Power consumption measurements of the HTC Universal (a.k.a. i-mate JasJar, Qtek 9000, O2 XDA Exec, SPV M5000, MDA IV/Pro)
It was a few days ago that I’ve published some test results of the HTC Wizard (a.k.a. i-mate K-Jam, T-Mobile MDA Vario, Qtek 9100, MDA Vario, XDA mini S, SPV M3000, VPA Compact II, Dopod 838), Bluetooth and infrared power consumption-wise. Now, the HTC Universal follows suit.
Bluetooth
First and foremost, the case of the Universal seems to be very similar to that of the Wizard: that is, it’s almost impossible to measure the additional power consumption of the Bluetooth module. The difference between the switched on and the switched off case was 1% (at most!) a day (if at all).
This, incidentally, corresponds to my measurements of the BT unit with the PDA switched on. According to my measurements, the BT unit burns between 1 and 2 mA’s in those cases. This, as the device has a 1620 mAh battery, corresponds to between 800 and 1600 hours battery life alone - that is, not taking into account the need to power the dynamic RAM, which is pretty much the same as with the HTC Wizard, which is around 1.25 mWh corresponding to about 2% battery level drop/day (don’t forget that the Wizard has a smaller, 1250 mAh battery; this is why it had a bigger, 2.5% battery charge level drop figure).
Infrared
The same stands for the infrared unit: when switched on, the device consumes about 1% more a day (as opposed to about 1.5% on the Wizard; again, the latter is because of the smaller battery used in the Wizard) – that is, the power consumption of the unit is around 0.8 mWh (just like with the Wizard).
Again, with Pocket PC Phone Edition devices, the Bluetooth and the infrared unit is always on, as opposed to "plain" Pocket PC devices, and actively listen to incoming requests. This is why a desktop Windows device (for example, a notebook equipped with an infrared port and running Windows XP) notices Pocket PC Phone Edition devices at once as an infrared modem (see this screenshot) - or, for that matter, any WM5+ non-Phone Edition Pocket PC devices when not suspended (again, the wireless units of non-Phone Edition Pocket PC devices are only activated when they are on, as opposed to Phone Edition devices).
This is certainly very good news and shows the two devices may use exactly the same Bluetooth / infrared modules & hardware drivers & for example code to listen to incoming infrared requests.
How much power does the GSM radio consume?
Incidentally, I’ve also run a lot of tests to correctly measure the power consumption of the phone module itself with a removed SIM card (to avoid for example incoming calls’ having an adverse effect on battery life; the device was all the time connected to the phone network to be able to start emergency calls any time). It’s about 9%/day at a given location.
Don’t forget that this value is pretty meaningless when used as an absolute measurement: on other locations (for example, far closer/farer from a cell center (with far better/worse radio field strength) the figures would have been entirely different. It’s, however, offers great relative measurement possibilities: I’ll measure the power consumption of my other Phone Edition devices to see whether their phone radio unit is better/worse, power consumption-wise. I’ll publish some Wizard-related results soon.
Verdict
All in all, it’s only when you almost never use your Universal as a PDA (that is, switch on the screen and run something) that there will be ANY difference in the battery life between the enabled and disabled wireless state.
If you switch on the PDA a lot, play games on it and/or receive/initiate many phone calls a day, the additional power consumption of the Bluetooth / infrared unit will be totally negligible. (Let’s point out again and again that the PDA unit in the Universal is really-really power-hungry. While the Wizard – or, for that matter, power-sparing devices like the Pocket Loox 720 or the HP iPAQ hx4700 – only need to be recharged every second or third day with moderate PDA use, the Universal needs to be recharged far more frequently if you often use it as a PDA.)
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Pretty mixed feelings. The battery life is really-really bad if you do use the PDA when compared to the Wizard (if you don't use the PDA, it's excellent). It feels to deplete the battery even faster than the Dell Axim x51v.
Also, the lack of EDGE is another big pain in the back. Most of the time I'd use the phone wireless the signal strength is not sufficient for UMTS, only GPRS, in places where the signal strength would be more than sufficient for EDGE. That is, just ignore people that say "you don't need EDGE support if you have 3G/UMTS support" - that's simply not true.
The lack of WM5 softbuttons and (for example Messaging) application buttons on the surface is also a big pain in the back - you need to open it in order to start, say, Messaging only using the hardware keys. With the Wizard, it can be done very easily - you just switch the device on and press the Message button. With the Universal, it must be opened and the Messaging button pressed. (I prefer doing everything using hardware softkeys and shortcuts.)
Finally, it's bulky and much-much heavier than the Wizard. Not the best for long-time web browsing.
Positive:
The thumbboard, compared to the Wizard, is MUCH better and allows for much more typing.
The screen: excellent. It's the same as in the PL720 and (apart from the different size) the iPAQ hx4700; that is, much better than that of the Dell Axim x50v/x51v. Much better than on anything else.
Video phoning capabilities: dunno, haven't ever used it.
Sammy, I only know of cards manufactured by EOps technology Limited . There are three of them; two of them (a CF and an SD-based one) are able to receive analogue broadcasts. They are all WM5 compatible (the drivers are available at the homepage).
Note that if you plan to go for digital-only receivers, you may want to wait for Philips' newly-announced SDIO card, which will NOT require an external battery + receiver compartment, unlike the DMB tuner card.
cmonex, after having extensively used (and still using - it's just more suitable for phoning and occassional E-mail / Web checking / gaming) the Wizard, it's pretty hard to switch to a device that has really inferior battery life if you do use it as a PDA.
Of course, it still consumes less power at a given task (for example, playing a CPU-intensive game, recording sound etc) than the, in this respect, worst x50v/x51v (and the wireless units don't consume much power either, unlike with the Dells / the hx4700's BT), but compared to the Wizard, it can't really show off its battery life.