Ashlei Temena’s family trip to Disneyland lastThanksgiving break turned into a nightmare when her smartphone battery hit empty.
因為智能手機沒電了,阿什萊·特米納(Ashlei Temena)一家上個感恩節(jié)的迪斯尼樂園之旅變成了噩夢。
Ms. Temena, a San Francisco support technician, had gotten separated from her family andrealized she had no way to find anyone. Instead of riding roller coasters, she wandered aroundsearching for the group — eventually locating them four hours later watching fireworks.
特米納是一位舊金山的技術(shù)支持工程師,她在旅途中和家人走散后,發(fā)現(xiàn)沒有辦法找到他們了。她沒有坐過山車,而是到處尋找家人,后來過了四個小時,看煙火的時候才找到他們。
“I wanted to throw my phone on the ground by the end of the day,” Ms. Temena said.
“那天到最后我真想把手機往地上摔,”特米納說。
Many consumers can relate. Despite the leaps forward in mobile phone technology with crisp,clear screens and faster chips, batteries have made only sluggish progress. That has propelleda desire for longer battery life to the top of the list of factors considered by consumers whenthey purchase smartphones, according to a 2014 survey by the research firm IDC.
很多消費者都會有同感。盡管手機技術(shù)的飛躍帶來了清晰的顯示屏和快速的芯片,電池仍然是唯一的滯后環(huán)節(jié)。因此,根據(jù)調(diào)查公司IDC于2014年進行的一項調(diào)查,“電池續(xù)航更長”成了消費者購買智能手機時的首要因素之一。
So why is battery technology still underwhelming? Plenty of companies have been developing smarter battery technology for years, including methods to increase battery capacity tenfold or charge devices by pulling energy from the air. But lithium ion, the technology that most mainstream batteries are based on, is low cost and easily reproducible while being safe — so we’ll be stuck with it for the foreseeable future, said Charlie Quong, an executive at Mophie, a battery accessory maker, in an interview.
電池技術(shù)的發(fā)展為何仍然普通?很多公司都已多年開發(fā)智能電池技術(shù),包括將電池容量增加十倍的方法,或者從空氣中吸取能量的充電設(shè)備等。但是目前主流的電池都是鋰電池,它成本較低、容易降解,而且安全,所以我們在可預(yù)測的未來還將使用它,電池配件制造商Mophie公司的一位高管查理·奎昂(Charlie Quong)在接受采訪時說。
“There’s a lot of investments on all fronts for improving the technology above and beyond that, but I don’t think we’re going to see that hitting any kind of mass market for several years out,” Mr. Quong said. In general, lithium ion improves about 10 percent a year in terms of the amount of energy that can be stored in a given space, which is partly why consumers perceive batteries as being far behind other technologies.
“在電池技術(shù)前沿已經(jīng)有過不少投資,但我認(rèn)為,新技術(shù)幾年內(nèi)不會大規(guī)模投放市場,”奎昂說。總的來說,鋰電池技術(shù)的進步保持在一年可以增加10%的固定空間蓄電量水平,所以消費者覺得電池技術(shù)的進步遠比其他技術(shù)進步要慢。
With that backdrop in mind, we teamed up with the Wirecutter, a product recommendations website, to run an array of tests to determine best and worst practices for preserving battery life on smartphones. For those who still need extra juice, the Wirecutter also picked some external battery products.
了解了這個背景,我們與產(chǎn)品推薦網(wǎng)站the Wirecutter聯(lián)系,做了一系列實驗,找到為智能手機省電的最好辦法。對于希望額外電量的人,Wirecutter還提供了一些充電寶類的產(chǎn)品。
The results showed that some conventional beliefs about extending battery life — like turning off Wi-Fi or shutting down all your phone’s apps — produced negligible or even harmful results. The Wirecutter also found plenty of helpful practices to get more use out of your battery, like playing music stored directly on the device (instead of streaming it) or tweaking email configurations.
實驗結(jié)果表明,某些傳統(tǒng)的省電方式――諸如關(guān)閉Wi-Fi或關(guān)閉手機應(yīng)用――被證明沒有用處,甚至是有害的。Wirecutter還發(fā)現(xiàn)了很多有用的做法,可以更經(jīng)濟地使用電池,比如把音樂直接存儲在設(shè)備里(不要用流媒體收聽)或優(yōu)化郵件設(shè)置。
The Wirecutter tested a range of recent Apple and Android smartphones with the latest operating systems in tightly controlled environments. Your phone’s results will vary depending on the phone model, cellular carrier, location and other factors, but the general results should hold. Here are eight tips and seven myths busted by our findings:
Wirecutter在嚴(yán)格控制的環(huán)境下測試了一系列安裝了最新操作系統(tǒng)的最新版本蘋果手機和安卓智能手機。在你的手機上使用效果如何,可能取決于手機型號、手機運營商、位置與其他因素,但是大致結(jié)果應(yīng)當(dāng)是不變的。下面是我們發(fā)現(xiàn)的8條省電小貼士與7條被證明錯誤的說法:
1. Use auto-brightness for the screen.
1.使用屏幕自動亮度調(diào)節(jié)
A smartphone’s screen consumes more energy than any other component, so the easiest way to cut down battery drain is to reduce your screen brightness. In an hourlong test, an iPhone 6s used 54 percent less battery power with the screen brightness at minimum as compared with maximum brightness. An Android test phone used 30 percent less.
智能手機的屏幕是所有元件里最耗電的,所以降低屏幕亮度是降低電池?fù)p耗的最簡單的辦法。在一個為時一小時的測試?yán)?,一臺把屏幕調(diào)到最暗的iPhone 6S手機要比把亮度調(diào)到最亮的手機節(jié)省54%的電量。在安卓手機測試?yán)?,能?jié)省30%電量。
But it’s tough to use a dim screen in bright environments, so most phones offer an auto-brightness mode that automatically adjusts the screen’s brightness based on ambient light. The Wirecutter found that enabling auto-brightness saved a good amount of battery life.
但是在明亮的環(huán)境下使用昏暗的屏幕是非常難受的,所以大多數(shù)手機都提供自動亮度調(diào)節(jié)模式,可以根據(jù)周圍環(huán)境的亮度自動調(diào)節(jié)屏幕亮度。Wirecutter發(fā)現(xiàn),開啟自動亮度調(diào)節(jié)能夠節(jié)省大量電量。
2. Block power-sucking ads.
2. 屏蔽耗電的廣告
When browsing the web, your smartphone also burns through power when it downloads mobile ads on websites. Installing an ad blocker will greatly extend battery life.
瀏覽網(wǎng)頁時,你的智能手機會下載網(wǎng)頁上的移動廣告,這樣會耗費大量電量。安裝廣告屏蔽應(yīng)用可以延長大大延長電池使用時間。
The Wirecutter ran a test that cycled through a list of websites for two hours over a Wi-Fi connection. Safari on an iPhone 6s used 18 percent of a full battery; Chrome on a Moto X Pure Android phone used 22 percent. Installing the 1Blocker ad blocker on the iPhone reduced battery usage for the same test to only 9 percent of a full battery; on an Android phone, using the Ghostery Privacy Browser, which blocks ads, used only 8 percent of the battery.
Wirecutter在連接Wi-Fi的情況下,用2小時瀏覽了若干網(wǎng)站。iPhone 6s上的Safari瀏覽器使用了18%的電量;安卓手機Moto X Pure上的Chrome瀏覽器使用了22%的電量。iPhone手機上安裝了廣告屏蔽應(yīng)用 1Blocker 后,以同樣時間瀏覽同樣網(wǎng)頁,電池使用量降低到9%;在安卓手機上安裝了屏蔽廣告的Ghostery Privacy Browser瀏覽器之后,同樣情況下只用了8%的電池電量。
3. Tweak your email settings.
3. 優(yōu)化郵件設(shè)置
Email can have a major impact on battery life if you have multiple email accounts and receive lots of email. Your smartphone can update your email automatically using a technology called push, which brings new messages to your phone the instant they are transmitted. Push can be a power hog because it requires your phone to constantly listen for new messages, so if you get a lot of email, there’s a good chance your phone is using lots of energy.
如果你擁有好幾個郵件賬號,并且收發(fā)大量郵件,電子郵件對電池使用時間會有很大影響。你的智能手機會使用推送技術(shù)自動更新郵箱情況,一旦收到郵件就立刻在你的手機上顯示新信息。推送可以成為耗電大戶,因為它需要你的手機一直接收新消息,所以如果你有很多電子郵件,你的手機就會耗很多電。
The Wirecutter tested an iPhone 6s Plus configured with three email accounts, receiving a total of 20 to 30 messages an hour. In these tests, having push active over the course of a day caused Mail to account for 5 to 10 percent of the phone’s overall battery use.
Wirecutter測試了一臺有三個電子郵件賬戶,每小時收20到30個郵件的iPhone 6s Plus手機。在這個測試中,如果打開推送,每天會令郵箱多耗5%到10%的電池電能。
To save energy, most phones can be configured to instead check for (or “fetch”) emails on a schedule — say, every 30 minutes — or only when you manually tell your email app to refresh.
為了節(jié)省電能,大多數(shù)手機都可以設(shè)置定時檢查(或“獲取”)郵件,比如每30分鐘獲取一次,或者手動更新。
4. Play downloaded music instead of streaming.
4. 播放下載音樂,而不是使用流媒體收聽
The next tip may come as unwelcome news. nowadays, online streaming is the most popular way to listen to music, with services like Spotify, Pandora and Apple Music — but this method guzzles lots of battery power. In the Wirecutter’s tests, streaming music over a Wi-Fi connection for two hours used 10 percent of an iPhone’s battery reserves; streaming the same music stored directly on a device over two hours consumed only 5 percent.
這條提示可能不怎么受歡迎。如今,使用Spotify、Pandora和Apple Music等在線流媒體是最受歡迎的聽音樂方式,不過,這種方式也損耗不少電能。根據(jù)Wirecutter的測試,Wi-Fi模式下,用流媒體方式收聽2小時音樂,會用掉iPhone電池的10%;而在同等情況下使用下載方式收聽,只使用5%。
Fortunately, streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music still let you listen to songs the old-school way: by storing the music right on your device.
幸運的是,Spotify和Apple Music 都允許你以傳統(tǒng)方式收聽音樂——把歌曲下載到設(shè)備里。