iPhone 5 Charging: Keeping Apple's New Smartphone Powered Up For 1 Year Costs 41 Cents

Charging iPhone Costs How Much Per Year?
AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND - SEPTEMBER 28: The new iPhone 5 is launched on September 27, 2012 in Auckland, New Zealand. Telecom, with help of rugby great Jonah Lomu, launched the much-anticipated Apple iPhone 5 last night in Auckland. Jonah was joined by Opshop frontman and New Zealand's Got Talent judge, Jason Kerrison in Wellington via live feed between the two cities. Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch stores opened their doors at 12.01am to eager customers, some waiting since 8am the previous morning. Customers were offered a 'luxury' cueing experience at the Victoria Street West store, with the iPhone officially available for sale at 12:01am. (Photo by Hannah Johnston/Getty Images for Telecom)
AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND - SEPTEMBER 28: The new iPhone 5 is launched on September 27, 2012 in Auckland, New Zealand. Telecom, with help of rugby great Jonah Lomu, launched the much-anticipated Apple iPhone 5 last night in Auckland. Jonah was joined by Opshop frontman and New Zealand's Got Talent judge, Jason Kerrison in Wellington via live feed between the two cities. Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch stores opened their doors at 12.01am to eager customers, some waiting since 8am the previous morning. Customers were offered a 'luxury' cueing experience at the Victoria Street West store, with the iPhone officially available for sale at 12:01am. (Photo by Hannah Johnston/Getty Images for Telecom)

Spare change, anyone? That's all it costs to charge your smartphone for a year.

The iPhone 5 requires a mere 41 cents annually to juice up once a day, and the Samsung Galaxy S III just 53 cents (due to a bigger battery), according to new research by Opower.

The team has compiled a lengthy analysis of the pocket-digital revolution's impact on energy use. While a lot of the study is head-spinning, the takeaway is this: the new cell phones are cheap to keep running.

Other gadgets seem like electricity hogs by comparison. iPads, for example, have been found to cost $1.36 a year to keep charged; desktop computers have been found to cost $43.60 per year.

But smartphones are multiplying so quickly that the consumption is adding up. The projected amount of iPhone 5s to be bought in a year will use as much power as 54,000 U.S. households, which is "roughly equivalent to the size of Cedar Rapids – the second largest city in Iowa," per Opower. And all this says nothing of the energy required to process all the data we're accessing with increased frequency on our handheld doo-dads.

Click here for more (way more) details from Opower's report.

[Hat tip, Gizmodo]

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