On How 4G ain't Mobile as such

Sponge Bob

Much of the cleverness of new technologies such as DVB-T2 Digital TV ( we ain't getting that) and 4G comes from the way that very sophisticated mathematics and processing allow a complex digital mush to go across the airwaves and to be 'decoded' by the end user. The second generation of Digital Telly requires 10x as much processing power as the first generation...in order that one may see the signal.

4G ( I heard ) is 25x more processor intensive than 2G. Therefore your 4G phone if left in your pocket with dem Apps an Apping will use 25x more battery than the old Nokia thumper did....very crudely (however instructively) speaking. The screens on modern phones eat a lot of battery too.

And once the battery on the mobile runs out it ain't mobile no more is it??

And so to 4G.

www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/12/4g_no_thx/

4G can do more with the radio spectrum than 3G, but this cleverness comes at the a cost: it requires much more processing power to cope with the surge in data and the electronics will draw more current. This is straightforward physics and - even if mobile networks had no legacy baggage - a 4G network would deplete your battery faster than 3G. The technology in the handset will improve and become more efficient, but that's no use to us here and now.

4G chipsets will improve, in time. This happens to every iteration of Digital technology as the silicon inside improves over time. But 4G is very early days and very few silicon makers have had a proper look at it.

Remember that a modern mobile slab has more power than your old pentium desktop in the 1990s and does not piss out most of its processing as waste heat like that desktop did.

The new Nokia Lumia prototype I used last week in New York packs in a whopping 2,000mAh battery and felt like a mini-iPad.

Probably needs a charge every 6 hours too.

So 4G will be a rather static technology until signals are good. You will probably turn off 3G and use 4g + 2G if you are let do so by your operator configuration. Or else you will use it static with power plugged in.

Not very mobile so.

Big Lar

Sponge Bob wrote: »

You will probably turn off 3G and use 4g + 2G if you are let do so by your operator configuration. Or else you will use it static with power plugged in.

Not very mobile so.

Or you could have a spare battery, car charger or USB cable.

Chris_5339762

Everyone gets so used to the daily charge thing but its not necessarily good. I still don't have a smartphone really because I barely use my current €40 brick and although I'd love the apps and mobile internet, I can't justify it.

I do get 5 days battery out of the €40 brick though, and its now about 5 years old. We've come forward a lot in phones, but the battery life hasn't caught up.