Battery drain using wifi..more/less/same?

[whitenack]

Does the phone use more/less/same battery when using wifi as when on regular data? What about when the phone is idle/asleep?

 

[Cory Streater]

Depends on the phone, but generally the WiFi radio uses a lot less. This has been true with the Droid, Incredible, and EVO.

 

[whitenack]

Thanks. Those were the main two I would be worried with at this stage of my research.

 

[anon(12496)]

Dunno, I found this to be exactly the opposite. My Hero drains faster with WiFi, even if it is sleeping! There was an article on A/C about battery conservation and power usage some time ago. It said that WiFi uses less then 3G, so you should set your WiFi to never disconnect when the phone sleeps (Setting -> Wireless -> WiFi -> Advanced -> WiFi Sleep Policy). Since I have WiFi at home, I gave this a try. I found my Hero to eat up battery twice as fast as with WiFi off, and I haven't even touched the phone, I left it to sleep to test the power consumption...

 

[takeshi]

WiFi uses less than 3G on my Droid. As for when the device is sleeping -- it depends on how the sleep policy is set.