Battery life

[JamesBondage]

Hey.

I'm thinking about switching from Android to WP8. For me, the battery life is an important factor when buying a new phone. The introduced WP8 phones have a size from 1650 to 2300 mAh. That's not really huge... so can I expect WP8 to be more energy efficient than Android? Read somewhere that users were quite happy with battery life on WP7 due to the efficiency of the OS.

What do you think?

 

[GoodThings2Life]

Short answer: Yes, you can expect WP8 (and even WP7 now) to be considerably more energy efficient.

Longer answer: Yes, because Windows Phone, in general, doesn't allow apps to do whatever they want and stay running perpetually. Apps are essentially put into a standby state unless they take advantage of multitasking features in the OS, and those are designed to keep an app using minimal resources. The same is true of Live Tiles, they're restrictions on how much and how often the apps can poll for new data, so that they don't just suck up battery all day.

My TITAN has a 1650mAh battery (or there about), and I easily make it all day on a half charge unless I'm just really using it non-stop then I may throw it on the charger for an hour. The thought of going to 2000mAh and an even more efficient platform is thrilling.

 

[textomatic]

And all Windows Phones come with battery saver mode that kicks in when the battery is low. It will turn off all background services but you will still be able to make phone calls, text, and manually get emails. You can turn this feature off if you don't want it. It usually adds about another hour or two of battery.

 

[1jaxstate1]

Battery life is better on WP7 newer phones. My Samsung Focus had horrible battery life, I had to get a spare battery. The Galaxy S2 I had got horrible battery life, I had to get a spare battery. With the Nokia Lumia 900, I get about 12 - 15 hours of battery life. I use my phone a lot. It's the best I've ever used. [using the black theme]

 

[JamesBondage]

Sounds great. I'm thinking about the Lumia 920 because of its 2000mAh battery. But if 1650mAh get me through the day as well, I would consider the 820 too.
My Android device has 1500mAh and I have to recharge it once a day. So I guess I'll be fine with 1650 - 2000mAh on WP8, right?

 

[1jaxstate1]

Should be. I should state that my Lumia 900 is has 1830 mAh battery, and I cruise through the day. But I'm not in a LTE area. I say you should easily be good with 2000 mAh.

Sounds great. I'm thinking about the Lumia 920 because of its 2000mAh battery. But if 1650mAh get me through the day as well, I would consider the 820 too.
My Android device has 1500mAh and I have to recharge it once a day. So I guess I'll be fine with 1650 - 2000mAh on WP8, right?

 

[Heron_Kusanagi]

As someone who doesn't use Apple products by choice, but is otherwise platform-neutral, I do want to note that if you are concerned over battery life and don't mind sticking with Android, the Motorola Droid Razr Maxx (what a long name) is the device you should get.

I got to say that I did see Gen 1 devices go from average battery life to downright horrible (HTC Trophy). My brother's Lumia 800 and my Lumia 900 are still good to go though with average use.