Do You Need a Smartphone Power Bank?

Something I am not too happy with the Nexus 5 about is the battery life. At 2300 mAh, it's pretty poor. It would be fine for an occasional or normal user but the Nexus 5 really is the sort of phone that a serious smartphone user would have, so for it is certainly disappointing. If I were getting another phone now the benchmark would be at least 3000 mAh, and that is what you find in the OnePlus One and the Sony Xperia Z2.

Nonetheless, I fixed this problem simply by buying a qi wireless charger off eBay for only about $13. I have it at work and this allows me to charge my phone at work simply by laying the phone onto the charging mat. It is incredible how convenient inbuilt wireless charging is. It should be standard across all phones.

The qi wireless charger allowed me to have full power by the time I leave work and even after using the phone on the commute home and at home, I can charge the phone again overnight via micro-USB and then come back to work again and keep charging it. I effectively charge the phone twice in a day. It's a little bit of overkill, but more power is better than no power.

Of course, the only problem is if I don't go to work at all. For example, sometimes in the holidays I go out somewhere and I am gone for the whole day. For example, recently I went to a wedding. The ceremony was at lunch, which means I commuted in the morning, and the reception was in the evening and went on into the night. I was taking photos on the phone like a madman and at around 8pm the phone was dead in spite of my best attempts to keep brightness down and turn off data.

My friends at the wedding with iPhones and therefore even smaller batteries also had low batteries but at least many of them seemed to have power banks on them and they recharged their phones by plugging it into a power bank. I thought this was a brilliant idea, so I resolved to get one for myself.

I looked on eBay and found some for pretty cheap, around $20. However, everyone who used power banks at the wedding were females and they had handbags and purses in which to carry their power banks. I am a man and therefore a bag is beneath me. I need to travel light. Where would I store the power bank? I decided to look for slim power banks with similar dimensions to smart phones so that I can carry them in one of my other pockets. But then I remembered that the power bank is more than the battery itself. You need to carry around a USB to micro-USB cable (or USB to Lightning cable for iPhone) around with you as well. I then looked at buying a wireless power bank given that my phone had a wireless charger, but wireless charging is actually much slower than charging with wire and because much energy is lost via heat with wireless charging, the power banks need to be bigger than normal power banks. Wireless power banks were also note expensive, reaching about $50.

Then I realized, why bother buying a smartphone size power bank with a cable on me when, if I know I am going to use my phone a lot during a day, I can just being along my spare phone? If my Nexus 5 has low battery, I can just take out my spare phone from my other pocket or play games or read books offline on my spare phone, and if I am desperate for internet I can set a hotspot. Everyone should have a spare phone lying around when they upgrade. It is necessary because your main phone might break or get stolen. Instead of carrying around a power bank, it is much easier to just carry around two phones and use the other one instantly when low on battery.

Why I Got a Red Nexus 5

About a month ago I purchased a red Nexus 5. I used to have a Sony Xperia Z. Some people have asked me why I purchased a new phone. Below are my reasons.

1. Faster processor

The Xperia Z has a Snapdragon S4 Pro processor whereas the Nexus 5 has the faster Snapdragon 800 processor. The Nexus 5 is approximately 80% faster according to Antutu benchmarks.

2. There were problems with the camera on my Xperia Z

For some reason, dust particles appeared in the lenses of my Xperia Z. It turned out that this was a common problem on Xperia Z phones. Luckily for me when I purchased the phone from Kogan, it was still under the one-year warranty. I sent the phone to Kogan for repair and they gave me a brand new Xperia Z. However, it took them about two months to send the new phone to me and during that time I had to use the backup phone, i.e. the Kogan Dual-Core Smartphone, which is a horrendously slow phone compared to the Xperia Z. So I simply decided to buy a Nexus 5. It turns out that when my Nexus 5 arrived in the mail, the new Xperia Z came at the same time.

3. My mother can use the Xperia Z

My mother currently uses the Samsung Galaxy Y and she constantly complains about how bad this phone is. She says she will buy a new phone but hasn't done much about it yet. My intention is that she can use my Xperia Z, although to date she hasn't accepted it yet. Perhaps she is looking for a smaller phone.

4. The Nexus 5 is cheap and I had the money

Whenever I arrive home, I empty any coins in a jar in my bedroom. When my Xperia Z was being repaired, I decided to collect all the coins in this jar and take it to the bank to deposit the money. It turned out that I had enough money to buy a new Nexus 5, so why not? I saved up for it and I haven't gone into debt and I have not gone on a phone plan. It is unlocked and off-contract, so there are no obligations on me.

Sony Xperia Z2 vs Nexus 5

My Sony Xperia Z is currently in for repairs due to a faulty camera. My main gripe with the Xperia Z is the camera, which is far too slow, and the emergence of dust particles in the lenses doesn't help either. In the meantime I have been using my backup phone, the $150 Kogan Dual Core, which although it is cheap is quite poor compared to the Xperia. It is significantly slower and the display is simply bad. If you really need to buy a cheap smartphone, I recommend paying a little bit more to get the Kogan Agora HD (Quad Core) or the Motorola Moto G. I do not recommend the Kogan Agora Dual Core smartphone. The slowness of the device alone has frustrated me.

I am really tempted to simply buy a Nexus 5 right now but I have heard rumours that the Sony Xperia Z2 will come out soon. The Xperia Z2 is rumoured to have the following specifications:

• 5.2-inch Full HD display with a resolution of 2560x1440
• quad-core 2.3GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor 
• 3GB of RAM
• 20.7-megapixel main camera
• 3,700mAh battery.

A 2560x1440 resolution would make this a 2.5K phone, which is quite incredible. The screen size, at 5.2 inches, it starting to get quite large. The Z and Z1 were already large phones, but the Z2 is looking even larger. That being said, if largeness were a problem, there is always the 4.3 inch Xperia Z1 Compact, but there is something about returning to a small screen that doesn't appeal to me. If you pay a lot of money for a phone, you want to get your money's worth, so getting less screen real estate, fewer pixels, smaller battery, and so forth just doesn't sit well with me.