Will LTE kill my battery when it arrives in town?

[pcguys]

I'm completely delighted with my S3 on HSPA+ in Philly.

I generally get 2meg-6megs down.

This is blazingly fast compared to Sprint which was 78 kbps down on 3g

Question:

When LTE is eventually deployed to Philadelphia, will it help or hurt my battery life?

(I read elsewhere from an S3 verizon user that oddly enough, 4G was better on his battery than 3g; I find that hard to believe).

I am concerned because it appears you can't turn on LTE on the S3 on ATT at least.

Thanks,
Mike

 

[epicness4G]

Well Im not sure how battery is without 4g lte but I get good battery out of it.

I can use it all day and when I get back home it's at like 20%.

I live in south Florida so we have 4G LTE every where which is awesome. I often get like 30-40mbps down around downtown fort Lauderdale. But it's not bad on battery. Still way Better battery than what I was getting on my 4S

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[pcguys]

Good to hear because the WiMax (4G) on my EVO (Sprint) would zap my battery faster than you can say: "crappy carrier"

Mike

 

[20blks]

Yes

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[jlh73]

I'm not for sure why people say its a battery hog. I get lte everywhere I go and I still have awesome battery life. Easily make it through a day with moderate to heavy use.

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[pcguys]

I wonder if it is carrier specific. I heard Verizon lte is a separate radio. If true, I wonder if that takes more juice. I know sprint wimax is a total pig!

 

[jlh73]

Not for sure but I've used about 4 different phones on lte and all had great battery life.

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[dmmattix]

Not having LTE where I live I cannot say. However having participated in many "I have horrible battery life" threads here I can tell you that there are many definitions of "Great" and "Horrible" battery life. Sometimes the same performance gets both definitions...

Mike

 

[jeffreii]

You have to recognize that most previous LTE phones have had a separate LTE chip inside of them. This took up more space and used a lot more power.

The Snapdragon S4 SoC (system on chip) in our S III's has an integrated LTE radio. This makes it much more power efficient. I can't say whether or not LTE uses any extra battery or not, but I don't think it's a big deal - certainly not like it used to be.