New Tbolt owner needs advice

[FrankXS]

If you leave wifi on, it'll continuously scan in the background for known networks. That's why most just turn it off when they're going to be out of range for a while. Believe some custom roms also have the scan intervals increased to help out too.

Agreed. I'd like to add one more thing. If you have ever connected to a Wifi with a "generic" name such as Linksys, Netgear, Qwest, att_wifi, Wayport_Access, anytime you pass yet another network with this name the phone will struggle hard to connect. And, in many cases it will succeed because typically these type networks have no password. They are "open". Most of them will force you through an "authentication" page, or at least ask you to click "I agree" on their terms before you have Internet access. Due to this, your phone will shed battery power simply trying and re-trying to stay connected to these generic names. Not to mention, in some cases like this it will actually gain Internet access and turn off your RF data, causing yet more battery issues and confusion.

Bottom line, it is always better to keep Wifi turned off until you need it and until you know what network you want to connect to.

-Frank

 

[mightyfacundo]

Thanks PJnc284 and Frank for confirming what I believed to be true about the WiFi. At least I know now that I wasn't imagining things.

 

[worwig]

Bottom line, it is always better to keep Wifi turned off until you need it and until you know what network you want to connect to.

Maybe true when roaming around.

But when I am in a known location (home or work) I leave mine on 100% of the time. It almost appears to improve my battery life over using 3G in those locations.

 

[FrankXS]

Maybe true when roaming around.

But when I am in a known location (home or work) I leave mine on 100% of the time.

Yes, of course. It's all about a known Wifi.

-Frank

Sent from my HTC ThunderBolt 4G/LTE using Tapatalk

 

[PJnc284]

Maybe true when roaming around.

But when I am in a known location (home or work) I leave mine on 100% of the time. It almost appears to improve my battery life over using 3G in those locations.

yeah, wifi is definitely more efficient when you have it available than 3G or 4G. What we're saying is that if you are away from wifi for an extended amount of time, it's better to turn it off as it will cut down on the wifi radio searching and trying to find something it recognizes.