Why turn Wi-Fi off anytime?

[mth04]

I keep wifi on at home and work . I also purchased Beautiful Widgets (app). It has a WIFI widget and BT widget in it. So on my 3rd home screen I have a button for both. Turn WIFi off when i'm in the car it's not searching for a netowrk all the time. That's all

 

[Chrisace89]

I keep Wi-Fi on because the phone is so much faster at home with it. According to the Speedtest.Net app on the Moto Droid, I'm constantly at 7 MBPS or better on my Wi-Fi and barely over 1 MBPS without it.

If I can go seven times faster, I'm gonna.

I'm not about to go through some little ritual of adjusting the phone settings every time I step out the door. It's a mobile phone and the only thing I plan on adjusting is the ringer to vibrate when I'm in meetings and such.

yes the speed might be faster but that doesnt mean its gonna load a web page any faster.. the speed of the phones internet is only as fast as its weakest component and in the case of a cell phones the weakest component is the processes.. for example try going to the same web page from your computer and your cell phone and have your cell phone on wifi.. i bet your computer beats your cell phone... obviously your internet is the same speed.. but your processer in your computer is alot faster thus you can load pages faster.. the speed of your internet is not the only thing that determines how fast things get done.. what i am saying is that the processeor in the droid can not process things fast enough for me to justify leave wifi on all the time... this is just my opinion.

 

[medicTHREE]

My phone has been off charger for 4 hours. I initiated WiFi right away, and it was on standby the whole time. It is consuming 9% of my battery. Cell Standby accounts for 7%. Display is 48%.

WiFi eats battery like a mofo. Now I am connected to a network and will report back in an hour with its usage.

 

[gdoane]

yes the speed might be faster but that doesnt mean its gonna load a web page any faster.. the speed of the phones internet is only as fast as its weakest component and in the case of a cell phones the weakest component is the processes.. for example try going to the same web page from your computer and your cell phone and have your cell phone on wifi.. i bet your computer beats your cell phone... obviously your internet is the same speed.. but your processer in your computer is alot faster thus you can load pages faster.. the speed of your internet is not the only thing that determines how fast things get done.. what i am saying is that the processeor in the droid can not process things fast enough for me to justify leave wifi on all the time... this is just my opinion.

My PC against my phone is not a fair test because my PC isn't wireless. My PC hits 25 MBPS on Speedtest.net and the Droid has never even hit a third of that.

Still, I'd call 7 MBPS on the Wi-Fi over the 1 MBPS on the 3G a very significant improvement. Good enough to make the Wi-Fi worth the battery eats and besides, most of the time the Droid is either plugged into a PC or happily attached to a charger in my truck. I'd be surprised if it ever goes longer than 8 hours without eating.

 

[Chrisace89]

yes the speed might be faster but that doesnt mean its gonna load a web page any faster.. the speed of the phones internet is only as fast as its weakest component and in the case of a cell phones the weakest component is the processes.. for example try going to the same web page from your computer and your cell phone and have your cell phone on wifi.. i bet your computer beats your cell phone... obviously your internet is the same speed.. but your processer in your computer is alot faster thus you can load pages faster.. the speed of your internet is not the only thing that determines how fast things get done.. what i am saying is that the processeor in the droid can not process things fast enough for me to justify leave wifi on all the time... this is just my opinion.

My PC against my phone is not a fair test because my PC isn't wireless. My PC hits 25 MBPS on Speedtest.net and the Droid has never even hit a third of that.

Still, I'd call 7 MBPS on the Wi-Fi over the 1 MBPS on the 3G a very significant improvement. Good enough to make the Wi-Fi worth the battery eats and besides, most of the time the Droid is either plugged into a PC or happily attached to a charger in my truck. I'd be surprised if it ever goes longer than 8 hours without eating.

ok well of course if your phone is constantly connected then what ever uses batter is not of importance because its always getting charged... but for me my phone is only getting chared when im at home.. so its best for me to not have wifi on. Also when i was talking about wifi speed.. my laptop and phone get the same speed when i test it on speedtest.net over wifi. my laptop can load up engadget.com in under 3 seconds your droid.. well any droin cant do that even if the wifi speed was 30000mbs.. thats my point.

 

[gdoane]

ok well of course if your phone is constantly connected then what ever uses batter is not of importance because its always getting charged... but for me my phone is only getting chared when im at home.. so its best for me to not have wifi on. Also when i was talking about wifi speed.. my laptop and phone get the same speed when i test it on speedtest.net over wifi. my laptop can load up engadget.com in under 3 seconds your droid.. well any droin cant do that even if the wifi speed was 30000mbs.. thats my point.

Actually that's a decent test to try out, my Droid on Wi-Fi against my laptop on Wi-Fi.

(Laptop is an HP Pavilion DV-1170 running WinXP)

Here's the results of the test:

Laptop download speed: 6.51 MBPS
Droid download speed: 8.074 MBPS

Laptop upload speed: 2.32 MBPS
Droid upload speed: 1.005 MBPS

My laptop got it's ass kicked by a cell phone? :icon_eek:

I didn't see THAT coming.

Running around the house the Droid isn't going to replace the iPod Touch, main reason being is I don't really care if the iPod battery runs down. It's not a phone and usually it's just playing music or playing TV Guide on www.tv.yahoo.com

I understand what you're saying about the processor speed being a bottleneck, and you have a point there but the results of the test don't bear that out.

Back when I was doing assembly language programming, I noticed a huge difference between chip sets and speed was just one of many factors. The chip I learned the most on was the venerable Motorola MC6809E and while the clock speed seemed slow as a slug, the things it could do in the command set made up for a lot of ground. The internal registers were the real source of the power, you could do amazing things with that chip and never even touch the RAM.

The processor in the Droid has to be pretty good to smoke a dedicated laptop on the same wi-fi like it just did. Yeah, the laptop's older but still, that's impressive as heck.

 

[aaf709]

The only place I'm in contact with WiFi is where I work and only in the main building. If my WiFi is turned on, I connect with it when I'm in there. The problem is that now I can't access Yahoo. Since I don't have a "need for speed" at work, WiFi is mostly off.

 

[Chrisace89]

ok well of course if your phone is constantly connected then what ever uses batter is not of importance because its always getting charged... but for me my phone is only getting chared when im at home.. so its best for me to not have wifi on. Also when i was talking about wifi speed.. my laptop and phone get the same speed when i test it on speedtest.net over wifi. my laptop can load up engadget.com in under 3 seconds your droid.. well any droin cant do that even if the wifi speed was 30000mbs.. thats my point.

Actually that's a decent test to try out, my Droid on Wi-Fi against my laptop on Wi-Fi.

(Laptop is an HP Pavilion DV-1170 running WinXP)

Here's the results of the test:

Laptop download speed: 6.51 MBPS
Droid download speed: 8.074 MBPS

Laptop upload speed: 2.32 MBPS
Droid upload speed: 1.005 MBPS

My laptop got it's ass kicked by a cell phone? :icon_eek:

I didn't see THAT coming.

Running around the house the Droid isn't going to replace the iPod Touch, main reason being is I don't really care if the iPod battery runs down. It's not a phone and usually it's just playing music or playing TV Guide on www.tv.yahoo.com

I understand what you're saying about the processor speed being a bottleneck, and you have a point there but the results of the test don't bear that out.

Back when I was doing assembly language programming, I noticed a huge difference between chip sets and speed was just one of many factors. The chip I learned the most on was the venerable Motorola MC6809E and while the clock speed seemed slow as a slug, the things it could do in the command set made up for a lot of ground. The internal registers were the real source of the power, you could do amazing things with that chip and never even touch the RAM.

The processor in the Droid has to be pretty good to smoke a dedicated laptop on the same wi-fi like it just did. Yeah, the laptop's older but still, that's impressive as heck.

unlike your laptop my laptop gets a faster speed on speedtest.net my laptop is a tad faster. but it does not matter, any website i got 2 my laptop beats the droid by more then half the time.. witch means that its not the wifi speed that's keeping things from getting done fast but the processor. If im on my phone and i load a page on 3g and then on wifi the difference is not even noticeable.. now unless you get bad 3g coverage i dont see the benefit of leaving wifi on.

gdoane go to the same website on your laptop and your phone.. i bet your laptop wins...

 

[gdoane]

gdoane go to the same website on your laptop and your phone.. i bet your laptop wins...

Too many variables. Netscape? Firefox? Explorer? Google Chrome?

Google Chrome is fast as heck. I have never seen a browser move like that. Explorer is solid, but not sporty. Firefox is my preferred browser just because I'm a creature of habit and it just works the way I do and thinks the way I do. Netscape is old school and I should probably get rid of it but it's like the old favorite shirt, it's ragged but comfy.

Which website? It's got to be a website the laptop hasn't seen before and the Droid hasn't seen before to rule out cache loading, and it's got to be a big enough website for the load time to be measurable with a stopwatch.

The test has to be fair to be valid. What parameters would be fair to you?

 

[Chrisace89]

gdoane go to the same website on your laptop and your phone.. i bet your laptop wins...

Too many variables. Netscape? Firefox? Explorer? Google Chrome?

Google Chrome is fast as heck. I have never seen a browser move like that. Explorer is solid, but not sporty. Firefox is my preferred browser just because I'm a creature of habit and it just works the way I do and thinks the way I do. Netscape is old school and I should probably get rid of it but it's like the old favorite shirt, it's ragged but comfy.

Which website? It's got to be a website the laptop hasn't seen before and the Droid hasn't seen before to rule out cache loading, and it's got to be a big enough website for the load time to be measurable with a stopwatch.

The test has to be fair to be valid. What parameters would be fair to you?

in my experience it doesnt matter what website or browser desktop or laptop always wins.

 

[SSHGuru]

I went and tested it with Firefox.

I went to NBC.com and ABC.com, places I never go.

The computer beat the Droid by a few seconds on each - both heavy graphical sites.

My Wifi was ON.

Running same Speedtest on both Droid and Firefox out of same area.

Droid - 11.75 mbps
Firefox - 25.22 mbps

ok well of course if your phone is constantly connected then what ever uses batter is not of importance because its always getting charged... but for me my phone is only getting chared when im at home.. so its best for me to not have wifi on. Also when i was talking about wifi speed.. my laptop and phone get the same speed when i test it on speedtest.net over wifi. my laptop can load up engadget.com in under 3 seconds your droid.. well any droin cant do that even if the wifi speed was 30000mbs.. thats my point.

Actually that's a decent test to try out, my Droid on Wi-Fi against my laptop on Wi-Fi.

(Laptop is an HP Pavilion DV-1170 running WinXP)

Here's the results of the test:

Laptop download speed: 6.51 MBPS
Droid download speed: 8.074 MBPS

Laptop upload speed: 2.32 MBPS
Droid upload speed: 1.005 MBPS

My laptop got it's ass kicked by a cell phone? :icon_eek:

I didn't see THAT coming.

Running around the house the Droid isn't going to replace the iPod Touch, main reason being is I don't really care if the iPod battery runs down. It's not a phone and usually it's just playing music or playing TV Guide on www.tv.yahoo.com

I understand what you're saying about the processor speed being a bottleneck, and you have a point there but the results of the test don't bear that out.

Back when I was doing assembly language programming, I noticed a huge difference between chip sets and speed was just one of many factors. The chip I learned the most on was the venerable Motorola MC6809E and while the clock speed seemed slow as a slug, the things it could do in the command set made up for a lot of ground. The internal registers were the real source of the power, you could do amazing things with that chip and never even touch the RAM.

The processor in the Droid has to be pretty good to smoke a dedicated laptop on the same wi-fi like it just did. Yeah, the laptop's older but still, that's impressive as heck.

 

[medicTHREE]

I went and tested it with Firefox.

I went to NBC.com and ABC.com, places I never go.

The computer beat the Droid by a few seconds on each - both heavy graphical sites.

My Wifi was ON.

Running same Speedtest on both Droid and Firefox out of same area.

Droid - 11.75 mbps
Firefox - 25.22 mbps

ok well of course if your phone is constantly connected then what ever uses batter is not of importance because its always getting charged... but for me my phone is only getting chared when im at home.. so its best for me to not have wifi on. Also when i was talking about wifi speed.. my laptop and phone get the same speed when i test it on speedtest.net over wifi. my laptop can load up engadget.com in under 3 seconds your droid.. well any droin cant do that even if the wifi speed was 30000mbs.. thats my point.

Actually that's a decent test to try out, my Droid on Wi-Fi against my laptop on Wi-Fi.

(Laptop is an HP Pavilion DV-1170 running WinXP)

Here's the results of the test:

Laptop download speed: 6.51 MBPS
Droid download speed: 8.074 MBPS

Laptop upload speed: 2.32 MBPS
Droid upload speed: 1.005 MBPS

My laptop got it's ass kicked by a cell phone? :icon_eek:

I didn't see THAT coming.

Running around the house the Droid isn't going to replace the iPod Touch, main reason being is I don't really care if the iPod battery runs down. It's not a phone and usually it's just playing music or playing TV Guide on www.tv.yahoo.com

I understand what you're saying about the processor speed being a bottleneck, and you have a point there but the results of the test don't bear that out.

Back when I was doing assembly language programming, I noticed a huge difference between chip sets and speed was just one of many factors. The chip I learned the most on was the venerable Motorola MC6809E and while the clock speed seemed slow as a slug, the things it could do in the command set made up for a lot of ground. The internal registers were the real source of the power, you could do amazing things with that chip and never even touch the RAM.

The processor in the Droid has to be pretty good to smoke a dedicated laptop on the same wi-fi like it just did. Yeah, the laptop's older but still, that's impressive as heck.

Did your droid load the full site? My droid loads the mobile of each automatically. Not a fair comparison.

 

[SSHGuru]

Phone Eating

I work from my house and have a Dock both in front of my PC and at my bedside.

So my Droid can eat whenever it's hungry and when I wake up it's always full.

When I'm in front of the computer I don't put it in the Dock unless it really needs to eat.

My Battery Data...

4h 30m since unplugged

Display - 46%
Android OS - 9%
Phone Idle - 9%
WiFi - 9%
Cell Standby - 8%
Android System - 5%
NewsRob - 5%
K-9 Mail - 5%
Browser - 3%
Home++ - 2%

70% of Battery left.

yes the speed might be faster but that doesnt mean its gonna load a web page any faster.. the speed of the phones internet is only as fast as its weakest component and in the case of a cell phones the weakest component is the processes.. for example try going to the same web page from your computer and your cell phone and have your cell phone on wifi.. i bet your computer beats your cell phone... obviously your internet is the same speed.. but your processer in your computer is alot faster thus you can load pages faster.. the speed of your internet is not the only thing that determines how fast things get done.. what i am saying is that the processeor in the droid can not process things fast enough for me to justify leave wifi on all the time... this is just my opinion.

My PC against my phone is not a fair test because my PC isn't wireless. My PC hits 25 MBPS on Speedtest.net and the Droid has never even hit a third of that.

Still, I'd call 7 MBPS on the Wi-Fi over the 1 MBPS on the 3G a very significant improvement. Good enough to make the Wi-Fi worth the battery eats and besides, most of the time the Droid is either plugged into a PC or happily attached to a charger in my truck. I'd be surprised if it ever goes longer than 8 hours without eating.

 

[SSHGuru]

ABC was full site.

Also I didn't limit it to just the homepage. I went to links from both pages and they all loaded a few seconds faster on the computer than the Droid.

But that's a hell of a performance from the Droid on WiFi.

 

[dezymond]

haha

leaving the wifi on is a battery drainer. you're basically leaving something on that you don't need all the time so of course it's going to drain your battery.

as for speeds, my wifi is definitely faster than 3g, but it all depends on the speed of your internet.