Battery woes - 4G networks

[shashankmittal]

I am eagerly waiting to get this phone as soon as it launches. I love the fact that it has the ginormous 1930 mAh battery! I have used Evo 4G and Epic 4G in the past. I know that with 4G data services enabled (even in idle mode) the battery doesn't last more than 6hrs. Sprint customer support advises to keep 4G turned off all the time and enable it only when needed.

My question is - why can't Google or hardware manufacturers, optimize data connectivity (specially background data connectivity when phone is idle) to not use 4G, keep it automatically disabled and only allow 3G connection. When the phone wakes up from idle mode and the user starts a browser session or an application (in foreground) that needs internet connectivity, the OS should enabled 4G for that session. This will certainly help retain lot of battery juice.

Any estimates how long will the Atrix battery last with HSDPA connectivity?

 

[quetzalcoatl]

Nobody really knows if that is a problem just with wimax or sprints freqs. I suspect it is some of both. Based on some notebook artices I read last year. And the fact that sprint is in the higher freqs they do not penetrate buildings as well. And if the phone is trying to keep the signal it will drain the battery.
HSPA+ is being used by t-mobile and I have not seen many reports that they are having battery issues.

 

[textiaac]

It (having HSPA+ 4G) will have similar properties as AT&T's 3G (because its based on the same tech) and should have similar battery life properties.

But when LTE 4G phones come out the batter life will become a problem, the same with Sprints WiMax 4G.

 

[quetzalcoatl]

But when LTE 4G phones come out the batter life will become a problem, the same with Sprints WiMax 4G.

Any soruces about the LTE being hard on the battery?

 

[textiaac]

@Quetzalcoatl
No official tests yet. Many hypothesize through because of wimax's battery performance. They are unrelated technologies, so who knows?

 

[quetzalcoatl]

@Quetzalcoatl
No official tests yet. Many hypothesize through because of wimax's battery performance. They are unrelated technologies, so who knows?

And as I said in the initial post much of Sprints problems are with the freqs being used. They have next to none on building penetration so they are searching for a signal as well as just the spotty signals they have right now for wimax. That should not be the case with LTE in the 700mhz range which is what ATT will be using as well as Verizon.

 

[textiaac]

And as I said in the initial post much of Sprints problems are with the freqs being used. They have next to none on building penetration so they are searching for a signal as well as just the spotty signals they have right now for wimax. That should not be the case with LTE in the 700mhz range which is what ATT will be using as well as Verizon.

I hope you are right.

 

[shashankmittal]

The other thing to note is that Atrix's dual core processor will squeeze out more juice of the battery as compared to a single core processor. So even though it has the largest battery among all smartphones, the standby time might actually be less.

 

[quetzalcoatl]

The other thing to note is that Atrix's dual core processor will squeeze out more juice of the battery as compared to a single core processor. So even though it has the largest battery among all smartphones, the standby time might actually be less.

But it is a smaller die size. And it is from Nvidia but the whitepaper they released talks about power usage starting on page 12.

https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...s-in-Mobile-Devices_Ver1.2.pdf&token=oBitqqAP

And if true should hold true for all A9 designs. And for the most part battery life has not been an issue for Moto.

 

[Sooks]

You will actually use less battery with "LTE/4G"