Cellphones in Japan > Battery Life

Battery Life

Want to know why the U.S. has bigger phones and less battery life on average than Japan does?

Most of Japan is very mountainous, so most of the population is crowded into the valleys and the coasts. In turn, population density in urban areas is much higher than it is in the U.S. Also, Japan is a much smaller country than the U.S., so it's much easier for a carrier to cover most of Japan.

These two conditions combine to make it profitable for a cell - that is, the area covered by one cell tower - to be much smaller on average than it is in the U.S. This means less distance for signals to travel between phones and cell towers.

The amount of power needed for a signal to travel a particular distance is roughly proportional to the square of that distance. So, if the signal needs to travel 1/2 the distance, it needs 1/4 the power; 1/3 the distance, 1/9 the power; and so on. Less power needed, means batteries and antennae can be smaller.

The networks are probably all-digital in Japan, too, unlike the digital-analog hybrids we see here (digital in some areas, analog for other areas that see less cell-phone use). Analog uses much more power than digital does, IIRC.

reply to ultraman80
Thanks for the info.
I've always figured it had to do with signal power.
The phone I use is from Verizon and they use CDMA which to my understanding increases its power to catch weak signals.
And your right, analog coverage is all but disappeared in Japan and consequently they don't use digital-analog hybrid phones over there.