I changed wlan transmission power from 100mw to 10mw, and connection manager shows same amount of notches as usual? What's the difference between these two settings, has anyone noticed?

And where do you change the setting?

Control panel - connectivity - connections - edit - 3* next - advanced - other - wlan transmission power

Thanks, I have missed the "Advanced" button
And to answer your question, the meter should measure the signal strength of the access point you are trying to connect to. The option you showed me changes how strong signal will use nokia itself.

Thanks for answer. I haven't noticed any differences in distance capabilities, so should I use lower value in order to save batteries?

I wish I knew The common sense says "yes", but I am not a techie to know whether it will make any real difference.
IMHO these miliwats has almost nothing to do with the amount of power spent by the wifi part itself. (Something like some speakers are marketed as having output power 1400wats but from electric socket they take 100wats)

The 1400 watt rating would be a peak output, not average.

That power rating will definitely have an impact on battery life, though I'm not sure how much. I've had my 770 on 10mW wifi for 2h:40min and it hasn't dropped a single bar of battery level. I haven't used it a huge amount for other stuff, but it has been on IRC the whole time.

Radio output power really does have an impact on battery consumption - that's why bluetooth on most small devices only reaches 10m, whereas desktop interfaces can reach 100m.

Actually, I have just been corrected on this issue by somebody from Nokia. The 770 doesn't have an appreciable difference in power consumption at 10mw vs. 100mw - most of the power consumption is in the rest of the wifi system.

I think I'm too used to ham radios, where you're allowed to use (nearly) as much power as you want. My handheld radio transmits 5 watts max; low power mode is 500 mw. It really does have an impact on battery life.

Well, I also could have sworn that my battery life got better after switching to 10mw, but maybe it was just too positive thinking. Still, maybe I should test a little bit more between these two settings. At least it radiates then a bit less, so my hairy green glowing hands won't get any hairier or greener!

According to manual 770 is compatible with 802.11b and 802.11g, so presumingly it uses 802.11g when it can. I don't need the additional speed that 11g provides, but would rather use 802.11b for lower power consumption. Disabling it from the router is no option, because I need G for my laptop. Has anyone any insights how to disable 802.11g in 770?

yesterday in #maemo (sameo is the official developer of the WLAN driver module at Nokia):

(21:49:56) bhima: I can do 10mW wifi. Mine's been on with wifi on but not much actual use for ~3 hours and hasn't dropped a bar.
(21:50:29) vidaroni: i just switched to 10mW myself.
(22:06:20) sameo: bhima, vidaroni : 10 or 100 mW won't make a significant difference as far as WLAN power consumption goes
(22:07:05) bhima: sameo: hmm. ok. why not?
(22:08:38) sameo: bhima: because the radio frontend is not the major power sucker in a WLAN chip.
(22:08:59) sameo: bhima: in an integrated one as this chip.

Greets, Jonek.