Is the battery drain only when on LTE?

[whitenack]

The GSII gets great battery reviews. The Skyrocket gets mixed reviews, with Cnet saying it gets horrible battery life...

I know that LTE is a huge drain on the battery, and there is no switch to turn off LTE, but what if you live in an area that doesn't have LTE? Does this still drain the battery looking for LTE, or would the battery drain about like it does on the GSII?

 

[NativeTxn]

The GSII gets great battery reviews. The Skyrocket gets mixed reviews, with Cnet saying it gets horrible battery life...

I know that LTE is a huge drain on the battery, and there is no switch to turn off LTE, but what if you live in an area that doesn't have LTE? Does this still drain the battery looking for LTE, or would the battery drain about like it does on the GSII?

I'm from Dallas but I'm in Little Rock most of this week on business. Little Rock does not have LTE and I noticed yesterday that the battery drain was quite a bit less than when I am out and about in Dallas.

I think it looks for cell towers and if there is LTE it is on LTE, and if there is not LTE it is not on LTE (for example, I was in one part of Arkansas yesterday about an hour NE of Little Rock and it switched to Edge because we were basically in the country). I don't think it is like Wifi where it is constantly searching for Wifi if you have it on and are out of your "normal" Wifi network - it pretty much just picks up the tower(s) in the area and should switch to whatever data option is available at that time.

LTE is going to be a huge drain on any smartphone battery - not just the SR - and it is going to be higher than HSPA+. So, from recent, first-hand anecdotal evidence, I would assume that the battery drain on the SR if you are not in a LTE area would be closer to the GSII, as opposed to the SR on LTE.

 

[harryg27]

Does LTE still have a big impact on battery even if you are a light user? Right now I have a BB Bold 9700 and will upgrade to this phone or the SR HD (if it releases soon enough). I do not have LTE in my area right now. The only things I usually do are text, call, and maybe Facebook/Twitter updates, but I feel that once I have a faster phone, that will change. I'm not really sure how to compare battery life because I've never experienced an LTE device in person. I can go about two days without charging my BB. Reading about how bad battery life is for these new phones makes me nervous. I'm hoping my next one will last until I get LTE in my area.

 

[patrick533]

The Bold has a lot better battery life compared to the SR, but I too came from a 9700 and went to the AT&T store to try out a new Blackberry before I got my SR(upgraded from an Inspire), there is no going back to Blackberry! My SR in a 4G non LTE area will last 24 hours with light use and a handful of texts , in a LTE area with moderate use the battery was toast in 6-8 hours. I purchased a larger battery for when I go into the city, they are cheap on flea bay......

 

[dalvik]

my battery lasts for about 9 hours on LTE no matter how i use it (but i never stream videos or music) although ot does last much longer when on wifi i can manage even full day (24hrs) with light use.
overall the battery on this phone sucks and it'll will be especially noticeable to a blackberry convert. I carry a spare one with me all the time thanks to its small size.

 

[eban44]

Well I was just out in Vegas for the weekend and finally got to experience LTE, loved it. Even was better when my friends with their iphones could barely get a web page to load since there were so many people and I was flying by them, I dont want a lte iphone to come out. haha

Anyways I was using the extended nexus battery(2100 vs 1850) that fits our phone and I get a good 12-14 hours out of it with using it a lot for basketball stats, espn, etc. Not much if any video or music streaming. I didnt really notice much of a drop from HSPA that I have in saint louis, battery wise.