[geeks] Smart phone data usage

[Chad McAuley]

On Jul 6, 2011, at 2:52 PM, Phil Stracchino wrote:

> Soliciting the wisdom of the collective here.
>
>
> First, the reasons:
> Work issued me a crackberry when I was hired, and I (&$@^#^%@%#@ HATE
> the )(*@$()*&$#^%^@# thing.  It can reduce me to frustrated rage in mere
> minutes.
>
> <snip>
>
> 2GB of *data* per month.  On a *phone*.  That just seems like a hell of
> a lot more than I'd ever use.  BUT, I don't know how much data mapping
> and navigation (pretty much the only data features I expect I'd ever use
> on it, unless I write mobile-specific versions of some of my own web
> apps) actually use.
>
>
> SO.  If you have a smartphone, and you make significant use of mapping
> and navigation ...  about how much data do they typically use?  How much
> data do YOU use per month?  Assume I won't be streaming music to it,
> watching movies on it (movies on a sub-5" screen?  Cthulhu forbid), or
> anything like that.  I'll almost certainly never install a single game
> on it, and the odds are against me finding a "phone app" I give a crap
> about, beyond the web browser and maybe a notepad (though an SSH client
> might be useful in rare emergencies).
>
> How likely am I to even *approach* 2GB of data usage per month?  I
> really have no idea how much data usage mapping (likely to be
> infrequent) and navigation (likely even more infrequent) use up.

I've got an Evo 4G on Sprint. I don't do much in the way of navigation on it
(I'm more likely to grab my Garmin for that), but I do use it occasionally for
nav and other maps stuff. I'd say maybe a few times a week I'll fire up Maps
real quick to look up an address, see what restaurants are nearby, find the
nearest ATM, stuff like that.

According to Sprint, my average monthly usage for the past 11 months is 410MB.
During that period, my highest usage was 640MB and the lowest was 144MB.  I've
got it synching my work and personal email, and I'll occasionally open
attachments on it. The personal account is maybe a half dozen messages a day,
and the work account averages maybe 50-60 messages a day that hit the device
(the rest gets filtered into other folders on the server.) Aside from that, my
usage includes checking FB/twitter, some web browsing (mostly links from
FB/twitter and browsing forums if I have a few minutes to kill somewhere), the
occasional youtube vid, and misc data from other apps. Most of my heavy usage
(app downloads or ROM updates) is done via WiFi.