Thread: What can I do to improve battery life?
View Single Post
reinob is offline reinob
2015-06-26 , 13:26
Posts: 1,808 | Thanked: 4,272 times | Joined on Feb 2011 @ Germany
#3
Originally Posted by jonwil View Post
I keep my phone in 2G mode most of the time (unless I am doing heavy data usage then I switch to 3G with the 2G-3G selector widget). Does doing that help the battery life? (or would I be better off keeping it in 3G?) What about if I am passing through areas of low signal strength? (the train I ride on often passes through areas where my 2G signal will drop out completly or get very weak, would keeping it in 3G in those cases be better?)
For a number of years I've been also keeping the phone in 2G and only switching to 3G occasionally. Since a few weeks I have it always in 3G mode and the battery life has not changed significantly. I guess it depends on how often it needs to switch and reconnect so YMMV.

I suggest you run powertop and see if anything looks out of the ordinary. Also battery-eye (a python daemon with a GUI) can show pretty nicely what's going on (note: the daemon itself uses almost no CPU/battery).

My N900 with 3G and a few daily hours of mobile data and WLAN (but admittedly light use, mostly ssh here and there) has an average use of 21.9mA.

Now that I look at it, before I started using 3G-only and installed CSSU Thumb I remember being on 15mA. Might be the 3G effect (I can't imagine why CSSU/thumb would have any effect on battery life, unless the CPU does slightly more work when running thumb instructions).

For ~1200mAh 15mA means ~3days and 22mA means ~2days. Good enough for me