LTE or 3G for battery life?

[frag06]

I have been getting pretty good battery life, but was wondering if I should be using 3G or LTE on the N5.

I know the N5 has envelope tracking, but does that really help? I have looked around and there isn't much info about this. There is quite a bit of info for other phones, but almost nothing for the N5.

I usually get an LTE signal of one to two bars; around 98 to 110 dBm and 30 to 40 asu. 3G varies from two to four full bars; 85 to 100 dBm and around 10 asu. This is at my home on AT&T. I'm almost always connected to WiFi, though.

Battery life has been pretty good. Usually around three to four hours of screen on time from 100% to 30%, with some standby time.

I have been thinking of rooting and possibly using Franko's kernal, but wanted to ask this question first, just to see if anyone has seen a difference. Plus it has been on my mind for a while.

Any help is appreciated.

 

[for3nsicguy]

The only advantage I have ever noticed switching the device from LTE to 3G is in my home area where I am 60 miles from the nearest LTE signal. I notice a small improvement in battery life with the phone switched to 3G when there is no LTE signal available. I occasionally travel into areas with LTE service and forget to switch the device back to LTE, so I have use patterns with the phone set to each. I have not seen any difference in battery life whatsoever with phone set to LTE or 3G.

I normally average around 18 hours of use between charges, about 3 hours of screen on time, and about 40%-50% left in the tank when I plug to charge overnight in my home area.

NO complaints here about the Nexus 5 battery life.

 

[Robbie317]

I thought LTE offered better battery life....... but it would be dependent on your signal strength and location I guess.. I use to turn my LTE radio off on my Nexus 5 at work when I was on Sprint because my battery would go to nothing quick as it constantly switched between a faint LTE signal and 3G, if your phone is default to LTE it's going to constantly be looking for that LTE signal..... Putting it on 3G at work my battery life greatly improved.... but when in a good LTE signal area my battery life was pretty good.. Now that I am on T-Mobile and get way better LTE connectivity my battery life is pretty darn good across the board...

 

[gidgiddonihah]

LTE is actually more battery efficient. Where you run into problems is many carriers only upgrade a certain number of their towers to LTE. That means a lot of the time your signal is lower than if you were on 3G mode. Lower signal means your phone has to pump more power into the radio for it to keep a live signal. Generally there isn't a huge amount of difference though so it just depends on if you want that extra couple percent. I personally would just leave it on LTE. The extra speed is worth any possible minor battery drain.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[Bront]

I've had luck turning LTE off and getting better battery life, but that was mostly on my GNex. I think I'll test it out more on my N5.

 

[frag06]

Thank you to everyone who replied.

I'll leave it on. Standby drain is only about 4% overnight anyway (8 - 10 hours), and battery life seems good overall.

I just switched to ART, so we'll see if this improves battery life or not (45 minutes of screen on time dropped battery from 97% to 83%, which is about normal). Some things do feel a little more 'snappy', but I haven't had time to really test it out. May end up rooting it, too, but I wanted to test out stock for a while first.

Anyone using ART see a difference in battery life? From what I've read, some have seen a big difference while others have seen a small difference or none at all. Would like to hear your experiences and opinions.

Thanks again.

 

[Bront]

Just a follow up.

I found that idle, there was little difference, but if data use was ever involved, battery drain just about doubled. This includes active transfers like web browsing, and background stuff such as playing a game that synchs with facebook. I've turned my phone back to 3G unless I need LTE for something.

Though, to be fair, it's possible it's a potential issue with how Sprint has to handle LTE on the Nexus 5 (I believe you need CDMA still, so you're running an extra radio). And no, signal strength wasn't a huge issue, as I had reasonable signal at all times.