In this economy, one can never be too careful about spending money. And when it comes to electricity bills, even the smallest electronic devices can add up to several dollars’ worth of extra charges over the course of a year.
That’s why one website decided to compare the costs of charging an iPhone 5 over the course of a year versus the costs of charging a Samsung Galaxy SIII. Sure, an extra few dollars may not topple an annual budget, but it’s an interesting comparison nonetheless.
Forget about dollars, we’re talking cents
If you already tried to nail down the price difference to a few dollars, then you’re way past the mark. Even over the course of a year, today’s most advanced mobile smartphones don’t require more than about 50 cents to stay fully charged throughout the year.
The results
Here’s what the numbers boiled down to:
-iPhone 5: 41 cents
-Galaxy S III: 53 cents
That’s it! To get those numbers, the author measured how much electricity (in watt hours) it took to fully charge both an iPhone 5 and an S3. Then, he multiplied that figure by 365. He took that number and multiplied it by the average U.S. rate for electricity, which is $0.118 per kilowatt hour.
As you may have already noticed, this study assumes that the user is draining the entire smartphone battery every day for an entire year. Since most people don’t do that, the actual cost of charging both smartphones is likely much lower.
Furthermore, the main difference between charging costs of the S3 versus the iPhone 5 is the larger battery: the S3 features a 2100mAh battery compared to the 1440mAh battery of the iPhone 5.
I look forward to hearing about the money saving advantages of the iPhone 5 in the next Apple commercial. Because really, what other advantages does the iPhone 5 over our favorite Android smartphone?
