A couple of days ago I took my mom out to dinner (yes, it was a late Mother’s Day dinner), and before the food came out she was on her phone tapping around on the big display. After a little while something started to get on her nerves, and, before too long, she switched off the screen, set her glasses on the top of her head, and deposited the phone into her purse.
When she looked up at me and saw that I had a look of curiosity on my face, she just shook her head and said, “Battery is going to die.”
I asked her all the routine questions: When’s the last time you charged it? Do you charge it over night? Have you been using it all day, and, if so, what were you doing on it? She told me that she charged it last night, overnight, and then, randomly throughout the day, she’d been playing games on it. Basically when she got some free time at work she snuck in a few games of Solitaire or something.
So we went over how apps, especially games, can kill a phone’s battery remarkably quickly, especially when played for a sustained period of time. And then I told her that she should try to top off the battery at night, before she goes to bed, take it off the charger while she sleeps, and then recharge whatever drained in the morning. That’s worked out well enough for me over the years, through a variety of different phones, and I figured that would help her, too.
I obviously had to ask her if she was happy with her phone otherwise, simply because it felt like a natural extension. If the battery life isn’t what you thought it would be, is the rest of the phone doing okay? Keeping up with your expectations? She told me pretty matter-of-factly that she loves her phone (it’s a Samsung Galaxy Note5, by the way), and she’ll just play fewer games to make sure that her battery keeps ticking along.
Writing up an article about battery life would’ve been easy enough, but we’ve been over that a few times, and, considering there haven’t been many changes in that department, it’s probably safe to say you all still find battery life one of the most important aspects of your phone’s features list. But honestly the conversation with my mom about her phone didn’t lead me down the battery life rabbit hole. I figure she’ll even it out, or we’ll have to get it replaced — and I’m sure she’d want a new Galaxy Note5.
That got me thinking about satisfaction.
Apple is known to toot its own horn when it comes to customer satisfaction for its iPhone lineup, as well it should. Other companies would love to be up there in the high 90s like Apple has been for years. But, just like my mom showed me, it’s not just Apple that has fans and high customer satisfaction.
So I can’t help but wonder, if there was an issue on your phone, like, say, a busted battery, where you had the option of sending it in, getting it returned to you, or getting a comparable device from another manufacturer, would you stick with the phone you have right now? Are you satisfied with your daily driver? And which smartphone, of all the ones you’ve used/owned, has made you the most satisfied over the years? Let me know!
