iPhone 5 vs Nexus 4 battery tests: LTE phone fares better than non-LTE handset

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The Nexus 4 is going to soon be launched at which point we’ll have a plethora of comparisons out between Google’s latest flagship handset and its main competitors, whether they run Andorid, iOS or Windows Phone 8.
Meanwhile, AnandTech has already performed a variety of benchmark tests on the Nexus 4 – but also on the Nexus 10 – and today we’re going to focus on battery life. According to the publication, the Nexus 4 isn’t apparently ready to offer great battery life, despite being an LTE-less handset. That’s certainly interesting considering that Google cited battery efficiency among the main reasons for not including 4G LTE support in its latest Nexus, while downplaying the fact that its relationship with carriers is actually the one to blame for this decision.

Getting back to battery life, AnandTech performed a more complex series of tests that mimic every day smartphone usage in order to come out with results closer to actual battery usage:

We regularly load web pages at a fixed interval until the battery dies (all displays are calibrated to 200 nits as always). The differences between this test and our previous one boil down to the amount of network activity and CPU load.

Other factors, such as “aggressive browser caching,” baseband idle state and CPU workload were also taken into consideration when performing the test:

We also increased CPU workload along two vectors: we decreased pause time between web page loads and we shifted to full desktop web pages, some of which are very js heavy. The end result is a CPU usage profile that mimics constant, heavy usage beyond just web browsing. Everything you do on your smartphone ends up causing CPU usage peaks – opening applications, navigating around the OS and of course using apps themselves. Our 5th generation web browsing battery life test should map well to more types of smartphone usage, not just idle content consumption of data from web pages.

The battery tests were done on “multiple air interfaces” using 3G, 4G LTE and Wi-Fi, and all Android tests were performed using the Chrome browser and 5GHz Wi-Fi “unless otherwise listed.”
The results? The Nexus 4 can offer from 4.18 to 6.27 hours of web browsing over 3G and Wi-Fi, respectively. The device was outperformed by its most important Android competitors, including the HTC One X, the Samsung Galaxy S3 or the new Motorola RAZRs but also by iOS devices, with the iPhone 5 topping the tests at 8.19 and 10.27 hours of browsing over 4G LTE and Wi-Fi, respectively.

So how is it that the Nexus 4, which doesn’t have an LTE power-hungry connection, only offers about half the battery life of the iPhone 5, an LTE device, at least according to these tests? AnandTech explains:

As always we test across multiple air interfaces (3G, 4G LTE, WiFi), but due to the increased network load we actually find that on a given process technology we see an increase in battery life on faster network connections. The why is quite simple to understand: the faster a page is able to fully render, the quicker all components can drive down to their idle power states.

It is also worth pointing out that certain early Nexus 4 reviews out there are saying that Nexus 4 battery life is quite healthy (The Verge), while others seem to disagree (Engadget).
Naturally, we’ll see more Nexus 4 tests once the handset comes out, at which point we’ll be able to better determine its power efficiency.

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Motorola Nexus? No, that purchase was “mostly about the patents”

Answering to various questions related to Google’s recent new product announcements, John Lagerling, Google’s director of business development for Android, revealed during an interview with The New York Times details about potential Motorola Nexus plans. Just don’t get too excited!
The executive talked mainly about Google’s new Nexus devices that were announced on Monday, via press releases instead of an actual media event that was canceled because of Hurricane Sandy, praising some of their features. Another important highlight for Lagerling is the Nexus 4’s entry price of $299 (that’s the full retail price for the 8GB Google Nexus 4), a price that he personally negotiated.
But here’s the bit that got our attention:

Q. Where does Motorola stand in all this? You haven’t used them yet for the Nexus program.
A. They stand where Sharp would stand, or Sony would stand or Huawei would stand. From my perspective as a partnership director, they are another partner. We are really walled between the Motorola team and the Android team. They would bid on doing a Nexus device just like any other company.
Q. So how does Google take advantage of the Motorola acquisition?
A. The way I understand it is, it’s mostly about the patents, the way you can sort of disarm this huge attack against Android. We talked about prices. There are players in the industry who were unhappy about more competitive pricing for the consumers. They want to keep the prices high, they want to force the price to be so high that operators have to subsidize the devices very highly. That’s not only the Cupertino guys but also for the guys up in Seattle. They want higher margins, they want to charge more for software.
We simply believe there’s a better way of doing it without extracting that much payment from end users, because there are other ways to drive revenues. Patents were used as a weapon to try to stop that evolution and scare people away from lower-cost alternatives. And I think with the Motorola acquisition we’ve shown we’re able to put skin in the game and push back.

In case you forgot, Google’s Motorola subsidiary that cost the company $12.5 billion is still bleeding money quarter after quarter. Users would have expected Google to at least launch one Nexus-branded device made by Motorola this year, or at least have the devices that were announced after the acquisition was finalized to run Google’s most recent Android OS version.
Neither of these things happened. And from the looks of it, a Motorola Nexus device is not yet a priority, as it was all about those patents.
During Google’s Q3 quarterly earnings report, company officials revealed that a Motorola Android device made to accommodate Google’s Android needs – therefore a Nexus device – may only be made at some point next year.

As for timely Jelly Bean updates, Google did introduce a cashback program for Motorola device owners that will not get a Jelly Bean upgrade for their smartphones and/or tablets. But it failed to offer actual timely updates for existing and new handsets.
Sure, Google did say that it won’t favor Motorola in any way now that it owns the communications device maker. And Google repeated these statements quite a few times, to make it clear for its other Android partners that it won’t screw them over by offering cheaper Motorola-made Android device to consumers that would run the latest Android versions ahead of the competition.
On that note, one could argue that Google managed to screw over most Android top device makers by releasing budget-friendly devices such as the Nexus 7 and the Nexus 4, but that’s a topic for another rainy day.
Getting back to Lagerling’s statements on the Motorola purchase, it appears that it’s very clear for the exec – and probably others like him that work for the company – that the move was important only for the current mobile patent wars. Or at least that’s what’s he’s being told.
And if you’d think that buying a trove of patents for a lot of money would help you in courts against Apple and Microsoft, well then guess again! Not only isn’t Google able to obtain any favorable rulings at this time, but the FTC seems more determined to investigate the way some of these patents are used against rivals in courts.
So how about designing some Motorola Nexus devices and launching them soon, you know, before Sharp or Sony will unveil their Nexuses?

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Nexus 4 to have bumper accessories available, not for the same reasons as the iPhone 4

The Nexus 4 and iPhone 4 seem to share some similarities. Both were lost in bars in California by testers working for Google and Apple, respectively, and both share the same interest in glass. Yes, the front and back of the LG Nexus 4 are made of glass also, and it looks like the device will get bumper accessories when it launches, but not for the same reasons.
The iPhone 4 was plagued at launch by an unexpected problem, the Death Grip, also known as Antennagate, which prompted Apple to offer free bumpers to users that observed cellular signal attenuation when holding the handset “the wrong way.”
The bumpers were supposed to serve as protection for the device, without hiding the front and back glass panels, but they ended up protecting the antenna of the iPhone 4 from human touch as well.
The LG Nexus 4 doesn’t come with an Antennagate problem out-of-the-box but buyers will apparently have access to a similar accessory to protect the glass design.
Moreover, the handset has an edge-to-edge screen, so a bumper may be indeed needed to protect it. Google’s Dan Morrill revealed on Google+ that such accessories will be indeed in stock:

We’ve actually got some bumpers (ring-like cases that wrap the side but not the back) coming as accessories for Nexus 4, if that’s how you roll.
On the back, there is indeed a small raised ridge, which should prevent scratches if not breaks.

He answered thus to comments to a recent posting in which he explained that his favorite Nexus 4 feature is that edge-to-edge glass finish, applauding LG’s design in the process.
So, will you buy Nexus 4 bumpers to go with the device?

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