Sub-Zero Weather: Can Your Smartphone Stand The Cold? - saulsfelf1971

Extraordinary smartphone manufacturers don't recommend that their devices comprise used in cold weather while others guarantee smooth functioning even in temperatures as low as 4 degrees below zero.

MikroPC (PCWorld Finland) definite to test if smartphone manufacturers can back up their claims.

We obtained the 15 near-sold mobile phones in Finland, as well as three others for comparison, and took them into the Technical Enquiry Centre of Finland and their "Weather Board." The room is a specialized research lab where the temperature can equal adjusted to a divide of a degree. Note: Many of these phones are not sold-out in the United States–Ii notable exceptions are the Orchard apple tree iPhone 4S and the Samsung Galaxy S 2.

The initial temperature in the room was set to 32 degrees. From there, we kept lowering it by steps of 9 degrees until even the most persistent devices gave leading and stopped working. (Note: All temperatures therein story except for the visual communication below are in Farenheit.)

What Do Manufacturers Recommend?

Image: Courtesy of Instructables.com

According to Orchard apple tree, its iPhones can buoy be victimized only in temperatures between 32 degrees to 95 degrees Farenheit. Put differently, an iPhone user taking his device outside in typical Scandinavian winter conditions will do so at his own risk. If the sound breaks down, Apple claims it will non be responsible and the damage is non crustlike by the telephone set's warranty.

HTC and Nokia do not refer operating temperature guidelines in user manuals or connected their websites. Samsung, on the other hand, guarantees its phones to purpose in temperatures between -4 degrees and 122 degrees.

First Fail: Apple iPhone 4S

At 32 degrees, it was business Eastern Samoa usual for completely the phones. At 23 degrees, the iPhone 4S and the Nokia N9 started showing symptoms: The iPhone reported a sim menu error, and the N9 claimed its battery was nearly empty.

Lowering the temperature to 14 degrees was more than the iPhone could handle. The Apple device suddenly declared a dead stamp battery and close down. (Totally phones with LCD displays in our tests toughened difficulties when the temperature dropped below 14 degrees.) AMOLED displays proven to be able to stand cold much meliorate and kept working at that temperature.

The Cheaper, the Better?

In our tests, the majority of smartphones couldn't handle temperatures ranging from 5 degrees down to -4 degrees. Even if the phones managed to stay powered upfield, most died when put to actual usance.

Boast phones, which are less complicated than smartphones, did better. Apart from slow display chemical reaction, the characteristic phones we dependable showed no symptoms until the temperature dropped to -13 degrees. By the time that temperature was reached, about smartphones were completely useless.

We were surprised to find that Samsung smartphones outlasted Nokia's pertain-shield devices. Only when one of the smartphones we tried kept running smoothly when the temperature reached -22 degrees: The Samsung Galax urceolata S II.

Symmetric if Korean engineers don't present sub-zero temperatures as often as their Finnish colleagues, they've managed to contrive a better smartphone for such conditions. The Galaxy S II didn't close until the temperature reached -31 degrees. And until that point, there wasn't even a hint of backwardness when using its exhibit.

The Breaking Point for All Phones: -40 Academic degrees

The ultimate glacial temperature for the smartphones we reliable was -31 degrees. Even the most persistent smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy S 2, close down when we tried to use the phone at this temperature.

None of the separate tested smartphones could stand such uttermost conditions. But some lineament phones did work on -31 degrees, even off though their LCD displays showed serious slowness. But when the temperature born to -40, no more phone in either category survived. Even the toughest ones shut down.

The two phones that survived the longest, both feature phones, were an catchpenny Nokia C1-01 and a Little Phoeb-class-venerable Nokia E65, which was one of the devices we chose for comparison purposes in the tests.

These two phones may not be equipped with high-end touchscreens, just they worked. Nokia engineers appear know what they're doing along these phones: The coldest temperature reached in Finland almost every winter is -40 degrees.

Here is a chart showing how each sound did. Note: The temperatures in that chart are in Celsius, not Farenheit, just the relative standings of the phones in the two aspects of our testing is interesting:

Next: Blame the Battery and more

Blame the Battery

When the temperature drops low sufficient, a cell phone thinks that its battery is empty–even if it's amply recharged–and shuts down. Hither's why:

A natural science reaction takes place in spite of appearanc the battery. The cartesian product of the reaction is electrons, and the flow of electrons creates an exciting present-day, which the cell phone uses as its source of power. The fastness of this chemical reaction depends connected the temperature: The colder it gets, the slower the chemical reaction, and the little the current that the assault and battery can provide.

The voltage of the bombardment isn't stable, either. The nominal voltage of a lithium-ion battery is typically 3.7 volts but, in realism, the voltage is 'tween 2.7 volts (for an empty battery) and 4.2 volts (for a full charged battery).

In cold temperatures, the internal resistance of the battery grows, causation the outturn voltage to drop. When the voltage drops too rock-bottom–below a threshold voltage–the cell phone thinks the battery is empty, even it is fully recharged, and shuts down.

Here is a chart with information on the phones we tested provided by the manufacturers:

How the Cold Affects Different Displays

An LCD display consists of layers. The actual liquid crystals are positioned between the polarizing filters and electrodes. A TFT layer (thin film transistor) is positioned behind the concealment to control the pixels of the screen.

When the temperature drops, the viscosity (or thickness) of the liquid vitreous silica material increases exponentially. Depending on the material used in the liquid crystals, the viscousness increases cardinal-to-three times more when the temperature drops 18 degrees. This means the pixel changes its color slower in the cold.

When it's cold enough, the pixel coloring material change is so slow that it can't change fully before the next frame is already tired on the shield. This is when the display seems to work slowly and when ghosting or image blur appears on the screen.

In AMOLED displays, the colours are produced with a layer covered in organic material (OLED). This lack of liquid crystals probably explains why AMOLED displays work better in the cold.

(Translated from Finnish to English by Ossi Jääskeläinen and Sofia Williams.)

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/474093/sub_zero_weather_can_your_smartphone_stand_the_cold_.html

Posted by: saulsfelf1971.blogspot.com

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