[analogue SPRINKLES]

Something I have been confused with since the 3G was announced.

The chart says with 3G off the talk is 10 hours vs 3G on the Talk is 5 hours.

Does this mean that if you have the phone on and using typical data + Talk it reduces the talk time by 50% or is it if you just turn on the phone and ONLY talk you also only get 5 hours of talk on 3G?

If the talk time is cut in half just by using 3G is it because it uses a higher bit rate the the audio quality is better? Does the iPhone switch into a totally different radio mode with other bonus' such as signal strength?

I think it is crazy that 3G takes up that much juice and it proves that it was smart apple left it out of 1.0.

If this is the case I think I will just leave 3G off typically as I don't need it more than edge for my email and google mapping. I'd only turn on 3G if I was going to do some serious web surfing or youtubing. If it doesn't even offer better audio quality I can't see myself giving up that much battery power.

[Drakino]

3G does offer better audio quality, though I'm not sure exactly why. It could just be that the 3G standards require a better level of support from phones, so certain minimums can be bumped up to increase quality. In any case, yes, voice will be using the 3G radio and this is where the extra power consumption comes in. Turning off 3G doesn't just artificially cap bandwidth or something, it forces the phone to use edge and the associated radio.

From the tech specs:
UMTS/HSDPA (850, 1900, 2100 MHz)
GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)

Those are the two radios in the unit, though I'll let someone answer how much actual hardware is involved in putting both in.

[Cold Warrior]

3G (3GSM) uses a higher-quality vocoder, which gives you the better voice quality.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

My God if even a year ago the 3G power consumption was much worse i'd hate to think of what the talk time would have been.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

I think it is crazy that 3G takes up that much juice and it proves that it was smart apple left it out of 1.0.

Not really. If the battery life argument was the real reason, we wouldn't have 3G now either.

better audio quality

Supposed to be much better, probably both due to the encoding method as mentioned, and maybe the hardware too.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by Eug 

Not really. If the battery life argument was the real reason, we wouldn't have 3G now either.

You haven't been keeping up with the news. About 7 months ago they came out with a combined 3G chip that used waaaay less energy then the previous generations. In the east 3G wasn't selling that well because the battery life on 3G phones was 1.5-2 hours.

Steve also said that the power drain is too high and it would take about a year before it was efficient enough.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

You haven't been keeping up with the news. About 7 months ago they came out with a combined 3G chip that used waaaay less energy then the previous generations. In the east 3G wasn't selling that well because the battery life on 3G phones was 1.5-2 hours.

Steve also said that the power drain is too high and it would take about a year before it was efficient enough.

Yeah the chipset was a bit late, but we didn't get such an iPhone for Xmas either. Also, the 1.5- 2 hours claim is false.

3G wasn't selling that well here cuz the phones suck and the data rates were astronomically high. In Asia, 3G sold very well, but their data (and voice) rates are much better.

Basically I think it's a combination of technology improvements, OS improvements, and just as importantly, marketing. They knew they could sell a whole bunch of EDGE phones, esp. in North America, and then resell the 3G version to a lot of the same people.