Anand's Google Nexus One Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 3, 2010 3:40 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
Battery Life: Unimpressive
The iPhone doesn't have a very long lasting battery. Before my iPhone I was a Blackberry user; my battery lasted for days. With the iPhone, especially while I'm traveling, I have to keep charging it throughout the day or risk a completely dead phone by 6PM. The Nexus One is worse.
To test battery life I ran the same suite of battery life tests I have been using in our smartphone reviews for the past couple of years:
The wireless web browsing test uses the 3G or WiFi connection to browse a series of 20 web pages varying in size, spending 20 seconds on each page (I timed how long it takes me to read a page on Digg and came up with 36 seconds; I standardized on 20 seconds for the test to make things a little more stressful). The test continues to loop until the phone dies. This test is designed to simulate a relatively heavy, but realistic data load on the phone. We're stressing the modem/WiFi radio, SoC, memory and display subsystems here. This should also be the sort of battery life you get when you are using any apps that use data (but not 3D acceleration). The display brightness was set to roughly 30% on the Nexus One and 50% on the iPhone.
The H.264 movie playback test loops a 480 x 208 632Kbps re-encode of Slumdog Millionaire until the phone dies. The majority of the device is idle during this test stressing the memory subsystem, video decoder, audio decoder and display more than anything else. The display brightness was set to roughly 30% on the Nexus One and 50% on the iPhone.
The talk time test measures battery life over the course of a conversation between the phone being tested and another phone. The conversation is actually an MP3 playlist on repeat played into the microphone of the phone being tested. The display was disabled.
| Battery Life | |||||
Apple iPhone 3G |
Apple iPhone 3GS |
Google Nexus One | |||
| Wireless Web Browsing (3G) | 4.50 hours | 4.82 hours | 3.77 hours | ||
| Wireless Web Browsing (WiFi) | 6.67 hours | 8.83 hours | 5.62 hours | ||
| H.264 Movie Playback | 4.70 hours | 9.65 hours | 6.67 hours | ||
| 3G Talk Time | 4.82 hours | 4.82 hours | 4.67 hours | ||
Despite having a larger 1400 mAh battery, the Nexus one proved to have worse battery life across the board than the iPhone 3GS both in my tests and in my day to day usage. The only redeeming quality here is that you can easily swap out spare batteries, while the iPhone requires a 3rd party external battery if you need more juice on the go.
Talk time is lower than on the iPhone 3GS. Using the 3G data or WiFi connections both result in the phone dying faster than the 3GS. Even H.264 video playback discharges the Nexus One's battery faster.
I'm not sure if it's the AMOLED display, the Snapdragon SoC or just inefficiencies in Android but the battery life story isn't a good one.
Android does have a power consumption page that shows what percentage of battery drain can be attributed to various components in the phone (e.g. display, OS, specific apps, idle time). It’s not granular enough for my needs but it’s a great way of showing users, at a high level, what’s killing the battery.
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strikeback03 - Tuesday, April 6, 2010 - link
So does a 2mm difference in width really make that much difference in how you hold it and keyboard feel? As both phones are quite large compared to my HTC Diamond.Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, April 6, 2010 - link
It really has to do with the autocorrect on the keyboard and key spacing it seems. I switched back to the Nexus One today and definitely make more errors that I have to manually correct, whereas the iPhone seems to do a better job of knowing exactly what I'm trying to say/type.The performance and screen are very nice on the Nexus One however :)
Take care,
Anand
Locut0s - Sunday, April 4, 2010 - link
Thanks for the great review Anand!! I've been thinking of getting a smart phone for some time now and have been eyeing either a Nexus one or whatever Apple does with their next iteration of their iPhone. This review has placed the Nexus one squarely in my top 3. As always fantastic writing, thanks! However I should point something as a reader living outside the US. Google Voice is still not available in Canada or anywhere else outside the US. So if you are reading this review and that feature sounds nice keep this in mind!!Chloiber - Sunday, April 4, 2010 - link
If you like the Google Nexus, read some reviews about the coming (in the next days - weeks) HTC Desire - I bet you like it even more :)Zokudu - Sunday, April 4, 2010 - link
Wonderful article Anand.This epitomizes what I love about your writing.
Keep up the great work
Anand Lal Shimpi - Sunday, April 4, 2010 - link
Thank you :)Take care,
Anand
Mumrik - Sunday, April 4, 2010 - link
"Most of the time you all scare the crap out of me. I want to impress, I want you guys to be happy with what I write. I want every article to be the most well received thing ever. Every writer wants that. No one ever gets it. So when I see comments telling me that you’re eagerly anticipating my Nexus One review, I get a turtle complex. And not the ninja kind."I don't think you need to worry too much about all that Anand. Your work over the last few years especially has been top-of-the-class.
Lifedelinquent - Sunday, April 4, 2010 - link
wonder if the htc evo will use the more updated snapdragon proc with the better gpu?Chloiber - Sunday, April 4, 2010 - link
It will use the Snapdragon QSD8650 (N1/Desire: QSD8250) with 1GHz.http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/23/htc-evo-4g-is-s...
Don't know what that implies about the built in GPU though.
LongTimePCUser - Sunday, April 4, 2010 - link
Anand,It sounds like your biggest problem with the Google phone was the on-screen keyboard.
Have you tried the slide-out keyboard on the Motorola Droid?
The big advantage is that you can see the entire display screen, including type-ahead suggestions, while typing.