Samsung Memoir Cell Phone Review - Battery Life
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Marianne Schultz Published on April 10, 2009 Comment on this |
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| The Memoir lasted beyond its claimed call time battery life, which is always a pleasant surprise, and its music playback battery life was stellar. Web browsing is usually the toughest test since it requires the screen to be on full brightness for the duration, and the Memoir kept up with the pack in this test. For more information about our battery tests see this article. | |
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Call Time (6.56)
To test call time battery life, we charge the phone fully and time how long the battery lasts on a simulated phone call using our testing equipment and a recorded conversation. The Memoir's claimed talk time battery life is 4.8 hours according to T-Mobile and it lasted 5 hours and 28 minutes in our tests. We don't always see a phone surpass its claimed talk time and the Memoir does well here with respect to that, but it still falls behind the Motorola ZINE and iPhone 3G at 6 hours and 30 minutes and 5 hours and 50 minutes respectively.
Music Playback (10.19)
To test battery life during music playback, we charge the phone fully, load test music on to it, set it to play at the highest volume in repeat mode, and time how long the battery lasts. Manufacturers don't usually publish an estimated battery life for music playback, so there's no claim to beat, per se, though we always consider a phone's performance to competing devices. Here, the Memoir did very well, lasting 14 hours and 9 minutes, putting it well ahead of the iPhone 3G and the Motorola ZINE, but behind the Nokia N96 and the LG Dare.
Web Browsing (5.64)
To test web browsing battery life, we charge the device fully, point the browser to a test page that automatically refreshes every 10 seconds, and see how long the battery lasts with the screen brightness at its highest level and always on. The Memoir ran like a champ for a while, then puttered out after 4 hours and 42 minutes. This is a middle-of-the-pack time relative to our comparison phones where the Motorola ZINE pooped out after just 2 hours and 49 minutes and the Nokia N96 trudged on to 6 hours and 22 minutes in this test.
Idle Time unscored
In order to complete our reviews in a timely manner, we don't test a phone's claimed idle time since this can take multiple days or even weeks. T-Mobile's page for the Memoir claims a standby time of up to 9 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, and GSM phones generally expend more energy to do this than CDMA phones. 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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