Does anyone understand what’s the difference between the min and max values? Which one should I consider when I’m doing my calculations?
@adelrabie, if you are calculating worst case, use the Max values. If you want to calculate for average then use Typical values. I would never use Min as these are ideal best case.
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Hi @adelrabie -
To add to explanation @peekay123 offered…
For me standard practise (when battery life is a criteria) is to use worse case (Max values). Using this approach you should be safe, depending of course on consumption of other connected components. Use the same approach there 
To calculate probable expected battery life, I use ‘Typical’, BUT and it is a big BUT as I mentioned, if it is an absolute criteria or mission critical, I will specify the battery based on the Max values.
Best of luck!
Friedl
The answers above are good. For cellular devices in particular, the power usage is very spiky. It has very short duration of pulses of high current, separated by periods of much lower consumption. This is because it doesn’t transmit continuously - it transmits some bytes and waits for a response, and receiving uses much less power.
The maximum values are the maximum instantaneous current. The typical is the average over time.
When considering a battery, both are important. The typical determines how long the battery will last, theoretically. However the maximum is also important, because batteries also have a maximum intermittent current source rate. This is why you can’t substitute a CR2032 coin cell for a 200 mAh LiPo battery even though they have the same mAh. The coin cell typically has a maximum recommended pulse of around 10 mA (300Ω at 3V at 20°C for 5 sec), far too small for a cellular device.
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