Smartphone battery consumption made simple

[Bob Russell]

Everyone seems to have their own ideas about what drains the battery power in their smartphone. We've previously seen an application that helps you figure out what drains the battery. And we've seen a very technical explanation of it all.

Now, MikeCal at the Windows Mobile Team Blog, gives us the scoop in simple language that anyone can understand. "There's been a fair amount of interest in an offhand comment I made recently about saving a lot of standby time by making an LED blink less frequently. So let's spend some time talking about what burns power on your Smartphone. Hopefully this will give you an understanding of where that battery power went and maybe help you figure out how to squeeze a little more life out of your devices."

His information is aimed at Smartphones as opposed to Pocket PCs, but I'm sure the principals are fairly universal. You'll have to read the article to get a good idea of how it all works, but not surprisingly the main culprits are:

• Backlight
• CPU
• Cell Radio
• Bluetooth
• Vibration
• LEDs

And the LEDs? Well, let's dive into a little detail because it turns out that they do make a difference. In his example, if an LED was always on, it would cut the standby battery life in half (the LED alone would take about the same 5mA as the entire rest of the phone when in standby). So with typical blinking patterns, it takes about 10% of that, and that means we lose about 9% of the standby battery life. All for something that most people never look at anyway!

[Dick Tracy]

Thanks for the info and the link Bob. The second comment clarifies why my TX does not have an LED (not that I feel it's a missing feature): It would significantly cut my battery life by continuously powering that extra light when I'm WiFi connected.