Moto CLIQ / DEXT: Another Android battery muncher? (An emerging theme?)

by Ben Smith on 28th September 2009

  Comment Icon23

Within seconds of its announcement I knew I wouldn’t be buying Motorola’s new DEXT (CLIQ in the US) Android handset, however exciting their social aggregation platform BLUR looked. It’s an exclusive to Orange at launch…

The Motorola CLIQ / DEXT. Image credit: The Boy Genius Report.

The Motorola CLIQ / DEXT. Image credit: The Boy Genius Report.

However, it is an important release…

For Android-fans (that’s me) handset choices have been far too limited. HTC‘s build quality has been improving since the dreadfully-built G1, but all subsequent devices (the Magic, Hero and soon-to-launch Tattoo) have been touch-screen only. The announcement of Android-powered products from Samsung, LG and Motorola was great news: these are manufacturers capable of making well-built devices and it signals much wider choice.

Samsung’s Galaxy certainly pleases in the looks and screen department, but it’s dire battery-life (possibly improved by a recent firmware release) made it unusable for me. Now The Boy Genius reports battery life on the CLIQ / DEXT is also so poor as to make the device useless:

…the Motorola CLIQ has possibly the worst battery life of any phone I’ve tested in recent memory with the current software. Maybe Motorola’s BLUR back-end isn’t optimized yet, maybe the phone software isn’t final, but this is ridiculously bad. Especially since it doesn’t even deliver your status updates when you want them, it just sits there pulling in data constantly updating in batches. I haven’t used the device as a primary device so I couldn’t give hard statistics on battery life when phone calling, but with on and off usage, it’s ridiculously bad. The battery itself looks to be 1390mAh for those that are interested.

Is this Android’s Achilles’ heel? Is power management going to be what cripples these devices? Do software fixes post-launch risk getting Android a bad reputation in the battery department with early adopters?

Come on LG… prove me wrong.

Please.

Tagged as: Android, battery, CLIQ, DEXT, galaxy, LG, Motorola, power management, samsung

  • http://mobile-review.com markwebster

    Quite looking FW to this really, owned all the HTC Android jobs with no issues at all, if that kinda thing worries you, run a GSM Blackberry like i do and get 4 days between charges :)

  • Anonymous

    The killer feature of Android is that it can run apps in the background that check your twitter/gmail etc. and ‘push’ those notifications to the screen. Unfortunately this is the killer app in a bad way. Every time the device checks one of your services it has to power up the radio into a traffic channel and that sucks power. Just look at any mobile device and compare talktime/standby time. Even if you aren’t talking if android is talking to a server that’s more like your battery time.

    I don’t think its a hardware or really an OS issue, its a use case issue. Try turning off all the background checking apps and see how much life you get then? If you put iPhone OS on a G1 I bet you’d get a far better battery life, the same the other way round, Android on an iPhone would sink like a rock.

    The most power efficient method of pushing to a mobile device is SMS, why? because is so tightly integrated into the low level subsytem of the mobile network that the device can go into a very low power mode and just wait for the notifications, any kind of polling is wasting power & bandwidth.

  • The Shonko Kid

    Power management has always been Linux’s weakpoint, it’s just that every other sector in which it dominates, power consumption isn’t of particular importance. Modern mobile phones, are a different matter altogether, the user wants slick flashy interfaces, to be able to do stuff that they can do on their PC, all in a package that is light in the hand/pocket. The key to this is to make sure every milliwatt of that battery is used sparingly. Linux just isn’t there yet.

  • http://www.slashgear.com/motorola-cliq-battery-woefully-inadequate-warns-preview-2858137/ Motorola CLIQ battery woefully inadequate warns preview - SlashGear

    [...] [via TheReallyMobileProject] [...]

  • http://www.focusoft.biz/2009/09/28/motorola-cliq-battery-woefully-inadequate-warns-preview Motorola CLIQ battery woefully inadequate warns preview | FocuSoft Tech Blog

    [...] [via TheReallyMobileProject] [...]

  • http://mobile-review.com markwebster

    Quite looking FW to this really, owned all the HTC Android jobs with no issues at all, if that kinda thing worries you, run a GSM Blackberry like i do and get 4 days between charges :)

  • http://mobile-review.com markwebster

    Quite looking FW to this really, owned all the HTC Android jobs with no issues at all, if that kinda thing worries you, run a GSM Blackberry like i do and get 4 days between charges :)

  • sammachin

    The killer feature of Android is that it can run apps in the background that check your twitter/gmail etc. and 'push' those notifications to the screen. Unfortunately this is the killer app in a bad way. Every time the device checks one of your services it has to power up the radio into a traffic channel and that sucks power. Just look at any mobile device and compare talktime/standby time. Even if you aren't talking if android is talking to a server that's more like your battery time.I don't think its a hardware or really an OS issue, its a use case issue. Try turning off all the background checking apps and see how much life you get then? If you put iPhone OS on a G1 I bet you'd get a far better battery life, the same the other way round, Android on an iPhone would sink like a rock.The most power efficient method of pushing to a mobile device is SMS, why? because is so tightly integrated into the low level subsytem of the mobile network that the device can go into a very low power mode and just wait for the notifications, any kind of polling is wasting power & bandwidth.

  • sammachin

    The killer feature of Android is that it can run apps in the background that check your twitter/gmail etc. and 'push' those notifications to the screen. Unfortunately this is the killer app in a bad way. Every time the device checks one of your services it has to power up the radio into a traffic channel and that sucks power. Just look at any mobile device and compare talktime/standby time. Even if you aren't talking if android is talking to a server that's more like your battery time.

    I don't think its a hardware or really an OS issue, its a use case issue. Try turning off all the background checking apps and see how much life you get then? If you put iPhone OS on a G1 I bet you'd get a far better battery life, the same the other way round, Android on an iPhone would sink like a rock.

    The most power efficient method of pushing to a mobile device is SMS, why? because is so tightly integrated into the low level subsytem of the mobile network that the device can go into a very low power mode and just wait for the notifications, any kind of polling is wasting power & bandwidth.

  • The Shonko Kid

    Power management has always been Linux's weakpoint, it's just that every other sector in which it dominates, power consumption isn't of particular importance. Modern mobile phones, are a different matter altogether, the user wants slick flashy interfaces, to be able to do stuff that they can do on their PC, all in a package that is light in the hand/pocket. The key to this is to make sure every milliwatt of that battery is used sparingly. Linux just isn't there yet.

  • The Shonko Kid

    Power management has always been Linux's weakpoint, it's just that every other sector in which it dominates, power consumption isn't of particular importance. Modern mobile phones, are a different matter altogether, the user wants slick flashy interfaces, to be able to do stuff that they can do on their PC, all in a package that is light in the hand/pocket. The key to this is to make sure every milliwatt of that battery is used sparingly. Linux just isn't there yet.

  • http://benjam.in Ben Smith

    Agreed re: the Blackberry (although I’d go for an E63 or an E71, but same rule applies…). However, with battery lives of less than a working day I worry these handsets will get Android a bad reputation in this area…

  • http://benjam.in Ben Smith

    I got about 7 hours on the Samsung Galaxy with all data completely turned off, snapping about 10 pictures and sending a few SMS messages.

    Let me say that again… *with all data (WiFI and 2G / 3G) turned off*

  • Anonymous

    Wow that really sucks! I’m sure its possible for Android phones to be worse I just think we’re not gonna get better battery life than an iPhone with background apps checking the Internet.

  • http://benjam.in Ben Smith

    Agreed re: the Blackberry (although I'd go for an E63 or an E71, but same rule applies…). However, with battery lives of less than a working day I worry these handsets will get Android a bad reputation in this area…

  • http://benjam.in Ben Smith

    Agreed re: the Blackberry (although I'd go for an E63 or an E71, but same rule applies…). However, with battery lives of less than a working day I worry these handsets will get Android a bad reputation in this area…

  • http://benjam.in Ben Smith

    I got about 7 hours on the Samsung Galaxy with all data completely turned off, snapping about 10 pictures and sending a few SMS messages.Let me say that again… *with all data (WiFI and 2G / 3G) turned off*

  • http://benjam.in Ben Smith

    I got about 7 hours on the Samsung Galaxy with all data completely turned off, snapping about 10 pictures and sending a few SMS messages.

    Let me say that again… *with all data (WiFI and 2G / 3G) turned off*

  • sammachin

    Wow that really sucks! I'm sure its possible for Android phones to be worse I just think we're not gonna get better battery life than an iPhone with background apps checking the Internet.

  • sammachin

    Wow that really sucks! I'm sure its possible for Android phones to be worse I just think we're not gonna get better battery life than an iPhone with background apps checking the Internet.

  • Anonymous

    So I bought the cliq on monday got it delivered thursday and yea the battery does suck thats because I like to use all the apps like crazy however when not using the phone I noticed that the phone heats up to crazy temps. For example the phone was in my pocket and I was trying to figure out why my stomach was feeling so hot and once I realized that it was my phone and took it out of my pocktet and realized just how hot it was I couldn’t even touch it. Its insane what kind of phone gets hot like this. Any soulutions?

  • Ej1234

    So I bought the cliq on monday got it delivered thursday and yea the battery does suck thats because I like to use all the apps like crazy however when not using the phone I noticed that the phone heats up to crazy temps. For example the phone was in my pocket and I was trying to figure out why my stomach was feeling so hot and once I realized that it was my phone and took it out of my pocktet and realized just how hot it was I couldn't even touch it. Its insane what kind of phone gets hot like this. Any soulutions?

  • Ej1234

    So I bought the cliq on monday got it delivered thursday and yea the battery does suck thats because I like to use all the apps like crazy however when not using the phone I noticed that the phone heats up to crazy temps. For example the phone was in my pocket and I was trying to figure out why my stomach was feeling so hot and once I realized that it was my phone and took it out of my pocktet and realized just how hot it was I couldn't even touch it. Its insane what kind of phone gets hot like this. Any soulutions?

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