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Standby.

I'd get a week (at a push?) out of my phone at university in the late 90s/early 00s. I don't think 3-5 days was at all unreasonable back then - for me that would be multiple text messages, a few games of snake, and a handful of calls a day. I get a day (at very best) out of my phone now if I don't touch it at all.




I charge my iPhone 11 Pro every other day now because not leaving the house means that I'm using it way less now. I think I got about 3 days of standby when I really pushed not charging it.

I don't think getting 3 days standby out of a current smartphone would be that impossible. It's just that no one uses their smartphone so that it just sits there, not doing anything.


Indeed. Samsung phones (I have the S7) have an "Ultra power saving mode" which enables a bunch of power saving features including throttling, reducing display resolution / brightness. But the thing that makes the biggest difference is disabling background data.

I once got 4 days of usage at a festival in this mode. And I was using it to keep in touch with people and as a camera (I probably took ~150 photos). The trick was to use it as little as possible, and keep in airplane mode unless I was specifically expecting a message (I would periodically take it out of airplane mode to check for messages).


Staying home has seen my phone usage drop to 1/3 of the normal, my XS Max has been lasting around 3 to 3.5 days on a single charge. My usage report shows about 2.5 hours/day of screen time, makes sense as I'm using my phone only in the mornings and late evenings.

Pretty good battery life when on low usage, I feel like trying turning on low battery mode from full charge and see how long it would last.


My work iPhone 11 Pro I use as a glorified RSA token, monitoring Slack when needed, and use it to browse Instagram for about 30 mins a day. At the moment I'm getting basically a working week out of it (essentially standby).

Am guessing that will get worse over time, but am thoroughly impressed with where it is for battery life right now.


That's odd, my 6S can last a couple days at least on standby if I don't touch it (something I recently discovered in being stuck at home surrounded by PCs and iPads, not needing my iPhone much).

And my unit is a total lemon, turns off randomly and I get max 2 hours actual use out of it (although the replacement battery health says 85%).


You’ve gotten 3-5 days on iPhones for years - if you only use it for calls. I have forgotten to plug my work iPhone 8 in over the weekends and it’ll be at least 80% on Monday.


Maximum power saving mode on a modern Samsung will last a week and still have more features than those old phones.




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