[kalleboo]

> Just look at what they've managed to do, for example, with battery life. Nobody can match the hours of use per watt-hour of their tightly-integrated stack.

That's not my (anecdotal) experience at all. My friends with similarly-specced phones like the Xperia Z1 Compact have their battery last way longer than my iPhone 5S. The iPhone may have better standby life, but we're heavy users, and as soon as you're using it the iPhone drains it like there's no tomorrow, and Apple arrogantly put a tiny battery in it (1400 mAh vs 2300 mAh for average Android phones).

Androids battery life woes are mainly due to the fact that apps can stay open in the background as much as they want, whereas on iOS Apple have strict limits (which is why stuff like IRC apps can't be done on iOS)

[WoodenChair]

The problem with hacker news (and really all online forums) is how plagued it is by "anecdotal" experiences. I would appreciate if people took the time to Google for some facts instead of writing about random anecdotal experiences that might be exceptional or misinformed. rayiner's response is really what would've helped the original post, even if it was coupled with something anecdotal.

[rayiner]

Part of the problem with discussions about phone battery life is that the available websites don't do a very good job of testing it. My anecdotal experience with carrying an iPhone 5 for years, then a Lumia for about a year, then a Nexus 5 for about six months is that the Nexus 5 is by far the worst at dealing with marginal signal conditions, like my train commute from DE to PA. I've never seen this sort of thing formally tested anywhere.

[georgemcbay]

I'm a fan of Android, use a Nexus 5 as my personal phone (and used a Nexus 4 prior to that) and make my current living writing Android apps, but you're right about this.

On my list of annoyances with Android, the way it handles marginal signal conditions (on every Android device I've ever used, which is quite a lot of them) is very high up there. Android (relatedly) does not handle wifi/cell radio passing very well, it will hold on to a poor wifi signal long after it should have switched over to the much more usable cell connection. I find myself regularly having to explicitly switch wifi off when there is a poor wifi connection available (which is luckily pretty easy to do but annoying that you have to manage it manually) just to get a reasonably usable network connection for apps.

[pistle]

I've got to say that hasn't been my experience at all with online forums. Many times, I get insightful feedback or review of a post to the point where I needn't read the original. Maybe places like Reddit, etc. really bring out more personal experience since the topics and community are so varied, but there was a poll here not too long ago about how accurate the opinions are here. That's objective data showing you that the anecdotes are as right as you're going to get. It's a fact.

[WoodenChair]

"...but there was a poll here not too long ago about how accurate the opinions are here. That's objective data showing you that the anecdotes are as right as you're going to get. It's a fact."

By definition, an opinion poll is not objective. Are the results of a presidential election objective data on who the best candidate for president is?

[rayiner]

The z1c has a 60% larger battery and weights 25% more. Ounce for ounce, or per mAh, though, the iPhone has really impressive battery life. Where it really excels is standby and radio power management. 10 hours of LTE browsing on Anand's and GSMArena's tests. My Nexus 5 is often on its last legs by midday with less than two hours of screen-on, because it'll chew through its battery in weaker-signal conditions. The iPhone tends to avoid killing itself that way.

On the desktop side, Apple is in the 10-12 hour range of light use with the MBA and MBP Retina. Comparable ThinkPads require the six-cell add-on battery to get there.

[flohofwoe]

I haven't seen much difference between Macs and other laptops. My current MBP 13" (non-Retina) lasts for about 5 hours when doing normal dev work (text editing, compiling, debugging), I would consider this "light use". This is similar to the Dells, Sonys and Lenovo's I had before or currently use. One difference I see is that battery life doesn't seem to degrade as quickly as on other laptops I owned a few years ago.

I don't have "cross-platform" experience with phones, but my iPhone4 running iOS7 is pretty much drained after a normal day's use (it was better with iOS6).

All "anectodical evidence" of course ;)

[bendyorke]

The MacBook Pro Retinas and MacBook airs take advantage of newer battery cells, and have greatly improved battery life in my experience. The 13" MBP battery never impressed me.

Also, not sure when you bought your particular iPhone, but the iPhone 4 is coming up on being 4 years old (announced round about the same time as the Galaxy S for comparisons sake) and it's still able to last a full day with the latest software, and all on single core processor. I find that really impressive, to say the least :)

[vbs_redlof]

10-12 hrs sounds exaggerated, I've never once seen a MPB last even ~5 hrs with light use.

[bendyorke]

No MBP boasts 10-12 hours, that's only the MBP Airs, which from my experience, follow up on that promise.

The MBP Retinas boast up to 9 hours, at the max, although those models I haven't used routinely. However it has been my experience that the MBP Retina's battery life are significantly more preferment than their non-retina predecessors.

[cromwellian]

I don't think it has anything to do with the hardware. Android does a lot more to drain the battery, the Android Sync mobile is constantly downloading stuff in the background, and Google Now runs continuously.

If you want to see an iPhone 5S have the same battery life as an Android device, turn on Google Now on iOS with Location History.