On Tue, 11 Oct 2016 19:14:21 -0400, Mike Duffy
wrote:

On Tue, 11 Oct 2016 17:53:40 -0400, wrote:

I can't immagine a cell phone running on AAs It would be twice as
bulky as my smart phone [...]
There are AA powered rechargers that you can carry with
you for emergency recharges.

If you are using a smartphone all the time (display on, accessing the
network for data continually, using bluetooth or WiFi), an overnight
charge is almost completely used during a 16 hour workday of the
Li-polymer battery.

I submit that two AAA (not AA) Ni-hydride batteries would easily provide
16 hrs standby plus a reasonable hour or so of talk time if it had no
display / WiFi / Bluetooth. Some people really don't use those
functions. Two AAAs would not be much more bulky than current
Li-polymers. So instead of carrying a charger that uses AAs, just carry
a few AAA lithiums for true (911) emergencies.

That is theory.
Here is fact. The battery on my smartphone is 1/2 the thickness of the
diameter of a AAA battery and 3 diameters wide - it is 8 watt hours
of power or 2100mah. at 3.8 volts. AAA nimh batteries peak out at
about 1000mah - half the capacity of the little lithium in my
smartphone.
My smartphone is on wifi virtually all day - it got a lot of use today
and WILL require a full charge. It would have pretty well exhaused 2
sets of AAA high quality nimh batteries. It would have killed at least
3 sets of enerloops. 2 sets of good standard alkalines would be
consumed.