Wifi - Why?

[inetmarketing]

Hey,

Ok, maybe a dumb question.

I have a linksys wireless router. My desktop is hard wired, and I use my laptop on the wireless router.

But waht the whole point of connecting the droid to the wifi, when you already have internet access?

One thought- File Sharing Maybe?

Thanks,

Robert

Robert

 

[justreboot]

speed... wifi approx 10x faster than 3g

 

[eliassami5]

wifi is almost..almost always faster than 3g. And some things you are not able to do via 3g, like transfer large # of pics or large vids to picasa or youtube.

But why not?

 

[aminaked]

I think that the wifi method is more efficient than the Verizon wireless antenna. One reason for this is distance. Wifi saves battery...I think.

 

[eliassami5]

I think that the wifi method is more efficient than the Verizon wireless antenna. One reason for this is distance. Wifi saves battery...I think.

im pretty sure it dosent save battery, if anything it drains the battery if you keep the wifi on when you arent in wifi locations because every time you unlock your phone it will try to search for a wifi link and it will just drain battery big time. I only turn it on when at home or at school.

 

[Travis798]

I'm lucky to even get a signal here with 1x, no way I can get 3g. My wifi at least allows me to use the phone normally without having to wait forever and a day for anything to load on my phone. Not everyone lives in a great signal area with fast 3g.

 

[inetmarketing]

Hey,

SPEED- Ok I didn't think of that!

My wife said I spent too much time on my Droid.
So I bought her one. End of story...

Too Funny! In response to the sig:

My wife absolutely loves her Motorola Droid so much, that when I said, I wanted to trade for the (Incredible) she said, Why you already have a great Droid!

 

[aminaked]

I think that the wifi method is more efficient than the Verizon wireless antenna. One reason for this is distance. Wifi saves battery...I think.

im pretty sure it dosent save battery, if anything it drains the battery if you keep the wifi on when you arent in wifi locations because every time you unlock your phone it will try to search for a wifi link and it will just drain battery big time. I only turn it on when at home or at school.

Yeah, I unchecked the option to have wifi scan constantly for new networks but I do keep wifi on all the time. I could be wrong about the battery power thing but I thought I read that somewhere so I thew it out there.

EDIT: about the iphone, but here's a quote:

"Note that if you frequently use your iPhone to browse the web, battery life may be improved by using Wi-Fi instead of cellular data networks."

Surprise! Use Wi-Fi instead of 3G to save iPhone battery life | TechBlog | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

 

[PhDCow]

I'm kind of embarassed to admit that I've had Merlin (yes, I named my Droid) since November and have never used wi-fi. So I asked my husband to put me on the network. Holy speed! Thanks for this thread!

 

[inetmarketing]

Hey,

well I turned on wifi, then logged into my network. I got a speed of
54Mbps.

I went to my emails, and they seem to load slow still. hmmm

 

[fgw]

Good reason for WIFI

I work two jobs - one in a rural area where there is no cell service. However, there is wifi. This means that I can receive email. This is important to me because I can stay in touch with my employees in the other county 75 miles away.

In addition, I also need to get messages from my clients and, because I use Google Voice, I can get the transcribed messages from my clients. Since I am in court and need to get these messages immediately, wifi has saved me hours of work and headaches.

So, for some of us, there is a very practical reason to have wifi.

 

[justreboot]

Hey,

well I turned on wifi, then logged into my network. I got a speed of
54Mbps.

I went to my emails, and they seem to load slow still. hmmm

Are we talking gmail or 3rd party (yahoo, etc?) / Gmail usually pops up almost immediately./ Also 54Mbps is the local speed not the speed you actually connect to the server. You can always run a speed test for that.
YMMV---

By the way the sig part is true. The wife was jealous of my Droid. So I called vz and got her an early upgrade took some doing, but been a cust for over 10 years with a fat $250/month bill...

 

[takeshi]

But waht the whole point of connecting the droid to the wifi, when you already have internet access?

One thought- File Sharing Maybe?

There are all sorts of potential reasons. Not only for a faster connection and to reduce power consumption but what if you need access to a local network resource that isn't available outside your network?

im pretty sure it dosent save battery, if anything it drains the battery if you keep the wifi on when you arent in wifi locations because every time you unlock your phone it will try to search for a wifi link and it will just drain battery big time. I only turn it on when at home or at school.

You're looking at it the wrong way. Yes, if you disable WiFi when you're not actually using it you will use less battery. However, if you are using data anyway and have an available WiFi spot to use it will take less power to transmit and receive data over the WiFi network than it will over 3G.

 

[DessoThumbs]

WiFi is much faster than 3G. I always use wifi if I'm home or near a hotspot. It's also nice to use your droid as a wifi hotspot to tether if you've got your laptop and need to.