extending battery life

[Guest veehexx]

so i've been reading though an old thread on another forum i'm on, and one user (using android, but not using the SF) claims/confirms that having wifi on EXTENDS battery as it's not using the 2g/3g connection.

apparently androidcentral ran tests (havent yet looked for a link to confirm their findings)

coming from WM6.x, this seems completely wrong.

i'll be running my own tests, as it seems too good to be true (free data via wifi, AND extended battery life!?).

have i been living under a rock, or is this news to you guys too?

[Guest Victor von Zeppelin]

News to me, Wifi drains the battery on mine like no-ones business.

[Guest That-Guy]

WiFi kills my battery too lol

[Guest Genieuk]

WiFi is a battery drainer, whilst 3G is supposed to be efficient (i.e. it was designed for mobiles remember), so not sure how having it on saves battery power.

[Guest PeaNut_HU]

Yeah, the strong wifi waves charge the phone :)

[Guest abbas_sheikh]

My blade's battery drains more if I use 3G than WiFi. Normally I use blade for 15 - 20 mins calls a day and very light browsing (2 - 3MB), it easily last for 24 - 36 hours.

[Guest yekxmerr]

My blade's battery drains more if I use 3G than WiFi. Normally I use blade for 15 - 20 mins calls a day and very light browsing (2 - 3MB), it easily last for 24 - 36 hours.

I can confirm this. It is 100% true

[Guest CoWPlagued]

you need to consider what you're doing with the phone.

if you leave wifi on all the time on the blade it seems to hammer the battery, there's a bug on the blade's wifi anyway, my desire doesn't seem to mind wifi on. If you only use wifi for data it should use less power than 3g will.

There are some patches that can switch from 3g to 2g to extend the battery under standard use.

there's my blade's battery lasting 3 days and still on half battery (not realistic use, checking for battery drain in the A3 2.2 build).

These phones are like laptops, if you use them like a laptop you'll get battery life like a laptop, use them like a phone only and your battery will last.

[Guest rjm2k]

I guess one thing that maybe going on here is that with wifi you tend to be near to your access point so less power is required to talk to it, whereas with 3g the cell base station could be anywhere so different power levels maybe tried in order to get a decent signal.

[Guest veehexx]

well, i tried wifi...

our experiences are correct - it drains the battery far quicker!

charged last night, used down to 80% battery, and it's now on 40%.

phone even goes into aircraft mode between 10.30pm and 7.30am, so you'd be lucky to get 24h use out of it!

my usage usually gives around 4-5 days on GPRS...

it must be a bug with his phone; 3g taking excessive battery thus wifi giving better life...

[Guest gusthy]

Actually my experience for the best usage is the following:

- If you do not need fast internet, turn wifi AND 3G off.

- If you need fast internet and you can use wifi, use that.

- If there is no wifi around you and you need fast internet, use 3G.

If the wifi turn off policy is that it turns off when phone screen is off, it doesn't drain battery. On the other hand, this will stop my MSN client working properly. (btw MSN clients are big drain killers, since they don't allow the phone to go to sleep.)