3g vs wifi

[jaguar11]

Does 3g use battery more or wifi?
Which is usually faster?

 

[dooks88]

I may be wrong, but I think 3g uses more battery though the consumption on both is very close.

As far as speed, wifi is much faster. At least twice as fast if not more.

 

[melwan]

From my understanding, if u r browsing for several minutes (1/2 hour +) then wifi will provide more efficient battery handling. However, if u r just checking something really quick, 3g uses a bit less battery.

Honestly, I think these differences are very minimal though and don't really make a huge difference.

 

[Jeremy]

You save more battery by using EDGE and WFi if you were to just leave 3G on and WiFi off... that make sense?

 

[Brickman]

I am in a good 3G area almost all day. IMHO, WiFi causes the battery to go down quicker but is noticeably faster when streaming video.

FWIW, I use 3G almost exclusively though even though I have WiFi at the house.

 

[Jeremy]

I am in a good 3G area almost all day. IMHO, WiFi causes the battery to go down quicker but is noticeably faster when streaming video.

FWIW, I use 3G almost exclusively though even though I have WiFi at the house.

Same here. I have all my bars on 3G. But... 3G does indeed use more battery than WiFi. Especially while you are not using the phone, run some test by leaving EDGE on along with WiFi for a day and see how it comes out.

 

[SurfStoked]

Ya Wifi is supposed to be faster and consume less battery

 

[Brickman]

Same here. I have all my bars on 3G. But... 3G does indeed use more battery than WiFi. Especially while you are not using the phone, run some test by leaving EDGE on along with WiFi for a day and see how it comes out.

I will have to try that some time. But again, I use WiFi so little and I am on the phone (talking) so much with 3G, it must just seem that way.

 

[johnny football hero]

After some various trails over the past fews days with my new 3G. It seems that using Edge along with WiFi is the most battery effecient. Using 3G really eats the battery up fast. If I'm using the internet for an extended time while out and about, I'll switch on 3G and when I'm finished, I turn it off.

 

[Txdogs]

I used to keep Wi-fi on all the time. We can use it at my work place as well. But now that I figured out I cannot 'send' email form my 'pop' account over wi-fi, I have it turned off and am using 3G. It actually seems to be just as fast as the wireless at work was. I'll have to see how the battery drains this week.

 

[jscholz22]

my home wifi is twice as fast as 3g. When you watch youtube videos the quality is better also. 3g must decrease the quality in order to make the speed somewhat reasonable.

 

[Brickman]

Same here. I have all my bars on 3G. But... 3G does indeed use more battery than WiFi. Especially while you are not using the phone, run some test by leaving EDGE on along with WiFi for a day and see how it comes out.

BA, I have done this for the last 2 days and I have all but doubled my battery life. I am a HEAVY cell/email user though out the day. I also use a BT headset all day. I do not use the Internet that much except for email. I do not have the time during the day to surf. So I have left 3G off. Don't need 3G for talk and email and now I have almost 50% battery left after a typical day. A typical day is about 3 hours of talk time and I don't know how many emails.

When I do need to need to "Google" something, I just turn 3G back on. It works great for me. Thanks for the tip BA!!!