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Friday, March 25, 2011

Thunderbolt Smartphone Battery Life

Last week I switched out my old phone for the HTC Thunderbolt. I had planned on waiting for the Bionic but quite frankly I was tired of waiting and I'm fairly convinced some other model would be even more compelling (with more waiting).

And the only trepidation I had about the purchase were the pernicious rumors that the battery would be problematic. And by problematic I mean to say that the battery would quickly exhaust itself.

So one of the first things I did was fully charge the battery before using the phone. And after a few days of use, I conducted an experiment to see how long it would take to exhaust the battery under normal conditions for me (phone calls, occasional surfing, and poking around on the internet).

I took the phone off the charger at about 7 a.m. on Wednesday and left it on continuously - using it as I normally would. On Thursday evening, after about 40 hours of use the phone displayed the message that it needed recharging because the battery was 15% or below charge capacity.

At the office this raised a few questions. First it was observed that the phone was using 3G, not 4G. And speculation mounted that maybe the 4G components would drain the battery faster and less efficiently. This remains an open question.

The phone in 3G operational mode is extremely fast and impressive.

Update: I took my phone to New York City for a weekend recently and the battery under a heavier urban load lasted from morning till late evening before needing recharging and after a short night's charge only lasted til mid-afternoon the next day before needing recharging.

Once home and with a full charging cycle the phone is once again lasting lasting well into a second day.

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