T-Mobile Smartphones Outlast Competitors' Identical Models

An anonymous reader writes Laptop Mag battery tested the leading phones on all four major U.S. carriers and found that the same models on T-Mobile typically last 1 to 3 hours longer on a charge. This trend is not new, but has continued for over 3 years of testing. The article says While we don’t know for certain why T-Mobile phones last longer on a charge, there are some strong possibilities. T-Mobile’s network could be more efficient at sending and receiving data because of the bands it uses, or maybe there are far fewer customers on its LTE network, easing the strain. Another possibility is that T-Mobile tends to pre-load less bloatware on its flagship devices relative to the other carriers. AT&T is firmly in second place in the battery life findings presented, with Verizon and Sprint jockeying for last of the four carriers measured. It woud be interesting to see a similar test battery for phones in marginal reception areas; searching for service seems to deplete my battery faster than talking does.

network config

[Maxx169]

My bet - different CDRX settings, fast dormancy, idle timers. Is probably a better engineered network.

Re: Correction: T-Mobile Android Smartphones

[ZorinLynx]

The iPhone would actually be a more effective test because iPhones tend to be identical regardless of what carrier you are on. I'm extremely surprised they did not test the iPhone for this reason.

Re:No towers in range?

[chromaexcursion]

When a phone has signal, the back channel includes information about neighboring cells. So, it knows where to look for the next back channel. Only a few frequencies to tune to. The problem starts when contact is lost. Phones use power looking for a signal. Re-tuning the receiver is not free.
They continuously tune over a series of frequencies looking for one. And keep cycling through them.
This bitter cycle of finding nothing uses up a phones battery very quickly. Before smart phones it was the single largest power user.
This is an OLD problem. It was well known in the industry in 1990.

I started writing software for cell phone companies in 1990. I learned more than I ever wanted to know about how cell phones work. Moved on to a different industry in 2000. Some things don't change. At least not quickly.