Why are smartphone companies making higher battery capacity phones?

Most smartphones launched in India in the first half of 2020 had a battery capacity of around 4000 mAh. Out of the 45 smartphones studied, 20 had a battery life of over 5000 mAh. This proves a clear trend of increasing battery life in smartphones. 

Following is a look at why battery drainage is such a prevalent problem and what manufacturers are doing to address it. Apart from that, it is also crucial to understand what new technologies have been invented to get more capacity than 6000 mAh battery mobiles.

Why the need for more battery life?

Mobile devices are used for a majority of activities by the modern consumer, including entertainment, wallets, social hubs, alarm clocks, news portals and more. As lives are being planned on smartphones, the need for phones to keep up with the user’s activities has increased more than ever. 

However, a smartphone whose power doesn’t last for a full day is of no use for daily activities, regardless of its other specifications. Businesses are also losing out when their customers are not on their phones as they can no longer access a wallet, pay bills or redeem a coupon. 

Backup products like charging cases and power banks hardly fill the gap, as they are too heavy and inconvenient for most to carry around.

What causes high battery drain in the latest smartphones?

Even as the latest 6000 mAh battery mobiles offer a better battery life, it’s difficult to keep pace with increased battery drain. The following are the biggest causes of battery drain in the latest smartphones –

• The biggest cause of battery drain is smartphone screens with high resolutions and OLED as they drain power continuously to produce light.
• Processor speed is the second most important contributing factor for power drainage as higher performance requires more power. Some manufacturers even overclock chipsets or alter the CPU scheduler to make their processors work faster. Thus, an 8GB RAM mobile might drain the battery too fast, regardless of how high a battery capacity it has.
• Displays with faster refresh rates result in many premium phones consuming too much power.
• The cellular connection also takes a toll on the battery of a phone. A poor network connection can result in a faster battery drain, especially if a phone uses an LTE connection. You can switch to Wi-Fi from a mobile connection and turn on the Airplane Mode to conserve battery.

What are manufacturers doing to address this issue?

Both Android and Apple are working with chipset partners and power management specialists to combat battery life issues. Apple phones already have a comparable battery life to 6000 mAh battery mobiles from Android despite lower battery capacities. This is because they tightly control their hardware, battery management and apps installed on their devices to ensure optimal use of their batteries. 

Android phones have taken the approach of packing more milliamperes in thinner batteries. Numerous researches are being carried out by tech companies to improve battery life significantly, though most of them are still in the early stages. 

Newer technologies include batteries made of graphene, silicon-based anodes and solid-state electrolytes, all of which seem to have better capacities than 6000 mAh battery mobiles. Of these, graphene batteries have made the most progress with Samsung and Huawei, intending to launch their patented technologies sometime in 2021. 

If you’re looking forward to buying phones with graphene batteries, you might want to plan to incur a hefty cost. You can opt for easy financing through the No Cost EMI facility of the Bajaj Finserv EMI Network. The Network gives you access to over one lakh partner outlets, spread across 1900 cities in India.

This payment facility allows individuals to purchase any smartphone with a higher battery capacity without hassle.