New Nokia N95 Battery Life Using EDGE: Over 9 hours

We are continuing our investigations into the battery life of the new version of the Nokia N95 (the one that supports US 3G data), and the next test we have run is web browsing, but using the EDGE connection instead of the 3G one. In this test, the new N95 lasted an impressive 9 hours 14 minutes.

This contrasts with the 6 hours and 12 minutes that the same phone lasted browsing over a 3G data connection. This shows what a drain 3G data connections can be: they may be faster, but they have a huge impact on battery life. In this case, the battery life is extended by nearly 50 percent by using the slower (but less power hungry) EDGE connection. This is definitely worth remembering if you are only sending email or browsing very occasionally; both of these can be achieved on EDGE connections, and the battery will last longer.

How much longer depends on how much emailing and browsing you do, but there will definitely be a difference, and we would strongly recommend switching to EDGE if you are looking to extend the battery life. You do this by going to Tools>Settings>Phone>Network and selecting network mode. Setting this to GSM will restrict the N95 to using an EDGE connection only; putting it back to Dual Mode will set it to use the fastest network it can find (3G if available, EDGE if not). 

This also underlines what a difference the bigger battery of the new N95 makes; the previous model lasted 7 hours and 15 minutes in the same test, so the bigger battery adds just under two more hours of browsing time. That's a significant improvement.