Battery life on 3G vs Edge ( 2G )

[JK0d3r]

Does anyone know if there is a difference in battery drain while using a 3G network rather than a 2G ?
What i have found over the internet is that on 3G last longer on standby , but i am not sure.

Can anyone confirm or infirm this ?

Thank you !

 

[rockstarzzz]

It's the other way round in general only because 2g signals are available in most places. However if you network has an amazing 3g coverage unlike mine, then your battery will stay longer on 3g. I tend to keep in 2g as I know my network as an excellet 2g coverage. If I keep in 3g, the phone desperately keeps looking for 3g and drains battery when it can't find 3g and has to go back and forth between 2g and 3g.

 

[jimski]

Yep. I typically don't get much past 2, maybe 3 bars of 3G, which puts a big hit on my battery. Unfortunately I can't disable 3G.

Sent from my HTC Surround using Board Express

 

[JK0d3r]

Yep. I typically don't get much past 2, maybe 3 bars of 3G, which puts a big hit on my battery. Unfortunately I can't disable 3G.

Sent from my HTC Surround using Board Express

Thank you, for answers, this is exactly for me, i dont have good coverage on 3G , but is full on 2G ( even is is a bit slower on data ... )
Have a nice day !

 

[hasasimo]

My battery life has remained very good using 3G, so, no issues here. It's about the same as when I was on 2G with T-Mobile.

To the poster that said they cannot disable 3G. Why not? You can change to 2G (Edge) by going to the Cellular menu in Settings.

 

[MattLFC]

My network is now 3G-only (pretty much, as they have begun the shutdown of roaming on a rival's 2G network recently to cut down costs). So I am stuck with 3G.

On my TP2 I noticed that there wasn't a great deal of difference when using my current network on 3G-only, to using my previous network set to 2G-only (I mainly use Opera Mini, so used to turn the 3G off on the previous network for reliability, otherwise you'd sometimes get dropped calls as their 3G network is still lacking coverage a bit).

On my K800i however (yeah, I still use one lol) I get around 2 - 3 days standby when on 3G/2G and around a week or more (depends on use) when on 2G-only. When actually using the phone, there is a huge difference in battery life. So I'd say it depends on the phone - the worst you can do is try it, and see what happens. It won't break it hehe.