How to: Know how much power each component of your smartphone uses
Published by Steve Litchfield at 14:34 GMT, December 24th 2009
It's all very well listening to advice on ways to cut down the power used by your smartphone, but have you ever seen the power savings quantified? Can you put numbers to the various techniques and settings? You can now, with my handy guide. Although testing was on a Nokia N96, the findings should apply to any Symbian-powered smartphone.
"Thanks to Nokia's handy (free) utility, Energy Profiler, currently found being promoted in the Ovi Store, I've been able to do a number of tests to work out the power drain for various common phone attributes. Are there any big battery killers that should be left off if possible?"
Categories: Hardware, Miscellaneous
Platforms: S60 3rd Edition, S60 5th Edition
News Discussion
Unregistered
Steve..what about video playback?
slitchfield
well, leaving aside the n96's video efficiencies, I was mainly looking at state settings which you can do something about. It goes without saying that if you're watching video on a phone then you're hammering the processor...
cygni
Hi,
I'm a person who were 'lucky' enough to have both GSM and CDMA network provider where I live. At one time while using the CDMA phone I feel the phone so hot and make me wonder if that safe to use the CDMA phone.
So, after digging the web and do some off-line research here what I got.
GSM
GSM is a time division (TDMA), and since our phone knows when to hear that frequency and when is NOT, GSM is better on battery drain. You might notice on the phone specs that GSM battery life is much longer compared to 3G (and all CDMA variant, except TS-CDMA).
WCDMA / 3G / CDMA 2000 1x
CDMA developed by QUALCOM, touted as the more advance communication method, has a one major drawback that might not been notice by many users. In a city where I live, CDMA network is a fix-wireless network, promoted as a replacement of cooper wire, with a rates tenth of the GSM rates. Therefore the usage is quite high. When many user at the same region of BS (Base Station) using the phone to make a call at the same time, the battery could be drain 4x as fast.
explanation.
CDMA or WCDMA is a CODE division. in CDMA 2000 1x one sector is a whooping 1.25MHz. Since it's a code division, there is NO WAY our phone know if the packet is for our phone or for the other person near us WITHOUT opening the package. So, the different of 10 person using the network, and 100 person using the network, is quite noticeable in the battery life. To make the things worse, the more user at the same sector the more NOISE LEVEL would be, bringing the phone battery life to even worse because the phone need to 'listen to the waves harder'.
How do I notice this???
There was a time when my CDMA network provider have a fun hour. Where at that hour call are virtually free. I notice at that time my phone would heat up in 10 minute compared to 1 hour when not in fun hour. And the batery life of my CDMA phone would be over in 1 hour+ from a full charge at that fun hour, compared to 3 hour talk time when's not in fun hour.
I'm a person who were 'lucky' enough to have both GSM and CDMA network provider where I live. At one time while using the CDMA phone I feel the phone so hot and make me wonder if that safe to use the CDMA phone.
So, after digging the web and do some off-line research here what I got.
GSM
GSM is a time division (TDMA), and since our phone knows when to hear that frequency and when is NOT, GSM is better on battery drain. You might notice on the phone specs that GSM battery life is much longer compared to 3G (and all CDMA variant, except TS-CDMA).
WCDMA / 3G / CDMA 2000 1x
CDMA developed by QUALCOM, touted as the more advance communication method, has a one major drawback that might not been notice by many users. In a city where I live, CDMA network is a fix-wireless network, promoted as a replacement of cooper wire, with a rates tenth of the GSM rates. Therefore the usage is quite high. When many user at the same region of BS (Base Station) using the phone to make a call at the same time, the battery could be drain 4x as fast.
explanation.
CDMA or WCDMA is a CODE division. in CDMA 2000 1x one sector is a whooping 1.25MHz. Since it's a code division, there is NO WAY our phone know if the packet is for our phone or for the other person near us WITHOUT opening the package. So, the different of 10 person using the network, and 100 person using the network, is quite noticeable in the battery life. To make the things worse, the more user at the same sector the more NOISE LEVEL would be, bringing the phone battery life to even worse because the phone need to 'listen to the waves harder'.
How do I notice this???
There was a time when my CDMA network provider have a fun hour. Where at that hour call are virtually free. I notice at that time my phone would heat up in 10 minute compared to 1 hour when not in fun hour. And the batery life of my CDMA phone would be over in 1 hour+ from a full charge at that fun hour, compared to 3 hour talk time when's not in fun hour.
Pawlee
very useful post, definitely picked up a thing or two from this
would love a handset specific post for other phones but for the majority this is a more than enough (id just like to know what the difference an amoled screen makes - as thats constantly hailed as a massive battery saver)
good work :)
would love a handset specific post for other phones but for the majority this is a more than enough (id just like to know what the difference an amoled screen makes - as thats constantly hailed as a massive battery saver)
good work :)
Unregistered
Please compare the result of Firing XENON flash and LED/Dual LED flash also...
Unregistered
At least I now know why whilst using Nokia Maps on N82 connected to CK-300 charging cable the battery level never seemed to improve!
Hardeep1singh
Don't know what to make of it but this is what happened when I clicked a pic with my N82 (with Xenon). The sudden spike that goes beyond the visible screen is where Xenon clicked.
Unregistered
Firing a Xenon flash should take little or no power, but charging the capacitor so the flash is ready will take power over a longer period.
ffarber
The big issue for me is not so much how much power a specific feature uses, since it seems that actually the phone as a phone is the most power hungry thing I do, but which charger to use to charge the phone fastest or to keep up with the in-use demands. The question is: can this utility be used to measure that? I am going to try and find out.