3G/4G/5G mobile data drains your smartphone’s battery faster than Wi-Fi: Did you know?

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It is a technical fact: 3G drains battery faster than Wi-Fi. As such, if you want to conserve battery on your smartphone while enjoying broadband speeds, connect via Wi-Fi. If battery life is more important to you than speed, and you do not have a Wi-Fi hotspot available, change your mobile network connection from 3G to 2G. Your phone will connect via GPRS/EDGE, which is much slower than 3G, but you will experience much longer battery life.

If you must use mobile internet, do note the following:

  • GPRS/EDGE gives the slowest speeds, and longest battery life
  • 3G (covers 3.5G and 3.75G) is much faster, but your battery will drain faster
  • 4G LTE (if your phone and network have this) will give you faster speeds than 3G, but will drain your battery even faster

The rule is this with network data: the faster you go, the more fuel you burn. Simple. But if you have WiFi available, it is your best shot at getting good speed without emptying your battery in a few hours.

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