I have a gripe to pick with all the smartphone manufacturers out there. Why can’t you understand that most people nowadays don’t really care about slimness? I do understand that slimness was a major concern and also a deciding factor at one point of time, but dont you get it? That was the time when most mobiles were the size of bricks and you could actually kill a guy just by throwing a mobile at his head. The world had moved on. Dont you think its time you did the same?

Let me tell you what prompted this post. I have a Galaxy S, and I could hardly get 4 hrs of heavy usage out of it. So, if I charged the phone in the morning, then by late afternoon, the battery was pretty much dead. If i didnt have a charger handy, then I was left without a phone till I could charge it. So, I went onto ebay.in and bought myself an extended battery. The extended battery was double the thickness of the old one, and also double the capacity (3500 mAh as compared to the 1700 mAh OEM battery). I was initially a little hesitant since I had already been brainwashed with all the slimness advertisements of companies, but as I used it, I realized that I really didnt care about the thickness of it.

The phone still fit snugly in my hand, and also in my pocket. It wasnt deal breakingly heavier, neither was it too much uglier. Personally, I cared more about the function than the form. As I tested it out, I found that it lasted much much longer than the original battery (almost till 8 to 9 hours under heavy usage), and since I was so impressed with that I bought an extended battery for my mother’s Galaxy S2. She was also thoroughly impressed with the battery life, and she happened to mentioned something surprising. She actually liked the bulk since it gave the phone a much better feel and also gave her an impression of improved durability. And as all marketers know, perception is more important that reality.

Now, you have to understand, that obviously, the bigger, fatter battery actually did nothing to improve durability, since the display is still Gorilla Glass, and you’d still need to run it over with a car to actually break it, and perhaps even then it might not break (I’m just guessing here, so please dont try it). The point here being that now, she didnt need to use her phone as a delicately as you would handle a cracked egg that just might break if you held it too tight.

Coming back to the point. Nowadays, if you read any phone reviews, one of the first things that any reviewer worth his salt talks about is battery life. Nowadays, battery life has become a deciding factor in buying a new phone. I doubt if anyone really cares if the new phone is 0.2 mm thinner since most manufacturers tend to have similar specs. Have we really gone the way of the fashion model? Where every phone needs to be a size zero? I mean, c’mon man! You’ve crossed size zero a long time back and are now in size negative territory here.

Motorola, seems to have the right idea with their Motorola Droid Razr Maxx. In an age where most manufacturers have a 1500 to 1900 mAh battery, Motorola has come out with a massive 3300 mAh OEM battery. Due to this, the phone boasts a 21 hour talk time. That’s right. This is not a typo. 21 hours talk time, as in Two One Hours! That too with 4G LTE. If this phone was available in India, it would definitely be first on my list of drool worthy phones.

I really miss the old days when my Nokia 3310 used to run for 2 days without charging.

Manufacturers, are you listening?

Thanks for reading this rant. Please remember to leave your opinion in the poll below. Comments are also most welcome.

 

P.S – I would really recommend all of you to go ahead and buy an extended battery. Best place to buy them would be eBay.in. The prices are very reasonable. I got my extended battery for INR 1500 with a back cover for housing the battery. I also apologize for using pictures from the iPhone, but you have to admit, iOS has some excellent eye candy.

 

Sources: Official Motorola Store 

Image Credits: iphone4jailbreaks.com, idownloadblog.com