Wifi vs 3g power draw - EVO Shift 4G General

My friend told me that staying connected to a wifi connection is less demanding powerwise. I always thought keeping the wifi attenna on would drain more power because ur running to attenndas at once. Anyone care to chime in with their opinions?

I have no real data to back this up, but it does seem like my battery lasts longer with wifi on. I believe the 3G radio shuts off when there is an active wifi connection but i could be wrong.

lilgrass71 said:
My friend told me that staying connected to a wifi connection is less demanding powerwise. I always thought keeping the wifi attenna on would drain more power because ur running to attenndas at once. Anyone care to chime in with their opinions?
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Correct for the most part. So long as you're connected to a stable WiFi signal, of course.
3G data constantly looks for available HA's (Home Agents) to deliver the best upload/download speed, and, depending on how much you use your data, the constant on/off of using 3G causes the fast battery drain.
Modifying your HA in data settings will reduce the amount of ping attempts 3G will make, but you will still get the battery drain every time you use data. Keep in mind that sending SMS or making phone calls don't use 3G, but if you don't have 3G turned off, it will always switch to 1X during these processes. If you're a heavy texter, rule of thumb is to leave 3G off during the day unless you are going to be using it consistently for a period of time. This will save you a great amount of battery life.

Wifi is MUCH easier on battery for me.
^ Shift Faced

jesusice said:
Wifi is MUCH easier on battery for me.
^ Shift Faced
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I totally agree. At home my battery stays between 90-100% for a full 24 hours before it starts to drop on my Moment using the ubuntroid 4.2 ROM. If I pull my phone off the charger in the morning for work I'm at 70% by the time I get back home.

Related

Switching Wireless Networks

How can I set my phone up so that When I am at home or the office it uses WiFi, and if I am aay it automaticly switches over to medianet? I hate having to constantly switch the network.
if you have wifi on and leave wifi coverage it will always log onto edge if you have it set to gprs always on.
but then you dont want to have wifi on all the time; unless you want your phone to be dead in like 3 hours. When you are out of wifi coverage the wifi radio is still searching for connections so the battery still drains fast.
zeuzinn said:
but then you dont want to have wifi on all the time; unless you want your phone to be dead in like 3 hours. When you are out of wifi coverage the wifi radio is still searching for connections so the battery still drains fast.
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You're exaggerating a bit -- I leave WiFi and BT on and go 3-4 days between charges. In my experience it's the phone function that drains the battery fastest.
3waygeek said:
zeuzinn said:
but then you dont want to have wifi on all the time; unless you want your phone to be dead in like 3 hours. When you are out of wifi coverage the wifi radio is still searching for connections so the battery still drains fast.
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You're exaggerating a bit -- I leave WiFi and BT on and go 3-4 days between charges. In my experience it's the phone function that drains the battery fastest.
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Yeah, you are actually right... It just hit me that , unlike GPRS, wifi gets completely disabled when the device is on stand-by and gets back when its woken up.
That being said, I still support the idea that the battery would be drained in about 3-5 hours if the phone didn't go into sleep mode.

Battery life and idle data connection

Did anyone try to compare battery life between no data connection and idle data connection?
I always turn data connection off after update, but I am asking how does idle data connection effects battery?
I know it drains it...but how much?
And the reason I don't know results from myself...
Sometimes my battery drops from 100 to 90 or less over the night, sometimes from 100 to 80 or even more, with the same usage or any usage at all...so I don't know how to compare it because it's so random...and this is without data connections, it is only device with phone on in sleep mode...
I once compared an over night-drain where no connection took 3% of the battery and with data connection 4%. Approx 8h sleep
It's hard for me to compare during normal use since my usage varies a lot from day to day. So I have nothing to contribute during daytime usage.
umiss said:
I once compared an over night-drain where no connection took 3% of the battery and with data connection 4%. Approx 8h sleep
It's hard for me to compare during normal use since my usage varies a lot from day to day. So I have nothing to contribute during daytime usage.
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I was using wmlonglife for some time, however one time it stops to work - i have found that i had a permament data connection in idle, but didn't notice a thing, so technically it do not drains the phone dramatically
when you guys say "idle" data connection, is the phone not automatically checking for email accounts etc? If not have you disabled them overnight - how do you do that please?
From yesterday until today, until now, I left idle data connection and it dropped in 12h from 80 to 75.
When I tried to close connection and left it overnight it dropped from 100 to 93.
By my expirience there is difference in battery drain: 15% with idle data connectino and 7% without data connection.
But numbers change from day to day...but more or less is 2x more when i have data connection on idle
might have to do with the network.. most networks do their work at night because they seem to asume everybody is asleep.. it could be offline every now and then but keeps searching for updates..
Mine has 3g toggle turned off, but the 'data connection' toggle is always on, i have three email accounts that get checked over edge every 2 hours, and battery drops roughly 2% during 7 hours sleep.
yuo have 3g off permanently or just overnight?
What do you "lose" when using 2g vs 3g?
My options about 3g mode is set to auto, so I guess it switch to 3g or hsdpa when available...
wigwam12 said:
yuo have 3g off permanently or just overnight?
What do you "lose" when using 2g vs 3g?
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yea 3g permanently off. I live right on the edge of my local 3g coverage, and with it on itchews through the battery as it switches on/off/on/off. I get full reception using edge which is easily fast enough for surfing low bandwidth sites(like xda dev! ) twitter and emails etc.
my HD2 drains battery VERY fast when i have idle connections. when i don't turn them off my phone battery is from 100% to empty in about 6 hours.. but maybe there is a problem with my device / rom.
i hate to use your thread for topic for this but maybe anyone can help me with my battery being empty so fast? i am using Dutch stock rom v1.66 with standard radio rom. i am going to try a newer radio rom tonight. but i dont think that is going to help mutch.. i dont mind flashing to a custom rom but i want the same user interface as i now have. i dont like the custom one's with their shiny buttons and stuff..
would really apreciate help / advise!
samsamuel said:
yea 3g permanently off. I live right on the edge of my local 3g coverage, and with it on itchews through the battery as it switches on/off/on/off. I get full reception using edge which is easily fast enough for surfing low bandwidth sites(like xda dev! ) twitter and emails etc.
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Click to collapse
Thanks. I think the most bandwidth site I would currently access is Facebook.
I will try 2G then. When I get more into using the phone as an internet device I guess I could turn it on.
Mind you in the middle of a major city and moving from Voda "excellent" to "very good" signal zones it should stay 3G most of the time not switch so often......
the rom i.m using makes it easy to manage data, left soft button on home screen brings up comm manager and all the toggles have been activated, takes moments to switch on/off 3g and wifi, the rest of the time the edge data just works fine.
incidentally, in terms of power use other things to look at that might get overlooked, block size on sd card, if its real small and you have lots of sd card access, such as progs installed there, browser cache there, can significantly increase the number of read writes to the card in any given time period, costing power.

Battery Life on Wifi - Outstanding!!

Basically, when I leave wi-fi on my phone has incredible battery life. If someone has already mentioned this feel free to bury this post, but to my knowledge it doesn't seem this has been posted yet.
With wi-fi off and 3g on
- Battery lost 5-6 percent per hour
Wi-fi on
- Battery lost 1-2 percent per hour (sometimes less than 1 percent depending on what your doing)
Right now after having my phone on for 34 hours my battery is still at 70 percent! I'm fairly certain this is because it disables the 3g radio altogether which apparently is a real battery hog. That or maybe my phone is just a fluke. I really don't know.
This also seems to be tied to the htc sense rom (correct me if im wrong) but if i remember correctly battery drainage increased when wifi was enabled in the stock rom. Currently, I'm using the latest htc sense rom from modaco, I'd really enjoy hearing if enabling wifi helps others extend their battery life.
your having better battery life with the Desire ROMs? that odd, my battery life with a Desire ROM was 20-30% worse compared to stock.
amlwaycooljr said:
Basically, when I leave wi-fi on my phone has incredible battery life. If someone has already mentioned this feel free to bury this post, but to my knowledge it doesn't seem this has been posted yet.
With wi-fi off and 3g on
- Battery lost 5-6 percent per hour
Wi-fi on
- Battery lost 1-2 percent per hour (sometimes less than 1 percent depending on what your doing)
Right now after having my phone on for 34 hours my battery is still at 70 percent! I'm fairly certain this is because it disables the 3g radio altogether which apparently is a real battery hog. That or maybe my phone is just a fluke. I really don't know.
This also seems to be tied to the htc sense rom (correct me if im wrong) but if i remember correctly battery drainage increased when wifi was enabled in the stock rom. Currently, I'm using the latest htc sense rom from modaco, I'd really enjoy hearing if enabling wifi helps others extend their battery life.
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Actually, it's a well known fact that 3G uses more power on most (every?) phones than Wifi... so you're not alone.
Hey when you say WIFI on..do you mean WIFI and EDGE or did you completely disabled the radio?
I never would have thought having wifi on would extend battery life to such a great extent though, in most of the latest cell phone reviews and what not everyone recommends to have wifi off saves battery life but in this case just the opposite is true. I kinda knew the wifi was more efficient but I never expected such a large benefit from leaving wifi on all the time.
@ram130 I haven't actually touched the radios at all so I expect them all to be on or at the very least have edge on, I am able to receive and send calls and txt so I'm assuming at least some cell radio has to be on. All I did was use the htc sense rom and enable wifi.
The cellular radio is still on, but 3G/Edge (data) are disconnected. I don't know how Edge compares to Wifi, but 3G is a battery killer in comparison.
uansari1 said:
The cellular radio is still on, but 3G/Edge (data) are disconnected. I don't know how Edge compares to Wifi, but 3G is a battery killer in comparison.
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amlwaycooljr said:
I never would have thought having wifi on would extend battery life to such a great extent though, in most of the latest cell phone reviews and what not everyone recommends to have wifi off saves battery life but in this case just the opposite is true. I kinda knew the wifi was more efficient but I never expected such a large benefit from leaving wifi on all the time.
@ram130 I haven't actually touched the radios at all so I expect them all to be on or at the very least have edge on, I am able to receive and send calls and txt so I'm assuming at least some cell radio has to be on. All I did was use the htc sense rom and enable wifi.
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In other words you have "use 2G networks" checked right?
I'm gonna try this is now. I'm currently at 3hr 32m unplugged with 80% left. I have wifi enabled and on the stock rom. So I'll post back when I wake in a few a hours and see how it goes.
My only problem:
Wifi seems to disconnect alot during the hour regardless if sleep policy is set to NEVER. My wifi signal is -78dBm to -86dBm in my room and on channel 11(used wifi analyzer). Any suggestions why?
I have the same experience at home, I enable Wifi and leave the phone stay home for a couple of days and battery still 40%, when I go out and wifi is not connected, 3G kicks in and battery drops much faster.
I'm using cyanogen 5.0.4.1
Interesting. Did not know this!
I guess I won't feel so bad about leaving my phone on Wifi all day!
Also, does anyone know how much power is used by not having a radio signal and letting it constantly search? That seems to destroy my battery. But sometimes I am in an area with wifi but no radio access (deep within a building).
It's too bad this phone doesn't have UMA - that would make up for T-Mobile's lack of indoor coverage (at times), and probably improve battery life a lot in some cases.
But I have to say that on another phones I've used, especially WinMo devices, using WiFi instead of 3G seemed to always use more battery. But, it could very well be different on this phone...I'm definitely going to give this a try.
im not sure about the percentage but i agree,the battery drain is considerably more when searching for radio.im in a building most of the day and it doesnt take long.miss the UMA i had on my bberry.
Paul22000 said:
Interesting. Did not know this!
I guess I won't feel so bad about leaving my phone on Wifi all day!
Also, does anyone know how much power is used by not having a radio signal and letting it constantly search? That seems to destroy my battery. But sometimes I am in an area with wifi but no radio access (deep within a building).
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I also Get. About 25% better battery on wifi
Well after 10hrs of the phone being on stand by I woke up. It was at 46%!! my god. Anyway I checked my email, read an article all taking around 15mins and guess what? I had 30% left!. I put it back to stand by for 3hrs and took a look at it and had about 16% left...
It is now charging after one hour with just 10min use of downloading apps ..Can ANYONE tell me why my battery is draining so much on wifi? When its on EDGE for the night after 10hr I would have around 70% left from a full charge. Anyone can help me out here?
I shall be getting a replacement battery for free Tuesday.
Stock android.
ram130 said:
Well after 10hrs of the phone being on stand by I woke up. It was at 46%!! my god. Anyway I checked my email, read an article all taking around 15mins and guess what? I had 30% left!. I put it back to stand by for 3hrs and took a look at it and had about 16% left...
It is now charging after one hour with just 10min use of downloading apps ..Can ANYONE tell me why my battery is draining so much on wifi? When its on EDGE for the night after 10hr I would have around 70% left from a full charge. Anyone can help me out here?
I shall be getting a replacement battery for free Tuesday.
Stock android.
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Click to collapse
Did you set your phone to only use 2G networks also? If you're not charging, wifi will probably disable after not being used for a while..so it's probably rolling to 3G if you haven't disabled it.
I'm not saying it's convenient to constantly switch back and forth... but this explains why it may not be a good test of the battery life the way you're running it.
uansari1 said:
Did you set your phone to only use 2G networks also? If you're not charging, wifi will probably disable after not being used for a while..so it's probably rolling to 3G if you haven't disabled it.
I'm not saying it's convenient to constantly switch back and forth... but this explains why it may not be a good test of the battery life the way you're running it.
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Well yes I have it on 2G only. Any thing else could be contributing to it dying so fast?
Well I found a way to use my laptop as an AP. So I connected my N1 to it and getting full bars(-41dBm) in my room now. No wifi disconnects so far!(maybe it was my linksys before ?).. So far the battery is at 86% with some 3D games, been unplug for 1hr 50min now. I'll put it to stand by now and see how it looks after 10hrs.
I'm on a stock firmware(not rooted). 2G only selected.
The way I understand it is as follows:
Phone is on STANDBY:
3g==2g* which are both more efficient then wifi (that's why the default wifi policy turns wifi off if it's not being used)**
Phone is ACTIVE:
wifi is more efficient then 2g/3g because:
1) It's waaay faster and thus causes less battery drain* and
2) The AP (router) is much closer to the phone then the cell tower so in theory it doesn't need to use as much power to talk to the router.
*http://code.google.com/events/io/2009/sessions/CodingLifeBatteryLife.html
4:45min into it there is a power usage chart and 3G/EDGE idle power usage is about the same - also somewhere else in the video they talk about wifi vs 3g usage when transferring data.
** http://code.google.com/p/sipdroid/wiki/NewStandbyTechnique
States that 3g standby is more efficient then wifi
drak0 said:
** http://code.google.com/p/sipdroid/wiki/NewStandbyTechnique
States that 3g standby is more efficient then wifi
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Someone needs to test this ok. ...already testing wifi
Ok I'm at 11hrs 30min on wifi and its at 67% with light usage(checking email, news for 5min)..improvement? kinda, because since turning off my laptop it switched back to getting low signal(-81dBm) from the router in the next room. Weird? I'm still thinking. anyway I'm heading out so gonna use the phone more today, lets see if it gets me through the day.
Still no where near the thread starter 30hrs!! Maybe stock really sucks? bad battery anyone??
@ram130 I'm not sure how my battery is lasting as long as it has so far. I'm up to what would be an insane number, 65 hours 36 percent left .. this battery just wont die. I haven't the slightest idea how it's lasting this long I just leave wifi on all the time and turn wifi standby off. If anyone could explain how leaving wifi on more than quadruples my battery life I'd sure love to know.

Holy crap. Change wifi sleep policy to never. BIG INCREASE IN BATTERY

I'm not sure if anyone else knows this, but I read somewhere that if you change the wifi sleep policy to never, it actually SAVES battery.
I thought this was insane, but if you think about it it actually makes sense. It stops your phone from the constant switch to Edge and 3G... which in return saves your battery.
Usually I can lose up to 5% in 30 minutes by not even using my phone.
Now that I have a constant wifi connection I have only lost 2% in an hour and a half.
Assuming you're connected to a wifi network, yes.
Otherwise, no.
JCopernicus said:
Assuming you're connected to a wifi network, yes.
Otherwise, no.
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Click to collapse
I'm not sure how that works when you're not connected to a network and the phone goes into sleep...
I use Y5 which uses cell towers to remember where I am able to receive wifi. If I leave a remembered spot it will turn off the radio for me. When I come back it will automatically turn it back on and reconnect.
lance713 said:
I'm not sure if anyone else knows this, but I read somewhere that if you change the wifi sleep policy to never, it actually SAVES battery.
I thought this was insane, but if you think about it it actually makes sense. It stops your phone from the constant switch to Edge and 3G... which in return saves your battery.
Usually I can lose up to 5% in 30 minutes by not even using my phone.
Now that I have a constant wifi connection I have only lost 2% in an hour and a half.
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Hmmmm
Wouldn't the phone continue to have it's cellular Edge/3g connection going while you have the WiFi on?
Whenever I have WiFi on in addition to 3g I always see, under battery usage, wifi at about 2-3% and Cellular signal at 5-6%
Seem's like when you have WiFi on as well as Data that both are draining the battery...
The phone turns off 3g radio when you have a data connection.
JCopernicus said:
The phone turns off 3g radio when you have a data connection.
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Are you sure about that? I'm connected to WiFi on my phone and the Status screen under About Phone still stays UMTS rather than EDGE.
PrawnPoBoy said:
Are you sure about that? I'm connected to WiFi on my phone and the Status screen under About Phone still stays UMTS rather than EDGE.
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UMTS is just the 3g network, that doesnt mean data. the 3G network is used for voice calls too.
so yes, when the phone is connected to wifi, the cellular data connection is terminated. always been like this.
and yes i've seen a huge battery increase with wifi set to NEVER sleep policy.
It will stop hop between 2G/3G even if you're not using the data. You'd have to force it to 2G only and then enable wifi to take advantage of this the most.
I second those findings. When at home, use no sleep policy, and going out - turn off wifi manually. Works very well.
My "always on while sleep" doesn't work.. it opt's out anyway..
Edit: Installed an app called Wifi Fixer. And my connection hold up now while sleeping. nice....!!!
Where do I find this sleep-setting?
Not looking for a flame because I'm still learning.
if you have juicedender and keep the wifi setting on what it is when your phone sleeps the phone will turn off wifi and juicedefender will turn of 2g/3g correct? If this is true then you can save double the battery by installing defender (free); right?
bberry said:
Where do I find this sleep-setting?
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Click to collapse
Go into Wi-Fi settings.. Hit Options (the capacitive button you know...)
Ha! I've had my N1 for two months now and didn't realize there was more Wifi options if you click on the options button to the left of the home button. I wish they would add some sort of indicator that there's more to do if you click on that button. I've run into this soooo many times. It's kind of nice, though, because I keep finding goodies even months after buying the phone lol.
Yes it's often a mystery - it would be cool if it was possible for the capacitive menu button be lit only when there are additional options.
Sindroid said:
My "always on while sleep" doesn't work.. it opt's out anyway..
Edit: Installed an app called Wifi Fixer. And my connection hold up now while sleeping. nice....!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
..will try that Wifi Fixer too
kbeeveer46 said:
Ha! I've had my N1 for two months now and didn't realize there was more Wifi options if you click on the options button to the left of the home button. I wish they would add some sort of indicator that there's more to do if you click on that button. I've run into this soooo many times. It's kind of nice, though, because I keep finding goodies even months after buying the phone lol.
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Click to collapse
First rule of Android power-users:
Press Menu... Everywhere
Paul22000 said:
First rule of Android power-users:
Press Menu... Everywhere
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Click to collapse
I tried that on a hottie standing in line for coffee. I got slapped.
I've tried setting the wifi sleep policy on my phone (T-Mobile MyTouch Slide) to "never sleep," but I'm not sure it's helping. When I turn on wifi for a little while (say, an hour or two) and then look at the battery usage screen I see that wifi uses a pretty significant chunk of the battery, maybe 10% or so, higher if I leave it on for longer. This is even if I'm not using the connection much, sometimes I'll turn it on to do a little light browsing and then put the phone away for an hour and then check to see how much power the wifi connection ate. Today I turned on wifi for maybe 10 minutes to download a couple app updates and turned it off right afterward. The phone has been only off the charger for 3 hours, but wifi accounts for 8% of the battery drain (the rest is idle: 16%, standby: 31%, and display: 45%).
On the other hand if I stick to 3G data I don't feel like I see as much of a hit on the battery (though it's harder to tell how much of "standby" is going to 3G data).
I understand in theory that connecting to a wifi access point within the building should require less power than connecting to a cell tower a mile away, but I also disable "always-on mobile data" so hopefully I'm not maintaining a 3G data connection all the time either.
Those of you who leave the wifi connection on all the time and are reporting better battery life than with 3G data, how much of your battery do you see going to wifi in the battery usage screen?
Well for me when I leave WiFi set to never, I lost 11% in 12 hours. On 3g I lose way more in that same period.

Using WiFi in the office instead of 3g for better battery life?

Well most of us have some sort of background data going on. I read some posts saying that it's actually better to leave wifi ON when in a coverage area so that way 3g won't be used for background data.
Can you share your experiences on this? To me it sounds a bit far fetched and even if its true, maybe it should be considered sort of a power malfunction that wifi would take less battery than 3g??
I wanted to try it out the other day and left wifi on during office hours, but ended up talking so much on the phone that dat that the result would not have meant anything... will try again maybe next week if I don't get and clear cut input.
Thanks in advance for any info
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA App
100% True. If you are coming from another OS it might throw you. It threw me coming from windows.
It really saves battery. Try and see.
Huh? Nonsense!
Maybe if you put it in airplane mode (turn off the cell radio), but simple fact is that the more stuff you power up, the less your battery lasts.
I actually keep my WiFi on in the office and at home and believe I get better battery life (sleep policy set to never). No official tests, but I didn't use to get more than a day's worth of use before the switch. To be fair, I've made a lot of changes to my phone since then, so I don't know how much can be attributed to the WiFi change. You should definitely try it.
And I definitely don't believe it to be nonsense. The 3G radio apparently draws quite a bit of power and will constantly cycle for background syncs (which draws more power than a sustained connection for the same amount of data transferred). When the WiFi radio is enabled and connected though, the 3G radio is turned off. Depending on just how much power the 3G radio draws versus the WiFi radio and how much data you have syncing, it makes sense that using WiFi could save some battery life. The added bonus is that you use less data on your plan as well.
This might be different if you are using 2G though (since voice uses the same radio, it might be powered on the whole time anyway). No idea. Just have to try for yourself.
EDIT: Thought of another factor. Since WiFi will typically be faster, data is transferred for a shorter amount of time (perhaps drawing less power). The 3G radio also transmits data over a much longer distance than WiFi is capable of, which may cause it to draw more power as well.
And if your cell coverage is spotty, then the difference is even more pronounced. If you have wifi available, use it. You won't regret it.
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using Tapatalk
This is indeed true, through experience i know it saves battery life, especially as someone said if your 3G coverage is patchy. The radio automatically adjusts its power o/p level depending on rx signal strength, so the o/p is more if signal is weak, therefore more batt usage. Also, it is worth noting that power is only really used when data exchange is taking place on wifi, so leaving it switched on, especially when connected does in fact save power, as when background syncing does take place, its done over a shorter period of time, again, saving overall power usage. The only time power usage goes up with wifi being left on is when out of range of an access point and the wifi is periodically checking for presence of an access point. I personally leave mine permanently switched on, and don't worry about it, it's more convenient that way.
Cell radio uses much more power when actually receiving or transmitting data, and much much less power when it is idling.
WiFi uses much less when sending/receiving data, but more power when idling.
Basically, your mileage is going to vary based on what apps you use and what apps pull down background data. If you've got a lot of apps that constantly use background data or you are constantly browsing the web on your phone, you will probably get more battery by using WiFi.
But if you disable most of your background data services and only use your phone every now and then, you will see much better battery life by just sticking with 3G.
edit: I also want to point out that the guy above me is, in fact, wrong. WiFi uses much more power than 3G when not exchanging data, even if it is connected to a network. The battery savings you're seeing is because every time your 3G radio goes from idling to transmitting, it uses an incredible amount of battery that completely offsets the idle usage of the WiFi.
I agree with everyone here, you will get better battery life with wifi because using the radio will drain battery faster when downloading. It is more efficient in pulling down data. I have mine almost on all day long in the office and at home. I do use the sleep policy, and very satisfied with the battery life on my phone.
Sent from my HTC Vision
Sorry to say but your just plain wrong. Try it out. The evidence is there. So is the documentation from users and google themselves. Its empirical man
dhkr123 said:
Huh? Nonsense!
Maybe if you put it in airplane mode (turn off the cell radio), but simple fact is that the more stuff you power up, the less your battery lasts.
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Click to collapse
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA App
xencor said:
Cell radio uses much more power when actually receiving or transmitting data, and much much less power when it is idling.
WiFi uses much less when sending/receiving data, but more power when idling.
Basically, your mileage is going to vary based on what apps you use and what apps pull down background data. If you've got a lot of apps that constantly use background data or you are constantly browsing the web on your phone, you will probably get more battery by using WiFi.
But if you disable most of your background data services and only use your phone every now and then, you will see much better battery life by just sticking with 3G.
edit: I also want to point out that the guy above me is, in fact, wrong. WiFi uses much more power than 3G when not exchanging data, even if it is connected to a network. The battery savings you're seeing is because every time your 3G radio goes from idling to transmitting, it uses an incredible amount of battery that completely offsets the idle usage of the WiFi.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Check your information before correcting someone please, you may be right about the idle thing in terms of data transfer, although minimal, but the radio's on a phone don't switch between rx/tx like a walkie talkie does persay, but is in actual fact duplex in digital form, it involves syncronous timeslots and all sorts of complicated technical stuff. As I said before the main contributor to battery life hit on a phone is data exchange via high speed switch such as hsdpa/hsupa at weak signal conditions.
Clivectmob said:
Check your information before correcting someone please, you may be right about the idle thing in terms of data transfer, although minimal, but the radio's on a phone don't switch between rx/tx like a walkie talkie does persay, but is in actual fact duplex in digital form, it involves syncronous timeslots and all sorts of complicated technical stuff. As I said before the main contributor to battery life hit on a phone is data exchange via high speed switch such as hsdpa/hsupa at weak signal conditions.
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Uh, okay? I never said that part was wrong (in fact I agreed with it, although using different terms). I was specifically stating that your comment on WiFi using minimal power when idling ("Also, it is worth noting that power is only really used when data exchange is taking place on wifi") is completely opposite what is true.

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