Your laptop and mobile phone lie to you

Those signal meters and battery icons aren't really giving you the straight scoop.  People like electronics that indicate long battery life and good signal quality, so that's what those indicators are designed to display. 

The article notes a couple tricks:

• Battery life meters stay at full longer because it makes people think they're getting long phone life.  
• There's no standard for what "more bars" means for mobile phone reception.  And even if the signal meter is accurate, it doesn't show what matters: signal-to-noise ratio.

I've always felt like my cell phone goes two days at full and then drops like a rock.  Now I know why - thanks, Sprint!