I've noticed that the battery drains much faster on 3G/4G than Wifi. What i've read is that wifi uses more battery than 3G and 4G uses the most. I don't find much difference between 3g/4g and find much better battery while on wifi.
please advise.
thanks.
wifi uses way less battery than either 3g or 4g.
The battery life will depend on the signal strength of your 3G or 4G connection. This does not always equate with the number of bars. (Settings=>About phone=>Status=>Signal strength) A reading of -90 dBm is better than -109 dBm. Being inside a building vs outside will give you different readings as well. You are likely to get a stronger signal outside in the open than inside an inclosed space. The weaker your 3G/4G signal, the more power required to sustain the connection. Your WiFi signal (assuming it's strong) will help conserve your battery better than a weak 3G/4G signal.
Its commonly known that wifi indeed uses much less battery life that 3g. Wifi latency and speeds compensate and you get much longer battery life using wifi rather than 3g. So use wifi whenever possible.
You even see manufacturers rated specs confirm this. Look at apple's specs for iphone, they give higher times on wifi than 3g. And anandtech tests confirm this with every handset they test.
Related
Would there be a difference in quality streaming Pandora in 3G versus 4G? If there would be no difference then I could save battery drain via 3G. Since Pandora used to work fine on my OG, thought it might not matter.
It just takes longer. Otherwise no.
lilfleck said:
It just takes longer. Otherwise no.
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Longer to start first song only or for each song?
Generally the first song in a well covered area.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk
might not be quite that simple. the 4g antenna uses up more power, but won't be actively transferring data as long either. it will also be dependent upon the relative signal strengths. if you have good signal strength on 4g and poor for 3g, you might find that 3g is using more power.
in terms of quality, it probably won't matter unless the 3g speed is slow enough (due to congestion or poor signal strength) to prompt pandora to transcode the music to a smaller bitrate to avoid skipping. i'm not certain that pandora has this feature, but i know other cloud-based music players do that sort of thing and i would expect pandora to do the same. as long as you have a decent 3g connection though, streaming music will be cake without the need to transcode.
rubber soul said:
might not be quite that simple. the 4g antenna uses up more power, but won't be actively transferring data as long either. it will also be dependent upon the relative signal strengths. if you have good signal strength on 4g and poor for 3g, you might find that 3g is using more power.
in terms of quality, it probably won't matter unless the 3g speed is slow enough (due to congestion or poor signal strength) to prompt pandora to transcode the music to a smaller bitrate to avoid skipping. i'm not certain that pandora has this feature, but i know other cloud-based music players do that sort of thing and i would expect pandora to do the same. as long as you have a decent 3g connection though, streaming music will be cake without the need to transcode.
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So, if I'm in an area with good coverage of both 4G and 3G, I would probable save battery with 3G and not suffer quality?
you certainly won't suffer any quality loss if you have good 3g coverage.
whether you save on battery isn't clear to me because there is a tradeoff going on:
4g consumes more battery per second than 3g.
3g is on for more seconds to complete a download.
my suggestion would be to give yourself a real test. queue up a bunch of songs in an area you typically would listen to music and have the app stream the entire playlist. the longer the playlist, the more accurate the test. open the battery status and observe the battery usage rate. repeat this test on 3g and see if there is any difference.
ideally the tests would be performed both starting with roughly the same battery percent (make sure it is less than 90% to start). and they both would have everything gps, wifi, data sync, etc. turned off. if you perform the test, report the results!
3G is plenty to stream music. I've streamed Google Music for long periods of time while on the highway with poor signal. Having a well designed app (in the sense that Google Music prefetches the first few seconds of pending songs to eliminate a pause between tracks) helps, too.
LTE will use less power because it will turn off quicker. Being more efficient is the whole point of 4G technologies.
Stand-by times are usually worse for each succceeding wireless technology. We won't be able to know that for sure until carriers deploy VoLTE and LTE IMS SMS. Right now, LTE is only used for data. Voice and SMS go over CDMA, so the phone is powering 2 radios at one time. This, combined with the early LTE chipsets, is why the LTE Nexus has such awful battery life compared to the GSM/HSPA model.
They were sayn that wifi saves batt up to 50%. Ive always been told the exact oppisite. Wifi kills batt life. Wtf
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harley1rocker said:
They were sayn that wifi saves batt up to 50%. Ive always been told the exact oppisite. Wifi kills batt life. Wtf
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium
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Depends on distance/strength of wifi signal...
It's a good way for them convince you to not use your data connection for a while and slow down the network.
Sent from my Super Galaxy'd SPH-D710
I got an email/text or statement insert saying the exact same thing. Funny thing is ever since that statement I have always made sure to have wifi on when home.
I know it sorta turns off when disconnected but then it scans and picks up wifi networks so I just turn it off when I leave the house.
On my OG Evo I did not notice any change in battery life with wifi on.
Searching for WiFi is what really kills the battery which is why I turn mine off and on manually rather than leaving it on. If I'm in an area with WiFi available and my 3G signal is low, then I'll turn on my WiFi, also when I'm at work or home my WiFi is always on but if I'm out and about then I keep WiFi off rather than have it drain my battery constantly looking for signal.
Technically, I think Wifi takes up less battery than, say 3G when actively used.
Just a guess o-0
MochaCharok said:
Technically, I think Wifi takes up less battery than, say 3G when actively used.
Just a guess o-0
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I would think this is true, especially if you're sitting close to the router like at home or work rather than pinging off a cell tower however far away.
It goes both way guys. When idle, wifi consumes more battery than an active cellular data connection.
By virtue of simply being more efficient, wifi consumes "less" when actively using it. This is, however, because of the generally increased data speeds: it takes less time to accomplish a task (I.e. downloading a file), thus providing battery savings. In this regards, even 4g consumes less battery, even though it technically takes more juice to run 4g.
The way to really look at it so it becomes clear is say, hypothetically, you had a wifi connection whose internet side connection was very slow. In this regards, wifi doesn't save you any battery, and will probably end up consuming more, simply because its gain in efficiency is now gone.
Of course sprint wants us to get off cell data as much as possible, but in a lot of real world situations, it will save someone battery. Take my typical work day for example:
I wake up at home, drive to work, stay at work all day, then go home and probably stay there. I have good wifi connections both at home and work. Now, if I was the kind of user that didn't auto sync anything, I would probably end up using more battery life than I need to if I left wifi on all day, simply because I'm pumping juice into a radio that isn't being used.
However, I DO use a lot of auto sync functions, which means that my phone is actively using data a lot throughout the day. In this case, the battery drain due to the time in which wifi is left idle is out-weighed by the gain in battery life I get by the times my wifi is now being used instead a cell connection.
In a nutshell, as I said at the beginning, cellular data connection is more efficient at being idle than wifi (provided it's a good connection), and wifi is more efficient at being actively used (again, provided it's a good connection and the internet-side speed is sufficient).
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My battery last far longer on wifi than 4g, not even close in my book.
Since I have wi-fi at work and home I can say there is a HUGE difference - especially since at home and work the 3G/4G signals are so weak that the phone burns quite a bit of battery just searching for a signal. Hoping that this will change as NV completes in the area but it might be the frequency that we're on is not too friendly with the newer building materials.
Yes, using wifi will save you more battery life than using your 3g/4g
Pastie13 said:
My battery last far longer on wifi than 4g, not even close in my book.
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4g is a completely different animal than 3g when it comes to battery drain. So far when on 4g your battery life is sucked out of your phone. The email Sprint sends out I would safely say is comparing 3g to wifi.
That same tip is on Sprints website when you log into your account. It is on the right hand side.
As for battery life my findings have been WIFI uses less juice when the signal is good. 3G uses less juice when the throughput is good. So when I am on 3G in an area that has good speeds I can hit near 30 hours of battery.
I can do the same on WIFI when the WIFI signal is good, but if the WIFI signal is on the lower end the throughput slows since the quality has been lowered.
So in essence the better the throughput the better the battery, because when the phone wakes to check on any sync items setup the longer it takes to make that check the longer the CPU is at max and the more battery drain occurs. And I'm not talking signal strength for 3G since you'll get more drain on the battery in lesser areas because the phone is naturally going to have to boost the transmitter power. I'm talking best signal and crappy 3G network throughput. That is where the drain comes from.
I have tested this in my house with my WIFI and my Airave. On WIFI if I go outside my WIFI range is really bad and my battery drains a lot quicker. If I turn off the WIFI and use the Airave, which has a much higher transmitter power, I can get great battery. I have also seen this in over night testing. My WIFI is in the living room which is 5 walls away and the signal is pretty poor. If I leave my WIFI on over night and not charge my phone I loose 50% battery and when trying to use my phone for internet I get super bad throughput since I am on the edge of the signal. But turn off my WIFI and ride on the Airave I only loose 15% over night and the internet is great, but limited to 1.5m since it is 3G. So if you download a 1meg attachment. 3G takes 2 min and WIFI take 4 min then 3G will use less battery. This also goes vis versa. Whoever is maxing the CPU the longest is your battery killer because both are always on and always ready when they are selected.
Hope I didn't go into to much detail, but transmit power is not the big thing here it is throughput quality of the signal. The worst the throughput the more time it takes to transmit and thus more battery as the CPU is maxed till the job is complete.
Well, I just purchased a Note 2 and am still in the "evaluation phase". I really do like the phone, fast, amazing battery and awesome signal. However I am asking this because I ama wondering if I am getting all that I can be from my Galaxy Nexus before I decide to keep the Note 2 for $700+.
For reference I have recently been using the Euroskank CM10.1 releases with Franco's newest kernel and undervolting CPU to approximately the values in the LeanKernel Aggressive Undervolt levels as well as knocking down all IVA and CORE voltage 100mv.
I can generally stretch the Nexus' battery life to 13 or 14 hours, but that's with <2 hours of screen on time. If I am using it a lot 8 hours of battery life is lucky, if not less. This really isn't with any gaming or using it for listening to anything, just genrally Facebook and the internet. I do leave LTE on even though at work I can only get 3G. I have turned LTE off before but honestly I have never seen an increase in battery life from doing so. This goes to signal issue also, at work it will go to 30% or more time without signal and Cell Standby will be the second highest use of battery. I have a refurbed unit from Asurion that is version 10 and using the latest radios for CDMA and LTE. The Note 2 in the same usage environment reported 0% time without signal and Cell Standby was way down the list of power usage.
So, basically I am wondering, am I getting everything out of the Nexus that I can, or should I be getting better numbers. Maybe some of you on here can verify that the Note 2 is actually better for signal etc. or that I am just being delusional. Thanks in advance to all of you!
EDIT: Oops, meant to put this in the Questins section, accidentally put it here, Mods, please move!
No one?
Seriously? Even a piss off would be nice to hear, lol.
My signal is fine, my battery life is like yours (<2hr screen on) even with the OEM ext battery.
WiredPirate said:
My signal is fine, my battery life is like yours (<2hr screen on) even with the OEM ext battery.
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Thanks for the reply, good to hear my battery life isn't out of the ordinary. Signal does seem bad on mine though, I am going to call Asurion as this one runs unusually hot, uncofortably hot to hold even.
Yeah, mine gets fine signal, though the current radio firmware that came with the 4.1.1 OTA seems to have a problem hanging onto LTE signal indoors. I'm sure it'll get fixed in the next OTA (hopefully to 4.2.1). As far as battery life, it's what you would expect from an LTE phone...about 2.5 hours of screen-on time, maybe 3 if you're really lucky. Battery life can be affected by so many things like apps you have installed, screen time, cell signal, etc.
One thing I'll tell you, though...you'll find your battery life go up by at least 30% by keeping it connected to WiFi. If you're on a cell connection, your battery is going to zap a lot faster because as a matter of principle, cell modems are far more power-intensive than WiFi is because WiFi is a much shorter-range technology, thus the transmitters don't have to put out nearly as much power. Also, if not connected to WiFi, weak cell signals are going to drain your battery even faster than a stronger signal.
But, as long as you keep the phone on WiFi when you can, you'll find the battery life is no better or worse than most other LTE phones.
sesdevel bordure
With WiFi, easily 15 hours with ~2 hours screen time. With LTE enabled, usually around 6-8 with ~1.5 hours of screen time. I also get pretty bad signal around my city.
oldblue910 said:
Yeah, mine gets fine signal, though the current radio firmware that came with the 4.1.1 OTA seems to have a problem hanging onto LTE signal indoors. I'm sure it'll get fixed in the next OTA (hopefully to 4.2.1). As far as battery life, it's what you would expect from an LTE phone...about 2.5 hours of screen-on time, maybe 3 if you're really lucky. Battery life can be affected by so many things like apps you have installed, screen time, cell signal, etc.
One thing I'll tell you, though...you'll find your battery life go up by at least 30% by keeping it connected to WiFi. If you're on a cell connection, your battery is going to zap a lot faster because as a matter of principle, cell modems are far more power-intensive than WiFi is because WiFi is a much shorter-range technology, thus the transmitters don't have to put out nearly as much power. Also, if not connected to WiFi, weak cell signals are going to drain your battery even faster than a stronger signal.
But, as long as you keep the phone on WiFi when you can, you'll find the battery life is no better or worse than most other LTE phones.
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Well the Note 2 destroys the Nexus in battery life and signal reception to be honest, but then again a 3100mAh battery should. I like the Nexus and I am trying to get myself to keep it over the Note because having AOSP rocks and so does saving like $850.
Hey,
when I use 3G I get about 2H of screen time,
and when I use WiFi I get about 4H (max).
My usage is WhatsApp, Browser etc..
Is it normal that I'm getting half of the time with 3G?
Can it be fixed with another baseband?
Any help?
3G uses more battery since it's also searching for better connection all the time(unless you choose 2G only in mobile network options, then you get better battery but speed is not so fast anymore).
I can confirm that a weak 3G connection gobbles up battery charge very quickly. This is a flaw in the radio firmware or perhaps somewhere else. Of course the phone should switch to 2G automatically when 3G is not used intensively, but uses excessive amounts of electricity, but the designers apparently overlooked this.
Your main option is, as already mentioned, to do the thing manually that your phone fails to do automatically—force 2G only.
If you do that, don't forget to disable the force-2G option again when (a) you need the higher speed and the connection is good enough for that, or (b) if you moved into an area with better reception, like 3 or 4 bars.
Alternatively, leave the settings untouched, i.e. 3G enabled, and keep charging the phone if you are stationary and have electricity nearby. You can charge from a computer, albeit at half speed.
I almost always have 3/4 bars, so I don't think I have a connection problem.
Does anyone yet know how 5G will affect the battery life compared to 4G?
The phone would now not only seek for a better 4G signal tower but also for a 5G cell tower?
As far as I understand:
Adaptive connectivity should disable/enable 5G based on usage
That means with "screen off" I will hopefully not suffer from higher battery drain due to constantly trying to get a good 5G cell tower
5G uses more power due to its higher performance. But is only when actually using 5G (e.g. massive downloading)
When there is weak 4G signal, I might actually have better signal due to 5G availability
Is that correct?
Yeah, I think you're correct.
At 100% charge before turning in for the night, wifi connected, I lose about 2% at night.
I'll have to turn wifi off to check the drain at night for 5G/4G, but I believe the adaptive
band switching helps the battery life. I think even though it says 5G, it runs 4G unless you
really need the bandwith, and, are in range of a 5G signal.