Free mobile apps can consume considerably more battery life than paid-for versions, according to new research produced at Indiana’s Purdue University in association with Microsoft. Researchers found that battery life was adversely affected by advertising, which often helps fund free games but may use the phone’s network connection and GPS location software.
Abhinav Pathak, Y Charlie Hu and Ming Zhang tested Android and Windows Mobile smartphones by using an energy monitoring tool called eprof. It showed that the Angry Birds game consumed much more energy finding its current location and displaying local ads (45% of total energy) than it did when actually playing the game (20%).
[Research (pdf)]