In recent years, the performance and functions of mobile phones have become stronger and stronger, but only the battery capacity has been standing at 3000mAh. Mobile phone manufacturers can only use auxiliary technologies such as fast charging and wireless charging to make up for the short board of mobile phone endurance.
However, as the maturity of the mobile phone market has improved, many manufacturers have begun to make efforts in the mobile phone endurance. The newly launched Samsung Galaxy A9 (2016) high configuration version even has a 5000mAh battery, which is 67% larger than the conventional model. But you may be very curious about the difference between the use experience of large screen and large battery mobile phones and that of conventional mobile phones?
Test object
We found Samsung Galaxy A9 (2016) with a 6-inch screen, Moto X Pro with a 5.96-inch screen and Xiaomi Note with a 5.7-inch screen and other large screen phones for comparative testing. We will conduct a comparative test on the most commonly used functions such as daily surfing, watching videos, playing large games, and try to tear the secret of where the battery is going.
Who ate the electricity?
The four major projects that have the greatest impact on mobile phone life are "screen size/resolution, processor, battery capacity and system optimization":
More than half of the battery of modern smart phones is consumed by the screen, and the screen size is directly related to the screen power, while the resolution will affect the efficiency of screen display. Generally speaking, the larger the screen is, the higher the resolution is, the worse the endurance will be. This is also the main reason why flagship computers kneel down after the first generation 2K screen came out that year;
SoC， Generally speaking, it is the processor. It and the RF chip are the main reasons for power consumption during standby. In fields requiring absolute performance such as large games and decompressed files, the power consumption of processors will remain high and exceed the screen;
The expansion of battery capacity and lithium battery field has almost stopped decades ago, and our battery density has not greatly improved over the years. The size and weight of mobile phones are basically limited to 3000mAh;
System optimization. Good system optimization can reduce the operating pressure of the processor and make the processor wake up less when it is in standby, thus having a greater impact on the endurance.
How can we simulate the power consumption in daily use?
Many foreign media often use video playback, or even run score software or conduct endurance tests, but such tests differ greatly from users' daily use. Users can't buy a mobile phone and just watch videos. These data are of little reference value. After all, the power consumption of video, games, Internet access, and even 4G Internet access and wifi Internet access are different.
So our endurance test includes 5 items, including games, WiFi Internet, 4G Internet, music and video. The whole process takes 3 hours. Before the test, we will uniformly adjust the screen brightness to 50% brightness, and adjust the volume to 70-80dB, about 3/4 of the volume:
We choose NBA 2K15 as the test game to simulate the power consumption of most users' actual games. The game has high requirements for hardware performance, and the main power consuming component is the processor. Of course, if it is a lightweight game such as parkour or cards, the power consumption of this project will be relatively low;
The half-hour WiFi online test simulates the most common use scenarios in our daily use. We will conduct a 10 minute microblog 10 minute web browsing 10 minute Baidu Post Bar hybrid test. The main power consumption of this project comes from the screen and the processor; For a machine with a large screen, the power failure of this part will be more serious than that of a machine with a small screen;
The half hour 4G online test simulates the power consumption of regular outgoing. In addition to the screen and processor, the power consumption of the 4G communication module cannot be ignored. For some devices with relatively backward communication baseband chips, the power consumption of 4G Internet access will be much higher than that of wifi Internet access;
One hour music playing test. With the development of smart phones, mobile phones have replaced MP3 players and other walkmans. It is a very important use for many users to listen to music during their commute. In this project, processors are basically under low power load, and some of the original power consumption is high, or processors without small cores will consume too much power
Half an hour of hard video playback is a very important link in daily use. This project has very low requirements for processor performance, and the screen will be the largest power consumption project. For large screen machines, this link will have a higher proportion of power consumption.
The secret of the battery
After 3 hours of testing, Moto X Pro has the lowest remaining power, with only 59% remaining; The second is Xiaomi Note, with the remaining power of 62%; The Huawei Mate8 launched at the end of 2015 is relatively good, at 71%, but it has been blasted into a mess before the Samsung Galaxy A9 (2016) high configuration version, and the remaining power after its 3-hour endurance test is as high as 88%.
Displaying the endurance results in the form of power consumption curve, we can see that the power down speed and ratio of each machine in different projects are obviously different, and we can find many "secrets" related to endurance:
Although the battery capacity is 3000mAh, the power down speed of Moto X Pro is different from that of Xiaomi Note. The main reason is that Moto X Pro is equipped with a 2K resolution screen and the Snapdragon 805 with higher frequency but unchanged architecture and process. But in fact, because the Snapdragon 805 has a more serious frequency reduction, there is not much difference in the daily use performance of the two machines. From the perspective of the balance of users' daily use, this is a configuration improvement that does not pay off.
Xiaomi Note and Mate8 have the same power down speed, but the power down of other items of the former is more obvious. However, considering that Huawei Mate8 is equipped with 4000mAh batteries, the power down of Mate8's games is on the high side. This is not good news for users who like to play games. Both machines have 1080P IPS screens. Even if the screen size difference of 0.3-inch is included, the power consumption gap is too exaggerated. Although the Kirin 950 on Mate8 has significantly improved its performance, its power consumption is much higher than that of Snapdragon 801.
However, the high configuration version of Samsung Galaxy A9 (2016) has a poor endurance performance, so the power consumption difference of each project is not obvious. Even video and wifi online and other power consuming projects still maintain a power consumption of 2%. To fully measure the most power consuming part of these "endurance monsters", the duration of endurance test will at least double.
Although the battery capacity is only 1000mAh lower, the endurance performance of Samsung Galaxy A9 (2016) high configuration version is much better than that of Huawei Mate8 with the same screen size. Of course, in fact, Mate8's endurance is also very good, but this time the opponent is too exaggerated. The main reason should be the high configuration AMOLED screen of Galaxy A9 (2016) and the lower power consumption of Snapdragon 652. For a processor whose actual performance is close to that of Snapdragon 810, such power consumption control is quite impressive.
In addition, the test again confirmed the hard truth that "battery is needed for endurance", but even if the battery capacity increases, processor power consumption, screen components and system optimization will have a significant impact, and this impact is more obvious than the original.
summary
Mobile phones are subject to physical limitations such as body size and battery capacity. The battery life and performance, screen size, mobile phone weight and size are inherent contradictions. The processor with high performance consumes more power, and the large screen will consume more power if used more comfortably. To solve these two problems, the most direct solution is to increase the battery capacity, which will affect the weight of the body. That is why everyone's batteries stay at 3000mAh.
Among the medium and high-end flagship, the battery capacity can be stacked to 5000mAh like the Galaxy A9 (2016) high configuration version without significant impact on the feel, appearance and weight, and the processor power control is also comparable to the low-power core mobile phone, which is the only one for the time being, and no competitor can break this record for a period of time. This is a mobile phone that can last nearly 3 days even if it is used at a moderate intensity. In the era of smart machines, such performance has completely refreshed everyone's inherent cognition.
