Wow did 4G suck down the battery!

[jrun]

So 4G is not official yet here in Denver, but i was in an area all day on saturday that had full 4G coverage. The speeds i got on the speedtest app was a little over 3mb down and right at 1mb up.

BUT!.. my battery life was annihilated! I can go a full day no problem with 3G.. this sucked my battery down to the red within 5-6hrs of being in 4G coverage. Is that typical? I was at a bbq / party, so i really wasn't even playing with my phone at all other than to notice i had 4G and to grab some speed test results.. browsed for maybe 5minutes total to see how fast the browsing was, but aside from that, i wasn't using it.

Just curious to those who have official 4G in your area, does it really suck that much battery?

 

[xSIN1134x]

i have heard similar....all i can say to that is i have only used 4g for about an hour and i turn it off when im done so i havent noticed it as bad as others who share your experience

 

[rdandy5875]

Hopefully someone will come out with an app that turns off 4g except when you are using the browser or another download intensive app.

I haven't seen 4g coverage yet but I don't mind the batt. life on 3g. Like the OP said I also get a good full day out of mine and I use it quite a bit.

 

[Kedar]

Yeah..

Hopefully 4g can be optimized for normal daily use and battery consumption.
You should use 4g whenever you have to or you feel it is necessary.
Like use it for a few seconds to load up a long video and then turn it back onto 3g.

 

[eagle63]

I'm not sure I understand the point of 4G then. Other than the relatively narrow use-case of using your phone as a WiFi hotspot (while plugged in of course), it seems fairly worthless. My question is why? The move to 3G wasn't like this. There was no need to have a switch to turn 3G on or off, and the battery life wasn't adversely impacted.

Is this just the way Wimax is? I wonder if LTE will be the same way.

 

[werx]

Its also where you are. I am also in the Denver area and the 4g is spotty which stains your battery even harder.

 

[jrun]

Its also where you are. I am also in the Denver area and the 4g is spotty which stains your battery even harder.

I was up at Sloans Lake for the Dragon Boat races on saturday... i was getting full 4G signal bars.. not like when i'm driving around downtown and pick up a signal and then lose it. This was solid full bars of 4G.. so i was excited.. till i saw what it did to the battery.. Personally, i'd rather just use 3G and deal with it being a little bit slower but have the full day of use.

 

[roothog]

This has been pretty well known since release day. Sprint's stance then was to save the battery by turning off 4G unless you were planning on a large data transfer, and nothing much has changed in the two months since.

Sure, it'd be nice if you didn't need to manually manage the 4G radio, but this is the first 4G device. It'll probably take the engineers some time and real-world feedback to figure out how to automate things.

 

[1SFG]

Just got back from St. Louis with the same result. About 5 hours of moderate use, maybe even less and my battery was done.

 

[d3xn2o]

I remember when I got my G1 if you had 3G on it would destroy battery life... Turn it off stay on EDGE and you were good for a while...

I just see it like the same krap... New Tech takes time to optimize...

Just like our Evo's the Battery was Krap until we rooted and flashed Kernels

Now we're good...


We'll see what happens in the future

 

[eagle63]

This has been pretty well known since release day. Sprint's stance then was to save the battery by turning off 4G unless you were planning on a large data transfer, and nothing much has changed in the two months since.

Sure, it'd be nice if you didn't need to manually manage the 4G radio, but this is the first 4G device. It'll probably take the engineers some time and real-world feedback to figure out how to automate things.

If true, then that's pathetic. WiMax isn't brand new, there shouldn't be a lot of "tuning" left to do unless Sprint has just been lazy.

For those of you who have some experience using 4G, are you hammering it like crazy and that's why the battery is getting killed? Or is simply being connected to 4G (even if idle) drawing lots more juice? If the latter, then I see a very short shelf-life for WiMax.

 

[kaz350]

Anyone else with more to share?

I really like the Samsung Vibrant... the only thing pulling me to Sprint is the 4g speeds. If people arent really using it then what is the point?

 

[Yourdogsdead]

Anyone else with more to share?

I really like the Samsung Vibrant... the only thing pulling me to Sprint is the 4g speeds. If people arent really using it then what is the point?

They use it if it's available. It has a large battery drain when it's on, so most people leave it off when they don't need it. you can install a widget that allows you to toggle it on and off.

 

[kcpowercat]

I turn it on when needed. Only makes sense to me. 3g is fast for normal usage and it take 20 seconds to turn on 4g for video, d/l, etc. I still have the 4g when needed, so those who say what is the point if its not on all the time are missing the point if you ask me.

I actually went 4g at work all day today in a good 4g service area and didn't see much battery difference...and I still keep mine off until I need it. I think what most are seeing is battery life dying due to poor 4g coverage area, which will obviously continue to improve.

 

[Bodar]

They use it if it's available. It has a large battery drain when it's on, so most people leave it off when they don't need it. you can install a widget that allows you to toggle it on and off.

You don't even need to install the widget. It's on one of the scenes by default along with toggles for Bluetooth, WiFi, and gps. I don't see what the big deal is. I just turn on 4g when I want to use the internet. Even when I forget and leave it on for hours at a time, it doesn't crush my battery to the point where my phone is dead. Besides, it's not like my email push needs 4g speeds while the phone's in my pocket. Certainly nothing to nerdrage over. Remember that 4g uses a completely separate radio, so you basically have both going at once to get signal (wimax is data only).

I do think it's likely that Sprint/Clear will switch over to LTE starting in 2012. Just means I'll have to replace my EVO after 2-3 years which is fine by me since it will be pretty out of date by then.

 

[eagle63]

I just turn on 4g when I want to use the internet. Even when I forget and leave it on for hours at a time, it doesn't crush my battery to the point where my phone is dead. Besides, it's not like my email push needs 4g speeds while the phone's in my pocket. Certainly nothing to nerdrage over.

So if you have 4G enabled and use your Evo in a "normal" fashion (your typical workday, whatever that is) how does your battery life compare at the end of the day relative to if you didn't have 4G enabled? That's the question I'm hoping to find an answer to.

My only beef with Wimax is if the battery life hit makes it necessary to turn on and off manually. That's ridiculous and shouldn't be necessary.
Again, I go back to the transition from 2G to 3G. 3G really didn't use any more battery than 2G did, and certainly didn't require you to manage its usage.

 

[roothog]

My only beef with Wimax is if the battery life hit makes it necessary to turn on and off manually. That's ridiculous and shouldn't be necessary.
Again, I go back to the transition from 2G to 3G. 3G really didn't use any more battery than 2G did, and certainly didn't require you to manage its usage.

I disagree with both your statements:
- It's a new technology for mobile devices. I think that it's irrational to expect it to be perfect and full-featured from the start.
- I remember a completely different history in the 2G to 3G transition. I remember 3G phones having half the battery life of 2G phones.

 

[eagle63]

I disagree with both your statements:
- It's a new technology for mobile devices. I think that it's irrational to expect it to be perfect and full-featured from the start.
- I remember a completely different history in the 2G to 3G transition. I remember 3G phones having half the battery life of 2G phones.

1. WiMax isn't that new. Clearwire has had it running for a few years now. (at least 4) Admittedly it IS new on smartphones, but nevertheless I would think they would know how to properly tune the radio by this point. Let me ask you this, when LTE arrives in the next year or so, will the next iPhone have an on/off switch for it? I can literally guarantee you it won't. My guess is it will work well out of the gate.

2. Half the battery life? Complete BS. What was your first 3G phone? Mine was the PPC-6700. It's battery life was as good or better than previous smartphones I had. (Treo 600 being the one I switched from to get the 6700)
The theory was it burned a little more juice during active data transfer, but since it was faster the duration it needed to be actively transferring data was shorter. net/net about the same as 2G or even a slight improvement. Wouldn't the same theory apply for 4G? (uses more battery when active, but downloads faster so it's not active for as long) Maybe the real question is how much juice it uses when idle. I would think it shouldn't really use any, but with all these wild reports of terrible battery life I have to wonder..

 

[its_miller_time]

I think, at least in my experience, is that if the 4G radio is on, the battery use is more because my phone is working harder to find and maintain the signal.

I can be in one room of my house and have full 4G bars, and then, go the room next door and have absolutely zero and the phone defaults to 3G.

 

[roothog]

Half the battery life? Complete BS.

The iPhone 3G had significantly reduced battery life than the iPhone classic:

From http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/07/extending_batte.html: "Battery life is the iPhone 3G's Achilles' heel. The original iPhone's battery life was marginal -- able to get through a full day of moderate usage, but only barely. The iPhone 3G's battery is worse, because of the energy-sucking needs of the 3G chipset."

From How To Maximize Your iPhone 3G's Questionably Adequate Battery Life "Toggle off 3G till ready. Here's something I wish Apple had automatically managed. I use 3G for browsing, YouTube, app store purchases when not around a computer, or during important calls. For all other uses, including email, weather checking and Twitter, etc, I use EDGE. This setting is under Settings -> General -> Network."

At Round Up: Nine iPhone 3G Battery Life Test Results Reports of various iPhone 3G tests using the 3G network drain batteries in 3 to 5 hours.

From http://www.anandtech.com/show/2566: "At 197 minutes, the iPhone 3G can keep you browsing for a little over 3 hours before completing dying. That's with no additional phone calls or anything else going on in the background, just constant surfing. The problem is that this is a very realistic scenario for many users. If you're out of the house and stuck somewhere without a laptop, you'll want the speed of 3G but the battery life will mean that your surfing experience is almost half as long as it would be on Edge."

The google results keep going, but I won't bother quoting more. They all say pretty much the same thing.