@wmarone: dude, even HALF of that is still amazing (for a cortex-A8 class device of that size). The battery's physical size is about 1.6.x bigger than the one on 3GS if I'm not mistaken. No idea of the type used.

The A4 CPU efficiency is what is adding to battery gains apparently.

I'll buy the number if people start reporting that runtime with heavy usage. Until then I don't really believe that a device as interactive as that, regardless of being an A8 class device, will last under heavy utilization for 38 hours. I'd sooner believe 24, and in either case a significant portion of time has the device completely idle.

The A4 is not significantly different from most other CPUs, and since it's an Apple-only chip we won't know for a long time what's missing from it. I'd be shocked if it was drastically different from a standard Samsung SoC and the CPU's power consumption is easily managed with proper profiling of applications.

I can squeeze 30 hours out of a single charge on my 3GS right now with phone calls, some gaming, but I've dropped the brightness on the screen and I manually update my e-mails once I go into the Mail app.

i think there some comparisons online out there and it is basically just a samsung chip, sorry no 'magic' there.

i call BS on the 38hours. maybe if it was mostly idle, but they said normal usage, lots of email, even bluetooth to car.

usatoday review says battery 'ostly not last through day

http://www.usatoday.com/money/indust...4-review_N.htm

I bet the difference is that there is no facebook/twitter widget draining the battery by updating constantly over the 3G network (this is the problem for lots of Android phones, from what I hear).

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/20...pads-brain.ars

Interesting and balanced article on possible benefits of the A4 chip.

Suggests Apples acquisition of the P.A. Semi team in 2008 might have something to do with its efficiency "through pervasive use of power and clock gating. Power gating is a relatively straightforward technique that involves shutting down the parts of a chip that aren't in use. It's harder to implement in practice than it sounds, though, because you have to divide the chip up into blocks that can be put to sleep and awakened independently. You also have to size and arrange those blocks so that the extra delay involved in entering and exiting sleep states doesn't screw up the chip's overall timing.

Because the iPad's LCD is so large and its power draw so great relative to the other components, it's hard to imagine that the A4 gives the iPad more than a few percent battery life advantage vs. a chip like the Snapdragon—in the grand scheme of things for a tablet device, the extra hardware that chips like the Snapdragon and the i.MX515 have on A4 probably doesn't matter a whole lot. But a chip that's really aggressively optimized for the iPhone might give the phone a real battery life and performance advantage over the competition."

But its speculative.

here is a better article comparing the apple a4 and samsung s5pc110

http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.j...leID=225700447

the upshot is it is basically the same with some minor tweaks and removal of some unecessary components of the generic oem soc

this is essentially the same processor the upcoming samsung galaxy is supposed to be using i think

apple has bought sevral chip design firms but that might be more about ip cya than actually designing their own chips.

OMG can engadget be more full of BS!? unbelievable!

"Apple has made the stainless band around the phone essentially a couple of big antennae"
-BS! BS! BS! I've dissembled BT antennas and WIFI antennas and let me tell you there's nothing like a steel rim about them.

"Instead of hewing to the curved, plasticky, silver-bezeled look of the iPhone 3G and 3GS..."
-So I guess they've missed that crappy look on their previous review huh?

"Overall, you simply won't find a better display on a phone, and that's not just lip service."
-ever heard about Super AMOLED

I find their review super biased and as usual the iPhone is overrated. Regarding battery well I expect it to take me through the day.
All in all the device looks really decent but I find both N900 and N8 to be serious competition - that if nokia would pay engadget and a few other tech sites the way apple does.