Living on the EDGE

In my previous post I have spoken about the fact that I have gotten my hand on the second coming of Apple’s smartphone, the iPhone 3G. All in all, I’m really really satisfied with the machine, works all as Steve-ified.

However the 3G coverage in Dublin and Ireland for that matter, is a different kettle of fish. Not in all areas I have taken the device to there was coverage for it, especially outside the city. Interestingly though, in Cavan, about 150 km from Dublin, there is 3G coverage with 4 or even 5 bars. But outside those areas, it’s pretty much 3G-less.

I tested the device on different configurations. Once with Wi-Fi on, 3G on, and check mail every 15 minutes. On top of that I played around with the GPS. Unsurprisingly the battery kissed bye-bye pretty quickly.

Then turned off Wi-Fi, but left 3G on. As it turns out with normal usage like music, some web, some email, and some Maps, the battery still drained fast.

Well right now I’m on a more or less skeleton configuration, which is probably enough for most users. I’m doing almost anything on 2.5G better known as EDGE, which works very well in most cases. Here’s my advise on what to do to get the most of your battery:

- Turn off 3G. Only turn it on when you really need it (App Store, big mail attachments). This will force the device to switch to EDGE. Funny to turn off the one thing what the iPhone 3G is about – but trust me… Battery life will increase dramatically. If you need it for huge downloads, you can enable it at anytime and turn it off once you’re done. Settings / General / Network / Enable 3G / OFF.

- Turn off Wi-Fi. Use it only when required and don’t let the device constantly scan and check for a network if you’re not gonna join anyways. Wi-Fi is a significant drain – however it can be a saver if you use it quite often, so it’s your call. My advise is to leave it off until you need it. Settings / Wi-Fi / OFF.

- Only use the (A-)GPS when you really need it. By the way, a sort of Turn-By-Turn navigation is available when you let it calculate the route and ask it for the steps The GPS is using some good juice.

- Set the brightness of the display to 50% (on the centre of the slider) and use the function to automatically adjust brightness. Settings / Brightness / Auto-Brightness / ON.

- Set the mail check to “Hourly” or turn it off altogether if you prefer to check manually.

- The camera processor is using some juice when you use the camera. Only use when you really need it.

Do these things, and you can observe an increased battery life on your iPhone 3G. And to be honest… I made some tests with websites and loading them on EDGE instead of 3G – for me the speed really is good enough, same for email. You are on a mobile device at the end of the day, not a super broadband machine (except on Wi-Fi). If you gonna follow these steps is ultimately up to you, I have found these to work pretty well.