is wifi better than the data package?

[glasshalffull]

trying to figure out the pros and cons of wifi over just using data package.

can someone point them out?

i have unlimited data plan on verizon and i never have reception issues.

is there potential for wifi to be faster?

thanks

[toastedoats]

Wifi has huge potential to be much faster depending on the internet connection speed on the Wifi.

Faster = less battery drain

[JP 5.56]

It depends on how fast the wifi connection itself is. It is almost always going to be faster than the cell network, but some wifi hotspots/networks could be slower I suppose.

[kodiak799]

Wifi has huge potential to be much faster depending on the internet connection speed on the Wifi.

Faster = less battery drain

But when phone is idle, it will drain more battery. Maybe it shuts off when the phone sleeps....I don't know because I usually leave the screen on.

[mwhartman]

Typically, wifi is faster than 3G. I'm the odd man out -- my 3G coverage is very fast so I do not keep my wifi turned on. If you are using wifi and leave that area your phone will search for wifi and my sense is that will tax your battery.

Mike

[glasshalffull]

thanks for the help, so what's a great app for switching to wifi automatically?

[JP 5.56]

If you just leave your wifi enabled, your phone will always use wifi before 3g if there is a wifi connection available.

[mwhartman]

I do not think you need an app. I believe that if you have wifi turned on it will automatically connect to any open or secure site you have access to. I believe that wifi will override the 3G but I may be wrong.

Mike

[Guchi]

thanks for the help, so what's a great app for switching to wifi automatically?

get juice defender and ultimate juice it toggles wifi on only when you are near known hotspots and controls some other stuff to improve battery too. but it works good for the wifi.

[jsh1120]

As others have implied, if you have a very good wifi signal, it will run many times faster than 3G. Sitting next to my wifi router on my desk, my wifi is frequently 10-15 times faster than 3G. On the other hand, I've been in hotels that offer "free wifi" with my room 500+ feet from the router and the 3G speed is considerably faster. (Interestingly, that doesn't translate into the same performance factor when browsing the internet. The performance of the browser mitigates the apparent speed difference.)

You can eat up battery if your phone is searching for a wifi signal, just as you can eat up battery by incessant searching for GPS. Once your phone is connected to wifi, however, there's little penalty (battery-wise) from using it.

And as others have also implied, if your phone is not connected to power and goes to sleep, it switches to 3G and ignores a wifi signal. Awakening it will turn wifi back on if your options are set to use wifi. Since my phone is usually connected to power at my desk and I use an app to control searching for wifi networks when I'm away from home, I don't worry about it.