No 3G on the iPhone, but why? A Battery Life Analysis
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 13, 2007 3:53 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
Final Words
Without a doubt, current 3G implementations do require more space and consume more power than simply outfitting a phone with support for EDGE. Using the Samsung Blackjack as an example, turning on 3G reduces battery life by around 25% under web/email use. The biggest impact of all is, surprisingly enough, talk time; with 3G enabled, the Blackjack's talk time is cut in half, with absolutely no benefit realized from the higher bandwidth standard.
At the same time, Apple's choice to include 802.11b/g support in the iPhone makes a lot of sense. Battery life actually increases with Wi-Fi over EDGE whenever the data connection is being used, not to mention that performance goes up tremendously as well.
Apple had to make a number of tradeoffs with the iPhone, and without a doubt its power hungry screen was not worth sacrificing, even for better network performance. The iPhone's biggest selling point is its UI, and Apple seems to have made the right tradeoff by embracing Wi-Fi for the first generation - as frustrating as it may be for users.
The long term solution however isn't simply to rely on Wi-Fi hotspots for faster net access, as 3G deployments become even more widespread and technology improves you can expect to see lower power and more tightly integrated 3G chipsets available. We'd venture a guess that a 3G iPhone is at least 12 months out, but until then keep an eye out for 802.11 hotspots - you'll get a better usage experience and better battery life on your iPhone.
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jellinek - Friday, July 13, 2007 - link
Does the h.264 implementation on the iphone vs. the likely flash-based version on the blackjack impact this at all?Quicktime playback over the web (trailers set to loop?) might be a better way to determine EDGE/3G/WiFi battery life.
MrJim - Friday, July 13, 2007 - link
Anyone know if they will add MMS-messengering in iphone?GlassHouse69 - Friday, July 13, 2007 - link
fuck iphone.that's all I have to say.
stop reviewing it. it is lemming equipment that is overpriced and hobbled with a beautiful screen. feels like 5-6 years ago Mac intellect at use. get great graphical images, get stuck in the mud hardware, hobble it all somehow, charge 1000 dollars more than you need and bam, lemmings jump. wee!
DavenJ - Friday, July 13, 2007 - link
I guess this guy isn't going to buy an iPhone.Shark Tek - Friday, July 13, 2007 - link
Yeah I bet that he can't buy it.puffpio - Friday, July 13, 2007 - link
Is there a way to get this higher quality youtube feed for computers?? I'm tired of their pixelated crap.dacramer - Friday, July 13, 2007 - link
Who cares how LONG the battery lasts when loading web pages. The real test is how many web pages the battery can load per charge. Even if the battery lasts half as long over 3g, it surely must load more web pages. Is it more than double? 3g may not be so bad with regards to battery life with this taken into consideration.Icehawk - Friday, July 13, 2007 - link
I think the exact same thing - the more important metric is how many pages you can load not how long the battery lasts with constant clicking.Araemo - Friday, July 13, 2007 - link
"The biggest impact of all is, surprisingly enough, talk time; with 3G enabled, the Blackjack's talk time is cut in half, with absolutely no benefit realized from the higher bandwidth standard."Do you want to know why 3G is the default for talk time as well as data transfers? 3G has more bandwidth per cell tower, and talk over 3G uses the same total bandwidth as talk over GSM.. but since 3G increases the available bandwidth, you use less of the cell company's resources if you're talking using 3G instead of GSM. So battery life be damned, AT&T wants to make more money. ;)
cosmotic - Friday, July 13, 2007 - link
Your graph on the talk time page shows the iphone using wifi. Shouldn't that be edge?