I know with other Verizon 4G phones that disabling LTE can give a solid boost in battery life. Can anyone weigh in on this? My understanding so far is that battery life is about average (obviously with 4G on). This is a compromise I'd be willing to make if battery life is better with LTE off.
Also on the same note, is toggling 4G/3G easily done in the settings app or is hidden away like on the S3?
I feel those claims aren't really substantial, assuming you are in a good coverage area I've found to get better battery life on 4G. Syncing and downloads are much faster over 4G. Now if you are in a poor coverage area where it's switching between 3G and 4G, that's a different story.
yes
i think
Its a myth, if you are in solid coverage area over 4g you should not get bad battery life, it is lower latency and stronger signal. When you are in bad coverage are and your phone is constantly switching between 4g and 3g, that is when its s problem. That is when you should just switch to 3g until you go in to a better 4g coverage area.
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Hello everyone!
I received my Vibrant from the US a week ago and noticed that when 3G is on, the reception is 1/2 bars at most. While it's connected, the device gets hot in the top part and the battery drains like a F1 racing car.
I though I could see how good is the signal and it's about (-90) - (-100) dbm.
I never had reception issues with my previous phone that is 3 years old (HTC Touch Cruise) whose reception is quite good. My company's antenna is about 1 Km far and it's emitting 3G in the WCDMA 2100 MHz band.
Could any setting improve the reception to avoid heating and battery consumption?
Thanks a lot!!
You may want to try to set it to 2G only if you want a good battery life.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Maybe somebody knows an application that switches from 3G to 2G when the reception is not good. It might be very handy.
Also, I wanted to know what levels are acceptable in dbm for a 3G connection that doesn't drain the battery like crazy.
Thanks for your reply!
I am considering switching from the charge to the tbolt. is the 4G radio the main drain on the battery? 4G is not available where I live, so I am wondering if I could get away with the stock battery until it is available in my area. Could I get battery life at least comparable to the DX until it is?
Unless I'm on business, I'm presently in an 3G-exclusive area, and with CM7 my battery drain is 50% cell standby. That said, on BAMF 1.6.3 (Froyo) I didn't experience this much cell standby drain. To be sure, 4G does draw a fair amount of current, especially if the signal is weak.
Not that I can tell. From everything I'm seeing its the half acre of glass on the front of the thing that sucks the battery dry. 4G signal strength shouldn't have any effect at all on the battery because it doesn't use code division multiple access technology which requires the signals from all devices on that tower to have signal strength reaching the tower to be equal. Instead, it requires an advance be built into the signal transmission so that the phone addresses the tower within its time slot. This has no effect on battery drain at all. What will still drain the battery in 4G areas is the connection needed for voice and text, which still uses cdma, if my understanding is correct.
nerozehl said:
Unless I'm on business, I'm presently in an 3G-exclusive area, and with CM7 my battery drain is 50% cell standby. That said, on BAMF 1.6.3 (Froyo) I didn't experience this much cell standby drain. To be sure, 4G does draw a fair amount of current, especially if the signal is weak.
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I completely agree. If your 4g signal is somewhat weak, your battery will drain fairly quick. You might also notice your battery getting up to 103 degrees Fahrenheit because it keeps trying to get that weak 4g signal.
You could always change it to CDMA prl. That will save your battery and prevent it from drawing current to get a weak 4g signal.
There have been some posts on battery life being terrible lately, and here is a little alternative way to improve your battery life that I found out by accident.
We all know that Sprint 3g speeds have been taking a crapper lately, I don't think I even get 300kbps downstream anymore. I wanted to download a ROM so I quickly toggled on 4g (which I hadn't used yet on my phone) and found I was getting downstream of 2mbps - 4mbps, not great but certainly 10x as good as my 3g.
After my download, I mistakenly left 4g enabled. I come from the OG Evo where if I left 4g on my phone was dead so fast at work due to no signal. However, I found that my MoPho just put the 4g radio on standby and didn't need me to do anything and the battery wasn't draining.
So I came to this conclusion, since the 4g radio management so far seems to be pretty good for the MoPho, if the power consumption by the 4g radio is < than the factor of speed the speeds are over 3g, maybe some Angry birds, I can't remember, then it is probably worth it to leave your 4g on. Save battery + faster downloads = win!
I don't have a screencap for this, but the other day, I was off my charger for about 16 hours, had 15-20% battery left. I streamed some Pandora, downloaded a bit, read some RSS, email, a couple texts, some phone calls and had the 4g enabled all day. Not bad I say.
Doesn't 4G still have to come on every so often to push or pull email and whatnot?
Yea, but the premise is still sound I think.
Sent from my MoPho
Hi, just wanted to say thanks to the community for all the hard work they have done to make this phone that much more of a awesome phone.
ok at my home i get constant 4g drops to 3g and sometimes to 1x, i notice when i swap the OEM extended cover my 4g connectivity stays solid at 1 to 2 bars not much but non the less i get better speeds than 3g
Just realized that that thing I had to climb up to get to my front door is actually a Verizon Cell phone tower!
So, just noticed this condition today and thought I'd share. I have a Smart Action set up to enable my Home Wi-Fi based on location - Trigger is my location; Actions are to turn on Wi-Fi, turn off Data and Max Ringer.
While home this afternoon I just happened to look at my phone and noticed that my battery seemed to be dropping a little quicker than normal and my cell signal strength was max bars which NEVER NEVER happens at home - kind of on the fringe in my house and I'm lucky to get 3 on a good day. I checked network strength and my 4G was 2147483647 db. Gotta be a world record, right? oh wait . . . is more db bad?
Just got me wondering if, while on the fringe, the radio actively looks for a signal (like it does between 1X, 3G and 4G) and maybe gets stuck in some type of high output state. Would explain some of the intermittent hi-temp, unusual battery drain I experience occaisionally/intermittently. Just so we're clear - I'm not complaining at all about my Maxx battery.
Running stock .211 rooted.
jeff_roey said:
Just realized that that thing I had to climb up to get to my front door is actually a Verizon Cell phone tower!
So, just noticed this condition today and thought I'd share. I have a Smart Action set up to enable my Home Wi-Fi based on location - Trigger is my location; Actions are to turn on Wi-Fi, turn off Data and Max Ringer.
While home this afternoon I just happened to look at my phone and noticed that my battery seemed to be dropping a little quicker than normal and my cell signal strength was max bars which NEVER NEVER happens at home - kind of on the fringe in my house and I'm lucky to get 3 on a good day. I checked network strength and my 4G was 2147483647 db. Gotta be a world record, right? oh wait . . . is more db bad?
Just got me wondering if, while on the fringe, the radio actively looks for a signal (like it does between 1X, 3G and 4G) and maybe gets stuck in some type of high output state. Would explain some of the intermittent hi-temp, unusual battery drain I experience occaisionally/intermittently. Just so we're clear - I'm not complaining at all about my Maxx battery.
Running stock .211 rooted.
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I thought after 120 db it actually means you've lost signal.....optimal is between 80 to 120....
I could be wrong
I saw that exact same thing on my Maxx the other day. I also noticed battery declining due to it. Not sure what it means though.
Sent from my DROID RAZR using xda premium
squiggie said:
I saw that exact same thing on my Maxx the other day. I also noticed battery declining due to it. Not sure what it means though.
Sent from my DROID RAZR using xda premium
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It means your have no signal, and your battery is dying from your LTE radio trying to find signal. dbm between -80 and -120 is not optimal, that is the range where verizon techs will tell you that you may experience data connectivity issues. The lower the dbm the better signal you have, however most extended 4g service areas are at this quality. I have seen some locations, closer to the towers, where I have gotten signal around -60dbm, which gave about 38mbps down and around 16mbps up.
I ordered a sleek 4g signal booster from wilson electronics, which will get here tomorrow, and will let you guys know how much improvement I get in areas with different signal strengths.
i've seen it countless times on my razr. I think it's just a bug
No signal but my signal bars show as full? That makes no sense whatsoever. I think I have to agree that it is just a weird bug.
Sent from my DROID RAZR using xda premium
I'll tell the truth. Wilson electronics sleek 4g-v is not going to improve SINR signal strength (that's what you need for better LTE speed), however it will improve RSSI signal, but this is not going to help for LTE. If you want a good LTE amplifier, you are looking to spend about $500 that includes outdoor, indoor antenna and SINR amplifier. SINR is more important then RSSI or DBM for LTE