Cellphone makers still make it a point to put Stand-by Time as a key spec for their phones.

My Samsung Galaxy S2, for instance, has a claimed stand-by time of up to 710 hours if on 2G.

The iPhone 4S? Stand-by time is claimed to be up to 200 hours on 2G.

There’s just one problem. These numbers mean nothing anymore, particularly if you happen to talking about a smartphone.

Stand-by time involves an ideal situation in which you do not even touch your phone at all. It’s just lying there. It’s on, but it’s just quietly waiting for a call. Yes, maybe then you could reach 200 hours of on time.

The trouble is that this is baloney. Nobody leaves a smartphone to just lie there unused. These days, smartphones are practically extensions of our brains, and barely fifteen minutes goes by without you picking up your phone to check on messages, chats, notes, your calendar or just to play a game.

For smartphone users, the very idea of touting a stand-by time is a joke.

Okay. Perhaps if you’re still using a feature phone, such as a Nokia 1110 or something like that, then maybe stand-by time still means something. This is because for low-level users like, say, your grandmother, yes it’s theoretically feasible for an entire day to go by without her having to even lift the phone from the table.

But for typical smartphone users, forget it.

It’s time that we got rid of the concept of stand-by time and replace it with more realistic battery benchmarks. Like, say, the battery life for “frequent fiddling use” or for “restless and checking phone every few minutes.”

Art

Art is a long-time editor for a number of technology publications. He is a Palanca-winning writer whose day job is to try to be as serious as possible while being a management consultant and lecturer. His favorite noodles: chapchae.

email: art@technoodling.netwebsite: http://www.technoodling.net