Develop Bugs

RTT mode for more battery life?

Obviously we don't need 4G or 3G running when we're just walking about town waiting for phone calls, emails, or texts. Is there any way to reduce battery drain by turning off the 3G EVDO radio and falling back to 1xRTT, in a similar way to how we currently turn off 3G UMTS/HSDPA on an iPhone and fall back to EDGE to preserve battery life?
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

TKardinal said:
Obviously we don't need 4G or 3G running when we're just walking about town waiting for phone calls, emails, or texts. Is there any way to reduce battery drain by turning off the 3G EVDO radio and falling back to 1xRTT, in a similar way to how we currently turn off 3G UMTS/HSDPA on an iPhone and fall back to EDGE to preserve battery life?
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
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I have been thinking about this and would like to know as well.

Just because 3G GSM is not as efficient with battery life as 2G does not necessarily mean the same problem exists for cdma technology, however I do not know for certain and its a good question

drewX2 said:
Just because 3G GSM is not as efficient with battery life as 2G does not necessarily mean the same problem exists for cdma technology, however I do not know for certain and its a good question
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Indeed. I don't know. And that's why I'm asking!

A few things might improve battery life:
-Turn off constant GPS; it chews up battery when not needed. It's on by default with the EVO and queried every 3 hours (default) by Sense UI for weather information. You can get the same information based on Cell Tower triangulation without firing up GPS needlessly.
-Sense UI (according to rumor) uses more power in and of itself than the stock Android GUI.
-Froyo (by virtue of JIT) should be more efficient and therefore consume less battery life as well.
One topic I'm not sure on is whether Android can scale CPU clocks automatically based on need, like mobile CPUs for laptops/netbooks do? If not, it should absolutely be implemented, and that would be my next project..

Coming from a samsung moment to the evo i can say that jumping back and fourth between evdo and 1xrtt cancause battery drain. Really theres no great method to combat this other than using common sense. If your not in need of gps- turn it off. Turn off queing for cell towers as well, while it doesnt consume as much power as the gps it does take some resource to triangulate your location. The only other thing i would say is using setcpu and establishing profiles that suit your needs. I.e. screen off can be the lowest cpu setting while battery at 50% you could set your profiles clock speed to sit at 600-700. But thats all providing an app like setcpu will play nice with the evo.
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It does not seem like the phone has 1x radio in it. I have never seen it ...not even once fall back to 1x even with zero bars.
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clubtech said:
It does not seem like the phone has 1x radio in it. I have never seen it ...not even once fall back to 1x even with zero bars.
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I assure you it does.

I manually set my wife's pixi to 1xrtt and her battery life has increased significantly, had to do some hidden code, so perhaps same for evo

It's ##EVDO# in WebOS. Not sure what the code is in Android.

Incredible 2 antenna weak?

Hi all,
Got an Incredible 2 a few days ago. So far so good *except* the antenna seems weak compared to my original Moto Droid1. With my original droid i almost always had 4 bars at home, in office, etc. With this phone im lucky to get 3 bars, often only 1 or 2. Anyone else have this issue? Its got me pretty worried and consideringreturning ...
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i agree.. when compared to my previous phones, i feel like i am getting much worse reception.

Will this lower reception also affect data speed?
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the reception might be the same and how it calculates the bars may be different. do you have any other reason to suggest your getting less signal other then the bar display?
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Ooh that's interesting. I'm only judging by the bar display. I sort of hope that you are right.

You could have a point there OneStepAhead. I Google'd "Droid incredible signal strength" and found many people commenting that the bars seem to have next to nothing to do with actual performance, eg making calls and sending data with virtually no bars worked fine. That's been my experience so far as well so I am going to ignore the bars for a while and just see if it hangs in there. Given this very common issue with the first version of this phone and the excellent reputation it had despite it, it'll probably be OK.
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Even though the bars seem to jump around more and seem to not be as strong as my previous phone, I'm actually getting faster data speeds on it when I do a speed test.

Don't look at the bars in the status bar go into the setting menu and goto about phone and look at signal strength there that is accurate not the bars at the top for example my dinc 2 is one bar right now at -80db and my coworkers Droid x is four bars at -83db so technically I am getting better signal
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Thanks for the comments. It's true, the bars jump around like crazy but don't have much to do with the signal strength readings in the system. In fact, sometimes the bars go up and signal strength goes down. Seems I'm pretty much always between -70 & -80. Your input makes me feel a lot better about this phone because it was the only thing making me nervous.
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the less negative the better the reception, correct?

The Elixir app has a little widget that shows the "percent" of cell signal you're getting. So it's not a db measurement, but perhaps something they calculate from that measurement. That'd be an easy way to see the number of bars and a percentage measurement at the same time. Sounds like of like what Apple said back during Apple's antennagate, where the bar algorithm was supposedly off.

Astromech said:
The Elixir app has a little widget that shows the "percent" of cell signal you're getting. So it's not a db measurement, but perhaps something they calculate from that measurement. That'd be an easy way to see the number of bars and a percentage measurement at the same time. Sounds like of like what Apple said back during Apple's antennagate, where the bar algorithm was supposedly off.
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right, that is why I suggested the theory of the bar algorithm being off as its apparently happened before. Let's hope that's the case!
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bik2101 said:
the less negative the better the reception, correct?
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Im not positive on that, i assume there is a sweet spot somewhere. Im guessing once the number gets low enough the signal strength is no longer good. Im just basing that on cable modem technology which should be between -15 and +10 if i remember correctly. too far on one side is not good. Surely some XDA member can shed some light on this?
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I have a Dinc2 as personal phone and OG Droid as the work phone, just sat it next to each other they are both at -70dbm and speedtest gave approx same speeds

hmm so from my observastions, i'm getting at abotu -90 to -100 pretty much wherever i am. this is not a good thing right?

I was at a friend's house last night. My phone had almost no signal (and therefore barely worked) but neither did a friend's blackberry on at&t and another bb on tmobile. I was at about -97 or so. Typically I'm between -70&-80 pretty much independent of number of bars showing. Last night I guess we were all basically in a dead spot.
That aside, just tried wifi on this phone last night and was blown away by the speed. It doesn't even come close to comparing to my ogDroid which took forever to ping. I never used wifi on that phone cuz it was actually slower than using 3g!
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Apples antennagate actually effected call quality I owned an original incredible and the reception and call quality seem to be a bit better on the incredible 2
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OneStepAhead said:
right, that is why I suggested the theory of the bar algorithm being off as its apparently happened before. Let's hope that's the case!
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And what I'm saying is that if the Elixir measurement or that of another app says you have, say 60% signal, but you only have 1 bar, at the least you'd be able to ignore your bars as irrelevant and rely on your percentage figure until such time as they release a fix for the superficial bar issue. Annoying, but a workaround.

Good tip on Elixir. Its %s seem to coincide for the most part with the bars. I made a call from Costco today with zero bars and it sounded fine. So I think i'll ignore all the bar stuff and just make sure it keeps working fine. My guess at this point is it will be perfectly OK.
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I recently upgraded to a Dinc 2 with misgivings due to reports of weak signal. Last week I drove from Salem (Oregon) through the coast range to Tillamook, down US101 to Lincoln City and then back through the coast range to Salem. Carried and compared a Blackberry Bold 9650 and Dinc 2 (Verizon).
Whenever I stopped and compared the dBm on the two handsets, the readings were within 2-4 dBm, despite the Dinc 2 signal bar showing half or less bars than the BB.
It makes me agree with abqslim's post that the signal bars on the Dinc 2 have little to do with signal strength.

[Q] 4G or WiFi drains more battery?

what wastes more energy? having 4g on or having wifi on? i read the other threads but it had to do with 3g.. they said 3g wastes more power. is this the case with 4g as well?
thanks!

WiFi drains more battery always
that's from personal observation on all the phones i've owned in the past to now
as soon as you use WiFi the battery drains like there's no tomorrow
however this phone seems to handle it quite well

Yeah, 4G is a big battery hog. Wifi doesn't drain as much so long as you are connected to the same one for a while.
EDIT: just saw AllGamer's reply. Wifi really drains that much? I remember seeing the Droid Razr review saying that 4G eats batteries for breakfast. I might be wrong then!
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They both drain battery about the same in my opinion.
When ever I can I turn both of them off to save battery.
It's really easy with the toggles that a couple roms have.
This phone is a BEAST!

From my personal experience wifi doesn't drain as much as 4g.
Sent from my SGH-T989 using xda premium

WiFi is far more efficient than the cellular network, and any usage will count against your allocated full speed GB's.. not a good thing.

don't have a sgsII yet but my experience with my vibrant is that wifi if connected uses less battery than hspa. If I'm not connected to a wifi network it drains the battery looking for one.
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heygrl said:
WiFi is far more efficient than the cellular network, and any usage will count against your allocated full speed GB's.. not a good thing.
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Forgive my ignorance but how come the usage of Wifi will count against your allocated full speed? My personal experience has been different .

knut150 said:
Forgive my ignorance but how come the usage of Wifi will count against your allocated full speed? My personal experience has been different .
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I meant not using it will count against your data allotment

lol so there's no unanimous answer. i guess i'll just try to experiment a little and see which one uses more. thanks everyone.

4G uses more battery than WiFi

Definitely 4G... I sit on wifi all day and do not use much battery at all.

skadude66 said:
Yeah, 4G is a big battery hog. Wifi doesn't drain as much so long as you are connected to the same one for a while.
EDIT: just saw AllGamer's reply. Wifi really drains that much? I remember seeing the Droid Razr review saying that 4G eats batteries for breakfast. I might be wrong then!
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From what I understand, LTE is a bigger battery hog than HSPA+.

jasnmb said:
From what I understand, LTE is a bigger battery hog than HSPA+.
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For sure. And after that I'd say HSPA+ > WiFi in terms of battery draining.

Wait, our phone runs off energy. Please tell me its kinetic?!
Sent from my Juggernaut SGSII or Galaxy Tab 10.1 now "In Paris"

bhowanidin said:
Wait, our phone runs off energy. Please tell me its kinetic?!
Sent from my Juggernaut SGSII or Galaxy Tab 10.1 now "In Paris"
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Solar backpack maybe ?

ok guys lets keep this topic sane, yeah it's funny, but lets go back on topic
it's a very valid & informative question
my personal experience shows me WiFi is worst, but others here says 3G/4G is even worse, but from personal experience 3G/4G is less than WiFi
so even i find that contradiction very interesting
the thing that could make a difference is the signal strength, perhaps better 3G/4G reception requires less power to maintain the connection?
possibly the same reason why WiFi always seems to do worse for me, because all the Starbucks, Airport, Hotel, Library, and other coffe/restaurant places that offer WiFi it's horrible, very slow, and hard to maintain signal, probably because tooooooooo many people are hogging it or maybe just because too many devices are bumping each other off the Router/WiFi AP on those establishments

Whenever I use wifi I turn my data off and gst better battery that way. If you have a bad data signal or wifi it'll take more battery to try to keep a connection.
In my Bio class I have terrible data signal and my battery will drain really fast with heavy use but if I turn on my wifi and turn off the data my battery iis way better
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So after doing testing of my own I have come to the conclusion that 4G drains more battery than wifi. With wifi I can get about 14 hrs, but with 4G I only get 6-8 hrs.
This phone is a BEAST!

AllGamer, makes sense. If you have slower networks, your screen will be on for longer as you wait inbetween pages and downloads. Fast downloads => less screen time.
My personal experience with wifi vs THREE-g is that wifi eats my battery quickly (on all previous phones and there have been many, including present BB Torch for work). An d 3G doesn't drain as quickly.
However I agree wifi seems pretty sippy and efficient on the SGH-T989. My battery is learning. I am now getting 1 day and 13 hours of discharge time. Very moderate use. 4G. So yes there well may be a difference between 3 and 4G.
I will test wifi-only as soon as I can in the next few days.
AllGamer said:
ok guys lets keep this topic sane, yeah it's funny, but lets go back on topic
it's a very valid & informative question
my personal experience shows me WiFi is worst, but others here says 3G/4G is even worse, but from personal experience 3G/4G is less than WiFi
so even i find that contradiction very interesting
the thing that could make a difference is the signal strength, perhaps better 3G/4G reception requires less power to maintain the connection?
possibly the same reason why WiFi always seems to do worse for me, because all the Starbucks, Airport, Hotel, Library, and other coffe/restaurant places that offer WiFi it's horrible, very slow, and hard to maintain signal, probably because tooooooooo many people are hogging it or maybe just because too many devices are bumping each other off the Router/WiFi AP on those establishments
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Constant 4G and battery life

So, I'm fairly certain it's a well-established fact that the constant switching from 4G to 3G drains a lot of battery on our phones since 4G isn't a widespread service yet. I have also heard that 4G is a more efficient antenna and if you have a constant 4G connection, the battery life isn't impacted much. I was wondering how much of this is true- I live in Atlanta, which was one of the first cities to get Verizon's LTE service, and as a result, I have a sold 3-4 bar signal of 4G at all times. I go to school downtown, work in the metro area, and live in the metro area. Since I got the phone, I've just left it on CDMA, as the speeds are fine for me and I typically get 30 hours or so of battery life with data and sync on (and WiFi, when available). Would switching to 4G change that number drastically?
Thanks!
Also, a side question: I leave GPS turned on as that only polls when an application calls for it, but I've left Google's Location Services off. Is there a real need to leave that on? With GPS only, I tend to get an immediate reading with wonderful accuracy.

I'm calling bs. Please post a screenshot of your battery life of 30+ with gps and 3g all day.

rabaker07 said:
I'm calling bs. Please post a screenshot of your battery life of 30+ with gps and 3g all day.
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I'd be happy to post a screenshot the next time I run my phone down. As I said, GPS doesn't drain your battery at all unless you're using Maps constantly, so that isn't really a major factor for me. Also, I DO have the extended battery.
Also, I can't help but note how this doesn't really relate to the content of the thread at all.

rabaker07 said:
I'm calling bs. Please post a screenshot of your battery life of 30+ with gps and 3g all day.
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Not at all what the topic was about but it's easily possible. I've gotten 30 hours on 3G no problem. Right now I'm at 20% after 20 hours with moderately heavy usage. Close to 4 hours of screen on time.
As for the topic, best way to find out is to try it. Couldn't tell you for certain one way or the other.
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hotleadsingerguy said:
Not at all what the topic was about but it's easily possible. I've gotten 30 hours on 3G no problem. Right now I'm at 20% after 20 hours with moderately heavy usage. Close to 4 hours of screen on time.
As for the topic, best way to find out is to try it. Couldn't tell you for certain one way or the other.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App
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Right, I suppose that would be the easiest approach. I just fear starting my day out on 4G and then realizing that my battery is shot when I really need it. Though, I could always just turn data off if I see my battery draining super quick.

Did the official Verizon 4.04 update help your cell signal?

I realize the release is brand new and has already been pulled but I'm curious to find out what people will think after using it a few days. Have you encountered any improvement or degredation in call quality, data quality, battery life? Sorry about the number of choices but some people think polls are skewed for a result and always say I should have had this or that as an option so I tried to think of as many options as possible since I can not add more choices after the fact.

Battery life hasn't improved for me but could be the rom I'm on (patient Zero )
I don't lose data as much now but still to early to tell. Appears better.
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Subjectively, seems worse to me, but better handoff to 3g.

Same reception as FA02/FA02. Quicker handoff though. Favors 3G over 4G.

Battery life hasn't really improved nor dbm's. One thing I did notice was 3G to 4G handoff was quicker.

akademix said:
Battery life hasn't really improved nor dbm's. One thing I did notice was 3G to 4G handoff was quicker.
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Doesn't data have nothing to with dBms?
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wyattyoss said:
Doesn't data have nothing to with dBms?
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er...what?

wyattyoss said:
Doesn't data have nothing to with dBms?
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Lolololol
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I notice that the screen on mine is much more sensitive to touch. That was my biggest issue before so now I'm happy!
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patalo said:
I notice that the screen on mine is much more sensitive to touch. That was my biggest issue before so now I'm happy!
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Ditto on that as well. Very sensitive. My 4G is the same as my Razr Maxx and D4. Cross Fingers!

I noticed I had 4G in an area I couldn't before, other than that nothing really changed for me. One of the guys I talk to on G+ says that he never got 4G in his house before and his wifes Rezound always did, but since updating the radios last night he gets 4G inside his home.

I'm still getting random drops from 4G, but the passing off onto 3G seems to be a lot faster. Also I noticed that I get more bars in area where I had less (ex. 2 bars of 4G is now 4 bars of 4G), but still had the same dbms.

Subjectively I feel it helped tremendously. Haven't had a single data drop all day when before I would get several drops a day. I also have better reception.
Why did it get pulled?
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I've been on 4.0.4 for months now but I did flash the radios from the official update and my signal is better.
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No noticable difference for me. Although my house is right across the street from an LTE tower in a park.
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So far I am disappoint.
While the hand offs are faster I'm connected to LTE a lot less now...and previously it seemed that signal in my area was improving ><
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wyattyoss said:
Doesn't data have nothing to with dBms?
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
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dBm is how strong of a signal your phone is getting. (if you want a higher dBm hold it higher/different ) That should be more dependent on hardware than software though, what's sometimes more important is the Signal to Noise Ratio and the Carrier Interference & Noise Ratio (SNR & CINR). Which is basically how easy your phone can hear the tower.
It's like trying to yell across a room that is full of drunk people, whoever you're talking to may be able to hear you yelling but they have no idea what you're saying. Same way for cell phones if you're in a very crowded area.

Something you guys may want to look at. So I was going to test the radios today. I sat here on lean kernel and AOKP and was getting between 86-89dbm of 4G with the new radios which was better but I figured what the hell and flashed the IMM76K build and now I get 71-74dbm with lean kernel. I don't know if everyone is going to see results like this but it is definitely worth a shot if you are seeing low dbm with the new radio.
Speedtest is now giving me 20mb down when the highest I could get before was 12. I know this sounds to good to be true, so don't believe me if you think so but I am just reporting what I am seeing.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA

I'm not surprised the results are mixed but I was hoping for better.

Radios
For some reason my signal starts off really bad then goes back to normal. I have noticed it favored 3g more so than 4g. Normally on my drive home from work, as soon as i hit the highway it hits 4g, i was a good 10 miles down the road, still showed 3g, so toggled lte off then on and boom back to 4g, albeit weak for a minute then back to normal. Speed tests show slightly faster, but that's negligible for me. Could just be network congestion at the time the other tests were run.
On a side rant i did notice something slightly strange. Installed bamf 1.25 simultaneously on my nexus (had since launch date) and a certified pre-owned replacement for a friend, which of course was freshly rooted by me si the "sd card" was empty other than the roms, and the fresh phone blazed through the installed about 30 seconds quicker than mine and also rebooted faster. I clicked both phones at the same time, both using 5.8.0.0 touch recovery. Nothing to do with the radio, but felt like sharing. Guess i might completely wipe my phone and see if it speeds her up!