Smartphones

To my shock, chagrin, and horror, I have discovered a smartphone foible that has significant results for battery life.

My phone is a GSM phone. This, I am assured by wikipedia, means it is comfortable with 2G networks. Phone specs assure me it is also capable of connecting to 3G networks. In fact it is capable of connecting to HSDPA, sometimes called 3.5G. But whatever. The more common meaning of "3G" is WCDMA, which came before HSDPA. Still with me? I'm a bit lost myself on these topics, but lets forge ahead.

My phone allows me to choose network types, via: Menu > Settings > Wireless & networks > Mobile networks > Network preferences

And under Network preferences I get a list:

GSM/WCDMA (auto mode)
WCDMA only
GSM only
GSM/WCDMA (WCDMA preferred)

Where the phone says GSM it means 2G and where it says WCDMA it means 3G. (I think.) The default setting is the fourth, GSM/WCDMA (WCDMA preferred). In other words, choose either network but prefer WCDMA if you can get it. WCDMA is faster, and even a weak WCDMA signal can be better than a strong GSM signal. This fourth setting is presumably great if you have good 3G coverage in your area. But if you don't, then your phone will spend all day hunting for better connections. That is, while idle, it will still be working, sucking down battery juice, powering up the antenna to try and find some WCDMA connection.

So I've grown accustomed to charging my phone once a day. If I didn't, it'd flatten out within 24 hours. Battery percentage drops even when I'm not using it. I thought this is what smartphones do.

But as a test yesterday I set my phone to GSM only. It made no difference to the download speeds I get for my (minimal) data usage. It made a shocking difference to battery use though. Idling for most of the day, the battery strength dropped by, literally, 2 or 3 percent only. I would have expected maybe 20 or 30.

What does this all mean? My area has poor 3G? My China Mobile sim doesn't get 3G? The phone tells me I'm on an EDGE network which is not real 3G, more like 2.5G, but....

I dunno. I'm just blown away by how my phone isn't burning through the battery anymore doing nothing.

ok gonna test this now too - my phone barely lasts a day without charging atm, which is murder when travelling

NB: for data, GSM *is* noticeably slower than WCDMA.

Today I'm going to try out "GSM/WCDMA (auto mode)", which if I understand correctly, will usually leave the phone in GSM mode, but will connect to WCDMA if I start using data.

Sooo.... does anyone actually know about 3G in China?

As far as I can tell, if you didn't specifically sign up for 3G when you got your phone number, you're probably not a 3G subscriber. With China Mobile, you're more likely an EDGE network user, which is a souped-up 2G. Actual 3G with China Mobile uses a proprietary standard called TD-SCDMA, and you need one of their phones to make it work. China Unicom uses WCDMA, one of the earlier 3G standards, and it should work on international phones. China Telecom uses CDMA2000, which is also a 3G, presumably international too.

The latest and greatest "3G" standard is HSPA+, and as far as I know, it's not in China.

Of WCDMA, Wikipedia tells me this: "While not an evolutionary upgrade on the airside, it uses the same core network as the 2G GSM networks deployed worldwide, allowing dual mode mobile operation along with GSM/EDGE; a feat it shares with other members of the UMTS family."


I can't tell if that means I can have WCDMA access through China Mobile or not.

The 3G network for China Mobile is specific for them and doesn't work with handsets without their specific specs. You would default to Edge (sort of). Of course if you buy a 3G phone from a China Mobile it sill be so equipped but if you buy it overseas it won't.

The China Unicom 3G is the same standards that the West uses. You have to sign up for 3G as the data rates cost more. With Unicom the numbers starting with 186... Are the 3G ones and there may be more now. I believe Telecom has started to roll out 3G also but I haven't looked into them as I've been using Unicom 3G for about 3 years now and have been satisfied with them.

I've been using my LePhone for a couple of weeks and I like it a lot. The only real issue I have is that it doesn't have a large storage capacity, but I can fix that with a larger external card (I originally only had a 2G one on my old phone, mostly for music). It also slows down a bit when it is downloading or when lots of apps are open, but I imagine that is sort of normal.

I'm looking to get smartphones for my mom and dad now too. Mom wanted a LePhone like mine, but China mobile was sold out of my model. They have ZTE and Huawei and a couple of Samsung phones that I think are NOT Galaxy phones but some sort of Chinese market thingies. I'm leaning towards the ZTE because it has a really big 4.3 inch screen and my mom's eyes are not that great.

China unicom is starting to do my herad in. I've had to top up 3 times in the last month (100 every time) I'm not doing anything that costs much money so i'm pretty sure it's a screw up at their end, but i cant really do anything about it as the guy in my local unicom is a rude asshat and my chinese isn't good enough

Been surfing the net without a data plan?  Using your phone when travelling?  Those can both drain your credit pretty fast.

I have a monthly data plan.

at the start of the month for some reason it didn't reset and I went way over it, so I went and paid the bill a second time and it still didn't reset. I paid agian 2 days ago and it hasn't reset so I'm just avoiding using data for now.

I haven't left Shanghai since I arrived 4 months ago so I doubt it's that

Is anyone else concerned about this?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704694004576020083703574602.html
Or am I just being paranoid?

I pretty much assumed this was the case, a smartphone is a computer which is connected to the www, therefore it's prone to spyware etc being smuggled in through applications. I don't like it but I accept that it's the risk you run using a smartphone.

Most people have their computer protected with anti virus / anti spyware programs, firewalls, cleaning programs etc but who goes to the same lengths with their phone?

One thing is for sure, I have no sympathy for app companies who complain about their applications being pirated when they are pulling sneaky underhand s### themselves.

Have you guys been asked to turn off your phones on airplanes even if you have them in airplane mode? I flew from Kunming to Beijing this past weekend and was using my phone in plane mode to watch movies and the stewardess came over and told me that was not ok. Meanwhile the guy across the aisle is rocking his iPad and no one is saying anything? I ignored the stewardess and kept watching my movie (which probably makes me an asshole, but I hate flying and media keeps me sane) and then later on some random dude came by and got on my case for using my phone. I told him if he wanted to be the phone police to go patrol the rest of the plane for mobile devices because I surely wasn't the only one using my phone for games or movies.

Anyhow, what's the point of having a plane mode if you can't use it on a plane? And isn't the whole "phones can crash planes" thing pretty much BS anyhow, plane mode or no?

Is anyone else concerned about this?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704694004576020083703574602.html
Or am I just being paranoid?

That article is almost two years old and did cause a big stir when it originally ran. In brief, this is old news.

I know Apple made a lot of changes to both it's then-iOS and in the later ones in response to that article and the blowback from it, as well as requiring 3rd party apps to abide by Apple's revised privacy requirements including prohibitions against apps harvesting contact info w/o permission. The latest iOS flashes a warning and asks the user for permission each time it or an app seeks to access user data. And in it's security preferences, you can turn it on or off for each app. You can also see a list of apps which have requested user data over the past xx hours. As well, there's an icon which appears at the top if an app is accessing data (though most would miss it).

There are probably still holes, but they're not as big as back then when that first came out. And anyway, lots of people willingly disclose that information whether on their phone or through their use of the Internet...ever signed up for Linked In and then had Linked In harvest your email addresses and send out messages to those in your email list?   

Have you guys been asked to turn off your phones on airplanes even if you have them in airplane mode?

Yeah...internal China flight and mid-flight not even around taking off or landing.  Maybe it's because they can't see what we are doing and just assume we are being naughty and texting?

Apparently no one knows for sure if Personal Electronic Device emissions interfere with aircraft avionics. Most seem to agree the effect if any is slight. (I mean, if the risk were more than slight, would anyone, pilots especially, agree to fly with anyone carrying a phone?) But since the human (and business) cost of any accident is so high, most airlines prefer to accept no risk. (Though it seems Virgin Airlines and Emirates are okay with the risk, these days.)

Servicing customers on airplanes is all about command and control anyway. Staff are taught long form sentences for example. They preface their instructions with some kind of attention getting sentence introduction. This is to establish a dominance relationship, as in "you are listening to me now."

Fight the power. Angry Birds on angry planes.