Originally Posted by
Airfehr
The more information in the image the more power used. From experience I know it's true while running CAD programs on a laptop. I could be wrong about that theory with images on the phone. I will test that theory running just the map view instead of the satellite view with the same app on the same ride.
yeah, i'd be surprised if that was meaningfully true. it possibly requires more compute power / cpu cycles to decompress a compressed image with more detailed content. it certainly would take more power (again, tiny amounts) to decompress a higher resolution image. the biggest difference would be downloading the images - it definitely would take more power to download more/higher resolution images... but i'm not sure the difference between similar resolution map style images and aerial photography would be meaningful. i may also be seeing improved battery life because by now most of my rides are within the same 50 mile radius of where i live, and all the maps/images are already downloaded.
i think the screen is the biggest consumer of power, i definitely notice a bit of a difference if i leave it on the RwGPS map the whole time vs the misison control dashboard. an OLED screen uses much less power to display black than it does white...