Comments on: The Claytons iPhone http://girtby.net/archives/2007/12/10/the-claytons-iphone/ this blog is girtby.net Wed, 30 Sep 2009 01:44:34 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9-rare hourly 1 By: Chris http://girtby.net/archives/2007/12/10/the-claytons-iphone/comment-page-1/#comment-1642 Chris Mon, 10 Dec 2007 11:11:00 +0000 http://girtby.net/2007/12/15/the-claytons-iphone#comment-1642 <p>Rockin' review!</p> <p>I was looking at these the other day and I had two questions that the sales staff didn't answer. You haven't developed sufficiently advanced telepathy to anticipate in your review.</p> <ol> <li>What's the battery life <em>really like</em>?</li> <li>How much data transfer does the GPS function take up? If you did an 13-ish hour drive, would you be at the upper limit of one of them thar cheap-ass HSDPA data deals?</li> </ol> <p>Cheers, Chris</p> <p>[feel free to delete this - one heading above has a typo: "HDSPA"]</p> Rockin’ review!

I was looking at these the other day and I had two questions that the sales staff didn’t answer. You haven’t developed sufficiently advanced telepathy to anticipate in your review.

  1. What’s the battery life really like?
  2. How much data transfer does the GPS function take up? If you did an 13-ish hour drive, would you be at the upper limit of one of them thar cheap-ass HSDPA data deals?

Cheers, Chris

[feel free to delete this - one heading above has a typo: "HDSPA"]

]]> By: Alastair http://girtby.net/archives/2007/12/10/the-claytons-iphone/comment-page-1/#comment-1643 Alastair Mon, 10 Dec 2007 11:11:00 +0000 http://girtby.net/2007/12/15/the-claytons-iphone#comment-1643 <p>Thanks Chris. Telepathy aside, I <em>had</em> actually meant to talk about battery life before hitting the publish button, but for whatever reason, didn't. Possibly red wine was involved.</p> <p>Anyway I read somewhere that the GPS function uses the battery very aggressively. In reality this isn't much of a problem because in the car you'll generally have it hooked up to power.</p> <p>The main limitation I've found is heavy data usage. Right now I'm about to depart for an overnight trip and I anticipate that after the two days and one night of reasonably sustained data usage the battery will be on its last legs when I return tomorrow night. Any more than a night and I'll have to bring a charger. If the bloody thing charged through a USB port it wouldn't be an issue.</p> <p>I have a reasonably generous data plan (500MB/month) so I don't watch the bits and bytes too closely. However daily data usage is itemised on my bill and have noticed very light usage on the days that I'm not downloading the internet. I would be surprised if the AGPS used more than a few K of data - it doesn't even seem to bring up the "3.5G" symbol to say that an HSDPA connection has been made.</p> <p>Contrast this with the Google Maps for Mobile client which is awesome but (as you can probably imagine) uses up data.</p> <p>So yes, feel free to get cheap-ass HSDPA if you just want the GPS function using the standard software.</p> Thanks Chris. Telepathy aside, I had actually meant to talk about battery life before hitting the publish button, but for whatever reason, didn’t. Possibly red wine was involved.

Anyway I read somewhere that the GPS function uses the battery very aggressively. In reality this isn’t much of a problem because in the car you’ll generally have it hooked up to power.

The main limitation I’ve found is heavy data usage. Right now I’m about to depart for an overnight trip and I anticipate that after the two days and one night of reasonably sustained data usage the battery will be on its last legs when I return tomorrow night. Any more than a night and I’ll have to bring a charger. If the bloody thing charged through a USB port it wouldn’t be an issue.

I have a reasonably generous data plan (500MB/month) so I don’t watch the bits and bytes too closely. However daily data usage is itemised on my bill and have noticed very light usage on the days that I’m not downloading the internet. I would be surprised if the AGPS used more than a few K of data – it doesn’t even seem to bring up the “3.5G” symbol to say that an HSDPA connection has been made.

Contrast this with the Google Maps for Mobile client which is awesome but (as you can probably imagine) uses up data.

So yes, feel free to get cheap-ass HSDPA if you just want the GPS function using the standard software.

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