Nexus One owners have been slightly less than excited about the 2.2.2 over-the-air update which should be out for their handsets over the next day or so. This update is said to be quite small (558KB) and is more of a ‘maintenance’ update than anything else.
I’m all for bug fixes if it helps me use my phone without problems. I must admit, the number of bugs in Froyo have been a lot fewer than in our intial 2.1 Eclair system so it’s good to see Google still looking at its previous OS’.
I suppose the next big question is if and when we’ll see this update on our HTC Desires (remember the Desire is basically the Nexus One with hardware buttons and a nice UI). The question after that is whether we’ll receive Gingerbread 2.3 on our phones in 2011? I have a feeling we will.
Back in April you may remember I tested out my HTC Desire’s battery to see how long it would last over a day or normal use without being charged. Well, today I’m going to re-visit this test and see whether the “battery performance” improvements in Froyo really work or not.
Welcome to the HTC Desire (Froyo) Battery Test: Episode 2: Froyo Vs Eclair
I am trying to keep the phone setup the same so have enabled the following settings (but will expand slightly on how the phone is configured):
Fully charged at 9am.
Screen: Medium brightness (auto brightness off)
WiFi: ON (Wireless N enabled but will not be used at work as we currently only have 802.11b/g)
Syncing: ON (2 Gmail accounts and FriendStream – see below)
Bluetooth: OFF
GPS: OFF
FriendStream: ON (Twitter updating every 15 minutes and Facebook every 1 hour)
Wallpaper: Set to Live as per the previous test but didn’t mention. 2G/3G Data: Enabled with network mode set to automatic and data roaming enabled
To make things easy to compare I will put my previous results in square brackets so you can compare the ‘new’ to ‘old’ battery readings.
9:00 – 100% My Desire has a good feeling about today. 100% battery and Froyo says it’s ready for what I throw at it.
11:00 – 92% [87% previous test] remaining. So far I haven’t done a huge amount with the phone (I’ve actually had to do some work today!) but I did listen to Grooveshark during the walk to work and have sent a few text messages. So far so good! As you can see, when comparing it to my previous test, there is an extra 5% of battery remaining so this is great news.
13:00 88% [80% in previous test] More texts and a few photos of the ginger kitten who seems to have adopted me at work. Now walking into town with my music playing to get some food.
14:00 78% [75% in previous test] OK after a quick shop in town and walk back to work by battery has gone down by 10%. I was listening to music for around 40 minutes whilst e-mailing a few people and texting so it hasn’t done too badly. Also, Grooveshark does require a constant connection to their servers to verify you’re a VIP member. 3% up on my last test (but the phone has been used more over the hour.
17:00 60% [52% in previous test] Some quite heavy usage this afternoon. I even set my phone up as a Wi-Fi hotspot for 15 minutes or so which really drains the battery. When compared to my previous test earlier this year however you can see that we’re still 8% better off. So off home to see how much battery I have later this evening.
19:00 46% [Previous rating N/A] Still got just under half the battery juice left and the day is almost over. Have been using Last.fm quite a bit as well as e-mailing and texting people. Twidroyd has also been in use.
22:00 36% [34% in previous test] Wow my Desire is feeling tired now. Have done a lot of tweeting and some YouTube web browsing along with some tweeting. Over 3 hours however I’ve only lost 10% which isn’t bad at all. I’m still up 2% from my previous test even after all this strenuous work.
22:50 34% [27% in previous test] Right, well time to sign off for the night. Only a few texts and e-mails since the last update but you can see the the battery life is an impressive 7% higher than last time. It may not seem a lot but that 7% could be a life-saving phone call or emergency tweet! Upon working out the average, Froyo has improved battery performance by at least 7.2% over Eclair. I say this because I have used the phone a lot more than I did back then so the fact it has still ended up with more battery remaining is very impressive.
So in answer to the original question, yes, Froyo does improve battery life. In fact, I think it deserves its own little chart:
If you have any comments, questions or suggestions then let me know, tomorrow is another day and I know my HTC Desire will be with me throughout the whole thing
[Update] I thought I’d include my Battery Saving Tips video now you’ve read through this article. It’ll show you how to save even more power when using your phone
The little hand-held operating system beat off not only other mobile OS’ but also full tech products such as the Apple iPad, Apple TV, Amazon Kindle and more. It also beat the likes of Facebook, TomTom and Microsoft Office. So, there we have it, all you need is an Android phone
(It’s good to see that Grooveshark gets a mention coming in at number 85)
If you haven’t already, check out the official Android Froyo 2.2 update video. It explains a few ideas of what you can expect when the update finally arrives (please be June!)
I was quite impressed with the frame rate tests, although haven’t noticed much slowdown at all when playing games…
*OK so it’s actually running on a Google Nexus One but you know what I’m getting at here. This is quite a good video actually showing the various features of the new firmware rather than just telling you about them.
I think my favourite new feature (apart from the SD apps) has to be the cool new Gallery…
Well just when you thought your phone couldn’t get any better. An HTC representative “let it slip” that HTC would be releasing the new Froyo 2.2 update this June – the 23rd to be precise.
Here is the quote that a disgruntled HTC Desire customer received from his telephone call to HTC:
”But you never heard this from me…. A new update is coming the 23rd of June and you will be able to put some apps on to the micro sd card.”
The Internet has been a hive of activity regarding the new “Froyo” system for Android handsets. When will it be out? What are the new features? When will my phone get the update?
I don’t have many answers but TechRadar has got some juicy tidbits to keep you interested.
I think the best new feature has to be the ‘install apps to memory card’ one. I’ve often found myself running out of disk space on several occasions.
On with the quote:
Android 2.2 will let you install apps to memory card
What this means is more memory-hungry applications, like those on the iPhone, which means a better experience than the casual and functional offerings currently available.
Admittedly, we don’t like the thought of having to pay for more applications on the Google app Market, but if it increases the quality of what’s on offer, we’re all for it.
Nexus One owners have been slightly less than excited about the 2.2.2 over-the-air update which should be out for their handsets over the next day or so. This update is said to be quite small (558KB) and is more of a ‘maintenance’ update than anything else.
T3.com HTC Desire Hands-on Review
