Methods and apparatus for conserving battery power in a mobile device for wireless communication by dynamically adjusting the clock frequency and/or the voltage of the device's processor according to the Media Access Control (MAC) layer state are provided. By using a higher clock frequency and/or a higher voltage for a normal operation state with large amounts of data traffic and lower clock frequencies and/or lower voltages for other MAC layer states (e.g., acquisition, network entry, and sleep/idle states), battery power may be conserved, thereby extending the time in which the device may operate between battery charging cycles.