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If WiFi is activated, the phone expends energy trying to find WiFi connections, even if I'm not using the internet. Is the same true for mobile data? Does the phone expend any energy trying to keep a good data connection even while it's connected to the internet via WiFi? If so, I'll set Llama to disable mobile data while WiFi is connected. Will that make a difference to my battery life?

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When Wifi is activated, all data is pulled down via the Wifi. It is a mutually exclusive/flip-flop mechanism. That is to say, if Wifi is off, 3G is used.

And yes, regardless of whether one or the other is activated, battery is being used likewise :)

No discernible difference in terms of battery consumption.

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  • I understand your first paragraph, but I'm not sure about the other two. Your second appears to be false. If Wi-Fi is activated it will use more power, regardless of whether you're actually connected to/using the internet. My question is if the same is true for mobile data.
    – MikeFHay
    Commented Sep 19, 2012 at 10:06
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    using 3G does use battery, think about it, either way, battery juice is used! Look at the masts you see out there, 3G continuously hopping and scanning for the nearest mast...that's what happens when using 3g mobile data... and expensive operation on the battery may I add!
    – t0mm13b
    Commented Sep 19, 2012 at 12:47
  • That's my thinking, but I wondered if perhaps Android was intelligent enough to not bother scanning for a good signal when it's connected to WiFi.
    – MikeFHay
    Commented Sep 19, 2012 at 13:10
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    Android does not care nor discriminate the lower-level base-band radio scanning (we're talking about telephony here), that is left to the actual radio firmware to deal with :)
    – t0mm13b
    Commented Sep 19, 2012 at 13:19

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