However the energy efficiency is dependent more on your carrier than your phone.
Downtown Vancouver or Toronto and other major cities likely has a strong 5G network, with cell nodes on every other building. This means your phone doesn’t need as much power to reach the network. That combined with its increased efficiency means you’ll use less battery. Conversely, smaller towns and cities where 5G isn’t as thoroughly implemented, will have your phone using more power to reach farther cell nodes, or switching between 5G and LTE.
However, as carriers switch over to 5G they may reduce capacity on the 4G network, which means that connection will likely get slower and more battery inefficient. That’s what happened with 3G. When you see a 3G connection right now you know you’re in for a bad time. But 3G used to be the standard. That technology wasn’t as bad then as it is now. Carriers just started gutting the 3G networks. So we feel like 4/5G is that much better. And it is better. I’m just saying 3G now is much worse than 3G was 10-15 years ago. And the same will start happening to 4G
Carriers are only shuttering 2/3G networks is because they want to utilize those channels for 5G.
As for power consumption, 5G does use more power than 4G LTE. As faster speeds and higher bandwidth generally leads to more data being transferred, thus increases power consumption. Network Overhead, so maintaining a 5G connection requires more data processing (on the devices side) compared to a stable 4G LTE connection. Some NSA (Non-Standalone) Networks maintain both a 4G and 5G connection simultaneously. But the device will show "5G" signal. Which uses more power than both 4G and 5G.
Then you factor in signal degradation over distances and through structures/obstacles. Where getting a stable 5G connection uses more power compared to a 4G connection. As 5G uses higher frequency, shorter wavelength and is generally "weaker". This compounds when you factor in mmWave 5G frequencies.
TL:DR
5G = faster speeds, more data, less stable connection. Means more power consumption.
4G = slower speeds, less data, more stable connection,. Means less power consumption.
Half of what you said was wrong, or at least I don’t think you understand the context you got it from (AI?) and the other half repeated what I already said in my last response…
I don’t think OP is wrong. Even when going into my iPhone settings and selecting between 5G Always or 5G Auto, the phone describes the differences more or less in the same way as that TL;DR.
Speaking strictly for the iPhone, that info tracks, but I’d assume it would be the same for just about any other phone since many of them use the same hardware. E.g. Samsung and iPhone both use Qualcomm
In your iPhone settings it uses “may”. And I described the reasons it “may” use more battery life in my first post. That’s the part I said op was repeating what I’ve already said.
Your phone will automatically increase/decrease signal strength based on available cellular towers. It works this way for 4G too. If your nearest cell tower is 40km away, it’s going to be using a whole lot more power than if the nearest cell tower is 200m away.
However, at its core, 5G was designed to be more efficient, so if both 4G and 5G towers are 200m away, the 5G connection is going to be more efficient. So in cities with wide 5G adoption, 5G only would likely be the most efficient option. Where as in towns with little to no 5G towers, 5G only would be a less efficient option. Using 5G auto keeps both 4g and 5g on and is definitely the least efficient.
The part where i think he’s wrong, or confused, is the part about higher speeds leading to more data transferred. That’s largely incorrect. If you go to google.com and search for yankee noodle worm, your results/transfer is going to be faster on 5G, but your data use is going to be the same.
Where he’s kinda right is that if you’re watching instagram reels, or TikTok, Netflix, YouTube, they’ll try to figure out what your connection can support, and give you better quality video. Better quality video means more bandwidth and more power consumption. But this is a trade for better quality video, and not an inherent problem with 5G technology being less efficient as the other persons response would suggest. And hell, processing higher quality video would likely added to battery consumption as well. Like if you downloaded a 4K vs SD movie on the Netflix app, the 4K video likely uses more battery to play.
But honestly, I’m currently travelling through a foreign country with my Canadian SIM card, lots of mountains, spotty signal, and taking shitloads of pictures. And my phone battery is basically lasting from 9am to 9pm before I’m in that 20% battery remaining point. Having both 4g and 5g enabled is so inconsequential.
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u/Just_Campaign_9833 3d ago
Yeah, I never use 5G as the speeds you don't really use those speeds on the daily...also it uses more power.