In contrast, a phone that requires charging every week, for example, you'll tend to keep at a higher total charge and will survive periods of heavier usage better.
That's not dismissing the fact that most people are willing to accept the tradeoffs of modern smartphone battery life, but make no mistake the necessity of daily recharging for average use is a problem.
Watch a 90 minute youtube video over 3G and you're pretty much there. (On my iPhone 3G at least)
I'm probably on the opposite extreme (never have watched a movie or tv show on my iphone nor any youtube video longer than about 3 minutes), but I'd be shocked if long video watching was a common case.
Another annoying scenario is when you lock the screen but keep a high CPU app running. Go back and resume a couple hours later and your battery is decimated.
I sit down and play Mirror's Edge for 10 minutes and out goes 10% of my battery. Holy crap.
But even taking gaming out of it, even moderate browser usage over 3G burns through that battery like kindling. I have to charge the iPhone at work if I plan on going out in the evening. Even with judicious limitations on usage (and isn't that defeating the point of a smartphone?), if I leave with a phone at 9am, go somewhere after work, there is a good chance I won't have enough juice to call for a cab at midnight.
I don't have a problem with a 24-hour charging cycle, my problem is that current smartphones - iPhones and all - have trouble lasting that full 24-hour period unless you severely handicap your own use of the device.
It isn't a problem ... mostly. But it's the edge cases that will get you.
e.g. Sometimes I stay the night at my SO's house. Or I go from work to drinks to a club. Any break in the routine and the phone's remaining charge is now an issue. These are also the times when you are more likely to need to send and receive texts, use maps or other helpful smartphone apps. What are you going to do, say "I can't; I have to go home and charge my phone"? These devices are supposed to liberate us from rigid schedules (and they did, if you remember that far back).
So I keep a charging cable in my desk at work, it solves a lot of things. Office-wide emails that go "does anyone have a charger for a..." happen regularly in any office.
My gf - a sales/marketing pro - had a lot of trouble with this when she switched to iPhone; she was use to not paying much/any attention to her battery until the phone complained... She had to get use to charging every night.
It's easy to discount this but it was a pretty significant issue at least initially.
But again, we are not normal folks though I bet this isn't that unusual the more I think about it.
They started making USB wall plugs after all (which is a great idea).
http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/05/10-usb-power-outlet-leave...
I don't get the obsession with thin phones. I'd much rather have a thicker phone if it lasted 2-3 days instead of 1.
Rather than being stuck with the extra weight everywhere you go, you just incur it when you actually will be away from a charger for multiple days.