Does switching to CDMA only save battery life?

[remedemic]

Just got the droid yesterday, and I am loving it. Fantastic phone, but the battery life is an abomination. At 7:30 in the morning, it was at 95, and after coming home from school (3:30), the phone was at 40. I used the browser + facebook for an hour total. Maybe a little less. Explored the phone for another 30 minutes other than that (no data or apps were being used, just going through settings and switching things). I'm pretty sure the phone can get a much better battery life than that.

This was the first charge i put on the phone, for I had just bought it last night. Is that possibly a cause for it? or is there no connection?

Anyways, people seem to tell me that 4G LTE is a huge power drainer. If i switch to CDMA only, will that save battery life, or does this only apply if you dont live in a CDMA area? I live in San Jose and receive 4g signals 90% of the time. Sometimes in class however, the signal either drops to 3g, or drops completely (that has to do with it maybe).

After coming home, i played around with Smart Actions, and set the phone so that when the display is off, the cellular data is turned off. If data is off while the display is off, does this CDMAOnly change matter?

Any other information pertaining to saving battery life is strongly appreciated. Thank You!

 

[jpcalhoun]

4g uses a lot more battery than 3g...so yes it does make a difference. Use 3g unless you really need the 4g and WIFI is not available.

Sent from my DROID RAZR

 

[ablank]

on a side note, "cdma only" will help with any data drop issues as well as save battery.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using DroidForums

 

[Scarshi]

Set up Smart Actions and then set it to turn off wifi, background data, GPS and Cellular Data when screen turns off. Make sure you set the times of day for this to occur (or as I have it set to all day) or it will be "ready" but not "active" when screen actually turns off. I only lose 1-3 percent of power every hour if I don't use my phone or just get a couple messages every now and again. My battery has lasted 3 days before I charged it with minimal use. Could make it to 4 days if I didn't use the phone at all (updating apps, messaging, quick calls).

 

[Spiderwebb71688]

Let your battery completely die before re-charging it 3 times. My battery life was awful when I first got the phone. I have hardly any smart actions set up, my 4g is always on, my display is always at full brightness, I stream music from Google music a few hours a day and i'm constantly playing with the thing still and I get about 16-18 hours on a charge and its getting better every day.

 

[jrpbulk]

S[ider - I exchanged my droid for another and the second one is doing better on battery than the first. I have now started doing a full drain then recharge, then unplug when 100% charged. I am hoping that i get the same results you have posted. In addition, I am disabling "stuff" when the screen is off and using wifi when I am at home. I may even go CDMA only as well when away from my wifi.

I will give this a few more days then I am going back to my Droid Incredible 1.

I would love the nexus but I suspect I would encounter the same issues with power since it is my opinion 4G is the issue.

 

[Deron]

Anyways, people seem to tell me that 4G LTE is a huge power drainer. If i switch to CDMA only, will that save battery life, or does this only apply if you dont live in a CDMA area?

After coming home, i played around with Smart Actions, and set the phone so that when the display is off, the cellular data is turned off. If data is off while the display is off, does this CDMAOnly change matter?

Any other information pertaining to saving battery life is strongly appreciated. Thank You!

Yes, 4g definitely drains battery faster then 3g. Use that CDMA ONLY setting to improve battery life. You can opt to use 4g when you want it or are near an outlet and can recharge easily.

Check out my battery experiments for more info http://www.droidforums.net/forum/showthread.php?p=1855842


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