Aspects of the present disclosure relate to a multimode user equipment (UE) that when suffering a power crunch, can intelligently reselect to another RAT to extend the battery life of the UE. The reselected RAT has a lower specified maximum transmit power relative to the currently attached RAT. Therefore, the UE may reduce its battery drain to extend its service time per charge when a call is made utilizing the reselected RAT. The UE intelligently selects the RAT that will likely consume less uplink transmit power to communicate with a base station in order to conserve battery power in a poor coverage area, when the UE is experiencing a power crunch condition.