What uses more battery. 3g or wifi?

[Richard3]

I have a droid x and I go to college where the whole campus is wifi and im all about saving battery which one uses less battery?

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[CJM]

WIFI uses less battery.

 

[Nas]

I have a droid x and I go to college where the whole campus is wifi and im all about saving battery which one uses less battery?

Sent from my DROIDX using DroidForums

Wifi will kill your battery. If you have a solid 3g connection try that one. I honestly would try just wifi one day and 3g the next. See the difference in your battery...

Sent from my Evil Fascinate, Comavolt oc 1.2 ghz...

 

[Thisguy89]

WIFI uses less battery.

This.

Sent from my ZombieStomped Droid 2.

 

[hemorrdroid]

WIFI uses less battery.

This.

Sent from my ZombieStomped Droid 2.

Yes

I have a droid x and I go to college where the whole campus is wifi and im all about saving battery which one uses less battery?

Sent from my DROIDX using DroidForums

Wifi will kill your battery. If you have a solid 3g connection try that one. I honestly would try just wifi one day and 3g the next. See the difference in your battery...

Sent from my Evil Fascinate, Comavolt oc 1.2 ghz...

Uh, no. I always have a solid 3g signal, and my battery life is much improved on wifi. Same on every phone i have ever had.

It takes far less current to send a signal a short distance to the wifi router than it does to send a signal to the nearest tower, which could be a mile away.

 

[Nas]

WIFI uses less battery.

This.

Sent from my ZombieStomped Droid 2.

Yes

I have a droid x and I go to college where the whole campus is wifi and im all about saving battery which one uses less battery?

Sent from my DROIDX using DroidForums

Wifi will kill your battery. If you have a solid 3g connection try that one. I honestly would try just wifi one day and 3g the next. See the difference in your battery...

Sent from my Evil Fascinate, Comavolt oc 1.2 ghz...

Uh, no. I always have a solid 3g signal, and my battery life is much improved on wifi. Same on every phone i have ever had.

It takes far less current to send a signal a short distance to the wifi router than it does to send a signal to the nearest tower, which could be a mile away.

Update roaming capabilities

Sent from my Evil Fascinate, Comavolt oc 1.2 ghz...

 

[xan]

I would think a campus wide wifi network will use more battery than being in the same room/house as the AP, like most of us are used to. depending on the 3g signal on campus and the wifi's strength and interference levels, the only real way to tell is try both out over a few days and see whats best for you. Who knows maybe OPs dorm building has a cell tower on the roof, and his/her dorm room backs up to the shared kitchens microwave oven....

 

[Nas]

I would think a campus wide wifi network will use more battery than being in the same room/house as the AP, like most of us are used to. depending on the 3g signal on campus and the wifi's strength and interference levels, the only real way to tell is try both out over a few days and see whats best for you. Who knows maybe OPs dorm building has a cell tower on the roof, and his/her dorm room backs up to the shared kitchens microwave oven....

I agree, try both for you and keep and eye out on your battery

Sent from my Evil Fascinate, Comavolt oc 1.2 ghz...

 

[Hawaiian Princess]

WiFi is better for battery

sent from the Hawaiian D2G

 

[Richard3]

From what iv seen so far wi fi has been using far less batter
Than my 3g connection seems to be.
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[RW-1]

If we really want to do a comparison of both, then we need to establish the following:

Strength of the wifi radio signal transmitted

Strength of the 3G radio signal transmitted

Reception is negligable on batt life.

Whichever draws more current is the winner, er, loser in this case.

Now, that said, we would have to re-quantify it in terms of how often a signal is transmitted. Wifi and 3g both have to refresh in terms of saying the device is still attached to the network, in addition to how often it is actually transmitting data.

Then you have to add throughput for each.

My take on it would be for 3g / Wifi to DL one web page. One advantage such as a lower signal strength may be negated by for how long it is transmitted.

All in all, I'm going to lean towards wifi myself, but would like to see the results.

I don't know if the signal strength / batt draw is larger, but if you compare duration, throughput is much larger on the wifi than 3G.

 

[spider210]

Sorry guys but I have tested it out while home with my wifi vs 3g and I seem to have better luck with 3G than wifi. After using about 4 hours of wifi my battery dropped to 50% and with 3G I was still at 70%.

This is DX with pandora streaming. My conclusion; 3G uses less battery. But hey who knows, could just been my phone

 

[random190user44]

I've heard that Wifi is 30-40% more power efficient than 3G. I have no way to verify this person's claims, and I also can't seem to find any proof of which is more power efficient on google.