[Pre] Disabling EVDO, Forcing 1xRTT

[Noseeums]

Does anyone know if the Pre will have the option to disable 3G to save battery life and just run on 1x? My friends with the iPhone gripe quite a bit about how 3g sucks the life right out of the phone when there is no wireless available so they usually just disable it. I'm assuming it would be 1x on the Pre with 3G disabled?

[GolpherZX]

Try airplane mode??

Isn't 3G by default and the same amount of battery life as the 1x connection?

[sfhub]

It's not necessarily that 3G sucks the battery life.

When you have no signal, searching for CDMA towers uses a lot more power than when you have good signal. This is what sucks the power for CDMA phones. Even if you disable the network, searching for CDMA towers so the phone will make/receive calls will suck power just as fast.

On PalmOS, they have a 3rd-party app called PowerHero that detects if you have few (or zero) bars for some period and disables the phone radio, checking back every N (configurable) minutes to see if signal has returned, instead of constantly searching for signal.

Hopefully something like that is available either builtin or 3rd-party.

I've seen people mention searching for signal for a 1x phone uses less power than a 3g phone, but I've never seen a Sprint phone that tries to implement that as a power saving feature.

[Park]

Try airplane mode??

Isn't 3G by default and the same amount of battery life as the 1x connection?

Airplane mode turns off 3G AND 1x, so that won't work.

[parazitu22]

Does anyone know if the Pre will have the option to disable 3G to save battery life and just run on 1x? My friends with the iPhone gripe quite a bit about how 3g sucks the life right out of the phone when there is no wireless available so they usually just disable it. I'm assuming it would be 1x on the Pre with 3G disabled?

3G on GSM is a little different then on Sprint. I would suggest trying the Pre when it comes out, and seeing for yourself how good/bad the battery life is. Listening to friends with iphones about battery life is never a good idea :tu:

[Noseeums]

I'm not referring to searching for a signal. I know that drains a battery very quick. On GSM networks with 3G enabled the battery life drains much quicker than 2G usage. I was just wondering if it was the same for CDMA.

As far as the iPhone is concerned users with moderate to heavy 3G usage kill their batteries before the day's end. From what I understand if you disable 3G and use 2G you'll have significantly longer battery life. I would just find it rather annoying to have to carry around a spare battery or find an outlet in the middle of the day to keep it charged. I'm kind of surprised cell phones haven't started using silver-zinc rechargeable batteries yet. Up to 40% longer battery life on those bad boys.

The other argument to this is "why don't you just utilize the wireless feature". Well it's true wireless will take less juice, but I'm not often in range of a wireless signal in my daily travels.

[Awake]

3G on Sprint is not the same as 3G on ATT, 2 totally different technologies. The reason the iphone has that ability is not necessarily to save battery life, it is due to the iphone not automatically falling back down to Edge when the 3G signal is weak or not available. That would leave an iphone user without a signal period. Sprints 1x is 3G, or more commonly known as cdma2000 1XRTT. If the EVDO signal is weak or not available then the device will drop down to 1x. I believe EVDO is 3.5G.

Edit: EVDO Rev-O is 3G, Rev-A is 3.5G

[sfhub]

I'm not referring to searching for a signal. I know that drains a battery very quick. On GSM networks with 3G enabled the battery life drains much quicker than 2G usage. I was just wondering if it was the same for CDMA.
Well, you did say "when data is not available" which could be taken to mean when signal is not available.

As mentioned earlier, Sprint phones fallback from EVDO to 1xRTT when high speed data is not available. They don't actually use more power when EVDO data towers are not available. They probably do use more power when actively transferring data over EVDO vs 1xRTT.

However, I've never seen a Sprint phone that allowed you to force 1xRTT in a standard user menu. I believe I've seen some that let you turn off EVDO in a service menu, but I might not be remembering correct since it isn't something I pay attention to. I've never really heard of anyone using this feature to try and save power, though it might be interesting if someone tried. Most folks just work on getting their batteries to last at least a full day, which seems to be the magic # that makes people satisfied.

1xRTT is pretty slow, especially the latency, so personally I wouldn't really consider it for saving power, but others might.

[Noseeums]

Well, you did say "when data is not available" which could be taken to mean when signal is not available.

I said "when wireless isn't available". Like wireless internet from Starbucks, home wireless, etc... That's all I was referring to. It's my understanding that 802.11b/g uses significantly battery power.

As mentioned earlier, Sprint phones fallback from EVDO to 1xRTT when high speed data is not available. They don't actually use more power when EVDO data towers are not available. They probably do use more power when actively transferring data over EVDO vs 1xRTT.

However, I've never seen a Sprint phone that allowed you to force 1xRTT in a standard user menu. I believe I've seen some that let you turn off EVDO in a service menu, but I might not be remembering correct since it isn't something I pay attention to. I've never really heard of anyone using this feature to try and save power, though it might be interesting if someone tried. Most folks just work on getting their batteries to last at least a full day, which seems to be the magic # that makes people satisfied.

1xRTT is pretty slow, especially the latency, so personally I wouldn't really consider it for saving power, but others might.


I appreciate the info. I hope the battery on this thing has enough kick and durability to last at least a good year before it starts to lose effectiveness. I'm happy to see that it's replaceable too.

[laursifer]

If it comes down to you still wanting to disable EVDO, there's probably a chance you'll be able to do this with Sprint's ## commands (currently it is ##3836# on a Palm).

[GolpherZX]

I'll start that this is pure speculation...

I would expect that the Pre would probably use up more power dealing with the latency and low speeds of 1xRTT to get the background data such as presence and other types of "always on" applications, than if it had 3G (EVDO Rev A) available for it. Since it is Rev A, speeds should be sub 100 ms to the internet as far as round trip latency. The greater bandwidth 1200 kbps versus 150 kbps; so the updates should be quick. That isn't even touching the upload as well.

I forget what the latency is like on 1X, but I know that I can't stand the latency that I experience on my Blackberry, and that is Rev0 connected....

[ScrapMaker]

Typically, 1X data uses up more battery than EV-DO, at least on an EV-DO-capable device.

On my Fusic, M1, Touch, and Touch Pro, I would lose about 10% an hour just sitting in standby mode, while connected to 1X.

GSM 3G tends to use more battery, but that is not the case on CDMA networks, it seems. I would not worry about it, to be honest.