Small battery

[kregstrong]

Anyone else think the 8x's 1800 battery is too small? This is making me lean more towards the ativ on verizon

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

 

[a5cent]

Anyone else think the 8x's 1800 battery is too small? This is making me lean more towards the ativ on verizon

How do you know? Based on talktime? Based on standby time?

 

[kregstrong]

Actually I don't know, just comparing to the other wp8 phones, smallest battery out of all.

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[a5cent]

Actually I don't know, just comparing to the other wp8 phones, smallest battery out of all.

Exactly. You can't just look and the battery and correctly conclude if standby time will be decent. Screen size and many other factors play into power draw. As a result, even if you have a smaller battery, standby time may not be proportionally shorter.

Finally, a smaller battery usually also gets you a thinner and lighter device, which may also be desirable properties. It's not just about the "biggest number".

Basically, battery size is a completely unimportant spec. Talk- and standby time are the ones to look at. Better yet are tests showing how long a device can last while constantly browsing or playing a video.

P.S. Unfortunately, marketed talk- and standby times are rather unreliable. To ensure you will be happy with battery life, it is usually best to wait for reviews, which aren't yet available.

 

[aventador779]

Exactly. You can't just look and the battery and correctly conclude if standby time will be decent. Screen size and many other factors play into power draw. As a result, even if you have a smaller battery, standby time may not be proportionally shorter.

Finally, a smaller battery usually also gets you a thinner and lighter device, which may also be desirable properties. It's not just about the "biggest number".

Basically, battery size is a completely unimportant spec. Talk- and standby time are the ones to look at. Better yet are tests showing how long a device can last while constantly browsing or playing a video.

P.S. Unfortunately, marketed talk- and standby times are rather unreliable. To ensure you will be happy with battery life, it is usually best to wait for reviews, which aren't yet available.

Disagree, the ATIV and the 8X come close.

Same processor
Same WP8 OS
Same Radios (Ex. if on Verizon and have LTE)

Those are the biggest factors to the OS.

The ATIV S has a bigger screen, but the HTC 8X has a PPI.

So 1800mAh on the 8X vs the 2300mAh on the ATIV S, the ATIV S will for SURE get better battery life.

Seriously @kregstrong why do people choose the 8X over the ATIV S? What is it? Only things are better build quality (MAYBE though, plastic is sometimes better and it's lighter and more durable, like look at the GS3. The ATIV S is even better feeling than the GS3). Beats audio? I really don't think that's a killer...

Design? IMO no way, I mean just look at it... stunning.

 

[anon(157335)]

Disagree, the ATIV and the 8X come close.

Same processor
Same WP8 OS
Same Radios (Ex. if on Verizon and have LTE)

Those are the biggest factors to the OS.

The ATIV S has a bigger screen, but the HTC 8X has a PPI.

So 1800mAh on the 8X vs the 2300mAh on the ATIV S, the ATIV S will for SURE get better battery life.

Seriously @kregstrong why do people choose the 8X over the ATIV S? What is it? Only things are better build quality (MAYBE though, plastic is sometimes better and it's lighter and more durable, like look at the GS3. The ATIV S is even better feeling than the GS3). Beats audio? I really don't think that's a killer...

Design? IMO no way, I mean just look at it... stunning.

Click to view quoted image

I do like the look of the ATIV S, I'm just not a big fan of Samsung phones.

I'm also not sure about that screen; without holding it it seems too big for my liking.

 

[Kebero]

Not everyone wants a 4.7"+ screen. While Samsung phones do tend to have good cameras, the 8X has the dedicated image processor. If you're someone who loves Skype or other video chat, the wide-angle FFC may be nicer than a "regular" FFC. What you consider to be a killer feature isn't necessarily going to be one for someone else.

I plan on getting an 8X instead of a 920 because I don't need 32GB of storage, so I may as well save the $50.

 

[a5cent]

Disagree, the ATIV and the 8X come close.

Same processor
Same WP8 OS
Same Radios (Ex. if on Verizon and have LTE)

Those are the biggest factors to the OS.

The ATIV S has a bigger screen, but the HTC 8X has a PPI.

So 1800mAh on the 8X vs the 2300mAh on the ATIV S, the ATIV S will for SURE get better battery life.

Then we shall disagree.

1)
The OP's question was not which device's battery lasts longer! His question was whether or not 8x's 1800 battery is too small. Without knowing his precise requirements, neither you nor I can answer his question. Without doubt many people will buy the 8X and be completely happy with it's battery life... and some won't be.

Some will buy the ATIV S and be unhappy with battery life despite the more powerful battery.

2)
Your assumption that CPU, OS and radios are the biggest drain on battery power are arbitrary at best. The CPU may be the most relevant component, provided all you are considering is standby time. If you are measuring how long the device can last while watching a video, the display will be the biggest consumer of battery power by far. Display size, technology and brightness will complicate matters further.

People are far too quick to jump to conclusions based on nothing but the spec sheet without even considering usage habits

3)
PPI is utterly unimportant in terms of battery power.

4)
Every device involves tradeoffs. The Ativ may have a larger battery, but not everyone wants such a large device. For many, the benefits of the somewhat more grip-friendly 8X may far outweigh the difference in battery life, whatever that may be, as neither you nor I can reliably say what that difference is at this time.

 

[aventador779]

Then we shall disagree.

1)
The OP's question was not which device's battery lasts longer! His question was whether or not 8x's 1800 battery is too small. Without knowing his precise requirements, neither you nor I can answer his question. Without doubt many people will buy the 8X and be completely happy with it's battery life... and some won't be.

2)
Your assumption that CPU, OS and radios are the biggest drain on battery power are arbitrary at best. The CPU may be the most relevant component, provided all you are considering is standby time. If you are measuring how long the device can last while watching a video the display will be the biggest consumer of battery power by far, which is further complicated by the fact that different display technologies (IPS, OLED, etc.) can differ greatly.

3)
PPI is utterly unimportant in terms of battery power.

4)
Every device involves tradeoffs. The Ativ may have a larger battery, but not everyone wants such a large device. For many, the benefits of the somewhat more grip-friendly 8X may far outweigh the difference in battery life, whatever that may be, as neither you nor I can reliably say what that difference is at this time.

Well then get the 8X if you like small phones, I'd get a Galaxy Note running WP8 if I could

 

[a5cent]

Well then get the 8X if you like small phones, I'd get a Galaxy Note running WP8 if I could

Somehow you don't seem to understand what I'm saying. I prefer larger phones myself. I'm not advocating any single device. I'm just trying to give the OP unbiased information. There are good reasons to buy any one of the WP launch devices.

 

[aventador779]

Somehow you don't seem to understand what I'm saying. I prefer larger phones myself. I'm not advocating any single device. I'm just trying to give the OP unbiased information. There are good reasons to buy any one of the WP launch devices.

I do understand what you're saying, you never said what kind of phones you like.

Either way it is you that is not understand me. I'm saying that the only reason I understand people to get the 8X over the ATIV is the size and possibly the wide FFC.

And "The OP's question was not which device's battery lasts longer! His question was whether or not 8x's 1800 battery is too small." you're wrong, the person even said he's considering the ATIV just because the battery is larger. And I'm proving to him that the ATIV will indeed last longer. 500mAh is a difference.

 

[iloveamystery]

I'm saying that the only reason I understand people to get the 8X over the ATIV is the size and possibly the wide FFC.

Well, those are the only advantages you see of the 8x over the ATIV.

People put different weights on different features. Design of the phone is one of the more important things to me, and that alone is reason enough to choose the 8x over the ATIV S. Not that the Samsung is bad looking (although I hate the physical start button), but it's nothing out of the ordinary. Plus, as you've mentioned, there are Beats, wide-angle FFC, size, HTC trade-up program, and possibility of color-matched accessories (if that HTC intro video is a clue).

Honestly, it boils down to this: diff'rent strokes, diff'rent folks.

 

[a5cent]

you're wrong, the person even said he's considering the ATIV just because the battery is larger. And I'm proving to him that the ATIV will indeed last longer. 500mAh is a difference.

Yes, 500mAh is a difference, but as I've said before it's a difference that doesn't matter. Apparently, you believe quoting that difference in battery size proves something, but all you are doing is jumping to conclusions. Interpreting the marketing material (a.k.a spec-sheets) is a surprisingly trivial thing, but technology isn't. 99.9% of consumers aren't up to the task of interpreting spec-sheets correctly (including me).

The only things that do matter are actual measurements. Not of battery size, but of the property that actually is of interest to the user:

The amount of time the device lasts on a single charge under the users most common usage scenarios

Assume for a moment that kregstrong intends to do a lot of web surfing with his device. Lets look at measurements for two devices comparable to the ones we are discussing here:

HTC One X (AT&T), 1800 mAh battery equal to the 8X
Samsung Galaxy S3 (AT&T), 2100mAh mAh battery 200 mAh less than the ATIV S

These two devices use the same SoC, the same radio's on AT&T's network and both use the same OS. These are all the criteria which you said were most relevant. According to you, there is no way the HTC One X could possibly last longer, as it's battery is 300 mAh smaller. But that is simply not true. Measurements show the One X outlasts the S3, and not just while web browsing, although that is where the difference is most notable. The culprit is surly the S3's high resolution OLED display, which becomes particularly power hungry when displaying predominantly white web pages. Considering that the 8X and the ATIV S borrow the same display technology from their Android counterparts, why should we expect them to behave differently?

Yes, the ATIV S' battery is 200 mAh larger than the S3's, but do you really think that will make up for the 2.75 hours the One X outlasts the S3 while browsing over WiFI? I don't know, but I would be surprised. If web browsing over WiFi were actually to be kregstrong's main usage scenario, you might be doing him a grave disservice recommending the ATIV S.

 

[Coreldan]

The 8X isnt even a much smaller device, despite the smaller screen

This might be quite a far fetched theory I just came up with, but let's see Outside browser, I believe WP has fairly much of black background? Unless you change it to white, AFAIK just about everything that is default in the phone has a black background to it. Now, AMOLEDs (of which only ATIV sports out of the high end options) get blacks by not lighting any pixels, which is why AMOLED has the blackest blacks. 8X and Lumia 920 screens still have to have the backlight enabled even on a near black screen, thus using more battery to show the same thing. That said, I think AMOLED uses more battery to show whites on the contrary. And as a5cent above mentioned, many webpages have a lot of white which sucks OLED devices battery fairly efficiently.

 

[a5cent]

The 8X isnt even a much smaller device, despite the smaller screen

This might be quite a far fetched theory I just came up with, ... <snipped>

Smarta55

Anyway, I don't think your theory is far fetched at all! I'm 100% certain we could conceive some battery life test were the ATIV S would absolutely destroy the 8X (viewing a million photos of snowflakes in the dark). It goes both ways.

My point is only that people put way to much faith in their ability to correctly interpret spec-sheets, which are notoriously unreliable in the first place, and that peoples usage habits must be taken into account as well...