Few questions - Wifi, batteries

[bexta89]

Hi,
I'm new to these forums, and just got an Aria on Tuesday. It's my first smartphone, so I'm still figuring out a lot of it. I have a few questions regarding the Wifi though...sorry if they're fairly obvious to answer, like I said, I'm new to this.

So I'm assuming you can either use Wifi or 3G? Does this mean that when you are in a Wifi area that you can connect to (for example, my home), that when I'm in this area my phone does everything via Wifi (downloading apps, emails, facebook, etc). But when I leave my home and go elsewhere, out of the Wifi range, it switches over to 3G?

Does using Wifi use any of the data usage of your phone? Or is that only when you use 3G?

I also had one other question - How low can/should you let your battery get before recharging? I've had it before that if I recharged too early the battery stopped lasting as long. Just curious how low everyone lets their phone get?

Thanks in advance!!

 

[kiefferr]

No problem on helping out...That's what these forums are for...

When you have a wifi signal (and are attached to that access point) like at your house (or work or wherever), you will be doing everything (unless you make a call) over the wifi connection. You can tell this is happening by the 3G icon in the notifcation bar (top of the screen)...If you are using the 3G (like in your car), there will be two arrows, one pointing up, one pointing down...So if you hit facebook, it will work on your 3G data...If you are on wifi, the 3G icon will still be there, but it will have a check mark under it, to indicate that it is there, on, and available...

The switch over is automatic, at least on my phone (when I get home, it attaches to the wifi).

Using wifi will not use any of the data plan (I presume you are on AT&T)...I got an app from the market called 3G Watchdog that keeps track of the actual data plan usage...It seems to be a bit higher than AT&T's count, but not by much...

I typically have been getting 2+ days out of my battery and will let it discharge completely about every 3rd week or so...Some may argue that it isn't necessary, but it doesn't seem to hurt anything...

Enjoy your phone!

Hi,
I'm new to these forums, and just got an Aria on Tuesday. It's my first smartphone, so I'm still figuring out a lot of it. I have a few questions regarding the Wifi though...sorry if they're fairly obvious to answer, like I said, I'm new to this.

So I'm assuming you can either use Wifi or 3G? Does this mean that when you are in a Wifi area that you can connect to (for example, my home), that when I'm in this area my phone does everything via Wifi (downloading apps, emails, facebook, etc). But when I leave my home and go elsewhere, out of the Wifi range, it switches over to 3G?

Does using Wifi use any of the data usage of your phone? Or is that only when you use 3G?

I also had one other question - How low can/should you let your battery get before recharging? I've had it before that if I recharged too early the battery stopped lasting as long. Just curious how low everyone lets their phone get?

Thanks in advance!!

 

[bexta89]

Thanks for that I'm actually with Optus here in Australia, and I've got 1.5GB of data included in my plan. I'm not too concerned about going over the usage, but I'll definitely look into an app that can track it.
Thanks again

 

[amlothi]

There are some good tips about how these kind of batteries work in this thread (also in my signature):
http://androidforums.com/evo-4g-sup...89161-official-htc-evo-4g-battery-thread.html

I'll add to what Keiffer wrote about Wifi also.

If you want your battery to last longer, turn off Wifi when you are not using it. Otherwise, it will constantly be looking for a connection and it can use quite a bit of battery.

You can either have a widget to do this manually, or there are apps you can use to program your phone (like Tasker) that are much more complicated.