Smartphone battery life for data only standby?

Hopefully the right forum to ask...

I'd be really interested to fin out how a smartphone's battery life compares in the following situations:

- Disable data, voice only standby (specs give 100s of hours for this)
- Put in a data only SIM card (the one used in tablets, sticks), so you have no voice but the option of 2G/3G/4G - standby only time? (For example the current iPhone's specs states you get 8 hour surf time on 3G while 10 hour surf time on 4G - that is surfing and browsing time; and I need the data-only standby time; not for the iPhone specifically but to compare to the same phone's voice standby)
- And finally voice+data standby (then again you also have 2G/3G/4G variants; for the data and voice part as well!)

Any idea? Have you made such tests or can you guess?

This isn't exactly what you're asking for, but a 3GS with data off and no SIM in it lasts roughly 2 weeks on a full charge. This is a 2-year old model, so the battery isn't all fresh either.

Why not send an email to the technical division of your phone maker and ask.

This will depend on many factors, such as...

• The particular phone model (even which generation, as certain processors may be optimized better than others, and a 10% difference in battery capacity, combined with better optimization, could make a significant difference).
• Your wireless settings: do you allow your device to push updates, or do they come at specific intervals? Do you allow all apps to access your mobile data, or just a couple? Of the apps with access, how data-hungry are they? Do you allow your device to do software updates through your data connection?

The surf time they give is obviously far less than the standby time - possibly by an order of magnitude or more, as active data fetching is more taxing than standby, and the device's screen will eat up tons of its battery capacity.

An iPad, for example, could probably go at least a week on standby. There is a test showing that an iPad will run for over 24 hours straight while acting as a wireless hotspot - with constant data usage! This is with the screen off, but an active data connection. Of course, the iPad has a very large battery and has stupidly good battery life, but it illustrates the point that the screen eats up a large portion of the battery during usage.

Thanks; in the meantime I found this depends more on the actual make; not on 3G/4G in general.

To the OP: GSMArena lists standby times to nearly all smartphones.

KeeblerElf said:

An iPad, for example, could probably go at least a week on standby. There is a test showing that an iPad will run for over 24 hours straight while acting as a wireless hotspot - with constant data usage! This is with the screen off, but an active data connection. Of course, the iPad has a very large battery and has stupidly good battery life, but it illustrates the point that the screen eats up a large portion of the battery during usage.

Click to expand...

For a comparison: iPhones run for 10 to 16 days in standby. Macbooks run for 30 days. Strangely, no official words on iPads. But I need to know this. How long should be the iPads (or similar Android tablets, for that matter) standby time, say, with fresh battery and all radios off? Should be more than Iphone standby times, right? The Apple chat person told me it can be 30 days, like for MacBooks, but it was only her guess, as the company does not publish this information. Again, strangely. Your take?

Edit. From the MacBook specs page, footnote: The standby test measures battery life by allowing a system, connected to a wireless network and signed in to an iCloud account, to enter standby mode with Safari and Mail applications launched and all system settings left at default. Battery life varies by use and configuration. See www.apple.com/batteries for more information.

theilluminati said:

To the OP: GSMArena lists standby times to nearly all smartphones.


For a comparison: iPhones run for 10 to 16 days in standby. Macbooks run for 30 days. Strangely, no official words on iPads. But I need to know this. How long should be the iPads (or similar Android tablets, for that matter) standby time, say, with fresh battery and all radios off? Should be more than Iphone standby times, right? The Apple chat person told me it can be 30 days, like for MacBooks, but it was only her guess, as the company does not publish this information. Again, strangely. Your take?

Edit. From the MacBook specs page, footnote: The standby test measures battery life by allowing a system, connected to a wireless network and signed in to an iCloud account, to enter standby mode with Safari and Mail applications launched and all system settings left at default. Battery life varies by use and configuration. See www.apple.com/batteries for more information.

Click to expand...

Anyone knows anything about this? I'd really want to find this out, thanks!