There has been a lot of discussion lately over signal reception and proximity sensor related issues on the new iPhone. However, to be fair, we must also note that iPhone 4 comes with lots of improvements over its predecessor.
One of the significant improvement in the Apple's new iPhone is its battery. Apple has claimed that the new iPhone would offer close to 40% longer battery life compared to iPhone 3GS.
Folks at MacWorld have conducted a study that puts this claim to test. For the analysis, James Galbraith from MacWorld studied the battery life of an iPhone 4 and compared it with the battery life on a newly purchased iPhone 3GS unit and another unit that is a year old. Explaining the test routine, Galbraith writes:
"[W]e set the screens to full brightness and rented a standard definition video (Shaft’s Big Score) from the iTunes Store’s 99-cent library, which took about 45 minutes for the phones to download over the office Wi-Fi network. We then played the 1 hour and 43 minute movie in widescreen mode.
Next, I downloaded the free Pandora application from the App Store over 3G and then surfed the Web while Pandora streamed music in the background."
MacWorld has observed that the iPhone 4 battery lasted nearly 31% longer than the newly purchased iPhone 3GS. Also, the iPhone 4 has been observed to last nearly 40% longer than a year-old iPhone 3GS model.
The study also points out that apps like FaceTime and iMovie that are exclusive to iPhone 4 could potentially consume more battery. Galbraith writes that a parallel test was conducted where these two apps were alternately run on the new iPhone. The battery life in this case was noted to drain nearly 50% faster. This probably explains why Apple has not offered iMovie on the older iPhone 3GS model.
What are your observations regarding the iPhone 4 battery life? Does it last longer than your older iPhone? And is that good enough for you? Let us know in the comments.
[via MacWorld]
