Nokia: Smartphone batteries need 'breakthrough'

Henry Tirri

(Credit: Nokia)

HELSINKI--It will take years and a technology "breakthrough on multiple fronts" before the battery lives of smartphones will reach "good" levels, according to the head of Nokia's research center, Henry Tirri.

By "good," Tirri meant phones that can last on a weekly power charge, which will support battery utilization closer to what basic phone models require today, he said at a media interview here Tuesday.

Lamenting the current state of smartphone battery life, he noted that most high-performance models with large screens do not last more than eight hours of constant usage on a single charge....

Read more of "Smartphone batteries need 'breakthrough'" at ZDNet Asia.

[doubtthat]

Now this is depressing. My Blackberry Storm will not go two full days without charging and many times barely go one day.

[aubskibob]

The answer is methanol fuel cells.

[tech_crazy]

And those are going to last a week without "charging" !

[bsharkey]

yeah, you can hook up an adapter and fart into your phone when the charge is getting low. sheesh.

smartphone designers need to be "smart" about power consumption, but slightly better batteries are also needed. 1-2 days under normal use seems acceptable, for now.

[codynews]

yeah, there is NO WAY my iphone will run a full day on a charge with heavy use. If I'm just using it as a "phone" I'm sure it would last for days. But who wants that? :)

[bsharkey]

it sounds like Nokia is complaining because they can't make a good smartphone. coincidence? not so sure.

[Henaway]

I don't know, I have a Nokia E63 smartphone, and I routinely get 5 to 6 days between charges, unless I'm watching a DivX movie from microSD, or using it in place of my mp3 player, and using wifi a lot. Then it's more like 3 days. Still, I couldn't let my old cordless landline phone go that long without a charge, and it didn't do NEAR as much as my cell!

I hear that Blackberrys regularly go less than 2 days on a charge though. I feel for those folks.

[bonesbautista]

Ditto that, as a present Storm and iPhone 3G owner, and former E62 and 6270 owner the battery life of the few S60/S40 devices absofrickinlutely blow away RIM/Palm/Apple devices. As a road warrior and user of an ATTWS data card I'm seriously looking into picking up an E72 or E71 for tethering to and email notifications - I know that the E devices will outlast my smartphones by at least 2-3 days and I won't feel tethered (no pun) to a battery charger.

Nokia's griping about needing a battery breakthrough? Yikes! That company's the last cell phone maker that should be worried!

[Turgeson]

Would it be too hard to put a small solar panel on the phone? If you have it stuck to your ear, you might as well be able to charge it a little. End all solution no, but every little bit will help.

[jahf]

8 hours of constant usage would be nice. Seems my iPhone 3G (not S) is lucky to get 3-4 hours of true constant use. 8 hours of "constant" use would mean maybe getting a couple of hours of browsing in per day and not needing to charge until the next day. As it is if I don't put the thing on a charger the same day then I absolutely have to shut 3G off to last until night.

[codynews]

Yeah, I'm an iphone super fan but I'll never try to kid anyone that the battery life sucks. I don't blame the batter, but the fact I'm doing stuff on my iphone that I wouldn't on any other. I use it like a laptop so I shouldn't be surprised to get laptop type batter life.

[groveborn]

Or they can start including a solar panel on the back... it's not like it would really hurt anything. It doesn't have to get MUCH power, just some.

[billd888]

Even though I have a desktop cradle to sync and charge my HTC Touch Pro, if I have more than 1 or 2 calls on it the battery won't last until the next morning. Last Sunday morning it was displaying a message about the battery charge being extremely low. I dropped it in the charger and it took the longest amount of time ever to get completely charged, more than 4 and 1/2 hours. I used to get extended life batteries for previous phones, but have yet to find one for this.