On paper the Nexus 5 appears to have lots to offer. Aside from being the first handset to run Android 4.4 Kit Kat, there is also a 5-inch Full HD display, 8 megapixel rear-facing camera with optical image stabilization, LTE network support and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor. The handset also has a 2300 mAh battery, which looks like it will be getting a boost courtesy of Qualcomm.
The Nexus 5 isn’t the first device to see this battery boost as it arrived with the Galaxy Note III. Other handsets aside, this is something called QFE1100, which is also known as “envelope tracking.” Keep in mind, this isn’t going to magically make your Nexus 5 have all day battery usage. The overall life will still come down to personal usage habits, however this technology should help out, especially compared to a similarly spec’d handset without QFE1100.
The tracker is said to match the power that goes into the signal amplifier to the power transmitted from the phone. While that may not sound all that high-tech, GigaOm notes that is actually something rather difficult to accomplish. Particularly on an LTE smartphone. Qualcomm has said this technology will be able to reduce the amount of heat put out by 30 percent.
Furthermore, it should also be able to reduce the power consumption from the radio frequency components by 20 percent. But again, the improvements that one will see will also come down to your personal usage. And while the radio components use quite a bit of power because they are always working, we have seen countless times how the screen being on sucks up quite a bit of battery life.
So this seems promising for better than average battery life, still no excuse for skimping on battery when every 1mm added gives you so much more battery capacity.