Hacker News Reader

I'd be very careful claiming that LTE provides an "enormous boost to battery life" based on a benchmark that loads web pages at a fixed interval, with fixed brightness, and with minimal caching.

In this particular benchmark, it is very clear that LTE is the winner across the board. In 'real world usage', I have to disagree. I'm sure anyone with an LTE phone will tell you that disabling the LTE radio absolutely gives a boost in day-to-day battery life.

View on HN

> "In 'real world usage', I have to disagree. I'm sure anyone with an LTE phone will tell you that disabling the LTE radio absolutely gives a boost in day-to-day battery life."

This has been my experience as well. I find that in every day use, especially in areas not saturated with strong LTE, it can become a battery suck.

I'm certain downloading a 200 mb PDF over LTE in Manhattan takes less power than downloading that PDF over HSDPA+, GSM, or GPRS. But in my experience with several devices, having LTE on all day in Fairfield County, finding it sometimes but often not, takes more power in so-called "standby".

Reply on news.ycombinator.com