Have a Thunderbolt in your pocket, and beginning to truly see just what 4G LTE does to your battery? Wish you could just use it as a 3G device to save battery? If you answered yes, follow along.
Someone over at the AndroidCentral forums has figured out a way to disable the 4G radio while keeping the 3G radio on, and it’s actually not terribly hard to do, and you can turn 4G back on just as easily.
1. Go to the phone dialer, and type in “*#*#4636#*#*”
2. Go to “Phone information”
3. Scroll down the options and tap on, “Set preferred network type”
4. Select either “CDMA only” or “EvDO only” to disable the LTE radio.
If you want to turn LTE back on:
- Repeat steps 1-4
- Select LTE mode
- Go back to the menu and select “CDMA+LTE/EvDo auto”
If you’d like to simplify the process, and don’t mind downloading a dedicated application to get to this menu, download this app here from the Android Market. I don’t have a Thunderbolt to test this out on, so if the instructions are somewhat skewed, feel free to yell at me in the comments below.
This looks to be one of the few ways to accomplish this until we see a 4G toggle widget from developers, which shouldn’t take too long now. Even without a 4G signal, the radio will continue to scan, which can still eat at your battery. This method, coupled with an application like Juice Defender may just give you a major increase in battery life. Enjoy!
[Via: ACforums]