Question about #mobilelinux : I have had a #Pinephone for over a year now (with postmarketOs 99% of the time) and my primary issues have been battery life and poor performance.

I would usually assume that a lower-power computer would use less battery, even with the Pinephone being roughly 25% battery I find it very hard to use day-to-day without hauling around an external battery.

I am curious if that is a limitation of mobile Linux or just a Pinephone thing.

Thank you for your time!

@EdenIsASpood i figured switching from full-blown graphical application to TUI ones for similar tasks (mastodon, email, matrix, etc.) would considerably augment battery life. 1 minute of firefox = 15-30min of browsing fediverse w/ tut, opening images and the occasional link with links -g. 😑

it's clearly a journey.. but as always, learning those shortcuts, figuring out elegant configuration for oneself, maybe scripts, clearly pays off in the longer term for me.

#worksforme #linuxphone #sxmo

@jz Thank you for your input (tut looks awesome!), but my main question is about if it's a hardware or software issue.

@EdenIsASpood I think it's both: evolutions of the kernel in last years brought finer power management that improved battery, so there is way for hope. yet, pm in linux is not amazing. desktop software (ffox 😭) clearly doesnt care about resource usage.

hw also has its limitations: size of the battery to start with, specs of old SoC (steps down the CPU can take when not fully active / power usage of using only one low-freq core not optimal, GPU, etc.)

person who dug:: https://xnux.eu/log/

@EdenIsASpood do you know https://lemmy.ml/post/22079991 ? 50 hrs standby time!

@EdenIsASpood There is definitely some room for improvement with regard to software (that mostly shows on devices that do not suspend like the PinePhone; but it's being worked on, Droidian and FuriOS have been implementing away to reduce power use without standby).

It's really mostly the fact that if a device uses an old chip (circuitry and process node) meant for TV set-top boxes, it won't fare great. For it's lean 3000mAh battery, and it's specific hardware, PinePhone does amazing, IMHO.

@insl @EdenIsASpood x86-64 PC used as a phone. It is quite heavy at more than 300 grams, still... its a PC with video out, ethernet and normal sized USB ports. I'd really like phone in 100gram range, still, this is fun hack.

@jawsh I used to answer such questions to the best of my ability, with IMHO enough caveats and back and forth.. and got yelled or got abusive email ... not once, but multiple times. So I stopped doing that.
At this point on my Pixel 3a with #postmarketOS, I get through my days without standby unless I miss some process running amok - if the phone feels warm in my pocket, I unlock it and start top.
I also don't let known offenders like 'Firefox' or 'Thunderbird' running.
@EdenIsASpood

@jawsh I hope to find the time to
1. switch my install to one with systemd and
2. see if I can get https://github.com/droidian/mobile-power-saver or https://github.com/droidian/batman running, to make power management less manual.
@EdenIsASpood

@jawsh But, again, that's just my use-case, YMMV. These are used devices and not all batteries have suffered equally (and not all replacement batteries are created equally). Bad network coverage can increase battery drain, display brightness matters ...there's so much.
A OnePlus 6 or Pixel 3a or Poco F1 or is also not a massive investment - I get these devices for 50-99 EUR here. Make sure to avoid devices with aftermarket screen replacements - these may have no drivers. @EdenIsASpood

@jawsh Compared to the PinePhone, it likely lasts less long with no use at all. I think I have more active use time than I had with the PinePhone back in the day, but I find that very difficult to measure.
I can't comment on a comparison to average Android. I have 0 experience with Android devices made after the (mine may have been faulty) Google Pixel 6, when I used Android it was usually with custom ROM, without GAPPS (or many proprietary apps), maybe with microG. @EdenIsASpood

@jawsh (That's not entirely true, I have a FairPhone 5, but Android was 'unlock bootloader OS' only on that thing for me so far. @EdenIsASpood