Manufacturers contributing to the development of smartphones have been constantly upping the specs of smartphones every year. From Snapdragon 801’s to 810’s, 2GB to 4GB of RAM, even to the point of achieving a feat of having a 4K screen on a 5.5-inch screen form factor (yes I’m talking about you, Xperia Z5 Premium).
An ongoing, non-stop, year in year out development of those specs, but what about the battery? Has it been keeping up with the lighting pace of the rest of the specs? Don’t get me wrong. Developers have been working really hard to improve the power efficiency of chips and devices in order to bring out the best of each smartphone to us users with good battery life. In fact, many smartphone manufacturers are fitting batteries crowding around the 3000mAh mark in their smartphones. But somehow, I feel that battery and power efficiency are still a step behind the rest in development.
Some may question, how about fast charging and wireless charging technology? Yes, wireless charging, coupled with fast charging will get your smartphone juiced up in a jiffy. With the help of compatible chips, some smartphones will be up and running in less than an hour. Not forgetting the ease of just placing your smartphone on a surface for wireless charging without having to plug in cables and risk having anger management (cable management) issues again and again.
These technologies, they really do help in making up for the compromise of battery efficiency on smartphones. But my point is, is there a way to carry your device around, let’s say two days, without having to worry about your battery running out, being able to use your device to its fullest potential. All of these, of course, without charging them mid day and without the help of power banks.
Some may still say, “Definitely! There are many tips on how to save your smartphone’s battery!” Now that is why I mentioned “fullest potential”. There are tonnes of tips out there – reducing your screen brightness, turning off WiFi/mobile data/location services when not in use, stopping some apps from running in the background, and many more. Spare me those tips, I want to be able to use my smartphone in a carefree manner. I want to treat it like a device and not like a life partner, although no smartphone means no life for me. Am I asking for too much? Maybe I am, but do hear me out.
Sometimes I reminisce on the days of using my Nokia 3310 to my Sony Ericsson W910 (millennials barely know about these). I was and still is quite a heavy user but I didn’t have to worry about battery life as much as I have today. Correct me if I’m wrong, but phone manufacturers back then didn’t have to market about the capacity of their phone batteries. And I shall say it before you utter a word – “But those phones have much less features!” Indeed they do. But I’m pretty sure whatever technology development they were working on, they kept the battery development on par alongside the rest. Camera phones were introduced back then, but power banks weren’t. New features and technologies were slowly added into phones, but battery life wasn’t a major worry for both manufacturers and users. I’m betting on the fact that it will be possible again one day.
Will smartphones ever achieve battery life which can never be questioned again? For now, I shall sit here and await the day of beckoning. A day when battery life will become the least of our worries and till then I’ll be carrying my 16,000mAh paperweight of a power bank around with me, with charging cables and adapters in my bag. Fingers crossed, that day will come.
By the way, this is just an opinion. A rant, if that’s what you want to call it. Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below!
