Smart Phone. Dumb Battery

Shortly after I had written  this post about Google’s new app inventor I was informed that there was a phone upgrade I could use to get myself a smart phone if I so wished. Since I don’t like Apple I declined the offer of an iPhone. However I did find the prospect of an Android phone enticing so I opted for the HTC Desire .

I have to say it’s quite brilliant or ‘quietly brilliant’ as the HTC tagline has it. What is not so great however is the battery life. In fact it’s awful. If you don’t use it too much you might be able to get a full day out of it. Trouble is it’s it a lot of fun to use!

I suppose if you consider the thing is about as powerful as a small laptop then its understandable that the battery life would be so short.

But if you think of it as simply a phone then its really unacceptable. I was not surprised by the short battery life however – it’s common to all smart phones and no doubt I will pick up many tips that will help. Its just annoying that such a fantastic device should be hamstrung by such rubbish battery life.

What did surprise me a little was the fact that there is no concept of ‘closing’ an application on Android. Apps are just sent to the background and if the Operating System runs out of memory it automatically decides which apps have been idle longest and shuts them down to provide more memory. Its a little more complicated than that of course – read about it here. For a Windows PC user this seems very odd. No doubt its very clever but I have to admit one of the first apps I installed was a task killer!

I’m currently in the place that broadband forgot  – otherwise know as Mayo – so I’m having to rely on 3G for Internet access. It can sometimes be acceptable but mostly it’s just very ropey. I would dearly love to have proper broadband to experience the true power of the device.

Overall though I am hugely impressed with this phone. I just hope there is an Over-The-Air upgrade to the latest Android version soon.Otherwise I may have to take matters into my own hands…