Time (not scored)
We don’t test the standby time of cell phones, but Apple claims a standby time of 250 hours, or over 10 days.

Circulated by Apple iphone mobile phone

Labels: iPhone