Last year, I started using my smartphone again, as I had to sell off some property in Chennai. The phone was nearly a decade old and its battery could only be charged using a universal pin charger. Even then, it went dead just as I was taking photos of some important documents. By the time I made my next trip, I had reluctantly bought a new smartphone. It had with a 5000 mAH battery. Its alarm was loud enough wake me up in the morning. My old Nokia feature phone now has my and my father's SIMs. I switch it on only for banking transactions. I do not do any financial transactions on the smartphone. (I do not dare use these banking SIMs on a smartphone.) My new Nokia dumb phone is now beig used by my father. So, I am stuck with the smartphone. I do not browse the net with it. I have my laptop for that. That is, I use the smartphone like a dumb phone — only for phone calls and messages.
I charge it twice a month but recently the battery started dying after just a few days. I wondered what changed. I had already disabled all unnecessary apps, particularly Google's. I have disabled all startup apps. I never used the wireless or Bluetooth networks. The battery saver feature was on. The data connection is always off.
When I went to buy this new phone, one phone salesman told me that most phones today last less than a day and have to be charged every day. This was news to me, as I had stopped buying new phones for several years now. I was determined not to charge my phone so frequently. I bought a phone with a big battery just because of that reason. So, the 5000-mAH battery was just a gimmick?
No. When I went to the City recently, I had temporarily switched to the 3G network when I had to do a web search. (All my phones are on BSNL and they do not have 4G or 5G.) This 3G was the culprit. Unlike the 2G network, which latches on to just one phone tower, the 3G network incessantly communicates with multiple phone masts to get the best reception. To do what? On my phone, nothing. When I switched back to the 2G network. I got back the battery life. The phone battery now lasts more than half a month after a full charge.
