Apple employee claims HSDPA would drain battery in an hour

netdog

netdog

macrumors 603
My brother finally got his iPhone yesterday, and when he asked why HSDPA speeds aren't being supported yet in NYC, the Apple salesman told him that running the phone at HSDPA speeds (7.2) would drain the phone's battery in an hour or less.

Any truth to this?
 
netdog said:
My brother finally got his iPhone yesterday, and when he asked why HSDPA speeds aren't being supported yet in NYC, the Apple salesman told him that running the phone at HSDPA speeds (7.2) would drain the phone's battery in an hour or less.

Any truth to this?
Click to expand...
No. They don't know.
 
the iphone supports hsdpa... its in the tech specs. i know some peoples iphone battery is bad, but it lasts longer than an hour!
 
7.2 must have more radios in it, so it would burn more fuel (battery). Thought I would add that, considering in a vehicle more speed = more fuel. makes cents.
 
To be clear, when I said HSDPA, I was talking about speeds at 7.2 Mbit which, to my understanding, is the highest speed supported by the iPhone (but not by AT&T).
 
unless the HSDPA is using a different chipset than whats being used for UMTS right now, there should be no difference in battery life...assuming band spectrum (850) and signal strength are the same
 
3G and HSDPA are NOT synonymous; HSDPA (member of HSPA family) is known on Nokia phones as 3,5G. 3G (UMTS, baseline) allows for 384kbit/s, whereas HSDPA goes up to 14,4mbit/s

High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) is a 3G (third generation) mobile telephony communications protocol in the High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA) family, which allows networks based on Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) to have higher data transfer speeds and capacity.
Click to expand...
Source: Wikipedia.
 
HSDPA is NOT equivalent to 3G!

GSM -> EDGE -> UMTS -> HSDPA
2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5

UMTS (or W-CDMA), which has a maximum speed of 384Kbps, is 3G.
HSDPA (3.6Mbps theoretical maximum velocity in first versions,
7.2Mbps in most recent versions, that also have HSUPA)
is often advertised as 3.5G
 
I'm with the rest of the crowd on this, the guy knows nothing. I seriously doubt that it requires more power to use a HSDPA connection than it does to watch a movie on the iPhone.
 
phannon666 said:
I'm with the rest of the crowd on this, the guy knows nothing. I seriously doubt that it requires more power to use a HSDPA connection than it does to watch a movie on the iPhone.
Click to expand...

No, it doesn't. And, Gandalf2008 is correct. HSDPA supports up to a certain speed without HSUPA being implemented.
 
Battery drain

While I don't believe the Apple employee either, it is perfectly possible that
HSDPA usage could drain the processor quicker than UMTS usage, if more
processor power is needed for the HSDPA signal processing.
 
iPhone supports up to 7.2. The issue is att has that speed limited on all their smartphones so as to not strain their network. If att were to lift it's max speed limitation, our phones would be much faster although probably not at 7.2.
 
iPhone supports up to 7.2. The issue is att has that speed limited on all their smartphones so as to not strain their network. If att were to lift it's max speed limitation, our phones would be much faster although probably not at 7.2. The speed is limited to avoid network strain not prolong battery life.
 
Max speed on HSDPA

Everybody should remember that 7.2Mbps is a *theoretical* maximum speed...
probably not even attained in a laboratory under ideal circumstances.

In the US, I use a Verizon EVDO Rev A modem, and get up to 2Mbps real
download speeds.
In Europe, I use a 7.2Mbps HSDPA/HSUPA modem, and haven't ever gotten
more than 1Mbps real download speeds (and that's on various networks,
even very close to a tower, with all "bars")
 
netdog said:
My brother finally got his iPhone yesterday, and when he asked why HSDPA speeds aren't being supported yet in NYC, the Apple salesman told him that running the phone at HSDPA speeds (7.2) would drain the phone's battery in an hour or less.

Any truth to this?
Click to expand...

Listening to Apple Store employees is something that should be done purely for entertainment purposes.
 
In my testing all four HSDPA networks in Australia:

Consistently expect 1.5Mbit on Three and Telstra. Around 1Mbit but variable on Vodafone and Optus.

It doesn't seem any faster in my speed tests on the only network that supports 14.4Mbit (Telstra). The other networks only support 3.6Mbit at this stage here (all will offer 7.2 before years end, when Telstra is offering 21Mbit).

I haven't run speed tests in the middle of the night or outside the middle of the city, so it might be better than this for some....

While 7.2 decoding is more complex (more power), that is offset by downloading the same information in less time (saving power).

The iPhone is slower than a HSDPA modem plugged into a computer, but the phone is also hampered by its CPU and Flash memory. It pulls down 5Mbit on a WiFi connection that can do 17Mbit on a laptop.
 
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