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apeacock

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 9, 2008
52
0
I'm thinking about switching my e-mail hosting over to a provider that supports ActiveSync so I can get push e-mail, but I'm concerned about battery life. What have other people's experiences been with battery life on Exchange? Right now I'm set to 15 minute fetch, so that will get turned off.
 
With push mail the device sends a notice to the exchange server, and when the exchange server gets a new e-mail it sends it to the phone. It doesn't have much of an impact on battery life. I have to charge my iPhone 3g almost everyday but that would be because I browse the internet on it all of the time. I also have it fetch e-mail from both of my gmail accounts every hour. I wish they'd make it push mail like BlackBerry.
 
would have to disagree here.

I have exchange. On push I get about 50% of the uptime as I do with Fetch (which stand to reason because push is really a always active connection). For this reason, I generally go to push when traveling and fetch at home. I also find Push to be unpredictable. Sometimes it doesn't notify you of new emails and things get hung up.
 
I have exchange. On push I get about 50% of the uptime as I do with Fetch (which stand to reason because push is really a always active connection).

Push is active when it's sending you an e-mail. If you're constantly getting e-mails, then yes, it will always be active.

But if you get 1 e-mail per hour it will be active once per hour which would be better than 15-minute fetch.

So really, it depends on what your e-mail life is like.
 
Push is active when it's sending you an e-mail. If you're constantly getting e-mails, then yes, it will always be active.

But if you get 1 e-mail per hour it will be active once per hour which would be better than 15-minute fetch.

So really, it depends on what your e-mail life is like.

That is not how I understand it. This is how I believe it works

Turn on push
Send server a message to open a connection
connection stays open
when email arrives, reply to the ping (which stays open in 60 min periods, I believe)
device listens for a reply that whole time, gets one, downloads email.

so it is an always on connection. Its not a blackberry.
 
abnospam is correct in how it works (which I was aware of) - the phone opens a long lasting connection to the Exchange server over HTTPS, which holds off on sending any data back until something happens - then it finally sends back the response. It isn't a constantly transferring connection, but it is an open connection.

There has been some dispute as to what impact this has on battery life (since data going back and forth is what really kills battery life, and less data goes with push, afaik, but the connection is open a lot more).
 
I think Small White Car has hit the nail on the head. It all depends how often you get email.

I have a very active work email account that I sync with my iPhone through ActiveSync. I keep it on one hour fetch except when I'm expecting something time critical, then I use Push.

But I'm not the kind of person that uses email for instant communication, so people don't expect instant response from me.
 
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