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Good advice thank you.

I'm not sure about the 'memory' effects of being constantly charged to the max?

Can someone elaborate on that? (Perhaps in an article?)

WinTard, it depends. If the unit has a dumb charger that constantly charges the battery - then it would not be good to leave it at 100%. Many devices (phones and laptops) have smarter charging circuits that monitor the charge and switch to a trickle charge after you hit 95-97% charge.

You really only have to worry about it if you leave it on the charger all the time. It's a phone - I doubt you will.

With today's battery technology, there is no memory effect. Just remember to charge it completely when you first get it. After that, plug in when you can and enjoy the battery when you can't.

I am SO glad that the iPhone does not multitask! My battery lasts all day!

I am SO glad that my car does not go faster than 30 mph! I get great gas mileage!

One small bit of information. You can change the battery in the Droid. You cannot change the battery in the Iphone.

Wow - I never respond to these articles, but I just have to give my two cents on this issue. For starters, it is Sun, the phone came out of Friday. Therefore, the only "full, "normal" day of activity for Phone use is Saturday. So for Robert to base his comment on the phone being "power hungry" is a bit of a stretch. I played with my phone all day on Sat. Turning it on around 930am and off at 1AM. I played games, checked sports scores, emailed, used MMS, text messaging, GPS navigation (for about an hour), and the phone had at least 30% battery at 1am. Every user experience will be slightly different.

You have to remember that this device will multi task. You have to close the apps you are not using, otherwise they use up battery life. My Omnia used to go all day. One time it died by 4pm, then I realized that VZ Navigator was running in the background.

**Here is a tip, get yourself a "app killer" and stick it on the front page. Every now and then, kill the unused apps.

For future reference, please don't post such damaging comments about a device that has only had 1 real day of use. As for your "glorified paper weight" comment, please enlighten me as to which phone is useful when it is turned off.

It's just like a laptop. All of the chips are designed to consume a certain amount of power. Hopefully the smartphone battery life doubles in capacity yoy. They have begun to move into the 7-8hr range on laptop so I'm expecting significant gains from next summers edition of the iPhone.

For an in depth review of the Droid's battery life:
http://phandroid.com...ry-life-review/

You could have just done a Google search for this.

I have a Droid and I think the battery life is excellent. I have been playing with it a ton since I got it and I haven't had any problem getting the battery to last through to the end of the day.

Anyone who owns a smartphone will tell you if the battery can last through a full day of heavy usage, it's a good battery. It's unreasonable to expect any more and I am not aware of any smartphone battery that can handle more than one day of heavy usage.

Why would you post an article like this? It just seems like lazy journalism to me. You have made a proclamation about a device having poor battery life based on anecdotal evidence from ONE PERSON who used the phone for ONE DAY. Consumers rely on journalists like you to make educated decisions about the products they buy. You do them and your profession a disservice when you make a post before doing your homework.

limeman- I understand your point somewhat regarding the fact that the Droid has only been available since Friday. That still gives Robert Friday and Saturday to compare against years using other devices.

Your comment though seems as if you are taking offense at the headline without reading the article. I made the point about the Droid- but also extended it to the iPhone and smartphones in general.

I did not slam the Droid. I did the opposite by pointing out that any perceived issue with battery life is probably more an indication of the multitude of functions a device like the Droid is capable of and NOT a design flaw.

I also mentioned and linked to a study from an alternate source showing that the Droid gets about 7 hours of battery life if it is in virtually constant use.

I have a flip-phone. I can go days without charging it without thinking twice. I have an iPhone and an HTC Tilt. I know that I need to charge them at every opportunity or I will find that the battery will run out of juice at the most inopportune time imaginable.

Just the way it is with smartphones.

Well the good thing is that droid uses a standard mini-usb jack to charge which you can find in cameras, ps3 controller, gps etc etc. The iPhone needs its special charger.

A giant omission ... you can swap out batteries in the droid ... carry an extra charged battery and your good to go ... you can't even remove the battery on an iphone.

I'm amazed at how personal people take reviews when it comes to a device that they have probably owned for less than 72 hours. My son bought the Droid on Friday and the first thing he noticed was the battery life. Not that it was horrible but he thought he would also be able to make it through the entire day. Everyone has their quirks when it comes to electronics. So far, my son is not overly impressed with the Droid although he said it is not a bad device. I think his expectations were too high and he thought it was going to be just like the iPhone - which it is clearly not.

Yeah, unless he left Wifi, GPS, Bluetooth, etc.. then I'm not sure how he got those results. Right now my phone is sitting at 40% and has been on for 17 hours and 10 minutes with the display on for about 1 hour and 20 minutes. Here is a breakdown of whats used the battery:

Display - 30% (1h 21 min)
Phone Idle - 21% (15h 51min)
Cell Standby - 18% (Time on: 17h 13m)
Android System - 8% (CPU Total: 13 min)
Voice Calls - 6% (3m 21s)
Mediaserver - 5% (7m)
Maps - 3% (2m)
Android OS - 3% (3m 30s)
Market - 3% (3m 20s)
Android Core Apps - 2% (3 min)
Handcent SMS - 2% (2m 30s)

Sorry but that is actually pretty good battery life, and unless you are just playing with it all day (which is acceptable when you first get it, but you probably wont be once you have had it for a while). I know it sure beats my G1 in battery life, and I didn't have 3G with it...

Here is a big difference, I almost never make calls and only three people have my number, the one guy is right across the hall and has never called.

My phone is on always and is never turned off. The only time it does need charged is usually after 1 week of being in stand-by mode. even then I let it go as low as it can before charging it.

So 'IF' I were to get a Droid, the battery life issue would be meaningless.

Guess I have a life outside of yacking on the phone.

Oh, and just wanted to correct a post above, the Droid uses Micro USB instead of Mini USB. In case someone reads that and tries to go buy a cable for their phone.

Sorry for the laugh but someone gets a phone, uses it for a day and then talks about battery life? I'm willing to be that the first thing that happened was the phone got put in production. Big mistake. First charge it according to manufacturer recommendations. Also, almost all batteries don't perform to optimum until after 10 or so full charging cycles. That isn't just for phones, it is for batteries in general; lead-acid/Hydride/AGM/Gells and so on.

Next, of course using more apps requires more power. Using a phone to play music, no wifi and so on is less demanding on a battery than putting a powerhouse phone to use.

What I'm really trying to say is that battery life with any phone-yes including the Droid and iPhone will vary according to how much and how hard you use it.

Everyone is posting articles about the Droid, they did the same thing with the iPhone because it gets read hits. I say if you're going to write articles, be accurate (check your info) and for everyone's sake, write about things that mean something, don't write just to get you name out.

I haven't seen many positive articles about the Droid on this site. And every time, its not a standalone complaint article. Its always some lame attempt to underhandedly say: "The Droid is alright, but the iPhone is still better, because of this nitpicking reason." I thought this was PCWorld, not AppleWorld. Maybe someone's getting a bit of money from Apple. More likely, some of the writers are just afraid of change. Just funny to me, because its not like any of it has swayed my opinion.

With moderate use, my Droid hasn't gone below 30% battery. Of course, I'm not an iButterfly wasting my power on things like social networking, etc. Mostly just light web browsing, email, texting and calls. And a game here or there when I'm bored So maybe my usage is not typical.

Maybe this guy was running the Android version of Folding@Home all day to get those results, ha. (I know it doesn't exist yet, just making a joke )

I love my Droid im coming from a Windows Mobile phone and I have Horrible Battery Life. I just learned that you can turn off apps and that the phone has Multi touch .. So exciting lol I made a video showing everyone how to do it also if your interested .. Hope it helps some people out
http://www.guysfromqueens.com/?p=765