4G LTE has nothing to do with battery life?

[ThisTechBoi]

Hello,

I asked my trusty salesperson (who works at an electronics store) about whether 4G would mean bad battery life, and he suggested that 4G has nothing to do with the battery life, it's the battery itself. He said his S3 has horrible battery, max. 6hrs with 3G so he said it's to do with how good the S4's battery is.

What do you think?

 

[smooth4lyfe]

LTE is a HUGE battery drainer...that goes with all LTE phones
4G/LTE doesnt mean the phone automatically will have bad battery life, but LTE running constantly will drain your battery

 

[Almeuit]

LTE most certainly has a impact on battery life.

Sent from my Sprint S3 using AC forums.

 

[RG129]

I also think the act of searching for signal has an impact on battery life. If your LTE is spotty and you're constantly jumping around between 4G and 3G, I think the constant searching for a signal might be taxing on the battery.

At least that's my experience with CDMA phones. When signal is spotty and my phone is constantly going in and out of service, my battery drains within a matter of hours.

 

[crester]

Hello,

I asked my trusty salesperson (who works at an electronics store) about whether 4G would mean bad battery life, and he suggested that 4G has nothing to do with the battery life, it's the battery itself. He said his S3 has horrible battery, max. 6hrs with 3G so he said it's to do with how good the S4's battery is.

What do you think?

Your trusty salesperson is not trusty at all...

 

[planoman]

Your trusty salesperson is not trusty at all...

or misinformed or incompetent or both?

 

[kleeno]

I also think the act of searching for signal has an impact on battery life. If your LTE is spotty and you're constantly jumping around between 4G and 3G, I think the constant searching for a signal might be taxing on the battery.

At least that's my experience with CDMA phones. When signal is spotty and my phone is constantly going in and out of service, my battery drains within a matter of hours.

Agreed. I'm on sprint in Pittsburgh. I take 3 buses to and from work. While they don't have full LTE yet my second bus stop in swissvale, pa has it and it drains the heck out of my battery. On my bus route on frankstown road from Homewood to the border of Penn Hills its been a dead zone for sprint for years draining and choking the life out of sprint customers batteries. I wish they build a tower near there to correct the problem but they never do.



Sent from my EVO using Android Central Forums

 

[PhillyPhatFan]

Hello,

I asked my trusty salesperson (who works at an electronics store) about whether 4G would mean bad battery life, and he suggested that 4G has nothing to do with the battery life, it's the battery itself. He said his S3 has horrible battery, max. 6hrs with 3G so he said it's to do with how good the S4's battery is.

What do you think?

He needs to get fired lol just ask people that had the htc thunderbolt how battery life was hahah you need a new friend!

 

[Mellimel22]

Lte itself isn't a battery killer anymore seeing as the newer sprint phones has one radio for both 3 and 4g as the older ones has 2.

Sent from my Sprint Galaxy Nexus rockin 4.2.2 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Almeuit]

I also think the act of searching for signal has an impact on battery life. If your LTE is spotty and you're constantly jumping around between 4G and 3G, I think the constant searching for a signal might be taxing on the battery.

At least that's my experience with CDMA phones. When signal is spotty and my phone is constantly going in and out of service, my battery drains within a matter of hours.

Lte itself isn't a battery killer anymore seeing as the newer sprint phones has one radio for both 3 and 4g as the older ones has 2.

Sent from my Sprint Galaxy Nexus rockin 4.2.2 using Tapatalk 2

It can still play a factor on your battery usage. As RG says the strength of the LTE signal can also be a big factor.

Pretty much anything in the phone has potential to drain the battery.

Sent from my Sprint S3 using AC forums.

 

[Mellimel22]

It can still play a factor on your battery usage. As RG says the strength of the LTE signal can also be a big factor.

Pretty much anything in the phone has potential to drain the battery.

Sent from my Sprint S3 using AC forums.

Exactly if u are in a weak area then yeah the constant search for signal can the same can be said bout WiFi also. Keeping WiFi on without use drains battery. Pretty much everything like u said lol.

Sent from my Sprint Galaxy Nexus rockin 4.2.2 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Aquila]

I wouldn't be so quick to jump the gun on this one.... just because something is 99.99% correlated statistically, doesn't necessarily imply causality... if we believed that we would believe in the causation of cancer from radiation or carcinogenic chemicals, debt from overspending and ignorance from mythology-based brainwashing.

 

[ThisTechBoi]

Hm, thanks for the replies, guys!

I was a bit skeptical, but it may have something to do with me calling him on his day off (whoops) while he was sleeping. So 4G LTE is practically useless since it eats battery life?

 

[planoman]

Hm, thanks for the replies, guys!

I was a bit skeptical, but it may have something to do with me calling him on his day off (whoops) while he was sleeping. So 4G LTE is practically useless since it eats battery life?

Not if you want home wifi speeds...the batteries in most phones have been getting larger to accommodate that plus bigger screens etc. Still possible to get 10-14 hours of moderate usage in a day with many of the newer phones.

 

[freevolous]

LTE is a HUGE battery drainer...that goes with all LTE phones
4G/LTE doesnt mean the phone automatically will have bad battery life, but LTE running constantly will drain your battery

I am not a developer or an expert on how smartphones work but coming from an iPhone 4s which I felt drained the battery real quickly with any moderate use, my S4 G with 4G LTE has its battery dying every 4 hours with heavy use.

Heavy use is me using Google hangouts, Skype, whatsapp, YouTube videos, some phone calls and consistent use of chrome browser. I wish it could last a longer but that might be unrealistic.

My moderate use on my iPhone 4s is Google maps for directions for 30 minutes and 30 minutes of messing with chrome and it's already down to fifty percent.

Sorry for the rant.

 

[SenseMonkey]

It can still play a factor on your battery usage. As RG says the strength of the LTE signal can also be a big factor.

Pretty much anything in the phone has potential to drain the battery.

Sent from my Sprint S3 using AC forums.

This ^^ As Almeuit said; just about anything in the phone can drain the battery. Previous LTE phones had crappy batteries as they needed 2 separate antennas(one for LTE and one for 3G/2G/Edge) so if you dropped out of an LTE area the other antenna kicked in. Im pretty sure most new phones only have/need 1 since(i think ) most processor's can connect to different network types(by most the only one that comes to my mind are the Snapdragon family; Exynos 4; Tegra 3+Qualcomm Lte modem; and yea. Thats all that come to mind for me lol. I think there's also the Texas Instrument processor, but i forget the name. Anyways, just correct me if im wrong someone; don't want to misinform someone..
Edit: The crappy batteries also includes Sprint's ole' Wimax devices, they also had two different radios/antennas for 3G and Wimax(which Sprint tried to pass off for 4G :banghead: )
From my Sammy Galaxy S4

 

[Soundtrack to Chaos]

LTE is a HUGE battery drainer...that goes with all LTE phones
4G/LTE doesnt mean the phone automatically will have bad battery life, but LTE running constantly will drain your battery

I don't know about that. I think it depends on signal strength. I'm constantly on 4g and have great battery life. But when I'm on 3g or have only one bar of 4g,my battery drains much faster

Sent from my Sprint Samsung Galaxy s3 running Liquid Smooth v2.7 with a 7000mah extended battery powered by ZeroLemon... Because I'm not a chick, a guy with dainty hands or an HTC one user

 

[Shelter7]

I don't know about that. I think it depends on signal strength. I'm constantly on 4g and have great battery life. But when I'm on 3g or have only one bar of 4g,my battery drains much faster

Sent from my Sprint Samsung Galaxy s3 running Liquid Smooth v2.7 with a 7000mah extended battery powered by ZeroLemon... Because I'm not a chick, a guy with dainty hands or an HTC one user

I experienced the same difference between 3G and 4G, as you mentioned, but in my case the Zerolemon battery I have, behaved incredibly: up to 4 days in 3G and up to 3days in 4G

 

[averen09]

I dont think lte consumes battery life faster, i have a samsung galaxy s6 edge, i observed my phone and i noticed that wifi consumes more battery than my lte data

 

[L0n3N1nja]

I dont think lte consumes battery life faster, i have a samsung galaxy s6 edge, i observed my phone and i noticed that wifi consumes more battery than my lte data

Old thread but might as well reply.

Former Verizon Rep, LTE, especially in it's early days had significantly higher power draw than 3G. The modems drew more power, it's improved greatly over the years.

Before Lollipop Google let you disable the LTE modems and run off 3G, made a HUGE difference on my Note 2 and Note 3 for standby battery time. Early 4G phones on Verizon had a toggle to enable/disable LTE for this reason. Battery draw would be worse when in an area without LTE yet, because it was searching for it.