Nokia 5800 Cell Phone Review - Battery Life
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Marianne Schultz Published on May 08, 2009 Comment on this |
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| The 5800 has a respectable amount of call time battery life, but it's not spectacular. What is spectacular is its music playback battery life, and its web browsing life is quite good as well. For more information about our battery tests see this article. | |
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Call Time (4.82)
Call time battery life is, in our view, one of the most important factors in considering which phone is right for you. If you tend to take and make a lot of calls while you're on the go and not always near a power outlet to charge up when you need it, you'll obviously want a device that can keep up with you. The 5800's claimed call time battery life on a 3G network is 5 hours, and it lasted 4 hours and 1 minute in our tests, a respectable time for a 3G device, but not stellar. This result earns the 5800 the second-lowest score among our comparison phones where the Blackberry Storm and iPhone 3G are at the top of the heap.
Music Playback (13.04)
We expected the 5800, as a music-oriented device, to put up a good time in this area, but we were still surprised by the result: 18 hours and 7 minutes of music playback battery life. The specs give a music playback battery life of up to 1.5 days, but manufacturer battery life claims are almost always over-stated and we're still very happy with the 5800's performance here
Web Browsing (7.46)
We don't often see a manufacturer put out a claimed battery life time for web browsing, but the 5800's include this spec, listed at 3.4 hours. Surprisingly, the 5800 exceeded this claimed time, lasting 6 hours and 13 minutes in our tests. This is one of the better results we've seen for a 3G device and the 5800 earns the top spot among our comparison phones here.
Idle Time unscored
In order to complete our reviews in a timely manner, we don't test a phone's claimed idle time, also called standby time, since this can take many days or even weeks. To highlight this point, the 5800's claimed standby time is nearly 17 days. Idle time is largely influenced by cellular signal strength - the further away a phone is from a tower, the harder it works to maintain a connection, which drains the battery more quickly. Most users will see great variations in stand-by battery life since changing locations constantly affects what towers the phone can connect to and the energy required to do so. Additionally, 3G radios and networks are power-hungry, which can have an even more pronounced effect on a 3G device's battery life.
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