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Comment by gordon_freeman | Hacker News Reader

In general, I moved from Android to iPhone a couple of years ago and must say the battery on iPhone lasts so long compared to my old Android phone that there's no comparison really. Apple's work on iPhone battery management is impressive!

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I don't want to question wether Apple's work on battery management is better than Google's, but want to outline the meta of such statements. In general, I don't think it's good to compare a new bought device with the device you are replacing, since the old device is probably a couple of years old. So the specs of the old one must be worse than the specs of the new one. Another example would be Tesla buyers who are replacing their old car and comparing the new car to their old.

I had a similar experience and what it seems like is that Apple devices have pretty amazing standby time as compared to most android devices I have used. This has probably gotten better over the years but when I got my first iPhone it seemed like the battery didn't budge at all if it was in standby, such as leaving it unplugged overnight. I never had the experience with an android device.

> when I got my first iPhone it seemed like the battery didn't budge at all if it was in standby, such as leaving it unplugged overnight

Apple has very stringent limits on how long apps can run in the background, while Android is more lenient. That is great for battery life and privacy, but not giving the user a way to whitelist apps from these optimizations means apps like SyncThing (which only exists for Android) or WhatsApp Web are harder to develop.

My OnePlus 6t drains only 10% during an 8 hour night! And it is 3 years old!

This is a little presumptuous or possibly a misunderstanding of the parent's comment mentioning "old Android phone". It's entirely possible that the person did a lateral generational phone switch, but you've assumed that they upgraded to a newer phone.

I love older generation phones because they're so cheap and your car comparison is perfect because buying a phone new IMO is one of the worst financial decisions you can make unless it has functionality you really need. Phone value drops sharply after the first 1-2 years and so I have a lot of fun buying last generation's phones (Android and iPhone) and comparing them to each other. Holding off on the newest phones really shows me how imaginary the price of an absolute brand new phone is.

Talking about how expensive the phones have become lately, the max out specs on new iPhone 13 Pro Max costs $1,600 and if you add taxes it would be $1,760!

Your 10% sales tax is robbery. Where is that ?

California

According to https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/sales-tax-rate?con..., out of G20 countries, 16 have sales tax rates greater than or equal to 10%. This seems to only counts national sales tax, since it lists 5% for Canada, but about 85% of Canadians live in areas with more than 10% total sales tax.

That conflates VAT rates and sales tax rates. The two tax structures are very different, and a comparable VAT has a higher nominal rate than a sales tax, because the taxable amount is typically smaller.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_taxes_in_the_United_Stat... sort on third column. A bunch of places in the US have city/county taxes that bring the sales tax above 10% even though the state tax is not.

Just for places I've been in the somewhat recent past, Seattle and Chicago both had 10%+ rates.

It's 20% here but it's included in the prices. Most people don't think about it at all unless they're buying for business.

iPhone resale value is very good. Many carriers also give you significant discounts on new phones.

I got two iPhone 12's for free + free line and did not sign a contract.

sounds like a great deal, almost everything i can find rn rebates the cost of the iphone via your monthly bill over 24-36 months

eh, I have the 12 pro, 256gb. did not see much in the 13 pro that was interesting and most improvements will come with iOS 15 but between my ~$700 trade in value and subsidizing the rest of the device with some accrued points from my credit card company, might as well. I definitely have wanted the portrait video mode, since apps have been doing it for a very long time, Instagram at one point had the focus filter that did that.

from my experience, buying the expensive electronic ONCE gives a lot of benefits and choices, because the future purchases aren't that expensive.

sure, I'm still likely paying more than the person that brags about how they wouldn't imagine spending even $200 on a phone, so there is no real need to have that conversation and spreadsheet analysis

but between starting with up to date technology, instead of starting with 3-6 year old technology, and having a store of value, versus a decrepit paperweight, I'm into keeping my mobile devices refreshed. Specifically my iphone.

> I love older generation phones because they're so cheap and your car comparison is perfect because buying a phone new

Agreed. I, for one, have pretty much always bought used, and normally one generation behind. When something new comes out, the older phone is boring, which does knock the price down a little.

It's even worse - 12h battery life wouldn't really be a problem if I could swap in a spare battery or choose to bulk up my device with a 100 watt hour battery.

It really depends on what phone you had and how old it was when you switched.

Most of my friends are very surprised when I mention that my Android phone lasts more than 2 days on a single charge; their iPhone barely lasts a day. If they switched they'd come to the same realisation as you did but with phones reversed. If they upgraded to the latest iPhone I am sure they'd also be pleasantly surprised.

I think something that has happened in the last 2-3 years is that the average phone has gone from 'full day battery' on purchase to '2-3 day battery' and there has not really been much marketing around that fact (or at least as far as I can see), so people on older models don't quite realise what they're missing (and are of course also suffering from battery degradation).

I've never had an iPhone, but I could say the same thing about my old and current Android phones. I had a Galaxy Note 4 for a few years, the last Note with a replaceable battery, and I had spare batteries that I occasionally swapped in. When I upgraded to a Note 20 I thought "oh no I can't swap batteries" and bought a power bank along with it. I've never needed it, even when travelling. At the end of each day I usually have mid 80s percent battery left. The battery's only slightly bigger, but the power management is way better.

I switched from Pixel 3 XL to iPhone 11 Pro and the battery life was way worse on iPhone. It's about half as good as the Pixel was. It was like that on day one. It was my single biggest gripe about the iPhone.

Sure, but there are a 1000 android phones, some that cost $20.

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