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T-Mobile Smartphones Outlast Competitors' Identical Models
An anonymous reader writes Laptop Mag battery tested the leading phones on all four major U.S. carriers and found that the same models on T-Mobile typically last 1 to 3 hours longer on a charge. This trend is not new, but has continued for over 3 years of testing.
The article says While we don’t know for certain why T-Mobile phones last longer on a charge, there are some strong possibilities. T-Mobile’s network could be more efficient at sending and receiving data because of the bands it uses, or maybe there are far fewer customers on its LTE network, easing the strain. Another possibility is that T-Mobile tends to pre-load less bloatware on its flagship devices relative to the other carriers.
AT&T is firmly in second place in the battery life findings presented, with Verizon and Sprint jockeying for last of the four carriers measured. It woud be interesting to see a similar test battery for phones in marginal reception areas; searching for service seems to deplete my battery faster than talking does.
I thought a phone was using maximum RF power when it was looking for a tower to talk to?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
My bet - different CDRX settings, fast dormancy, idle timers. Is probably a better engineered network.
The iPhone would actually be a more effective test because iPhones tend to be identical regardless of what carrier you are on. I'm extremely surprised they did not test the iPhone for this reason.
It would be interesting to know if an unlocked AT&T phone moved to T-mobile's network suddenly lasts longer.
And this is with t-mobiles software installed. With a clean phone, the T-mobile "my account" software is the highest usage bit of software on the phone. Disabling it was worth hours of runtime.
You would have to be crazy to be sane in this world. -Nero
My satoshi on this.
Let's reconvene at an appropriate time to proclaim winners.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
I'd like to see what this test looks like with all the phones involved running the same software load. i.e. No Verizon crapware. Just scout out a handset available on all 4 carriers, install Cyanogenmod on one and leave a second one stock. Then we should get a more accurate picture of what's going on here.
The Amarri pray for god, the Caldari pray for profit. the Gallente pray for peace, but the Minmatar pray their ships hol
Ok, so I did an anecdotal apples-to-oranges comparison between different phones on different networks and noticed that my phone was different, so that means that the apples-to-apples comparison the researchers did must be wrong, even though they explicitly controlled for that factor.
I think this is what you said. Let me know if I mistranslated.
They were at 41% for the three-month period ending in May. Two factors to keep in mind here: this research pertains specifically to US carriers, so it makes sense to look specifically at US market share, and we're specifically looking at smartphones, not the general cellular market. Globally, Apple's market share is significantly lower than in the US, even more so once you factor in non-smartphones, so I don't doubt that 15% is probably accurate somewhere for some set of conditions, but it isn't applicable in this particular case. 41% is the applicable number in this case.
Test with iPhones. No pre-loaded carrier bloatware, same exact OS across all carriers.
iPhones tend to be identical regardless of what carrier you are on.
Not really. There are nearly as many differences with iPhones as there are with any Android phone that's on multiple carriers, and that's been the case from the start. For instance, when they did their first release for Verizon back in 2011, they incorporated a different antenna design than they had in the AT&T model, partially to deal with the antennagate issue and partially because of Verizon's use of CDMA. You could tell by just looking at the exterior which network someone's iPhone 4 belonged to, since the "gaps" were in different places around the casing.
And the situation really hasn't changed much. They still sell separate CDMA and GSM models in the US and out of the US, with different frequency bands being active depending on your locale and network. Wikipedia lists seven different versions for the iPhone 5s alone, 2 CDMA and 5 GSM.
They may eventually unify all of those with a single, future design, I suppose, but that hasn't happened yet.
Depends on what you're testing. It'd be a great test of network and frequency efficiencies. It would be an incredibly lousy test of Android bloatware.
Log in or piss off.
...we don't know if this is something specific to Android or not. Not like anybody uses iPhones, huh?
I have heard that some people use iPhones but in truth they seem to be going the way of the necktie.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
All iPhones sold in the U.S. can be used in most other countries - they are multiband.
But, for example, I have a Verizon iPhone. If I want to move to T-Mobile I have to get a new phone. I think T-Mobile's frequency for data is one not used elsewhere in the world, even though T-Mobile is a GSM provider. I think you can move between AT&T & T-Mobile freely (both GSM). I believe over time this will iron out more...
It's a mess to be sure.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
AT&T & T-mobile were GSM in the states, and the rest were CDMA... but could be wrong. You're at least partially right about the bands though. As a visitor to the US, I pretty much stick to AT&T as they use the same bands as most of the world (i.e. ones my phone can do). T-Mobile I think uses one regular band, but also a rare non-standardish one.
It could also be that 15% refers to sales marketshare (i.e., new users) instead of subscriber marketshare (i.e., existing userbase). It's completely conceivable that maybe 41% of smartphones being used by people today are iPhones, but 15% of new phones sold are iPhones. (If that were the case, it would imply that lots of people were trading in their iPhones for Androids.)
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
"fangirl" because calling someone a "girl" is so much more insulting.
As an Apple user, you really should try to think different next time.
You are welcome on my lawn.
You know, the bloatware argument matches my experience. The last two upgrades, my wife and I bought phones from different manufacturers. Very similar hardware, but the nameplate I bought is known to use a very vanilla Android, and hers is from a company that throws all kinds of bloatware on. Each time, her phone died about 4-6 months sooner than mine, with very similar usage patterns.
Anecdotal, of course, but it's part of my reasoning for keeping my phones pretty vanilla.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Certainly so, and that's something worth considering since it's an excellent point. In this particular situation, however, that doesn't seem to be the case, given that they exhibited subscriber share growth that ever-so-slightly outpaced the cumulative Android subscriber growth rate for the top Android OEMs listed in the survey. That said, I suspect that if the more marginal Android OEMs were also considered, Apple may have been ever-so-slightly behind instead of ahead, but that doesn't matter either way, since it'd still paint a picture of a company with a sales share that is roughly proportional to its subscriber share. Which is to say, around 40%.
There's N channels for each radio technology: 1XRTT, 3G, EVDO-RevA and RevB, LTE, etc.
The phone gets informed by the carrier which channel it is on, and depending on the channel, it will bring up the antenna more, or less often, to receive things like SMS, PTT, that should come in a timely manner. There are many strategies to keep the traffic channel up, or to trip and dip into the network less frequently.
You also do not have any control of which traffic channel you will be on, as that's pushed down to you depending on congestion, and signal strength, etc.
They work the exact same way, so I suspect they are dipping into the traffic channel less often (as well as getting fewer updates from the network) for T-Mobile than for VzW.
It could also be that 15% refers to sales marketshare (i.e., new users) instead of subscriber marketshare (i.e., existing userbase). It's completely conceivable that maybe 41% of smartphones being used by people today are iPhones, but 15% of new phones sold are iPhones. (If that were the case, it would imply that lots of people were trading in their iPhones for Androids.)
That implication only holds if iPhone users replace their phone as often as other phones. (That might be true, but the fact that 15% of new sales are iPhone does not imply iPhone users are buying Androids. Androids make a very good first smart phone and might be capturing the non-smartphone or new-to-phone market or children market). We need to look at a lot more data than what you quoted to make your conclusion.
iPhones tend to be identical regardless of what carrier you are on.
Not really. There are nearly as many differences with iPhones as there are with any Android phone that's on multiple carriers,
That's true for hardware differences. Software differences skew this gap far wider. An AT&T iPhone's software is far more similar to a Verizon iPhone's software than a similar comparison for Androids.
Or it could mean that people keep their iPhones longer.
From the article “make sure that it’s receiving at least 3 bars of service” The words “at least” worry me here. That seems to imply some had 3 bars and some had 5. Since signal strength is often tied to network speed and how much power the radio needs to communicate with the towers this alone makes the results suspect. A carrier with 5 bars is going to have a huge advantage over one with 3. Maybe they misspoke and really they all had the same number of bars... even then I'd think they'd have to run a speed test as well since those bars are phone service bars not 3G/4G/LTE/whatever bars.
They simply disable CDMA in the AT&T/T-Mobile version. The Verizon version has both CDMA and GSM and frequencies for all three carriers.
- posted from a "Verizon" iPhone I bought new contract-free and only ever used with a T-Mobile SIM .
The Sprint version is significantly different.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
>Didn't RTFA so don't know they compared the same four phones on each of the four networks, with sixteen phones tested in all.
I think this is what you said. Let me know if I mistranslated.
This is not really related to T-Mobile, but I do know that the battery life on my wife's HTC Vivid **DOUBLED** when I installed CM11 on it.
It used to last 7-8 hours and now she can comfortably go all day and not have to carry a power pack around with her everywhere she goes.
The iPhone would actually be a more effective test because iPhones tend to be identical regardless of what carrier you are on.
That's not true. The iPhone 5s itself has eight different models.
A1533 or A1457 or A1530: iPhone 5s (GSM model)
A1533 or A1453: iPhone 5s (CDMA model)
A1518 or A1528 or A1530: iPhone 5s (GSM model China)
Different versions of the same model phone use different radio chips.
I just bought my wife an S4 Mini, with a choice of at least 5 different models that only really differ in the radio chip - I9190, I9192, I9195T, I9195L and I9197.
They're all S4 Mini's, one without LTE or NFC, one with dual SIM, the others are all LTE with different frequency bands.
41% is still a minority. are we done w/ iphone v. android for the day?
No one is arguing that they're not a minority. I'm just contradicting the "irrelevant" qualifier that is clearly mistaken with regards to the US market.
You're seriously arguing about this because they didn't use the exact same physical units across all four carriers for each of the four phones? Come on.
Jesus Christ they never run out of things to fuck up.
Think adjective, use adverb.
Therefore, "think differently".
I have two prepaid cellphones, one from Verizon (it says Alltel on the phone from the days before transition) and one from T-mobile, which currently has like 80 cents left on it. Both are LG now, though I've been through a few Samsung and Nokia ones that ended up defective on the T-mobile side, but LG seems to be an amazing brand. The LG on the Verizon/Alltel is so plain vanilla that it does not even have a camera, and I love it. Also, whoever in their right mind would buy a smartphone? Having a smartphone means you get away from the computer and sit on the web with the smartphone, more and more, and as far as I know, cell phones and smartphones won't even start up without a SIM card, or run completely off the network, and you're constantly getting snooped on, and with the cloud coming, all your data will be held hostage with you getting blackmailed for access. My little HP Mini Laptop is nice in that if I don't wanna be on the network, I pull the Ethernet cable out of the socket, and it still works, unlike a smartphone, that's off the network, it's almost useless. Even hitting the pause button on top of the cable modem, or powering off a wifi connection where the LED light is off, indicating it's off, it's no guarantee that its not actually on, just pretending to be off. It gets very complicated to bypass a plain wire connection, as if I yank the 100Base-TX cable from the Ethernet socket, and the Internet is still on, and the computer acts like somebody hacked into it and it's getting remote controlled, something is not kosher and they got some explanation to do. If they made a smartphone that can go off network, or function without a build in SIM, just a plugin SIM, and run fine even without any SIM present, I might be interested, if the price is good. But I don't really see what I'd use it for. Also, if I yanked the SIM out of the socket, hot-plug style, it should still work, but without any network activity, as in if it were a fake, makebelieve SIM socket, and the whole thing actually ran off of a built in SIM, but the device also takes into consideration the SIM you plugged in, when reporting things to you.
That's a shame, as a necktie is the only proper piece of clothing to wear while having sex.
I took an unlocked Nokia 1520 from AT&T, to T-Mobile, to Consumer Cellular.
Originally, on AT&T, I could not make it through a complete day on a single charge. Took it off the charger at 4:30AM. Battery was dead by 3pm.
Took phone to t-mobile. Off charger at 4:30AM, phone still had a quarter charge left at 10:30PM when I plugged it back in.
Now on Consumer Cellular. Same phone. AT&T is the service provider to Consumer Cellular. Battery is not making it through the day again.
Usage patterns are similar through all three carriers. I did not do any rigorous scientific tests on this. This is observational usage data.
An AT&T iPhone's software is far more similar to a Verizon iPhone's software than a similar comparison for Androids.
But an unlocked dual-SIM CDMA/GSM phone would have no differences across either network?
Learn to love Alaska
They already did.
The iPhone 4s was GSM/CDMA. There was only one 4s.
As far as the 5s (from Apple's site). All of their phones support GSM. The difference is support for CDMA and the LTE bands they support.
Model A1533 (GSM)*: UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1700/2100, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz); LTE (Bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 13, 17, 19, 20, 25)
Model A1533 (CDMA)*: CDMA EV-DO Rev. A and Rev. B (800, 1700/2100, 1900, 2100 MHz); UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1700/2100, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz); LTE (Bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 13, 17, 19, 20, 25)
Model A1453*: CDMA EV-DO Rev. A and Rev. B (800, 1700/2100, 1900, 2100 MHz); UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1700/2100, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz); LTE (Bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26)
Model A1457*: UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz); LTE (Bands 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 20)
Model A1530*: UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz); FDD-LTE (Bands 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 20); TD-LTE (Bands 38, 39, 40)
Did the study include the effects of calling over wifi?
I have t-mobile and connect to wifi networks at home and work for my phone connection and my charge lasts a lot longer than
when I'm away from wifi networks I can use.
As far as I know, I think t-mobile is the only carrier to implement calling over wifi.
(What, RTFA and check if that's mentioned? Of course not...)
nope.. it's just that the one's who came up with 41% used their own, twisted, value based non technical definition of "smartphone".
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
an unlocked dual-SIM CDMA/GSM phone
Isn't quite so easy to find on the shelves of major U.S. retail chains, as I understand it.
as far as I know, cell phones and smartphones won't even start up without a SIM card
I'm told smartphones with no SIM work on Wi-Fi to roughly the same extent as an iPod touch or Wi-Fi-only tablet.
But quite easy to order and have delivered for testing purposes. And much cheaper than a similar phone in a major retail chain.
Learn to love Alaska
T-Mobile has Wifi calling. It turns off the Cell radio and uses WIFI for calls. This is one likely reason Calls are made through a router 50 feet away instead of a tower a mile away.
Bloatware on my Verizn phone means when a phone call comes in, or a page, and I view it, the browser is killed off due to lack of RAM. When I switch back, the browser re-downloads the page.
Verizon is pathetic. There's a "kill off unnecessary running programs" feature under task manager that they had to be dragged kicking and screaming to use, and it kills off just one thing, too. Which increases used RAM by 2 mb instead of decreasing, and that program shortly auto-restarts anyway.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Especially since the bloatware question could be answered with iPhones...
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
T-Mobile and AT&T are ahead of Verizon and Sprint in battery life because of their use of GSM. GSM is a widely used global standard while CDMA is mostly found in North America, so power efficiency of the GSM radio probably gets more attention. GSM reception is also less computationally intensive; the spread spectrum methods used by CDMA take more work to decode. This all has some impact even if you never talk on the phone, because it is using power to maintain its connection on the network.
Talk time is a more complex equation. Both standards use power control, so battery life is lower in weak signal areas. A CDMA radio has more stringent signal linearity requirements - it must maintain constant power and constant signal delay across the entire spread spectrum - that make it less efficient than a GSM radio.
Then there is data power consumption. That is a complex calculus of amounts of data, bands and modes used for data communication, and network congestion. AT&T and T-Mobile have a mix of LTE, HSPA+, and HSDPA, and heaven forbid, EDGE in remote areas. (T-Mobile had HSPA+ 42 in some areas though they no longer offer that speed in areas with LTE coverage; AT&T topped out at HSPA+ 21.) Verizon and Sprint mix LTE with 1xEV-DO and 1xRTT; their non-LTE networks are much slower, so any data transmission on those networks takes longer and uses more power.
That's what I thought at first as well, but then I realized it doesn't have to do with the OS but the hardware itself, which is what IOS vs Android is.
So, even though Android has 52% of the OS market share, it has that share based on many, many different models of phones by many manufacturers. Whereas the 41% that Apple has (funny, 41% of OS market share *and* 41% of hardware market share) is spread out among three or four models *total*, all made by Apple. The test had to do with hardware and battery longevity, not necessarily OS issues, though OS issues can indeed contribute, which makes my arguement even more pertinent.
So Anubis does have a good point, and it would have been a more stable test than the one that was done.
...which usually come with a cheaper phone.
I have firsthand experience of this. I had a $30/mo. account; my next-door neighbor had a $60/mo. account. I could only get about half the signal she did, even in the exact same location.
I don't know how that impacts battery life, but I got about 10 hours on a cheap phone (at least, before its battery went poorly at just over a year old).
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
If you're being serious in that accusation about their methods being tainted by poor definitions, I'd be sincerely interested in knowing what beef you have with comScore's numbers so that I can look into them myself. I'm the one who cited comScore's 41% number, but I don't like citing numbers if there's good reason to distrust them, at least not without pointing out that they should be taken with a massive grain of salt, ya know? So, if you do have an issue with their numbers, I really would be interested in knowing the details.