YugaTech | Philippines, Tech News & Reviews

My latest entry on the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic sparked a nice little debate on people’s preference and usage behavior between WiFi and 3G on mobile phones.

I thought it would be good if I asked my readers here which of the two modes of connectivity they often use.

So our poll for this week — WiFi or 3G: Which one do you often use with your phone?

As usual, I’ve added a poll at the sidebar so you can submit your votes there but please leave a comment if you want to share your own usage behavior and why you chose one over the other.

As for me, even if my place is full wireless, I think most often use 3G on my phone. I access 3G on the road, while driving and outside the house — with my phone, that would be about 90% of the time.

There are 2 factors that affected my usage behavior in favor of 3G — one is that I have allocated 3G minutes on my postpaid account and, second, 3G internet is pretty cheap and fast nowadays that I don’t really bother looking for free wifi whenever I’m in public places.

Update: I’d like to clarify that this poll is not about which is better or faster. It’s a survey which of the two modes of connection you often use despite the advantages of one over the other.

Let’s look at an example:

Mobile 3G on Phone: 90% coverage area of Metro Manila, 100 – 300Kbps speeds
WiFi on Phone: 1% coverage area of Metro Manila, 256Kbps – 3Mbps speeds

Is the mobility of a 3G connection more suitable for you or the speed of WiFi? And by the way, WiFi speed is also dependent on its source. If you’re using WiFi on dial-up connection, your WiFi is still going to be slow.