[mainframed]

As an owner of a Samsung Galaxy S22, which is not small but seemed to me like the only sane size - feature - price balance on the Android market back then: maybe the reason is battery life?

I'm really underwhelmed by the one of the S22. I barely get a day out of it. When I'm travelling with Google Maps, I have to carry a power bank.

Maybe current android phones are just optimized so bad in comparison to iPhones? And increasing device size allows for a proportionally larger battery size.

[dsr_]

The Asus Zenphone 9 is basically the same size, and two years into it I still average 25-45% battery usage from rising to sleeping for the night. GSam says average per complete battery charge is 2d 16.2h, and Screen On is 11h 58m with an observed maximum of 8 hours 30m.

So battery life and a smallish phone are completely compatible with each other.

[mixermachine]

Most likely you have the Exynos CPU? I upgraded from a S21 Ultra (Exynos) to a S23 Ultra (Snapdragon).

Battery life is so much better. I use the 80% battery protection option and nearly always make it through the day. Only if I constantly watch videos the battery is flat in the evening.

With power saving and 100% battery I can reach 2 1/2 to 3 days. Loving it.

[microtonal]

Doesn't have to be Exynos. The US version has the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, which had heating and battery drain issues. The Gen 2 solved these issues.

[cubefox]

The Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 solved it by switching to a better TSMC node. The Gen 2 increased performance (on the same node) and got again somewhat less efficient.

[BenjiWiebe]

Surely with modern processor efficiency, they could get similar or better battery life as small phones of the 2010s? Thinking lovingly of the form factor of the 2013 Moto X.

[microtonal]

The Moto X 2013 was awesome. It already had some modern smartphone features (AMOLED, always listen phrase) And it was so comfortable in-hand. The Moto X 2014 was already a pretty big regression in that regard (then Lenovo bought Motorola from Google and updates went down the drain as well).

[montroser]

Yes! That first generation Moto X was the premature peak of the small Android phone. After that everything just got bigger and increasingly less beautiful.

[whyoh]

The S22 is notorious for the poor battery life. The S23, for example, is pretty much the same size, faster, and the battery lasts significantly longer.