Smartphone battery life

[Woodturner]

Cell phones had been available for years before I finally got one. I have yet to use the one I have for ANYTHING but voice communication. Now, as the time draws nearer to take off on my first hike of more than a week in over 35 years, I am thinking of a smartphone for online journal and Facebook entries. Normal use will be an hour or so a day to compose and send the entries. I was thinking that the phone would be off 95% of the time, turned on only when needed for entering and/or sending text. And a rare phone call. Then I thought of the need for it to take occasional pictures (most will be taken with an actual camera) for the journal and Facebook.

It's one thing to read about battery life in a device's specs, but (for me anyway) it's hard to equate that to real life usage. Used as a phone, my military grade Casio stays on all the time and goes four or five days before showing a need to be recharged. However, on average, it is in actual use less than five minutes a day. Will turning a smartphone on and off several times a day drain the battery about as much as just leaving it on? On average, about how many days can I expect between charges? And, something that I never had to consider on past hikes, how often can I expect to find an outlet to plug into? While I will be hitting towns every three or four days for resupply, I hope to spend most nights on the trail and use hostels or motels less than once every two weeks.

Understand that all I want it for is written and voice communication. It is useful technology that will allow me to easily share the walk with friends at home. I don't pay much attention to weather reports at home, and all the GPS I plan on needing will be good old paper maps and a compass.

[The Cleaner]

Always keep it in "airplane" mode until needing to use it for calls or web.I can carry my Iphone 6 for 3-5 days in airplane mode with some use everyday. You'd also need to pack one of the many battery chargers in case you use more power before a town stop.My Iphone is pretty new to (6).

[Woodturner]

You need to understand that you are addressing a tech-ignorant dinosaur.
By battery charger, do you mean a device that also needs to be charged to charge the phone - like a KC-135 fueling a B-52, or a solar charger? The trouble with online research is that all too often vendors already assume you know things and don't bother to explain them fully. It's my thinking that a charger is what I just described. Also, reading a few other threads after posting this one, it looks like an extra battery or two might be a good idea. This whole thing is as foreign to me as the first computer I ever bought.

[colorado_rob]

You need to understand that you are addressing a tech-ignorant dinosaur.
By battery charger, do you mean a device that also needs to be charged to charge the phone - like a KC-135 fueling a B-52, or a solar charger? The trouble with online research is that all too often vendors already assume you know things and don't bother to explain them fully. It's my thinking that a charger is what I just described. Also, reading a few other threads after posting this one, it looks like an extra battery or two might be a good idea. This whole thing is as foreign to me as the first computer I ever bought.Yep, the KC135 thing is correct. Solar chargers don't work well on the AT (I assume you're talking AT, right?)

I suggest an Anker brand 6700 mAh battery like this:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EF1OGOG?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=ox_sc_act_title_3&smid=A294P4X9EWVXLJ

You charge it up before hand, just like your phone, then plug your phone into it on the trail. Recharge both in towns.

Or get the 10,000 mAh version. (mAh = milliamp hour, typical phone batteries have about 2000-2500 mAh energy capacity, meaning a 6700 mAh Anker should be able to recharge your phone 2+ times, and the 10,000 mAh one maybe 4 times (there are inefficiencies, hence not 5 times). More mAh, more weight, my 10,000 is about 9 ounces, the 6700, about 5. I think the smaller one is enough for myself, keeping my phone on airplane mode most of the time.

[Slo-go'en]

Anytime you have the "radio" functions of the phone turned on it will draw extra power which can drain the battery quickly. These are the phone mode, the Wi-Fi mode, GPS (location apps) and the Bluetooth mode.

Wi-Fi and Bluetooth modes have to be manually turned on, but once your finished using it you must remember to turn it back off. GPS can be turned on by apps, so you have to keep that in mind.

"Airplane Mode" turns off the phone function. It will no longer send or receive calls but most importantly, it will stop trying to pinging cell towers it may not be able to hear. That really eats up the battery.

Then at night do a full power down. Usually holding closed the power button of 2-3 seconds will bring up the shut down mode option. Tap YES.

With power management like that you can keep the phone alive between opportunities to recharge the battery with an AC line powered charger. Portable battery charger packs are also often carried by those who use their phones a lot and may need a charge between towns.

On my last hike, I carried a cheap smartphone and was able post a daily picture and never ran out of juice out in the woods.

[Turk6177]

For one week, if you keep your phone off unless you are using it, and keep it in airplane mode until you are ready to post something, you will almost make it without charging it. In addition to keeping it in airplane mode, if you can reduce the brightness, you save a ton of battery. The best way to recharge your phone battery while hiking is to carry an "external" battery that you plug the same cable into that you plug into your wall outlet charger at home (USB cable). I have seen more and more of these for sale, even at Costco now. You will need to charge this external battery prior to hiking as well. The more milliamp hours the battery has, the more charges you can get for your phone. The one I use is called an Anker. It is lightweight and will recharge your phone anywhere from 1.3 times (Iphone 6s+ and up--smaller phone more charges). https://www.anker.com/products/A1303013. I think you would find this easy to use and light enough for backpacking. I use mine all the time.

[Leo L.]

I was a "Tech Dino" myself about 1.5 years ago when I bought my first smartphone, and had to learn everything from scratch.
The other posters put everything right, keep the phone in airplane mode, make sure Wifi and Bluetooth is off unless really needed.
I would not recommend to power down the smartphone during the night, the reboot in the morning typically consumes more battery than the standby overnight would.

I had surprisingly high power consumption while texting, didn't find a notepad/texting app that strictly works offline, I think the battery drain is due to the bright screen, and due to the app constantly searching for Internet connection (this is just a guess from my side, maybe sombody has better insight?)
I managed to copy all my digicam shots into the phone as a backup, but there was a huge battery drain when doing slideshows in the evening - but still it was too much fun to look at all the shots every now and then.

I highly recommend to get your smartphone as soon as possible and do as much research and test runs for yourself as possible.
Once you get used to the smartphone you will not like to miss it, and at times you will get eager to do more stuff on it, like digital maps, GPS, book readings, and so on.
And get a wall charger with double USB outlet and bring two short and thick USB cables, to be able to charge the phone and the batterypack simultanousely. The wallsockets closest to the trail might be besieged by crowds of energy-hungry hikers.

[gpburdelljr]

Since you already have the phone why don't you just test it for 4 or 5 days, using it like you would use it on the trail, and see how long it lasts.

[Christoph]

I'm with colorado rob and the 6700ma external battery. I bought a 10000ma Ankor brand battery and it was overkill. I did manage to charge a few other peoples phones to help out, so it was worth it in that case. I sat in a McD's, restaurants, and even some old time store let me grab a charge while I did laundry and other stuff there. You can grab a charge pretty much anywhere. I even left my phone at a dollar general (behind the counter, plugged in) while I shopped and resupplied. Everyone along the way knows what you're doing and 99.99% of them will let you plug in somewhere.

[cjlusmc]

One thing I noticed people didn't mention was screen brightness. Your phone screen is one of the largest power drains on a smartphone. Keep that screen brightness down if you'll be doing anything but making calls on it.

Other than that, Samsung phones have an "ultra power saving mode" which turns everything greyscale, restricts wifi and bluetooth, and also stops apps from draining running in the background. Might be worth checking if your phone has something like this also

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk

[AllenIsbell]

Some phones have replaceable batteries. If your phone does, check amazon to see if they have upgraded batteries. I bought an 8,600mah battery for my Note 4 for $45 shipped. I was able to take an hour and a half worth of HD (1080p @ 60fps) and UHD (4k) video over a 3 day hiking trip (Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon), and still had ~40% of the battery remaining at the end of the hike. I left the phone on all day, every day--Only shutting it off at night. I even played some games before bed while on the hike. I wanted to see just how far the battery would go, so I used the phone normally every day, and didn't charge it until it hit 5%, which was the following Wednesday.

I think Samsung really screwed up when they made the Note 5 use a permanent battery and took away the SD slot... I digress...

If your phone does not have a removable battery, you can get a phone case that has a built in battery. They work the same, but not quite as well IMO.

[bigcranky]

The issue on the trail is that your phone will search for nonexistent service at full power until the battery dies. You get 4-5 days at home where you always ha scroll service. This will not happen on the trail -- it'll die in less than a day.

The solution is either Off or Airplane Mode. AP turns off the cellular radio so it doesn't keep searching. I get more than a week from an iPhone in airplane mode.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Woodturner]

Yesterday I got an IPhone. So far so good. The initial trial, a short walk on a trail near Brookville lake drained the battery quite a bit, but that was because I forgot about (and how to) closing apps and had several open. Cell service on the hills around the lake is often iffy. Anyway, as I get used to the new toy things should improve. I have yet to try posting anything with it.

[Leo L.]

Congrats!
The battery drain on a walk over hills where the reception is poor makes sense: The poorer the reception, the higher the send/receive power, the faster the battery drains.
You may do the same walk with the phone set to flightmode, and will most likely see almost no battery drain.

[Woodturner]

YEE HAW !!!!!
I just installed Word and discovered a feature that should make trail journals faster and easier.
Dictation.
Sure, I have to speak slowly - but it's still faster than I can type. Especially on a tiny keyboard with thumbs and fingers the diameter of a 55 gallon drum. Further testing will be needed, but unless there is critical battery drain most of my journal entries will be dictated instead of typed. Hopefully, the keyboard will only be needed for proofing.
In my working life, once in a while I would buy a tool and wonder how I ever got anything done without it. I think I just bought another one.

[4Bears]

You will find that there are many apps already installed that you don't need/want and by either disabling them or uninstalling them you 1) create more available space in your phone and 2) likely save battery power. Make sure you run the battery on the phone way , way down the first 3 or 4 times you charge it to train the battery and the phone program that controls the charging. Cold weather will drain a battery/reduce efficiency so keeping close to your body at those times will extend the battery life.

[Woodturner]

Make sure you run the battery on the phone way , way down the first 3 or 4 times you charge it to train the battery and the phone program that controls the charging.

Thanks for that little bit of information. It never would have occurred to me. The tech-ignorant thing again. Since all my previous phones simply showed bars instead of actual percent I charged them when it got to just over half. This one was at about 60% when I got it home. I had it up to 80 something before the walk and it was down to, I think, 57 when I got back to the car and I charged it to 100% when I got home. I will start letting it get a lot lower between charges.

[BrianLe]

I think it matters a lot just how, as well as how often, you use your phone. Things that involve the screen being on, especially if it's need to be at max brightness (say, for example, you're using it a lot as a GPS) will suck down your battery a lot faster. And recognize that as you get more comfortable with your phone, you might find yourself using it more often and/or for more things. Thus it's really (really) hard for anyone else to tell you how long your battery will last. I suggest that after learning as much as you can about minimizing battery drain that you set about for a defined period trying to use the phone in similar fashion --- ideally on an actual backpacking trip, as geburdelljr suggested.

Note also that at least some phones have a feature where you can see just what things are using what percentages of battery use since last reboot. Or at least I think that's a common thing with Android phones. So if you can find that, check that out after you've run in "typical" fashion for a while.

If you're not a heavy user, you might find that you don't need one of those external battery units, or perhaps bounce it to give yourself the option. A friend I hiked with used an iPhone and he listened to a lot of podcasts along the way, but got by fine without an external battery and on a trail that doesn't have as frequent resupply (the CDT). But you can listen to a podcast with the screen off, so the battery drain isn't high.

Best of luck in figuring all of this out. For my part, I'm in strong agreement Allenisbell about the replaceable battery --- and that Samsung screwed up with that. If I were buying today, I'd take a hard look at the LG G5. Or just get a Samsung Galaxy S5 (pretty waterproof and removable battery, but not cutting edge anymore).