NextBit Robin Battery Life Review

Looking at other NextBit Robin reviews no one was particularly impressed by the battery life if offered. It was largely labelled as ‘OK’ or ‘Fine’ which I didn’t find very helpful therefore I decided to perform a test on my own by comparing it to iPhone 6, Galaxy S5, Lumia 930 and HTC One ME. Read on to find out the results.

After I completed my NextBit Robin Camera Review I thought I would tackle another area where Robin generally struggled to impress – battery life.

Testing

I find it a bit vague when reading reviews about battery life without exactly detailing the test procedure. Not only it doesn’t give you an idea if the testing conditions are similar to your daily use but it also doesn’t allow you to replicate the exact test on your current smartphone, making it hard to compare with the handset you are currently using.

Devices

• NextBit Robin
• Nokia Lumia 930
• iPhone 6
• Samsung Galaxy S5
• HTC One ME

As in the in my camera test review I wasn’t able to get the latest flagships for my test. I had to rely again on 1-2 year old flagship phones but in Robin’s case I find it more suitable as it’s a midrange smartphone that you can’t expect to compete with the latest flagship handsets out there.

UPDATE: After some feedback I received I decided to clarify that when I said 1-2 year old devices I was referring to the official release dates. The actual age of the tested devices is 2-4 weeks with the exception of HTC One ME which has been in use for 5 months.

Method

I tried to set a controlled environment where the test would be most comparable and easy to replicate by yourself at home. This would hopefully make it easy to carry out a battery life test on your existing smartphone by yourself to see how Robin and other smartphones compare against it. All helping you to make an informed purchase, eliminating any potential nasty surprises :)

Settings

For the test I set the below configuration and settings on all smartphones.

• WiFi connected
• Bluetooth disconnected
• Screen brightness of 50%

Test sequence

I carried out the below tests which should be easy for you to replicate.

1. Download Asphalt 8: Airborne via WiFi
2. Play Asphalt 8: Airborne for 30 minutes
3. Take 5 photos
4. Web browsing test using pagereboot.com, refreshing cnet.com every 60 seconds
5. Take 5 photos
6. Watching YouTube videos for 30 minutes
7. Take 5 photos
8. Make a 30 minute voice call
9. Take 5 photos
10. Record a 10 minute video clip
11. Take 5 photos
12. Make a 10 minute Skype video call
13. Take 5 photos
14. Play Asphalt 8: Airborne for another 30 minutes

Notes

I have chosen Skype and Asphalt 8 due to being multi-platform, therefore can be tested on pretty much any device.

All video clips were recorded in 4K with the exception of iPhone 6 as it doesn’t support it. Galaxy S5 shut down the camera app 1 minute before completing the 10 minute test to prevent ‘overheating’. I then immediately relaunched the camera app and recorded the final 1 minute clip to complete my test.

For web browsing test I used native web browsers. On Galaxy S5 it was Samsung Web browser, iPhone Safari, Lumia Internet Explorer, while One ME an Robin were tested using Google Chrome.

Results

To no surprise the more expensive and polished iPhone 6 and Galaxy S5 performed best while the midrange Robin and One ME performed slightly worse. What came completely as a surprise was the Lumia 930 which barely completed the test. It ran out of juice just when I completed the final Asphalt 8 test. Otherwise Lumia 930 held its own against other devices, the difference was that Asphalt 8 burnt through the battery much quicker than other smartphones. See the chart below for the exact figures of how much battery each device had left after the test was complete.

Battery life remaining (higher is better)

Conclusion

As you can see the more expensive devices had more battery left so I guess ‘what you get is what you pay for’ applies in this case with the only odd one out being Lumia 930.

This kind of confirms the ‘OK’ and ‘Fine’ labels put up against Robin’s battery life by the majority of reviewers out there. Personally for me that is sufficient as I haven’t had any issues with Robin lasting me through the day, however if you are looking at a battery life marathon champion Robin will probably disappoint you but in my mind it is unrealistic to expect anything more than Robin delivered at the price point of $399 (~£280) and only 7mm thin.