Enable airplane mode to save battery power

[fox]

This is a discovery I made on the LG Gpad III 8.0 tablet I recently bought, based on an energy-saving article I read on the internet. I can't say for sure to what extent it will help with other Android phones or tablets, but the energy saving is substantial on the Gpad. It is also something you would only want to do if your use of cellular on your phone or tablet is infrequent. What prompted me to check into this was the finding that Cell Standby was using 70% of my energy. A lot of this high percentage is undoubtedly because my tablet is inactive mode much more than it is in active mode. (I only use it 1-2 hours per day.) When it is active, the display uses a much higher percentage of the battery than anything else. Incidentally, I didn't discover this Cell Standby until I enabled developer mode on my tablet. Once you do that you get much more information about energy use.

Cell Standby is radio traffic while the phone is idle, including searching for a signal and transmitting data. The strange thing is that I am not using cellular at all. This tablet has the capacity, but it has no SIM in it, yet the operating system doesn't seem to be intelligent enough to realize this and disable the function. The easiest way to turn it off is to enable airplane mode, which disables all communication functions, including wifi and bluetooth. However, once you are in airplane mode, you can re-enable any functions you need. For me, this means turning on wifi and keeping it on all the time, and turning on bluetooth when I need it. Based on my latest battery tests, the overall saving is about 30% on my tablet! You might want to try this yourself if you rarely use cellular; you can always turn airplane mode off when you need cellular.

[ssfc72]

Very good to know. Thanks for the info, Mike!

[Jason]

I tried to do some research online to find out why a tablet without a SIM card would have Cell Standby but couldn't find an answer. The closest I got was a reason for cell phones which is that apparently, even cell phones without a SIM card can still contact 911. But that still doesn't make sense for tablets other than that manufacturer just didn't bother to turn it off. Maybe there's a reverse reason like maybe emergency services can alert users via text message even without a SIM card perhaps in the case of national emergencies.