Help Wifi or 3g?

[Billswood]

which should I use for browsing? I know that speed varies depending on your connection and signal, but what is better for battery life?

 

[Willyg44]

WiFi will drain the battery faster. I only use WiFi if I'm downloading a large file or watching HQ youtube clips and the 3G service is low really.

 

[pixelsyndicate]

i use wifi whenever possible; generally this is at home, so i have plenty of options to keep it on a charger/mount. get the speedtest app from Marketplace to test your connection.

 

[BigCiX]

well wifi is automatic when im at home. so wifi at home 3G outside home.

 

[Paycer]

WiFi will drain the battery faster. I only use WiFi if I'm downloading a large file or watching HQ youtube clips and the 3G service is low really.

Not necessarily true. If your phone has to struggle for a 3G signal at all for an extended period of time, it will have a significant impact on your battery. So long as you're not too far from your WiFi access point, you should get noticeably better battery life by using it instead.

 

[lilcal70]

for the most part wifi is faster than 3g and in ny experience it consumes less battery. i have the speed test app & i live in a rural area my 3g speed is ranges from 1.8mbs to about 2.1mbps. on my wifi network at my house down the hill i get anywhere from 12mbs to 18mbs. i have noticed slow 3g connections in busy cities. it all depends

 

[Paycer]

WiFi speed is dependent on the Internet connection that it's hooked up to, as well as how fast the router is actually capable of sending and receiving information. It relies more on the actual connection speed than it does capabilities, but they can both easily bottleneck your speeds.

My home Internet connection is capped off at 200KB/s downstream and around 35KB/s upstream. I have a low-speed Internet package to save money right now. As a result, I will be using my 3G connection quite often; probably when my computer is downloading something and taking up most of the available bandwidth.

At the same time, your 3G coverage may suck donkey balls. If that's the case, go with WiFi. WiFi is probably a better choice in general, but just remember that you can only download and upload as fast as the WiFi's connection and hardware will permit.

 

[lexluthor]

WiFi will drain the battery faster. I only use WiFi if I'm downloading a large file or watching HQ youtube clips and the 3G service is low really.

No way. Wifi is almost always faster and better on battery than 3G. If you are standing under a 3G tower, maybe, but otherwise, I'd say get on wifi whenever possible.

 

[Billswood]

Awesome, thanks guys. The only time I get bad 3g is in my bathroom for some reason, so that is usually the only place I use wifi haha. I think I will use it more often.

 

[Willyg44]

No way. Wifi is almost always faster and better on battery than 3G. If you are standing under a 3G tower, maybe, but otherwise, I'd say get on wifi whenever possible.

What?! Ok I'm thoroughly confused. I understand if you struggle to get good 3G service or switch between 1x and 3G in your area, wifi could be better on battery. However, every phone I had that had wifi it was a known fact on all the forums that wifi was a battery hog. What do you guys turn off your mobile network when using wifi? Then, maybe I could see. But, if not, I always notice my wifi having a drain on my battery. Do you guys have any tests to prove that wifi is a smaller drain? Maybe it's this phone and I haven't experienced it before...

EDIT: Just read somewhere that when the wifi comes on it automatically turns off your 3G service. Is this correct? I don't recall having this on my other phones in the past. If so, that's great.

 

[Paycer]

The Droid X automatically stops using a 3G connection when you connect to a WiFI access point. I imagine this is an Android feature, as my LG Ally did the exact same. This is also why we say to use WiFi instead of 3G, since it's easy to switch between the two automatically, depending on where you are.

 

[buxleyp]

EDIT: Just read somewhere that when the wifi comes on it automatically turns off your 3G service. Is this correct? I don't recall having this on my other phones in the past. If so, that's great.

Yes, when wifi is on and connected to a network, the phone drops the 3G data connection (leaving voice on to send/receive calls).

 

[Willyg44]

Ah, thanks a lot for filling me in, that's awesome! So, to clarify; if wifi is on, but you don't allow it to notify you of open networks, it doesn't drain the battery even when you're out and about away from your usual home or work network? Wouldn't the wifi chip be working, finding networks as they appear?

 

[TMack]

The Droid X automatically stops using a 3G connection when you connect to a WiFI access point. I imagine this is an Android feature, as my LG Ally did the exact same. This is also why we say to use WiFi instead of 3G, since it's easy to switch between the two automatically, depending on where you are.

I discovered today at Starbucks that if I'm connected to a wifi access point 3G stops working, even if there's no internet access through the AP. This seems crazy, but I was without any internet service for a while until I realized that I needed to open my browser and accept Starbucks "terms" before it would give me internet access. In the mean time, 3G was in range but would not work.

Is there any way to adjust how this behaves?

-TMc

 

[buxleyp]

Ah, thanks a lot for filling me in, that's awesome! So, to clarify; if wifi is on, but you don't allow it to notify you of open networks, it doesn't drain the battery even when you're out and about away from your usual home or work network? Wouldn't the wifi chip be working, finding networks as they appear?

Now I didn't say that! I'm in the camp of leaving wifi off unless I want to transfer a lot of data, or connect to my home computers. Until I get some time to compare battery drain of wifi vs 3g, I'll stick with 3g as I've done on all my other phones.

 

[buxleyp]

I discovered today at Starbucks that if I'm connected to a wifi access point 3G stops working, even if there's no internet access through the AP. This seems crazy, but I was without any internet service for a while until I realized that I needed to open my browser and accept Starbucks "terms" before it would give me internet access. In the mean time, 3G was in range but would not work./QUOTE]

Your phone is connected to the Starbucks wifi; it has picked up an IP address and can communicate with the router. That's probably why it dropped the 3G signal. It doesn't care whether the router you're connected to has access to the outside "internet."

Don't know if you can change this behavior, but I wouldn't call it crazy.

 

[Paycer]

Ah, thanks a lot for filling me in, that's awesome! So, to clarify; if wifi is on, but you don't allow it to notify you of open networks, it doesn't drain the battery even when you're out and about away from your usual home or work network? Wouldn't the wifi chip be working, finding networks as they appear?

I don't know the specifics of how the chip actually works, or how closely the software regulates it, but you can set your phone to automatically connect to certain wireless networks that you specify. So, when you arrive home and are within range of your own network, it will automatically connect. Yet, if you're out and about and happen to pass your local Panera Bread, it will not connect to it unless you've already told it to.

There are applications that can allow your device to simply connect to any and all open networks that it detects, but I don't believe the phone does this by default. It would be a rather silly feature to have out of the box.

I discovered today at Starbucks that if I'm connected to a wifi access point 3G stops working, even if there's no internet access through the AP. This seems crazy, but I was without any internet service for a while until I realized that I needed to open my browser and accept Starbucks "terms" before it would give me internet access. In the mean time, 3G was in range but would not work.

Is there any way to adjust how this behaves?

-TMc

Turn WiFi off when you head to Starbucks, or tell your phone to, "forget," the access point in your settings. It shouldn't automatically connect to it anymore once you do so.

 

[redgtconv]

I can only speak for myself, wifi is substantially faster than 3g and the battery definitely lasts longer.I leave the wifi on and when I leave my house it switches to 3g and does not connect to any other wifi.

 

[lexluthor]

Same here. Wifi way faster and better on battery than 3g. Remember if you wasn't to stay on wifi, you also need to go into advanced wireless settings and set wifi to never sleep.

Also look at y5 battery meter app to toggle wifi on and off automatically.

 

[bigbadwulff]

I use 3G 90% of the time. Only use Wi-Fi if downloading a big app, like Google Earth......took a whole minute(if that)....5.72mb!

 

[john0821]

I use WiFi whenever I can. The speed is almost always greater than 3G unless I'm at some Starbucks with their crap internet speeds. With that said, I'm on 3G far more often since I'm never sitting around somewhere long enough to utilize a WiFi connection.