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Comment by jamesaguilar | Hacker News Reader

I would be interested in knowing whether the iPhone has this issue when it is navigating.

Using Navigon in 3D without a charging cable, the iPhone 4s will last only about 1 hour on a full charge (the power drain is extraordinary). With the cable plugged into the car, I can navigate indefinitely. If I start out with a drained battery, I can plug it in the car for Navigon, and when I arrive at the destination, the battery is always fully charged (for trips > 1hr).

Depending on the charger really. My car charger for example also couldn't keep up with the 3GS's power draw when using Navigon - even when it was connected to the charger, the battery was losing power by ~5% per hour.

No.

That being said, navigation is a lot less complex (fewer features)--no turn-by-turn, no voice, no "3D" map.

The iPhone doesn't have these problems when using fuller-featured 3rd party apps either.

Anyone with any legitimate navigation need gets a third party app with offline maps, like the above mentioned Navigon, which supports all your mentioned features and more, such as live traffic based re-routing (which works extremely well) and the full Zagat guide for finding nearest decent food.

While running a full blown GPS app, talking on a conference call with Bluetooth, and using live traffic so the data connection is running as well, the iPhone 4 gains about 1% charge per minute with a 2 AMP charger.

Yes.

My relatives frequently drive from Chicago to Omaha to visit family. Presumably because of poorer reception in Iowa they cannot use Google Maps even when plugged in because the phone still discharges.

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