BatteryLife
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Lenovo's Moto M reportedly features a nice metallic unibody
We don't have an official release date for Lenovo's next Moto handset just yet, but we do have a leaked set of specs that hint at what's to come. According to some grainy renders that made the rounds earlier this week, the Moto M aka "Kung-Fu" will be the first Motorola smartphone to feature a rear-facing fingerprint sensor and its unibody frame puts it solidly in the mid-tier of current generation handsets. Its 5.5-inch 1080p display should also serve well in the Asian markets.
Microsoft is still bragging about Edge's battery superiority
Microsoft says it has made the Edge browser on the Windows 10 Anniversary Update even more efficient than the previous version, and is again boasting about its performance compared to rivals. When streaming Netflix, the new tweaks will help your Windows 10 PC last 45 percent longer than with Chrome, and 69 percent longer if you're using Firefox. For general purpose browsing, PCs running Edge last 24 to 43 percent longer than with other browsers, according to Redmond.
Google hits back at claims of sub-par Chrome battery life
Google isn't buying Microsoft's claims that Chrome's battery life is terrible. The search pioneer has posted a video showing the battery life improvements between last year's Chrome 46 and the just-launched Chrome 53, and it's clear that Google is taking a dig at Microsoft testing that favored Edge. The result shows the newer browser (conveniently running on Surface Books, like in Microsoft's clip) offering 2 hours and 12 minutes of additional runtime when streaming Vimeo footage non-stop. It lasted a healthy 10 hours and 39 minutes, which might be enough to get through your favorite movie trilogy.
Surface Pro 3 battery issues disappear in today's update
The Surface Pro 3 has been plagued with a software problem that causes some tablets to quickly lose power once unplugged from a charger, but a firmware update released today squashes the battery bug. Microsoft first acknowledged the problem in July and confirmed it was a software issue, rather than a flaw in the tablet's hardware, earlier in August.
Uber says you're willing to pay more when your phone is dying
It's no surprise that Uber knows a lot about its customers based on their use of its ride-hailing app. Speaking with NPR's Hidden Brain podcast this week, the company's head of economic research Keith Chen revealed when we're most likely to pay more for the service. As it turns out, riders tend to overlook the increased rates of surge pricing when their phone battery is running low.
Accidental discovery could help batteries last years longer
Today, most smartphone and device batteries are made from lithium and slowly lose capacity over thousands of recharges. Researchers at UC Irvine built a battery that substituted gold nanowire in electrolyte gel for the lithium and lost barely five percent battery capacity over 200,000 charge cycles — but they aren't totally sure how it worked.
iPhone 6s battery life may vary slightly depending who made the processor
A few days ago, it was revealed that the A9 chip in Apple's new iPhone 6s is manufactured by two different companies, Samsung and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC). More notably, reports started circulating that the battery life in the Samsung A9 devices was notably worse than that of the TSMC iPhones. Some tests have revealed that the TSMC chips last as much as two hours longer than the phones with Samsung silicon inside. Now, Apple has issued an official response that downplays the difference as only a matter of a few percentage points.
Swatch is working on a smartwatch battery that lasts six months
Smartwatches have yet to solve the riddle of battery life, but Swatch Group CEO Nick Hayek says his company is hard at work on a solution. Speaking with the Swiss newspaper Handelszeitung, the chief executive revealed that not only with the watchmaker put out a smartwatch next year, but that it will feature "a revolutionary battery." Belenos, Swatch's research arm, and battery maker Renata are hard at work on the tech. The company announced last year that it would begin packing fitness-tracking tools inside its Touch line of watches, beginning with the Touch Zero for volleyball players earlier this year. What's more, the fruits of the long-lasting battery project will also be used in cars. "Whoever brings a battery for a smartwatch to the market that you don't need to charge for six months has a competitive advantage," Hayek said during the interview. For reference, battery life for both the Apple Watch and Moto 360 hovers around a day. [Image credit: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images]
Here's more detail about how long Apple's Watch battery will last
What does an all-day battery life of 18 hours really consist of? That's what Apple's promising it's debut smartwatch will offer. Thankfully, it has also detailed a bunch of other power-draining use cases to allay / confirm (delete as appropriate) any battery life fears. This typical use battery life apparently consisted of: "90 time checks, 90 notifications, 45 minutes of app use, and a 30-minute workout with music playback from Apple Watch via Bluetooth" Apple notes that this was a preproduction model from this month, and even offers all the other reasons why you might not get the same numbers, stating that "Battery life varies by use, configuration, and many other factors; actual results will vary." Placing a call through the watch will allow you to talk to your wrist for just three hours, while at the opposite end of the use spectrum, just wanting to see the time on the display will mean the watch can eke out up to 78 hours of use -- entailing four time checks every hour, but nothing else.
A Microsoft smartwatch could appear in weeks
Do you remember Spot? Well, that was Microsoft's very early smartwatch effort, lost in the mists of bygone technology. Finally, a long time coming, a more modern effort from the company is apparently on its way-- and coming soon. According to Forbes' anonymous sources, Microsoft's next smartwatch will be able to passively track your heart-rate (meaning less stress on the battery) and work across several mobile platforms. Both points make a lot of sense, but the latter could be especially important if Microsoft wants a hit: Windows Phone is still a very distant third to both Android devices and the iPhone. The rumored product could also explain why the heck Microsoft developed a smartwatch keyboard in the first place. We'll let you know more when we hear it.
The future of phone chargers: self-aware and integrated into everyday objects
Here's a horror story everyone can relate to: You download a cool new app or an OS update, only to find that it eats through the phone's battery relentlessly, frequently leaving you with nothing but a tiny sliver of red on the gauge. While some aim to solve this issue by developing a new breed of batteries, a California startup called Qnovo and Qualcomm are each working on charging technologies instead. Qnovo, for one, has developed software that can analyze a battery's temperature and the voltage passing through it, as well as determine your charging habits.
Early Android L tests show serious battery life improvement
One of the big reveals for Android 4.4 KitKat's successor, Android L, was Project Volta -- new tweaks to improve battery life. Those include a new API that schedules minor tasks better, a "battery historian" to track battery-sapping activities and ART, a more efficient runtime. There's also a "battery saver" mode that kicks in aggressively when only 15 percent of the battery remains. Now that the developer preview has been in the wild, Ars Technica has put it through its paces, along with a number of users on the XDA developer forums. The results? So far so good, with some caveats. Under tightly controlled conditions, Ars Technica managed a whopping 36 percent better battery than KitKat, without even using the battery saver mode. Many XDA users saw comparable results, though battery life was actually worse than on Android 4.4 for some. However, that was likely influenced by apps and other factors -- one user noticed WhatsApp sucking 15 percent of his battery life, likely a beta bug. We'll be running our own battery of tests, as it were, but the takeaway for now? Hey, it's still a developer preview -- but we're optimistic.
New Skype for Android promises not to drain your battery
If you're anything like us, then you know how valuable it is to have great battery life on mobile devices. Which is why a number of apps, like Skype, need to be monitored a little closer than others -- in particular, ones that are constantly running in the background. Knowing this, Skype's releasing a fresh version, 4.7, of its Android application that changes the way it handles your smartphone's or tablet's battery. "We are introducing aggressive battery life savings that will allow most of our users to leave Skype running without noticeably affecting battery life," said Skype in a blog post. In order to make this happen, message notifications in group chats had to be turned off by default, though there is an option to flip the switch for folks who would like to continue using them. According to Skype, we've only seen the beginning, as it expects to further improve battery usage in future versions of its mobile app. We'll have to see it to believe it, but hopefully it turns out to be true -- because mo' juice, mo' Flappy Bird.
Toshiba's new Kira Ultrabook promises 22 hours of use on a single charge
We praised Toshiba's last flagship Ultrabook for its brilliant screen and speedy boot-up time, but the company's newest Kirabook has a notable new feature -- an estimated 22 hours of battery life. Intel's new Haswell chips may have shifted our expectations of what we expect laptops can deliver battery-wise, but almost running a whole day remains an impressive feat. That's Toshiba's claim for its new Dynabook KIRA V654, which sidesteps touch compatibility on its 13-inch 1,366 x 768 resolution screen to add to the battery savings and weighs in at just 1.12kg. Alongside an additional high-resolution model (2,560 x 1,440), if you simply must have swipeable screens on your Windows 8 machine, there's also the similarly-sized Dynabook Kira V834, although that model will only manage a paltry 14 hours of work and / or play. (We kid.) The two machines will launch in Japan on 20th November, with the touch-capable V834 starting at 153,000 yen ($1,530), while the endurance-specialized V634 will start at 144,000 yen (roughly $1,446). As is often the way with these made-in-Japan PCs, there's no word on whether the rest of the world will get to see either model yet, but we'll let you know if we hear anything from Toshiba.
iPad Air manages 24 hours of battery life as LTE hotspot
One of the unsung uses of the iPad is as a personal LTE hotspot. It's rather easy to set up the device as a hotspot for a MacBook if you need to work away from WiFi, although you'll need to keep an eye on your data usage. Last year, Anand Lal Shimpi at Anandtech discovered that an LTE iPad 3 could work as a wireless hotspot for 25.28 hours, downloading data at 50 KB/s. Shimpi repeated his test with the new iPad Air and discovered that even despite having a much smaller battery, the iPad Air can run for 24.08 hours as a hotspot at twice the throughput rate (100 KB/s). The iPad Air battery is quite a bit smaller due to the slim profile of the device -- it's a 32.4 Wh battery compared with the 42.5 Wh battery built into the third-generation iPad. As Shimpi points out, both the A7 system-on-a-chip and the Qualcomm MDM9615M modem in the iPad Air use a 28nm LP process that sips power. Shimpi's test was to set the iPad Air up as a personal hotspot, using WiFi tethering to connect it to a 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display. He started the 100 KB/s transfer -- twice the data rate of the earlier test -- and turned the iPad Air's display off. After a day and 8 GB of data transfers, the iPad Air ran out of juice. As Shimpi notes, "you'll likely burn through your monthly data allotment before you run out of power."
How to stop iOS 7 from destroying your iPhone's battery life
iOS 7 is all kinds of sexy, but with a slew of fancy new features comes more strain on the ever-important statistic of battery life. iOS 7 is compatible with iPhone 4 or later (though not all features are supported on older devices), so if you're upgrading your current device to the new operating system, there's a good chance you could see a noticeable decrease in battery life. If you're looking to avoid any pitfalls in the battery department, here are a few settings you can tweak to keep iOS 7 from sucking your iPhone's life like an evil, software vampire. Disable background refresh iOS 7 lets certain apps refresh even when you're not using them, which is both super convenient and a big problem for users who want the most out of their batteries. Disabling Background Refresh entirely would be your best bet, but even disabling the feature on just a few apps should help your device remain lively for a bit longer. Alter your location services It seems like just about every app wants to track your location these days. For some apps, like Maps, this makes a lot of sense, but if you've authorized other apps (Twitter, Facebook) to track your location without actually using the in-app features that go along with it, you should turn it off. In addition to apps, iOS 7 has a whole host of system-level options for location tracking, including local advertising and even the compass. If you don't use the apps to begin with, turning off the GPS tracking won't do much, but if you can disable tracking for a few of your most-used apps, you could see a decent boost in battery life. Not using AirDrop? Kill it iOS 7 introduces AirDrop to the iPhone for the first time, but even if you find yourself using the handy Dropbox-style feature from time to time, you should be turning it off when you don't need it. This is made easy by the new Control Center in iOS 7, which can be brought up by swiping upwards on the home screen. From here, it's just two taps to either enable or disable AirDrop, and while you're here, you can also disable Bluetooth and/or WiFi to help save additional battery life when you're not using them. Note: AirDrop is not available on the iPhone 4 or 4S. 3D goes bye-bye OK, this one is going to hurt: You know that fancy 3D parallax wallpaper effect that iOS 7 introduces? Unfortunately for users who want the most out of their battery, it's a luxury that does nothing but burn power to make your home screen look cool. You can disable this feature by toggling on the "Reduce Motion" option in the Accessibility menu. The same goes for the new dynamic wallpapers. Yes, a moving background image is a pleasant bit of eye candy, but it serves no functional purpose other than shortening your time between charges. Kick these features to the curb and your battery will thank you. [Want to help your friends and family grok the iOS 7 story? Send them a link to our Don't Panic Guide to iOS 7. --Ed.]
Apple ups battery capacity on iPhone 5c and 5s compared to iPhone 5
Over the past few years, Apple has demonstrated an uncanny ability to enhance performance with each successive iteration of the iPhone while simultaneously maintaining, and sometimes increasing, battery life. The recently unveiled iPhone 5s and 5c are no different. Anandtech recently dug through some FCC documentation and found that the advertised battery capacity on the iPhone 5s is nearly 10 percent larger than on the iPhone 5. Meanwhile, battery capacity on the iPhone 5c is approximately 5 percent larger than on the iPhone 5. It turns out that there are in fact some battery size increases for both the 5S and 5C if the FCC disclosure is to be believed. While I'm somewhat skeptical sometimes of the accuracy of battery capacities as reported in FCC disclosures (which I noted about the battery size for the Nexus 5), these numbers seem credible given what I've heard, the statement Apple made during the keynote about the 5C battery size going up, and what I'd expect with some board re-layout for the 5S. The iPhone 5S ends up getting an almost 10 percent increase in size versus the iPhone 5, the iPhone 5C goes up around 5 percent versus the iPhone 5. As for how this affects real-world usage, Apple noted during its keynote earlier this week that 3G talk time and LTE browsing time on both phones check in at an impressive 10 hours, marking a 25 percent increase from the iPhone 5. Also of note, standby time on both devices have been upped from 225 hours to 250 hours when measured against the iPhone 5. As we've noted before, battery life may not be the sexiest of specs to advertise, but it's something that enhances the user experience greatly and yet is quizzically overlooked by critics.
It's all about the battery life, baby
At WWDC this year, Apple introduced revamped MacBook Airs with incredibly impressive battery life. On the the 11-inch model, battery life went up from five hours to nine hours while battery life on the 13-inch model went up from seven hours to 12 hours. Battery life isn't exactly the sexiest of specs, but it's undoubtedly one of the most important things to consider when purchasing any new device. With the new MacBook Airs, Apple has demonstrated, yet again, a deep commitment to the user experience that will inevitably leave competitors scrambling to play catch-up. If a device runs out of juice, it's useless. Pure and simple. To that end, Apple has not only shown a ongoing commitment to improve battery life on its products, but also a rare reluctance to implement new features that have an adverse effect on battery life. The most obvious example, of course, has been Apple's refusal to follow in the footsteps of Samsung and release an iPhone with a ginormous 4.7-inch screen. Tim Cook and other Apple executives have said on a number of occassions that one of the reasons Apple hasn't released a larger screened iPhone is because doing so would have a discernable effect on battery life. What's more, when Apple does add a new feature to a device, such as when it introduced the Retina display iPad, it ensures that battery life does not take noticeable hit as a result. Put simply, battery life matters. A lot. Processing power and screen size may be the type of specs that attract the most attention these days, but as computing continues to become increasingly mobile, it's about time we start paying more attention to battery life. To that end, Ben Bajarin over at Techpinions has an interesting and insightful take on battery life and the new role it may take on in the tech marketplace. The raging question throughout the PC industry has been "what is going to get consumers to upgrade their PCs?" The answer is iPad-like battery life. ... At one point in time when a company released a new PC, they proudly announced how much processing power it had, and the crowd would applaud. At WWDC last week when Apple discussed the MacBook Air, the crowd did not cheer or applaud when they announced the speed of the processor. Instead, the crowd went wild when they announced the new metrics for battery life. ... Apple has set the bar high with these new battery benchmarks. All PC makers are making progress in this area and the new processors from Intel and AMD will help push this needle forward. One thing I will be watching very closely with the fall lineup is the battery life claims from all the new notebooks. I am convinced this is the feature-of-all-features for the PC industry this year. As a quick little comparison, I checked out the top four non-Apple laptops on Amazon and took a look at their battery life. Here's how the competition stacks up today. The 11.6-inch Samsung Chromebook touts 6.5 hours of battery life. The 15.6-inch Asus K55N-DS81 laptop has 5.5 hours of battery life. A 15.6-inch Dell Inspiron laptop touts about 4 hours of battery life. A 15.6-inch HP Pavillion shockingly doesn't seem to have any official spec regarding battery life, at least not on Amazon. Checking the same machine on Staples, however, reveals that the machine has a battery life of up to 3 hours and 15 minutes. Again, the 13-inch MacBook Air sports upwards of 12 hours of battery life. All of a sudden, battery life is looking a lot sexier than ever before. And if you think the 12-hour figure cited by Apple can only be achieved by running the machine on the lowest brightness setting and casually checking email once every four hours, think again. Initial reviews of Apple's new MacBook Airs have had nothing but overwhelming praise for their battery life. Here's a quick sampling. Engadget: Our standard rundown test, as it happens, also entails playing video and last year's machine managed just over six and a half hours before expiring. We were, then, skeptical that this new edition could manage nearly twice that longevity -- but it actually did better. This year's Air survived 12 hours and 51 minutes on a charge. That's a stunning number from a laptop this thin, achieved with WiFi enabled and without any external batteries. Wired: But with the 2013 edition of the 13-inch MacBook Air, concern over battery life is now just laughable. I've been testing Apple's newest ultraportable laptop for a couple of weeks, and I can routinely get through a full 8 to 12-hour workday without a boost, and with battery to spare. Heck, I went an entire Netflix-filled weekend without needing to plug it in once. Where the mid-2012 model got a very respectable 7 hours of battery life, the 2013 model is spec'd at a full 12 hours. It delivers on that promise, and then some. I can forget the charger at home or at work and totally not stress about it. The Verge: 13 hours and 29 minutes. That's all you really need to know - that's how long the new MacBook Air running Safari lasted running The Verge Battery Test, which cycles through a series of websites and images at 65 percent brightness. 9to5Mac: We don't have a specific process to test battery life, because more often than not, you'll get artificial results that aren't relatable to real-world usage. So, to test the battery life on the 2013 Air, we just used it. It's as simple as that. We worked on it and we played on it. We started using it about 12PM and wrote, watched a few YouTube videos, checked Twitter with Tweetbot for Mac, and much more. By about 1AM it was down to about 5% battery remaining and it died shortly there after. That equals out to a little over 13 hours, a tad above what Apple claimed. We had the screen set on 75% brightness and the keyboard backlight on towards the end of the day. Keep in mind this is real-word usage, so there were bits and pieces of time throughout the day when it wasn't being used, as we had to do things like eat lunch, but for the better part of the day, there was at least Spotify streaming music. With the new MacBook Airs, it's all about the battery life.
Microsoft says IE10 owns the coveted 'most energy efficient browser' title
Ever been concerned about the energy consumption of your web browser? Us neither, but that hasn't stopped Microsoft from ballyhooing that stat to sway you in favor of Internet Explorer. According to the latest tests it commissioned from Fraunhofer USA, IE10 uses up to 18 percent less power in browsing, Flash and HTML5 tasks than its main rivals, Chrome and Firefox. The company claims that translates into more than just boon for your battery life. Redmond goes so far as to say that if every single Chrome and Firefox user switched to IE10, it would save enough energy to power over 10,000 US homes for a year (translation: Google and Mozilla are hurting the Earth). We can't and won't vouch for the authenticity of that statement, but we do know that's a lot of users we're talking about.
Intel: Haswell will boost laptop battery life by 50 percent
When Intel launched Haswell, it promised a generational leap in battery life, and now the chip giant's talking numbers to back that up. Architecture Group VP Rani Borkar said that laptops packing the chipset should get 50 percent more battery life than current Ivy Bridge models and go up to 20 times longer in standby or idle mode -- without any cost to performance. She said that lower power requirements will be one factor in the drop in consumption, but an all-new architecture including a power management chip will also help reduce the energy draw. We'll have to see whether that encouraging piece of news will help the moribund PC notebook market pick up lost ground to tablets, or whether companies will just keep blurring the line.
