12-01-2020, 07:28 PM
I really want a pinephone, to use as a daily driver. I don't have extensive needs: right now, they're perfectly met by a 2008 era Nokia phone. The pinephone would then be an upgrade intended to let me perform basic online tasks, such as check email, basic browsing, and similar. It does not bother me if the camera quality is terrible, it does not bother me if the UI isn't fancy (I've already seen Sxmo and it looks right up my alley), and so on. In short, I don't have high standards for what's working, as long as it can serve at least as a dumbphone replacement.
However, I have one big concern, and that is battery life, which leads me to asking these two questions. Firstly, what has been people's experience with battery life on current OS images? Can it go a full day idle? 24hr? I've looked around briefly and found anecdotal evidence ranging from 3hr idle to 20+hr, but it's not always clear whether it's a recent image or whether the user is experiencing an issue etc.
Secondly: could someone with knowledge of the development status give a summary, what is the potential for future battery life improvements on the software side? From skimming the blog posts, it sounds like some significant achievements have been made in power state control, leading to potentially close to 24hr idle. But is that the current ceiling? I've also heard claims (with no supporting evidence) that there's no "proper suspend yet" and that implementing a true deep sleep state would significantly extend battery life; how true is that?
In short, let's say in 1-2 years, could we have maybe 3-4 days idle battery life? Or is that completely out of the window?
I'd be very grateful with any insight into these issues. This really would be the dealbreaker for me; as fantastic and enticing as the project seems, if it can barely last a day and has little prospect of improving that then I'd have to pass. On the other hand, if there's any potential for over a day of charge, I'd happily overlook many, many other rough edges.
However, I have one big concern, and that is battery life, which leads me to asking these two questions. Firstly, what has been people's experience with battery life on current OS images? Can it go a full day idle? 24hr? I've looked around briefly and found anecdotal evidence ranging from 3hr idle to 20+hr, but it's not always clear whether it's a recent image or whether the user is experiencing an issue etc.
Secondly: could someone with knowledge of the development status give a summary, what is the potential for future battery life improvements on the software side? From skimming the blog posts, it sounds like some significant achievements have been made in power state control, leading to potentially close to 24hr idle. But is that the current ceiling? I've also heard claims (with no supporting evidence) that there's no "proper suspend yet" and that implementing a true deep sleep state would significantly extend battery life; how true is that?
In short, let's say in 1-2 years, could we have maybe 3-4 days idle battery life? Or is that completely out of the window?
I'd be very grateful with any insight into these issues. This really would be the dealbreaker for me; as fantastic and enticing as the project seems, if it can barely last a day and has little prospect of improving that then I'd have to pass. On the other hand, if there's any potential for over a day of charge, I'd happily overlook many, many other rough edges.
