Does Wi-Fi or 3G Use More Battery?

[WinstonSmith]

I am sure this is somewhere, but I can't find it...

I used to always think that Wi-Fi used more battery than 3G (I know LTE uses the most.) However, a co-worker was telling me that he's read in multiple sources that Wi-Fi would conserve more battery than keeping phone on 3G.

Is there a "right" answer?

Thanks!

 

[Miller6386]

Wifi is always going to be better on the battery... Unless they change something in the future with the cell signals

 

[WinstonSmith]

Well, I've been an idiot all along, then. I have always kept my phone OG Droid, Bionic, and now GNex on 3G (and then LTE when I wanted to use it) and shunned ever using Wi-Fi because I thought it drained the battery. So, you're telling me all these years I've been killing my battery?

Heck, I can connect to secure Wi-Fi at work all day, and home wi-fi and only use 3G when traveling, etc. Wow.

Anything else I should know about Wi-Fi/3G for batter life?

 

[Miller6386]

You most likely won't see huge differences in battery depending on how much you use it and how many things you have updating but as a general rule through out the course of a day you will get overall better life when connected to a WiFi source...

 

[dezymond]

You should know that majority of the time that Wifi is usually faster than 3g

 

[StupidGenius]

Also, using wifi (non-tethered) doesn't count against your data usage. But since you're coming from the OG, I assume you're unlimited anyway.

 

[jmcdonald]

WiFi uses more battery in one second than the 3g radio does in one second. But since WiFi is faster it can generally get tasks done quicker overall than 3g thus using less battery.

 

[GalaxyFlatulence]

who knows. show me some (real) proof

 

[mountainbikermark]

Signal strength is a huge factor. If you have monster signal 3g is pretty battery friendly, may actually be more efficient, but the weaker the signal the more battery is used trying to grab a better signal or hang on for dear life to the weak one you've already got.
Wifi on the other hand has a constant rate of power being used.

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