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3G Jailbroken iPad vs Wifi Non-Jailbroken iPad: Battery Test In Progress

H

HXGuy

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 25, 2010
1,679
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Im doing a side by side comparison test to see how each perform.

DAY 1

The 3G is a 16GB model and is jailbroken. 3G radio is ON in Data Settings.
The WIFI is a 32GB and is not jailbroken.

Brightness is set at 50% on each. Volume is at max. Location services is turned on.


Test #1: Playing a streaming movie off of Netflix (Les Miserables) over WiFi. Started at 11:48AM.

I'll keep this updated as the day goes if you want to check back in.

1 Hour In: 3G: 96% Wifi: 98% (2% difference)

3 hours In: 3G 82% Wifi 85% (3% difference)

5 hours In: 3G 69% Wifi 72% (4% difference) - I started playing a new movie, Monsters, Inc. as it's not a dark scene movie and it is full screen (vs. dark scenes and widescreen in Les Miserables)

8 hours In: 3G 43% Wifi 49% (6% difference)

10 hours In: 3G 26% Wifi 34% (8% difference)

12 hours In: 3G 9% Wifi 19% (10% difference) - Test stopped at 12 hours.


Day 2

Same test as yesterday but now with 3G radio set to OFF in Data Settings.

Test started at 8:10AM.

1 Hour In: 3G: 98% Wifi: 98% (0% difference)

3 hours In: 3G iPad: 83% Wifi: 84% (1% difference)

5 hours In: 3G iPad: 68% Wifi: 69% (1% difference)

8 hours In: 3G iPad: 42% Wifi: 44% (2% difference)

10 hours In: 3G iPad: 25% Wifi: 28% (3% difference) - Stopping the test at 10 hours.
 
I think a battery test would work better if you change only one thing at a time, like a 3G vs a Wifi OR a jailbroken vs non jailbroken. Doing two different devices with one jailbroken and the other not won't give you any kind of useful results.

Has anyone tested a jailbroken WiFi vs a non jailbroken WiFi?
 
I agree but Im not going to un-jailbreak the 3G just to test it, not worth the hassle.

They are both streaming over Wifi however and there should not be any difference in that aspect. Just because the 3G iPad has a 3G chip should not mean different performance when not using the 3G service, right?
 
HXGuy said:
I agree but Im not going to un-jailbreak the 3G just to test it, not worth the hassle.

They are both streaming over Wifi however and there should not be any difference in that aspect. Just because the 3G iPad has a 3G chip should not mean different performance when not using the 3G service, right?
Click to expand...

I hope you turned off the 3G in the Network preferences before starting this test, otherwise it means nothing...
 
WilliamG said:
I hope you turned off the 3G in the Network preferences before starting this test, otherwise it means nothing...
Click to expand...

Yea? I didn't turn it off...but I figured it would be off since it's picking up a Wifi signal, no?

Crap, may have to start all over. :p
 
Yeah usually 3G turns off once you have wifi so you should be good. I'm actually interested in the results. I haven't noticed any major battery drain than what I normally would experience, but it could be so minor I can't gauge it unless tested.
 
Gqkevyn said:
Yeah usually 3G turns off once you have wifi so you should be good. I'm actually interested in the results. I haven't noticed any major battery drain than what I normally would experience, but it could be so minor I can't gauge it unless tested.
Click to expand...

Update:

3 hours: 3G 82% Wifi 85%

This is CRAZY battery life. In 3 hours, the battery life went down only 15%! That is almost 20 hours if it's linear!
 
Also, I will do another test with 3G actually turned off in Settings as the 3G seems to be draining just a fraction faster and I don't know if it's because of the 3G radio or the jailbreak.

Should I try with a different movie on the second test? The Les Miserables movie is made up mostly of dark scenes and wow is the battery lasting forever.
 
5 hours In: 3G 69% Wifi 72% - I started playing a new movie, Monsters, Inc. as it's not a dark scene movie and it is full screen (vs. dark scenes and widescreen in Les Miserables)
 
the ipad truly does have an amazing battery life. each day i'm simply amazed at how slowly the battery % meter goes down. it's awesome.
 
How does the battery life compare with an iPod touch? Just curious. BTW, Apple is definitely on their game with battery life. The new Macbook Pros claims to get 10 hours of battery life as well.
 
Update after 8 hours...

Monsters, Inc. played and finished and I started playing The Proposal in full screen. The 3G iPad is definitely going through the battery at a faster rate...it has 6% less battery life after 8 hours (43% vs 49%) which is still excellent. I will need to of course test this again tomorrow with the 3G/Data actually turned off in settings to see if the difference is from the 3G/Data or from the Jailbreak.
 
Wow. This experiment tells us absolutely nothing. There are too many different variables between the two devices. You need to test one at a time, dude. And you even left the 3G turned on? Wow.
 
cmaier said:
Wow. This experiment tells us absolutely nothing. There are too many different variables between the two devices. You need to test one at a time, dude. And you even left the 3G turned on? Wow.
Click to expand...

Too many variables?

Jailbroken
3G

That is two variables...where do you see "too many"?
 
HXGuy said:
Too many variables?

Jailbroken
3G

That is two variables...where do you see "too many"?
Click to expand...

This test shows nothing about how either 3G or jailbreaking is affecting the battery life. So basically your test will give no new information. There are too many variables because you will not be able to solve out your unknown variables with the data you are collecting.
 
Davidkoh said:
This test shows nothing about how either 3G or jailbreaking is affecting the battery life. So basically your test will give no new information. There are too many variables because you will not be able to solve out your unknown variables with the data you are collecting.
Click to expand...

Not sure if we are looking at the same data.

Through 10 hours, the data shows me that the 3G jailbroken iPad consumes 8% more battery life then a non Jailbroken Wifi iPad.

Is that because of the 3G radio being on or because it's jailbroken? Ill find that out tomorrow but what I do have so far definitely is new information to me. Once I have the data tomorrow...I will know how much battery the 3G uses in comparison as well as much much the jailbreaking by subtracting the difference.
 
HXGuy said:
Not sure if we are looking at the same data.

Through 10 hours, the data shows me that the 3G jailbroken iPad consumes 8% more battery life then a non Jailbroken Wifi iPad.

Is that because of the 3G radio being on or because it's jailbroken? Ill find that out tomorrow but what I do have so far definitely is new information to me. Once I have the data tomorrow...I will know how much battery the 3G uses in comparison as well as much much the jailbreaking by subtracting the difference.
Click to expand...

I guess you could collect more data and see if there is any dependancy between using 3G and jailbreaking at the same time, but that would most likely require you to have a larger dataset.

If you test with 3G off you will be able to see how jailbreaking is affecting the battery life, that is correct. But you cannot subtract jailbreak from 3G+jailbreak and expect to get the 3G time, atleast not without knowing the correlation between 3G and jailbreak. So basically this test have not provided any relevant data.
 
Final update for today:

I stopped the test at 12 hours because well, I have to get to sleep. :)

3G iPad: 9%
Wifi iPad: 19%

First of all...that is INSANE battery power. 12 hours of continuous video playback from Netflix and still that much battery left? C'mon Apple...that's too much already! ;)

Today's conclusions are...

Wifi iPad: 7.5% per hour battery power when playing video full screen.
5.5% per hour battery power when playing a movie in widescreen

3G Jailbroken iPad (w/ 3G radio turned on): 8.5% per hour battery power when playing video full screen.
6.25% per hour when playing a movie in widescreen.
5.5% battery power when playing a movie in widescreen
 
All I know is that I am getting killed on battery life with my 3G. I was playing a game last night for 30 minutes. I got hit for 12% battery loss during that time. I was going to go exchange it but hearing that there is no stock left, I don't know what I am going to do.
 
HXGuy said:
Too many variables?

Jailbroken
3G

That is two variables...where do you see "too many"?
Click to expand...

You can't tell whether the difference is caused by 3G vs wifi, jailbreak vs no jailbreak, or an interaction between both factors. If you run again with 3g turned off and get different results, you can't then just subtract one from the other to isolate effects, because they might be interacting. Google "design of experiments.".
 
That's true, it's not going to be the end all of battery tests, but Im curious to see what happens today with the 3G Data turned off. If its exactly the same as yesterday, then we know its 100% the jailbreak causing the battery consumption, right? And if they are identical to each other in battery use today, then we would know that the jailbreak has no effect on battery life.

If its something in between...well then...I guess we won't know exactly what is causing what, but we can assume. :)
 
And here we go...this is good.

1 hour in, both the 3G and WIFI iPads are at 98%, identical to each other. Yesterday, after 1 hour of use, the 3G was off by 2% compared to the WIFI model. Good to see the consistency of the WIFI model too...after 1 hour yesterday, it dropped to 98%, just like today. :)
 
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