As we approach 2011, the talk and anticipation of more advanced devices seems to grow. It's not visions of sugar-plums dancing in anyone's head this holiday season, it's visions of phones sporting dual-core processors rated at 1.5 GHz and beyond, NFC chips as a way of making that down payment on your next car, or a tablet that can fix and bring you and your spouse breakfast in bed.
There's no doubt in my mind that we will see some impressive tech in 2011. A lot of it we will get to see showcased at CES in January, but that's mainly just to tease us and grow some hype before the sweet devices' far, far away launch dates hit. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited and I can't wait, but it just seems like every manufacturer, save for two, is overlooking the most important technology, the technology that keeps us mobile. Battery life.
It's no secret that Android is lacking in a few departments. The first that comes to mind is the sub-par battery life on a broad scale. There are some devices that definitely give BlackBerry and Apple a run for their money, but both Android and Windows Phone 7 have a long way to go before I will be completely satisfied. Sure, you can get your device to last 24 hours by tweaking settings, modding your phone, changing this, changing that, and working hard to make it work. The point is, out-of-box my BlackBerry can last me up to two days with moderate use. The experience is not quite as pleasing when it comes to web browsing and the processor isn't blazing fast, but it works throughout the day, without stopping to refill at midday.
What good is a dual-core processor being implemented when phones can barely sustain the components they currently have? Being a long-time BlackBerry user, I grew accustomed to exceptional battery life. My standards have changed over the past year, but I'm beginning to see why RIM may be so slow to adapt (not that I agree with their non-movement). If phones can barely last people through a single day as is, what will life be like with phones running at 1.5 GHz, and is this even necessary? Will the norm be to carry two spare batteries in your pocket? One for lunch time and one for when you're leaving the office to head home? I'm all for some super fast phones, but to be honest, I don't want a phone that can't make it through a day while just sitting in my pocket.
A good friend of mine, you may know him, Carlos Graves and I were talking about this earlier today. There should be a standard that a phone should make it through a day's work, whether it be for tweeting all day and constantly checking your Facebook, sitting in your pocket, checking blogs every so often, or just texting like a fiend. A phone should be able to handle all of this in a days time, not just one aspect of it, which they struggle to do at the moment.
Manufacturers have spent the last year cramming every bit of advanced technology they possibly can into tiny packages; large, advanced displays, extremely fast processors, surprisingly high-quality cameras, faster network connectivity – you get the point. With all of these really cool features being added, something had to give, and it did. The battery life of phones is currently terrible and to be frank, unacceptable. I would rather see them focus on battery for the time being, and making sure phones can withstand the beating that a dual core processor will inevitably bring, before we have to carry car batteries and jumper cables just to check our email on the go.
Image via VentureBeat
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