Why is 3G such a large battery drain on the Evo?

[Marty1781]

The Evo's 3G IS using more battery than those primitive phones the OP listed because the Evo DOES more on the Internet. I remember my 6800 very well. It didn't sync a damn thing. You had to manually get online with it to do anything.

I can only speak for myself but on my Evo, I have a hosted Exchnage account which constantly syncs (and I've been using it since the 6800) and the Weather app is set to sync every 6 hours (which I believe was similar to what i had it set to on the TP and the TP2). Everything else (FB, News) is set for either manual or once per day. I don't think those settings should cause 3G to be used that much more on the Evo vs 3G on some of my more recent devices like the TP or TP2, both of which had excellent battery life (at least compared to the Evo/Epic). Yet, the Evo seems to be sucking down so much more juice over 3G than my other phones despite the only extra things it syncs are News (manual) and FB (once per day), so the argument that the Evo does more syncing in the background doesn't really apply in my particular situation. Don't get me wrong, I really like my Evo but am just trying to figure out why the battery life isn't so great on 3G. From my perspective, because I had the same so-so battery life with the Epic and the only account I had setup on that was my hosted Exchange, it seems to me it could be an issue of Android/Sprint just not managing 3G that well on the Evo/Epic (though I obviously cannot say for sure). Hopefully, future Sprint Android devices will do a better job at balancing 3G and battery life.

 

[Trust]

It's possible 3G battery use may not be optimized.

I came from an iPhone 3GS so the Evo's battery isn't all that bad. Full charge when I leave the house and by the time I get home from work I'm at 30%. Typical. I keep a charger in the car, one at work and one at home.

 

[batsai#IM]

I've also found using WiFi whenever possible provides a great increase in battery life on my Evo. I think the fact is, 3G radios simply use more power. I hate to bring up the iPhone but I remember moving from the original to the iPhone 3G. I got awesome battery life with the 1st gen iPhone- about 2 days easily with light use. Then I moved to the iPhone 3G and couldn't make it through a day...

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

 

[Doc]

What everyone seems to be forgetting is that the EVO has a big bright screen. Every time it goes on it sucks the battery. Most of the older batteries had a small screen that used very little power.

So it not just a question of what you sync or where you go on the web, but also the screen. Add to that the power the CPU uses to do everything that we ask of the phone and you have a drain on the battery.

Doc

 

[Marty1781]

I've also found using WiFi whenever possible provides a great increase in battery life on my Evo. I think the fact is, 3G radios simply use more power. I hate to bring up the iPhone but I remember moving from the original to the iPhone 3G. I got awesome battery life with the 1st gen iPhone- about 2 days easily with light use. Then I moved to the iPhone 3G and couldn't make it through a day...

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

Its funny because I remember it well people complaining about the battery life on the iphone 3G and blaming 3G as the culprit (and then also noting that battery life was significantly improved on the iphone when wifi was used instead). And I remember thinking, these iphone users have no idea what they are talking about, 3G barely does anything to my battery (had the 6800 and the Touch Pro at the time). And at least on my WM phones, it was wifi that caused the severe battery drain, whereas I could easily go 24-48 hours on 3G. Imagine my surprise when I got the Evo/Epic and noticed the reverse of my WM phones, as in it was now 3G that was draining the battery and wifi was the more efficient radio.

 

[skife]

I've also found using WiFi whenever possible provides a great increase in battery life on my Evo. I think the fact is, 3G radios simply use more power. I hate to bring up the iPhone but I remember moving from the original to the iPhone 3G. I got awesome battery life with the 1st gen iPhone- about 2 days easily with light use. Then I moved to the iPhone 3G and couldn't make it through a day...

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

I started with an iphone 3G, turn 3G on and battrey life is instantly cut in half.

 

[Robbie317]

do you have any rom ? I can never get this amount of time and i use it less than you do.

I am using Baked Snack... just upgraded to 1.9 but with 1.7 and 1.8 I got great battery life....

We'll see how it works out going forward...