Did you ever think how much power does your cell phone consume? Yes, we know it will be negligible but once the number of consumers has grown to a very high number all around the world, the power being consumed as a whole may be significant?
Let’s do some simple maths and we are not getting into any fancy tools here. It’s simple arithmetic. You will need to find three numbers about your phone before you start this calculation. The numbers are:
- The battery capacity in mAh (milli-Ampere-hour)
- The voltage output of the battery ( volts )
- Total Talk time
- Total Standby Time (optional)

How to find the battery capacity:
Pull the phone out of your pocket now, remove the battery cover and look for a label on your battery. See what is the capacity of the battery. You can find that typically in mAh right on the battery itself. If not, search around the manufacturer’s web site or hit gsmarena.com, search your phone model and pull up the battery capacity. GsmArena always lists it. Most smartphone batteries today have a typical capacity between 1000mAh and 2000mAh.
How to find the battery voltage:
That will be on your battary too. This should most certainly be 3.7v but make sure you get the right number for your battery. You may also find that on your phone manufacturer’s website if not written on the battery itself.
Total Talk Time
This one’s simple too. GSMArena.com always lists it for almost all the phone. If you don’t find your phone, see your device’s users manual’s specification section or just look for it on the device manufacturer’s website.
Total Standby Time
Wherever you see Total Talk Time, you’ll find Total Standby time too. We need this to calculate the least power consumption when the phone is not in use.
The Calculation
Once you have all these numbers, we need to understand the fact that the phone consumes very low power (watts or VA) when in sleepย mode and it takes comparatively higher power when making calls, using GPRS or when using WIFI for example. It depends what feature of your phone is energy intensive, for example some phones have high resolution video cameras and recording videos can be very battery intensive in such phones.
Keeping that in mind, lets calculate the power your phone takes when you are talking on the phone. The basic calculation will be:
Power = Capacity x Voltage / Talk Time x 1000
I’m assuming we’ll plug Capacity in mAh, Voltage in volts and talk time in hours. For example my BlackBerry 9700’s battery capacity is 1500 mAh, Talk time is 6 hours and battery voltage is 3.7 volts (and we divide it by 1000 to convert mA into A). The power consumption will be:
1500 x 3.7 / 6 x 1000 = 0.925 watts ( or VA)
Similarly, if the phone is not doing much, the standby time is 408 hours given in the specifications of the phone, the same formula will give us the power consumption during standby mode:
1500 x 3.7 / 408 x 1000 = 0.01360 watts
Very tiny numbers. Lets look at it at a very high level view. Total cell phone subscribers all around the world are more than 4.2 billion today. Assuming average power consumption of their phones is 0.01 watts when on standby, this world is consuming 42 megawatt of power just to keep their phones switched on ๐
And in case all the users worldwide turn off their phones when they go to sleep, we will be saving more than 10 megawatt of power consumption all the time.
Conclusion
Turn off your cellphone when not needed.
On a second thought, you can ignore above advice, as I never switch it off ๐
p.s: Also read “Cellphones are better than computers“. They consume very less power and can do pretty much everything laptops can do.
Pingback: Sony BRAVIA NX 800 Series 52-Inch LCD TV, Black
Pingback: Tweets that mention How much power does my phone consume? | Basit Ali's Blog -- Topsy.com
Pingback: Sony AC-E30A Worldwide AC Power Adaptor with Folding Plug Blade
Pingback: Microsoft Natural Ergo Keyboard 4000 | US American Top Bestsellers
Pingback: Pioneer HTP-SB300 Soundbar
I was so frustrated beacuse I couldn`t resolve this issue. Then I found your site in google and problem is solved. Thanks!
Pingback: NEW Battery for SONY InfoLithium L NP-F330 NP-F550 NP-F570 CCD-SC55 CCD-TR516 CCD-TR716 CCD-TR818 CCD-TR910 CCD-TR917
shares use a fantastic webpage decent Gives thank you for the work to guide myself
Pingback: Laptop / Notebook Battery Replacement for Acer Aspire 3050-1118
I always sense like a tool when I have to use the speaker on my phone but I don’t think my Nokia would’ve appreciated the peroxide.
Hi there. Although I don’t normally remark on blogs, I decided to today, just to thank you really! I’ve finally got the information I was seeking for (via your blog) on the 5th page of Google results! So now I’m all covered ๐ Thanks again!
Hello, perhaps this post is not on topic but anyway, i’ve been browsing about your website and it looks truly great. determine that you are passionate I am building a new blog and I am struggling to have it appear good, and offer good quality subject matter. I have discovered a much here and I look forward to additional updates and will be returning.
Pingback: Email Marketing and “Brand Awareness” For Clothing Designers
shares use a fantastic webpage decent Gives thank you for the work to guide myself
Pingback: Acer X1161 3D-DLP Projector
Pingback: Digital Concepts AC/DC Rapid Charger with 4 AA Rechargeable 1800 MAH NIMH Batteries
Thank you for sharing for this infomation
where can I buy a android contract phone online – ?
The Greening study has established WTC 1 and 2 to have fallen at just about 13 and 12 seconds respectively, far more than the CU acknowledged free fall rate (9.8 seconds). This was a peer-reviewed work concluded by physicists, technologists, architects, and demolition experts. Survey the data. Each single one of the specialists that have gone over this information has been paid off, or been supplied with defective empiric evidence?
i am writting to you just to let you know that i have got my website. They are lovely, but I will never be able to afford one,And if I could afford one, it would be the Cupcake, that was the best.
The battery life sucks until you recharge it three or four times…after that it is FANTASTIC, love the phone SO MUCH btw!!!!
Hi all, im really happy ๐ i just got my new IPhone 4G for free. I didn’t think it would work but it pulled through. I followed the steps and i couldnt be more happy. just thought ide share it!
Wow, valuable information, thanks for share! I will come back.
Delicious! Thanks a lot. It is good.
you did a good job. I will come back.
My boyfriend wants to get a Sony led 42″ but my father tell me we should get a Panasonic. Can you guys tell me which one is better? thnx Cindy
Hi , i found your formula very useful bu what i want to know is how much power the phone consumes for 1 min talktime … how can i do that ….. is the power shown in the example for total talk time or just i minย