General Android-ness

[Sput]

In that case it's odd that I find the battery vanishes MUCH faster when it's on High speed 3g compared with wifi. Might just be shouting to a distant transmitter I suppose

[Gavin Scott]

Wifi on my Nokia E65 used to drain the battery in a trice, but I rarely used it as, other than as a tether, it was pretty useless.

But definitely the opposite is the case on my android.

[Inspector Sands]

Yes, think I might have that a bit mixed up, I can't find the place I read that order of power use. However as I say, I assume that the time in use aspect is an issue

But yes Gavin your phone doing it's thing on the mobile network will use more battery than Wifi, that makes sense

[Ebeneezer Scrooge]

With a previous phone that I used between two networks, I found that the vodafone network drained the battery a lot more than orange, who I also used at the time. I always assumed they turned up the gain on the handset so they could run their masts at slightly lower power - or maybe as Sput says, so they can have fewer masts further away.
That was pretty much the only reason I left Vodafone and why I went to T-mobile for the desire. The downside of that of course is that I'm still waiting for 2.2 and they seem to be keeping pretty quiet about it!

[Nick Harvey]

Right back at the beginning, in dear old 1985, it was Cellnet's policy to have a large number of low power cells quite close together, while Vodafone opted for a lower number of higher powered cells further apart.

For that reason, early telephones on Vodafone often had to transmit at a higher power in order to reach a more distant cell.

Cell densities will be very different nowadays, but I'd guess that a little of that original policy will still exist, so I'm not surprised by the comment about the Vodafone network draining batteries faster.

So where's Sput's comment on this? I'm dashed if I can find it. Am I going blind again?

[Gavin Scott]

Right back at the beginning, in dear old 1985, it was Cellnet's policy to have a large number of low power cells quite close together, while Vodafone opted for a lower number of higher powered cells further apart.

For that reason, early telephones on Vodafone often had to transmit at a higher power in order to reach a more distant cell.

Cell densities will be very different nowadays, but I'd guess that a little of that original policy will still exist, so I'm not surprised by the comment about the Vodafone network draining batteries faster.

So where's Sput's comment on this? I'm dashed if I can find it. Am I going blind again?

Top of the page?

[Nick Harvey]

I wonder what it is I'm doing that's making me go blind?

[Inspector Sands]

With a previous phone that I used between two networks, I found that the vodafone network drained the battery a lot more than orange, who I also used at the time. I always assumed they turned up the gain on the handset so they could run their masts at slightly lower power - or maybe as Sput says, so they can have fewer masts further away.

Yes, that's what phones do automatically. If they can't get a signal they'll up the gain on the radio until they find one. It's a concept that those who campaign about cell sites on schools and the like don't grasp... if you put one near a school then all the phones the kids are carrying round will use a lower transmit power and thus be 'safer'

I work in a sub-basement and both my Desire and my old Nokia just eat up battery as reception is marginal

That was pretty much the only reason I left Vodafone and why I went to T-mobile for the desire. The downside of that of course is that I'm still waiting for 2.2 and they seem to be keeping pretty quiet about it!

Yes this month sometime, hopefully.

Incidently, have you seen that from October 5th you can sign up to be able to roam between T-Mobile and Orange? Unfortunately it's 2G only, at least for now, but I hope it will help fill in a few gaps for voice calls

[Gavin Scott]

I wonder what it is I'm doing that's making me go blind?

If I was wearing glasses right now I'd be peering over them.

[Ebeneezer Scrooge]

Incidently, have you seen that from October 5th you can sign up to be able to roam between T-Mobile and Orange? Unfortunately it's 2G only, at least for now, but I hope it will help fill in a few gaps for voice calls

Maybe it's just where I am, but I've only been out of signal once since moving to T-mobile. I was surprised to even get a decent HSDPA connection on top of Ilkley Moor a few weeks, where I was indeed baht 'at.

I'm still convinced that vodafone must increase handset gain by default as I work inside a concrete box which generally allows no to very little mobile network penetration and even within this building I got higher battery drain with vodafone that I have with other networks. It does seem that certain phones are better with that though - Years ago I had a sony that would drain it's battery in just under a day if it didn't have a network connection, whereas most other phones that I have seem to reduce their network polling when they are constantly unsuccessful.

[Gavin Scott]

I was in the process of moving our business provider from Voda to, potentially, T-Mobile/Orange - given the recent acquisition; as T-Mobile resellers have been actively pitching to customers that both networks would merge, and the benefits would be suitably astonishing.

I heard from both my contact in the telecoms market (as well as here I think?) that this in fact is totally bogus, and they have no intention of offering access to both networks in an either/or way - and that Orange will be exclusively for business contracts, with T-Mobile for domestic.

So I wonder how that fits with what you're both saying.