Products & Services
Size doesn’t matter – battery life and the Nokia N96
By Charlie on 23 September 2008
ESPOO, Finland – It’s come to my attention that there are some folks grumbling about the size of the battery on the Nokia N96, which is smaller than the battery on the Nokia N95-8GB.
I don’t want to get in a she-said he-said of boring tech specs, but would like to use this opportunity to highlight some interesting constraints mobile device designers face (and conquer) on a daily basis.
The contention
Battery power is compared through a mAh (milliamp hours) rating. It turns out that the N95 and the N96 have a 950 mAh battery, while the N95-8GB has a 1200 mAh battery. Of course, folks are up in arms, since the N96 is a feature-packed device, designed specifically for video and TV play-back. Logically, one would think that the N95-8GB would be running circles around the N96 long after the N96 had died down. Not so. See, it all has to do with power consumption optimizations, which brings us neatly onto…
Power consumption optimizations
Most Nokia phones (and mobile phones in general) have a ton of power-saving features. And as designers have added more features the engineers have had to optimize more. The N96 in particular has special hardware accelerators for music and video that are more energy-efficient than the same playback mechanisms on the N95’s, and brightness control during video playback. For what it’s worth, it also has an energy-efficient standby mode indicator light, a lock switch that dims light immediately, and a more energy-efficient camera, too.
Design constraints
A related question flying around is why the heck we didn’t just design the N96 with the 1200 mAh battery in the first place. Well, from what I’m told, that would have affected the real and apparent thickness of the product and maybe dropped the kick-stand. Based on market feedback, making the product thicker would have impacted seriously on sales. That’s why it was important to make sure the talk-time and standby time were on par with other devices, but that the video and music playback time be superior within this size and power constraint.*
Summary
Okay, keeping all this in mind, for the same usage pattern, the talk-time and standby time for the N96 should be comparable to that of the N95. But, the playback time of video and music on the N96 is far better than the N95 or N95 8GB. And considering that video and music is what the N96 is all about, this is the whole point of the story.
Who said designing super-phones was an easy task?
If you want to read a thorough review of the Nokia N96, go read what Steve Litchfield has to say. And yes, he does do some power usage analysis.
*Did you know that N96 has similar length and thickness as the N81 (1070 mAh battery)? It is wider than the N81, of course, due to the larger screen.
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- Comment of the week – dreaming of limitless power
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Tags | battery, conversations, mobile, n95, n95 8gb, N96, Nokia, optimization, power
September 23rd, 2008 at 12:04 pm
All well and good until you add the N85 to the equation.
So how did they manage to squeeze a 1200mah into the N85 and make it even slimmer? Screen size can’t effect the thickness that much can it? Does the DVB-H hardware take up a lot of space?
Why didn’t the N96 feature the OLED screen that reduces power usage even further? Surely this would have made sense in a phone aimed a multimedia?
I view the N85 as the thorn in the N96’s side. Both are great models but I can’t stop thinking how they could have made the N96 even better with a few of the N85’s features.
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September 23rd, 2008 at 1:07 pm
I understand it is all about power consumption, and if that is made better then i agree, it is not necessarily going to be needed to give a super charged battery with the handset.
However, consumers being consumers, are going to want as much as they can when ever possible.
As such, most people will want the higher 1200 mAh battery over the 950 mAh battery purely because they will not understand that that the power is consumed in a much more efficient way.
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September 24th, 2008 at 1:27 am
Sorry, Charlie (yes, I’ve been waiting to use that for a LONG while), but I don’t buy this at all.
I had a chance to play with a prototype of the N96, and the first thing I did was stick my N95-3’s 1200mAh battery in it. Not only did the battery fit, but the back cover fit on, and even fastened securely enough to use like that. It was a tight fit, though, obviously, and a mere 1mm of extra room would easily have fit the larger battery.
Regardless of any claims of power-saving and battery-sipping improvements, after the N95-1 was lambasted continuously for having such a sucky battery, I was really disappointed that the N96 would have the same power supply.
It’s your flagship device, for pete’s sake. Why would you NOT want to fit it with as much battery as possible. 1mm would *not* have made a difference overall.
Doesn’t matter, I’m already saving pennies for the N85. IMO, the N96 was a bomb that detonated before it was even thrown.
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September 24th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
Ricky, sorry, but have to disagree. 1mm extra thickness would have made a huge difference to in hand feel of an already thickish device. Shaving of 1mm somewhere would have been difficult for sure. If it can run as long as it apparently can under _heavy_ use, the trade off was well worth it.
On the N85 vs. N96: timing of development, chip-set, DVB-H, kickstand, 16GB internal, targeted look and feel, and possibly also better build quality of N96 are all factors that could easily make for the difference.
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September 25th, 2008 at 5:11 am
Nokia still needs to work on batteries consumption. I own a E65 and one of the good things about this device they say, it’s the battery’s long period life, but it’s not. Actually, I don’t see any difference from the other devices. Sony Ericsson has the best batteries of all. Why Nokia is not doing it’s homework?
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September 25th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Just bought 6220 Classic. 900mAh battery. Compared to 3 year old HTC WinMo 5 phone (1150mAh) the battery on the Nokia is outstandingly terrible – way, way beyond the 20% reduction in size that just might be justifiable if you choose to ignore any improvement in optimization progress every phone manufacturer would make over a 3 year period.
Currently in dialogue with Nokia Tech re tests etc etc but lots of Googling seems to throw up the fact Nokia phones and batteries are not happy bedfellows on a recurring basis.
Shame beause the switch to Nokia after a liftime of WinMo has been largely positive but this one fact alone means it’s likely my affair with Nokia will be a very brief fling -RMA already acquired!
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September 25th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Just bought 6220 Classic. 900mAh battery. Compared to 3 year old HTC WinMo 5 phone (1150mAh) the battery on the Nokia is outstandingly terrible – way, way beyond the 20% reduction in size that just might be justifiable if you choose to ignore any improvement in optimization progress every phone manufacturer would make over a 3 year period.
Currently in dialogue with Nokia Tech re tests etc etc but lots of Googling seems to throw up the fact Nokia phones and batteries are not happy bedfellows on a recurring basis.
Shame beause the switch to Nokia after a liftime of WinMo has been largely positive but this one fact alone means it’s likely my affair with Nokia will be a very brief fling -RMA already acquired!
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September 29th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
I’ve found the battery life to be just fine on the N96. Unlike the iPhone which was lucky to make it past lunch. Every mm counts – the N96 is 3mm less than the N95/N95 8gb – the 8gb being 21mm all over (the classic just being the hump) it makes a hell of a difference in the pocket/hand.
there is a photo here: comparing N95/N96
http://hellon96.tumblr.com/post/51591948/fat-test-vs-n95-classic-win-those-mm-21-vs-18
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October 19th, 2008 at 4:40 am
Okay fine, but explain why it has an ARM 9 CPU from a past era. How was that justified on a flagship device? When every other modern N-series features a newer ARM 11 CPU.
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November 22nd, 2008 at 1:22 pm
I have still used n96, it is a good phone.
but the battery life is dead low,
daily charging is required and the phone is also very slow.
we need a min. of 1200 or 1400 mah battery required this higher version of nseries.
otherwise we can’t use the facility or features of n96.
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February 12th, 2009 at 11:24 am
I think N96 is most pathetic phone I have ever seen from Nokia. I was a fan of Nokia but after wasting money on N96, I dont think I will ever buy any Nokia Phone ever. The battery is worst I have seen on a phone. Even with normal usage the battery doesnot last for more than few hours.
I think 1mm would not have been a big concern for me and I dont think people would even notice. It is a big phone anyways so why not just put a bloody decent battery in it.
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March 23rd, 2009 at 12:03 pm
unfortunatley i have just ordered one n96 . lol .. i have faced lots of trouble with n95 silver. is it the same in talk time? can i replace the battery ? anyone?
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October 7th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
I have owned the n96 for a year now. It is an awful phone. The battery life is pathetic, less than a day, Which means the device is not really a mobile phone at all. It also suffers with buggy software; when the battery dies, it can take up to 2 days to get it going again! Been back to the shop twice, each time for a week, just to get it started again, but with no improvement. Also very slow to respond. I would quite happily add 3 mm to the thickness for a useable device.I have had mobiles for 20 years now, and this is the worst one.Bye bye nokia
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