And the Legend Lives On: The Nokia Battery

Werentuckl

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Okay, so I'm posting this here because I doubt very many people have the same use cases as I do, with my phones. And also because, well. Because I can. And just because this is awesome enough for all of us here to have the right to know about it.

Here goes, so for the longest time. I've carried two phones on me. One is always a smart phone, that gets used extensively. And often gets parked at the end of the day, or several times during the day, at the nearest possible charging port. And the other would always be a dumb feature phone. Which would last me weeks, if not one at least. Or two. On a charge. And that would be my go to line for text, and calls. So that I'm always available to those who matter. Or however you want to call it out on.

Recently, however, I held my breath. For a very long time. And just decided to take the plunge. A leap of faith. And here I am now, with two smart phones. Instead of the perpetual one. And my trusty old feature phone. The one with the mythical battery life, the stuff of everyones dreams. Well, its now parked in a drawer. So, where one phone is an ATIV SE, the other one is our good old Lumia 640 here. Still cant believe how much phone it is for the borderline criminal price of a feature phone. But I digress, anyways. So those of us who used to still be alive a good 15-20 years ago, and use phones, and remember the good old trusty Nokias and Motoralas and SEs of yore. Would also remember the good old times when the times were simpler, the world a better place, with less hate to go all around, and infinite battery lives, on their phones. :) Yes. Battery times infinity. And I can attest to that all the way up till the Nokia Symbian S60 phones. After that, or more like after the iPhone. Battery. What battery?

Anyways, so now that I've prefaced, or premised, my story a plenty a lot. I'm just going to dive into it now. And be done with it. So I chose, for obvious reasons, that the Lumia 640 would take the place of my old feature phone. Glance. Lower powered SOC. Lower res screen. And you know, the list goes on. And it also meant that I could keep my motion data on, because it wouldnt effect the rest of the phone's battery life. Or use cases. Now, a fair warning here. This is the phone that I use expressly, and explicitly, as a phone. Yeah. Some people still do that. Even in this day and age. Oh the irony. Ah. The horror! :O And this meant, that for me. The phone had to last a week. On the minimum at least. On a charge. For it to be a viable replacement to my old rucksack brick of a feature phone. That thing is a creation of marvel and beauty. The nostalgia of olden times. Sigh. But back to the Lumia now. :)

So, I prepped the phone up, set up my start screens, installed all the apps I needed on it. And set it up, as all the things I needed and used on the feature phone, and some of the ones on my other, 'actual' smart phone. This included the alarm apps, a basic calender, the camera, the flash light, the calculators and the converters, an intermittent weather tile, all of my contact books, and the phone tile of it, obviously. And actually. I think I like me new start screen a lot. Basic. Uncluttered. Private. And hidden away from all them pestering social media smartphone turd apps and people and life always hounding you everywhere. With all this done. I turn off data. I turn off wifi, set it to start up manually only. Delete all the unnecessary AT&T yak. And leave the phone be. Basically, thats the only stuff I deleted. The rest was all everything I added onto it only. :) I set up the background apps, and the turned on the battery saver. Permanently. And viola. I'm done.

I repeated this process with both WP 8.1, Denim, and then WM10, production build. That would be 105836.318, on last count. Now a word on my usage. Its usually an hour or sometimes more of calling every day. Or every other day. This includes recieved and sent. Because you know. You fall in love with people, in weird different ways sometimes. And then theres the rest of life calling back at you always too sometimes. A few texts. And thats about it. Besides the phone functioning as my Alarm clock, goto calculators and converters, and flash light. Flash light is important in my case. and for looking up what day and date it is. Because I cant even remember what side of the bed do I wake up on every day. Not that I remember what sleeping on a bed is even like anymore. But.... Thats about it for my average or daily use for the phone. Unless I piddle around with the WM10 of it, and play with the occasional download, or I dont have the other phone on me for insta-camera duties on ground. Or have to open a document. A quick look at the weather. Or some of those odd edge case usual scenarios where I somehow dont have my regular 'smartphone' on me for whatever reason possible. Not that that happens, usually.

And well, with all this said and done. Well. Well. Well. Sigh. I will be damned. But did I come away impressed with this thing. :) The battery gave me a week regularly. No problems whatsoever. And I could really push it beyond that into the even older Nokia batterylife territory. If I meant to. :) All this on Windows Phone 8.1. And then. Surprise, surprise! I'm on WM10, and still doing the same battery life magic even now. And the naysayers be damned. But WM10 can be just as efficient. On edge or marginal usecases such as mine. Even if it is a day or so in the same ball park. Depending on the sort of days Im having. It can go anywhere from the same as WP 8.1, to a day less or to.... :O ... Surprise... a day more. A little more temperamental is all. Compared to the even monotone of 8.1. And I really dont mind that. I'm a very happy camper.

I know a lot of people are going to take issue with this, I mean, why even do this to a smartphone if youre going to use it like this. Might as well go back and live in a cave. Hurrdyy hurr durr durr hurrr hurrrrr!!! >_< But thats not the point of this whole exercise, or of sharing this experience. The point is, this is my phone, and this is my use case, no matter how much of an edge case it is, and there are people who still use their phones like this. No matter how much of a majority or a minority. And the point of sharing this experience is that for those use cases, this works beautifully. Its always a feature rich phone with similar feature parity to the older touschscreen-less symbians of S60 or PDAs of old, with the battery life of one of those mythical Nokia feature phones, and the ability to transform into a full fledged fluid, and very beautifully orchestrated smart phone experience, in the blink of an eye. I mean, I used to write entire documents and essays on my old S60s and PDAs. And that there really, is what counts. The number of things it can do, and the flexibility you can achieve with it, so easily. With the press of just two buttons. Battery Saver. And Wifi. And the magic turns on. Everywhere. All at once. And trust me. It. Is. Beautiful. Just seeing this. The transformability. The morphability. Everything. All of it. And I think I'm in love with the idea all over again. Whereas I was really hesitant and afraid of jumping into that bandwagon. When I started off with this. On this journey. :)

To demonstrate this point. My mother has a similar, but more intensive use case. She has her data on, has no idea what a battery saver is. Is still on 8.1, Denim. Because readjusting everything and relearning half of it all from scratch is a conscious exercise, and not a natural one for her at her age. She uses WhatsApp. On occasion. Recieves and sends calls. Often. And is very happy with her multi-day battery life. That lasts well into the better half of her week. And she is happy too. :)

I know I know. Now I'm getting carried away with everything. And. :O This isnt even a NOKIA PHONE!!! :O Its a Microsoft phone. But it is one of the last phones to come out of the Nokia design houses. And that is why I'm going to hang onto it for a long long time to come. And that, is also why this blog post is titled and prefaced with Nokia everywhere too. Incase anyone here hadnt noticed it yet. Yes. I am kind of a romantic, like. A lot. And a sucker for nostalgia, and all the old things that were good, and are gone now. To never come back again, anymore. Ever. So we hang onto things like these, and find in them ways of reliving those. :)

For those of you wondering whats up with all the punctuation, and the grammar Nazis hiding in the wings. This is written in the same way the conversation or the excitement itself would actually have gone, and is more colloquial than is supposed to be prose. So yeah. Thats that. And for the intensive wall of text. What can I say. Well. :)

TL:DR. Well. Read it! You! :mad: :D

PS. Ive been meaning to write this for a long long time now. Finally bucked up the courage and the investment to do so. So there you have it. My experience. All of it. Not in a nutshell. :)

-- W
 

Chintan Gohel

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Thanks for sharing, the Nokia feature phones can go on and on, that's for sure. I once pushed my lumia 1020 on 8.1 cyan to 58 hours on a single charge. this was while taking calls, sms, checking email, whatsapp a few times a day, 6tag a few times a day, a few photos here and there. So yes, power management can be efficient
 

aybarrap1

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In my opinion, windows phones have always done well battery wise when compared to android phones with similar specs. It could be argued by some that the lack of apps is a contributing factor, which may be so in select cases. However, windows OS for smartphones has always run better on lower specs when compared to android. At this point, the is a feature out two I wouldn't mind W10M having, I still think it will remain king for hardware optimization and hence battery life.
 

Werentuckl

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Well, considering the amount of flack WM10 has been recieving over its battery life statistics and OS optimization and efficiencies. I deemed it necessary to also expunge that little myth. Atleast for use cases like these. Someone had to go and do this too, for the thousands other who come and beat on it about its 'Android level battery life'. :)

-- W
 

libra89

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Well, considering the amount of flack WM10 has been recieving over its battery life statistics and OS optimization and efficiencies. I deemed it necessary to also expunge that little myth. Atleast for use cases like these. Someone had to go and do this too, for the thousands other who come and beat on it about its 'Android level battery life'. :)

-- W
This is a great read, thanks! I agree about the battery life on w10m. I am impressed that it matches on the last official release compared to 8.1 denim. Shocked about not using Battery Saver though :eek:
 

aybarrap1

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Personally, I have an lg escape 2 with similar specs that I have compared against. Even after turning out unnecessary apps and services on the android, I get at best similar performance. Try to load and do more than one thing on the android though... Immediate problems. Apps crash, home screen is redrawn, etc. Android has slightly more lag as well.
 

Gaurav Sag

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We easily coasted through a day’s use between charges. And while those wanting to use smartphone features like browsing and always-on email checking will generally still have to charge once a day, forgetting to charge overnight generally won’t leave you with a dead phone come mid-day.
 

avengerxp

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Lumia 640 DS user here. If you fully switch off DATA the phones battery can last for more than 4 days with moderate calls n texting.
 

Werentuckl

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I do use the battery saver Libra, for the 640 on phone duties at least. Check my wall of text, the one I have set up for my mother doesnt use one though, and hers still lasts into days for her. Better part of a week, and she's very happy with it too. :)

-- W
 

libra89

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I do use the battery saver Libra, for the 640 on phone duties at least. Check my wall of text, the one I have set up for my mother doesnt use one though, and hers still lasts into days for her. Better part of a week, and she's very happy with it too. :)

-- W

I read it haha. I should have noted in my response that the battery saver comment was directed at your mother not using it. I'm still surprised at that, but good to hear that it works well for both of you.
 

Werentuckl

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And on that note, she came to me to put her phone to charge today. Because its been so many days since she charged it last, she couldnt remember where her charger was. :p So yeahhh... that does happen tend to happen to you too when your battery life gets so good. :D

-- W
 

v535

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My mom's lumia 535 lasts a week with whatsapp, few photos & vids, skype and few calls. Whereas mine, a L730 lasts 3-4 days on moderate usage on w10m (WP8.1 lasted 5 days). Dad phone an s7 doesn't even last a day.
 

Werentuckl

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Its okay Jakoh, that was probably a very excited bout of rambling anyways. Try again, between all the speech punctuation retardation. Maybe it'll make better sense once you start ignoring some of it. :p

-- W
 

Werentuckl

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On that note, I accidentally ended up plugging my phone in last night while running the upgrade, and then I was bummed out because I had to charge it all the way uptop then. Or otherwise it would have said 40 percent and last charge ten minutes ago. :(

And thank you Ananve, interestingly, forgot to put on the battery saver after charging my phone last night. And just checked now to see my battery at 95%, over an 18 odd hour of time period. This is with some odd few phone calls, a few texts, and around dozen voice recordings. I narrate recordings sometimes. The latest build is holding up nicely so far, as fas as battery is concerned. I'm impressed so far. :) But its still gone back to battery saver even after that, because I love me some extra time. :)

-- W
 

Chintan Gohel

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On that note, I accidentally ended up plugging my phone in last night while running the upgrade, and then I was bummed out because I had to charge it all the way uptop then. Or otherwise it would have said 40 percent and last charge ten minutes ago. :(

And thank you Ananve, interestingly, forgot to put on the battery saver after charging my phone last night. And just checked now to see my battery at 95%, over an 18 odd hour of time period. This is with some odd few phone calls, a few texts, and around dozen voice recordings. I narrate recordings sometimes. The latest build is holding up nicely so far, as fas as battery is concerned. I'm impressed so far. :) But its still gone back to battery saver even after that, because I love me some extra time. :)

-- W

it's recommended to download and install updates while phone is charging
 

Werentuckl

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And thats exactly why I put it on charge Chintan. Broke my heart. :'(

And Rumored Now, trust me, I am one of those hypermiling geeks too. And a passive aggressive one at that too. I hate it when someone gets out the green light before me. Or over takes. Or someone with a fancier bigger car is playing road snobbery and attitude with everyone. Or just has the wrong airs about them. So yeahhhh.... all that, while still hypermiling. And I get a pretty darn decent run out of this 14 year old thing. So yeah, I'm generally like that about most of life. Bang for buck kind of a person. While trying to get the most out of these things. Phone, car, purchases, plane tickets, time. Stuff like that.

And on that note, its from 95% to 91% now. Over five or so odd hours since I last posted that. Wifi, a couple of emails with attachments, a couple of calls. And this was with bad wifi reception while I was trying to do the emails and the attachments. So took forever to do that. Would have gone better than that had I managed to get the attachments in a couple of minutes instead of over 20. -__- :mad:

-- W
 

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