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Help Battery and Edge Toggle?

A

asuprice

Newbie
I currently have an iphone 4 that I got last week. I chose it over the HTC inspire because of the battery life and the ability to turn off 3G and only use EDGE(also to save battery life) I really am interested in the ATRIX though, but does anyone know if you can force it to 2G(EDGE)? Or how the real world battery life is? I don't get a great 3G signal at where I work so forcing EDGE is crucial. I can't have it go back and forth between EDGE and 3G/4G all day and drain the battery.

I had a Craptivate before the iphone and could never make it last 12 hours because of the time without signal. Iphone 4 always lasts an entire day with heavy use and still usually between 60 and 40% battery left at the end of the day.

Should I risk getting the Atrix? I'm in charlotte which is one of the first 4G rollouts. I still have 3 weeks left in my 30 day return window.
 
asuprice said:
I currently have an iphone 4 that I got last week. I chose it over the HTC inspire because of the battery life and the ability to turn off 3G and only use EDGE(also to save battery life) I really am interested in the ATRIX though, but does anyone know if you can force it to 2G(EDGE)? Or how the real world battery life is? I don't get a great 3G signal at where I work so forcing EDGE is crucial. I can't have it go back and forth between EDGE and 3G/4G all day and drain the battery.

I had a Craptivate before the iphone and could never make it last 12 hours because of the time without signal. Iphone 4 always lasts an entire day with heavy use and still usually between 60 and 40% battery left at the end of the day.

Should I risk getting the Atrix? I'm in charlotte which is one of the first 4G rollouts. I still have 3 weeks left in my 30 day return window.
Click to expand...

Every Android phone can be forced to Edge. You can download a toggle widget to do it or just goto Settings>Wireless & Networks>Mobile Networks>Use only 2G networks.

Real world battery usage is among the best of all Android phones out there, it has a 1930mAh battery which is the largest I've seen included with a consumer phone. I'd venture to say it will rival the iphone4 in battery life based on what my wife's iphone 4 battery life is like.

Engadget said that battery life was better than 24 hours of "relatively heavy" use and light use would best a day and a half!
 
asuprice said:
ability to turn off 3G and only use EDGE(also to save battery life) I really am interested in the ATRIX though, but does anyone know if you can force it to 2G(EDGE)?
Click to expand...
No one has this phone yet since it hasn't been released for sale, however most Android phones can select GSM or WCDMA modes in the Mobile Networks settings.
Or how the real world battery life is?
Click to expand...
Again, no one has it out in the real world yet to report battery life.
I had a Craptivate before the iphone and could never make it last 12 hours because of the time without signal.
Click to expand...
Again, Android phones can be set to Auto switch or manually select GSM only. I believe there are widgets you can download from the Market that you can put on one of your home screens and just tap to select 2G or 3G mode.
Should I risk getting the Atrix? I'm in charlotte which is one of the first 4G rollouts. I still have 3 weeks left in my 30 day return window.
Click to expand...
If you can buy one, sure, risk it.
:rolleyes:
 
asuprice said:
you can't switch to 2G only on the Aria, Captivate, or Inspire 4G. AT&T has crippled them that way for some reason.
Click to expand...

Oh jeez, I did not know that! Can't even use a toggle widget to switch them?

If anyone has one of those can you try typing in *#*#4636#*#* into the phone and tapping "phone information" then scroll down to the "select preferred network" type and try to change it to gsm only. That would be another way to force it to edge.
 
colnago said:
I thought that AT&T was phasing out their "Edge" access. I think there was some sort of "mandatory upgrade" going on, for users of older (Edge) AT&T phones?

AT&T downgrades 2G service effectively telling you to upgrade | BGR | Boy Genius Report

I believe that T-Mobile was also trying to accomplish something similar, in an effort to bring their entire coverage area to UMTS/3G.
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There's no way they'll be able to get rid of edge anytime soon; geographically speaking, edge is the vast majority of coverage provided by AT&T. The entire state of Iowa in which I live is edge except for the a handful of major cities.
 
Looks like we will be able to force it to edge, but the option isn't in the standard "settings>wireless & networks>mobile networks" area. This menu was reached by using *#*#4636#*#* on the atrix. Choosing "GSM only" forces it to EDGE only. It also means that we can just download a widget to switch it between 2g only and 2g/3g (4g, lol)

Props to getaphixx for this shot!
wml7oz.jpg
 
youareme7 said:
Every Android phone can be forced to Edge. You can download a toggle widget to do it or just goto Settings>Wireless & Networks>Mobile Networks>Use only 2G networks.
Click to expand...

Settings>Wireless & Networks>Mobile Networks>Use Packet Data (uncheck)
 
I just wanted to confirm that youareme7's suggestion worked. Surely that means that a widget its possible! I use this feature to control my data usage to make sure I stay within my 200mb allocation on the cheapo data plan.cynical me wonders if att has made it hard to do to encourage over-ages....
 
roboconnell said:
I just wanted to confirm that youareme7's suggestion worked. Surely that means that a widget its possible! I use this feature to control my data usage to make sure I stay within my 200mb allocation on the cheapo data plan.cynical me wonders if att has made it hard to do to encourage over-ages....
Click to expand...

It just goes back to gsm auto for me after I exit and stays on H+
 
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