vB Easy Archive - Blackjack on 3G? The 3G is killing my battery. With E it's much better!

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Blackjack on 3G? The 3G is killing my battery. With E it's much better!
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Posted by: quadcrap1

I have a Blackjack, and I'm in the Boston area, where we have pretty good 3G coverage.

I guess not quite as good as I thought, however, because evidentally the phone spends a LOT of juice looking for/staying connected to that 3G network.

I was VERY unhappy with the battery life on my Blackjack. I couldn't possibly get even one day's use with the Blackjack, with modest phone use and modest internet use. (Standard battery).

THEN I turned off 3G. (I set up a keyboard shortcut to the menu that allows you to turn off 3G, and I only turn on 3G when I need it for a data intensive app). All of sudden, I now have no problem getting through the day with that lowly standard battery...

Now I wonder why they don't have an option where you stay on (E)dge except when the phone determines you need greater data bandwidth, or something like that.

Oh well.

Posted by: MI_canuck

Aren't you finding voice quality crappy on GSM (Edge) compared with UMTS (3G)?

I found my phone (8525) to have a noticeable difference in voice quality when on GSM, compared to UMTS (which isn't often). BTW, battery life isn't all that bad on the 8525 even with UMTS on 100% of the time. Easily last a whole day - which for me is fine. Maybe that's unacceptable to others, but as long as I can make through the day and charge it at night, that is enough for me. Midday recharge would be the point of unacceptability for me.

Cool fix though. Proves that on some phones, using Edge same a ton on battery life. Probably the reason why the iPhone is Edge only in its first iteration... to save on battery life (something Apple has dealt with all too much on the first gen iPods...)

cheers

Posted by: Foxbat121

Don't forget 3G also gives you the advantage of simultanous data and voice which EDGE can't do. If you have a call come in while your phone is actively transfer data on EDGE, the call will go directly to voice mail w/o you know it.

The standard battery lasts me a whole working day. Extended battery lasts two days. Both on 3G. I have 3 batteries (thanks to Cingular/Samsung). I'd use 3G as much as possible.

Posted by: suthurnlatino

My 8525 had decent battery life but the Blackjack was a nightmare. If I used it for its entertainment features (which it was advertised) sometimes through the middle of the day I was going to 2 or 1 bar of battery.

Posted by: MyPyle

Wirelessly posted (Cingular 8525: HTC-8500/1.2 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows CE; PPC; 240x320))

my 8525 in a 3g the battery only lasted a half day. ithink the network can be tweaked a little more to save battery life.

Posted by: snathanb

Quote:

Originally Posted by quadcrap1

I have a Blackjack, and I'm in the Boston area, where we have pretty good 3G coverage.

I guess not quite as good as I thought, however, because evidentally the phone spends a LOT of juice looking for/staying connected to that 3G network.

I was VERY unhappy with the battery life on my Blackjack. I couldn't possibly get even one day's use with the Blackjack, with modest phone use and modest internet use. (Standard battery).

THEN I turned off 3G. (I set up a keyboard shortcut to the menu that allows you to turn off 3G, and I only turn on 3G when I need it for a data intensive app). All of sudden, I now have no problem getting through the day with that lowly standard battery...

Now I wonder why they don't have an option where you stay on (E)dge except when the phone determines you need greater data bandwidth, or something like that.

Oh well.

Did you trying locking it to the 3G network, so that it isn't periodically polling and jumping back and forth between 3G and Edge?

Posted by: AximMarkSD

nathan,

how do you lock it to 3G?

thanks,
mark

Posted by: snathanb

Quote:

Originally Posted by AximMarkSD

nathan,

how do you lock it to 3G?

thanks,
mark

Using the bandSelect app, select "WCDMA". This is will lock it to the 3G network.

Posted by: formercanuck

The few times I've used 3G on my Samsung ZX-20 (locked onto 3g), battery life was significantly shorter, even in standby.
CDMA (WCDMA/UMTS) in general consumes battery life more than that of GSM/TDMA. I've typically noticed iDEN is also hard on battery life as well (IMO).

GSM is TDMA based, and the battery life is typically better due to low CPU utilization (less complex to begin with), and the fact that the transmitter/receiver is only on in burst, even during usage, while CDMA variants are more of a continous stream of data, and CDMA is more computation heavy, as well as making use of a larger channel of bandwidth. (200 kHz for GSM vs. 1.25 MHz for CDMA vs. 5 MHz for wCDMA/UMTS)