Motorola flips and folds are finally here, and the top models pack an unexpected upgrade — larger silicon-carbon batteries.
@[email protected]
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137d

Motorola has always been quick to focus on battery life which the flagships rarely do.

I could care less about a folding phone but a graphine OS phone with a huge battery would be amazing.

dustycups
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7d

I agree with everything in this comment except the phrase ‘could care less’.

Just nitpicking - still upvotes.

@[email protected]
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57d

Ha good point. “I couldn’t care less”

@[email protected]
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23
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6d

Is Motorola about to become cool again?

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23d

Sorta? But their parent Lenovo is chronically terrible at ever supporting the Motorola phones for one or two major OS version. The hardware is generally solid.

Not that there’s been a single genuinely good Android feature in 10 years, and most of the time Google just makes the OS worse now, but security updates seem important to maintain.

Optional
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87d

W . . wood-grain? . . . flip phone? . . . GrapheneOS?

@[email protected]
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467d

They are partnered with graphene os, making the first non - pixel graphene phone next year.

So yeah, that’s pretty cool.

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26d

Oh yeah, that was already the basis of my thinking Motorola might be cool again. The new battery is just one more data point.

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6d

I’ve had Motorola phones for my past three or four phones. Latest one I’ve bought is the 2023 razr. They were a bit of an also ran kind of phone for many of those, but it’s definitely worth pointing out that their phones were basically always unlocked, and that they have remained an excellent value in comparison to shit companies that eat penis for a living like horrible ass Samsung.

When my Motorola phone had some problem, I was always able to pick up a new, unlocked one for around a hundred bucks.

IMO, Motorola continued doing what Google Nexus was doing at the exact same time that Google discontinued the Nexus line and started the Google Pixel line to try to emulate Apple and/or Samsung.

Fair Fairy
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27d

OnePlus 15 was the first one. With 7000mah

TheTechnician27
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7d

In a world where batteries are nigh-irreplaceable for non-experts, I’m personally happy to keep using lithium-ion that deteriorates more slowly than silicon-carbon.

The slightly faster charging means almost nothing to me because I’m already charging at night, and any charging I do during the day as an emergency can get me to enough to last the rest of the day in maybe 15 minutes.

The better energy density is more realistically going to translate into manufacturers making the battery smaller. Larger capacity basically wouldn’t matter to me; capped at 80%, my phone battery after over 3 years still gets me through a day and a half.

Makes more sense for a flip phone, but then I’d see a horizontally folding flip phone as the dumbest possible model I could get. At least a vertically folding one has some potential interesting uses even if it’s way more liable to break and more expensive than a non-fold.

Valmond
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67d

My phone charges zero to full in like 20 minutes, what do people need these days?

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7d

That’s bad for the battery’s long-term capacity/longevity.

Charge slow (disable fast-charging) and (Never mind; this seems to be old news) stay within 40-75% at all times (for lithium-ion, anyway). Avoid both heat and freezing temps. Turn it off every night or at least on a regular basis. It will last for years longer.

People often say this but it isn’t really backed up by the science. Sure, there’s a bit more degradation, but not all that much. And by keeping it within 40-75 you’re effectively limiting yourself to using just 35% of a perfectly healthy battery, giving you far less capacity than if you had just maximally used it. Even if after significant usage you end up with only 70% of the original capacity, that’s still more than you get by artificially limiting yourself.

Extreme temps are a factor, but just don’t put it in the fridge or leave it in a hot car and you’ll likely be good.

See https://youtu.be/kLS5Cg_yNdM?t=183 for some actual testing on this.

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17d

Well, I’m not obsessive about it; if I can’t get to a charger, I just let it drain. Really, the most practical bounds are 20-80%. It’s really easy to make the phone ping a reminder at either end each time to remind you to connect or disconnect, via Automation, MacroDroid, Tasker, etc. Samsungs and Asus laptops also come with a Protect Battery/80% charging limiter already.

If you don’t care about the environment and just wanna keep buying and discarding batteries every few years, then that’s on you, but I value usage reduction and wanna try to make mine last 5+ years if possible. With that said, I don’t think I’ve seen this video before, so I’ll check it out, thanks.

The point is that all these measures you take don’t really meaningfully impact the battery life. Ultimately the only thing that matters is how much you use it. Ironically, cutting down on background apps probably helps your battery life more, rather than using those apps to artificially limit it.

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7d

I use them for many other purposes, too, not just battery! Also, I did watch both entire HTX videos and they consistently did objectively show at least a few % battery saved every 6 mo when limiting the range on both ends.

Valmond
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27d

I use it a lot but it’s like new after 3 years so I really don’t care. A replacement is kind of cheap too so it’s not worth the hassle, for me.

I think your figures are for older batteries with less stable anode/cathode tech. Or the predecessor of our modern batteries. Who tries to keep their battery between 40 and 75%? It defies the usability of it IMO.

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27d

It’s really a 20-80% range (look up lithium-ion 80%) but if I’m home, I may ask well keep it tighter if I’m already around charging sources.

A replacement is kind of cheap too

It’s about environmental care, not money.

Valmond
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7d

I call bollocks, the environment wont cry if I change my 100 gram battery after 4 instead of 5 years.

Also, nowadays it’s inbuilt in the phone charging process, so no need to do it manually, only exception is going really too low (phones auto shut down at low percents, when you see 0, it’s probably 5% left) and then leaving the phone for weeks.

They can now also recycle lithium to like 98-99% IIRC.

@[email protected]
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27d

if I change my 100 gram battery after 4 instead of 5 years.

But imagine if millions of people did this worldwide…

But true, I forgot about lithium’s improved recycling. Good stuff…

Valmond
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16d

You are right of course, but it’s kind of long down the list of things that if everyone did it it would ne benefical ☺️ right?

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27d

Charge slow (disable fast-charging)

That’s a myth. It does not make any difference. Modern chinese fast charging solutions can charge your phones faster with less heat vs slow charging which generates more heat. This has been proven in by a HTX studios which did a 2yrs long battery test.

@[email protected]
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17d

I watched that video, yeah. You’re right. However, it wasn’t 2 years long; it was 3 or 4 500-charge cycles’ worth of time across different phones, the total of which took 2 years. None of the phones was tested for more than about 6-9 months.

Anyway, yeah, I re-enabled my fast-charging, haha.

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717d

https://www.androidauthority.com/silicon-carbon-batteries-explained-3534045/

They’re lithium ion batteries with a new type of anode, not a totally new type of battery.

Advantage: more capacity

Disadvantage: less cycle life.

Bring back swappable batteries. And also back off on higher and higher power draw in phones.

@[email protected]
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7d

back off on higher and higher power draw in phones.

Thanks for the reminder to revisit my Droid’s developer options and ensure my background processes are restricted to 4 at most.

Anyway, less cycle life is disturbing. Why they don’t try LiFePO4, I don’t get.

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27d

No chance these background processes are a relatively simple change for us less technical folks, hey?

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37d

enable developer settings on android and just set it.

I think it’s different for all phones, but on my Samsung, I go to about - > software information in settings and press the build number a couple of times until developer mode enables. then, just set max background processes. doesn’t even take 5 minutes to do lol

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27d

Ah you rock, thank you! This was literally 5 minutes of my day haha

For any other non techies, it’s this easy!

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17d

LFP batteries are energy dense and long lasting, but heavy. I’m not 100% sure if the weight would be a big deal at phone scale, but AFAIK that’s why they havent been adopted for phones

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67d

LFP has about 2x less energy density unfortunately. It’s a lot cheaper and lasts longer so it’s great for home storage and competitive for lower cost EVs. But phones are all about power hungry bloated apps and web sites.

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27d

Maybe lower cycle life. I’ve had my RM 11 pro for like 5 months and accubattery hasn’t been charting me a very big decline yet. Of course, since it started at 7,500mah, it can lose a lot of capacity before it drops down to the 5,000mah range most phones new come with. I’ll have the same issue as with Samsung flagships, though. Can’t buy a new replacement OEM battery to save my life.

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317d

Looking forward to the lineup running graphene

Fair Fairy
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7d

OnePlus 15 was the first one. 7000mah. But it is technically correct they beat Samsung and google

sbeak
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27d

In the U.S. at least, Motorola is a more recognisable/established than OnePlus is. In other parts of the world, OnePlus has more dominance (like the Chinese and Indian markets)

One thing to add, the precursor to the 15, the OP 13 (14 skipped due to the number 4 being bad luck in China), was actually the first one to ship with SiC batteries in the U.S.!

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67d

Here I’ve had my 1TB 24GB red magic 11 pro with silicon carbon battery in the US for like 5 months now. Water cooled (gimmicky), air cooled (legit), and better performance with a bigger battery than anything Samsung will put out this year. $1000 and came with an 80watt charging block.

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16d

Yep. I have a Ine Plus 15 with one. 7,400 man, I can barely kill it in a day if I’m trying. Just using it, it’s like 2-3 days. Also not being a pure silicone battery (less than 15%) it still has awesome cycles and 120w charging, 80w wireless charging.

@[email protected]
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16d

I set mine to go to 85% and then pass through charge. A heavy use day and I’ll go from 85 in the morning to like 25% at night.

Red magic claims 80w wireless charging, but I haven’t seen anything that will do over 40w, and that sounded like a spaceship to keep it cool. Lol.

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