Hello,
Really dumb question. I'm not super up to speed yet on the whole Pinephone stuff so forgive me.
Got the Pinephone Pro and I realize it is still in the works. Most know the battery life is an issue right now, no complaining here, just curious.
So will it be possible to get iPhone like battery life one day out of it?
I have a iPhone SE2 now. How in the world do they get that much battery life out it?
Is it a bigger battery? Is it sophisticated power management software? Both?
If Apple can do it Linux can do it right?
Or is there some hardware limitation that the Pinephone Pro that it will not be able to sip and and conserve its battery like an iPhone?
thanks!
Apple do it with sophisticated power management software AND HARDWARE. They're designing their own highly integrated silicon to work with their software to achieve very good power efficiency.
Android shows similar levels of efficiency are possible with linux - for certain definitions of linux. On the hardware side the necessary drivers are often closed (arguably in violation of the GPL) and tied to specific kernel versions. Power efficiency is an area of competitive advantage so manufacturers like to keep it secret. If you want open code it may rule out the most efficient hardware, assuming it would even be available to a small manufacturer like Pine64. Google have been upstreaming a lot of the kernel changes they made that impact power efficiency either directly or indirectly, but aspects like the application lifecycle management aren't generally used by linux distros. That may be a good thing given the complaints about Android phones killing apps that people want to remain running in the background.
Short version - there are improvements to be made in the software, and only in making them are we likely to find out whether there are gotchas in the hardware, but neither the PinePhone nor the Pro will ever be at iPhone levels with the current hardware.
I recall even Linux laptops having battery life issues for some time. I don't know what the current state of that is, since I don't really use laptops, but that doesn't seem to be much of a priority in the larger Linux ecosystem. However, there is a distinct advantage of PinePhones compared to most mainstream phones: you can purchase more than one battery and quickly swap between them. Carrying extra batteries might not be as elegant as intelligent software management, but for about $15 I was able to get a 3,600 mAh battery to offset short battery life and ensure that, even if one gets completely drained, I can still boot the phone.
I agree with DerpABerp, the interchangable batteries from Pine64, their low cost, and the availability of an external battery charger provide a good workaround for the problem of limited battery life. You could also carry a 3rd party battery bank that connects via USB-C.
