KPH tech blog

As much as I’d like to keep my Galaxy S7, if I got a new phone, there are a few things I would like to change. Here’s 2 of them: the selfie camera, and the battery life/capacity.

First, the selfie camera. In daylight, my Galaxy S7’s front-facing camera is not bad, but indoors (and, often, at night) it’s actually awful.

I don’t take many selfies, but when I do, it’s probably going to be a group photo on a night out. Results so far in the last 2 years have been disappointing.

I also recently realised that, for these past 2 years, beauty mode has been on even when I turned it off: seemingly, it reactivates after each boot-up of the camera app. I also haven’t used the screen-flash feature that much.

These two factors combined, means that selfies are at best, blurry, with a lot of processing noise and smoothening evident in the picture.

The second thing I would change is the battery life. I used to yearn for a premium flagship, but now that I have one, I yearn for a longer battery life.

From a full-charge, and with constant usage, my Galaxy S7 will last approximately 5 hours before needing another charge.

That’s fine if I’m near a power outlet or a portable battery pack. But now with the upgrade to Android 8.0 Oreo, I’ve found that my Galaxy S7 is completely useless with under <10% battery life.

When it gets to 10%, for some reason it rapidly drains to 0% – within mere minutes! That’s even if the screen is off and I’m not using it. Plugging it in anywhere below the 10% mark also WEIRDLY contributes severely to the battery drainage: at 8%, plugging in to a wall socket automatically reduces the battery to 4%, before it rapidly drains to 0%, and then the phone forces a shutdown because there’s no power left – even though it’s plugged in! [CRAZY ALERT]

Just last week, I found myself lost in a London suburb after a party, with less than 30% battery left. Thankfully I was able to make it to familiar surroundings before my phone gave up, but only because I switched the phone from Medium Saver to Extreme Battery Saver Mode – to reduce background CPU usage and to enable me to only use Google Maps to navigate back home. Within a half-hour of entering the Extreme Saver mode, my phone had drained completely.

For a flagship phone, I find that completely unacceptable. However, I also realise that my phone is 2yrs old, and that newer phones like the Galaxy S9 have better processors that are more power-efficient and less power-hungry than the Qualcomm chip in my S7.

But I still don’t accept the compromise you have to make. Want great specs? Here, but you’ll have to sacrifice battery life. Want a great battery life? Here’s 15 hours, only the camera will be poor, the processor slow, and the audio – let’s not go there!

At time of writing, a brief internet search confirms that 3 of the newest phones with the best battery life include the ASUS Zenfone 3 Zoom, the LG X Power, and the Huawei P20 Pro.

While the ASUS and the LG aren’t as premium as the Huawei, they likely benefit from a less power-hungry processor, whereas the P20 Pro, Huawei’s current flagship, has one of the biggest batteries on the market – 4,000mAh.

While the triple camera setup of the P20 Pro (its touted flagship-beating feature) is certainly impressive, the Huawei lacks the 3.5mm headphone port and Micro SD card storage. Those are 2 compromises that I’m not sure I want to make.

I appreciate being able to listen to audio without an adapter, especially while re-charging my phone. Also, the Micro SD card slot enables me to simply eject the card from one phone into another, and that’s my entire music collection transferred in mere seconds – no transfer via PC or iTunes needed.

I know that’s only 1 of the 3 phones I mentioned, but the point I’m trying to make is that in order to get better battery life, or a bigger battery capacity, you have to sacrifice something else.

And that’s basically it – I’ve found that in order to have one thing on a smartphone, you must be prepared to sacrifice another.

Audio DAC? 3.5mm headphone port? Great camera? Great battery life? Great selfie camera/flash? Portability rather than a huge phablet?

Unfortunately, you can often only have 1 or 2 of these, not all of them. Which is a shame, especially when you’re splashing out anywhere between £400-£1,000 on a phone.

– Chris JK.