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Help SGP 4.2 battery life issues

L

lostvaliant

Lurker
Hi, everyone. I recently purchased a Galaxy Player 4.2 for my birthday about a week ago. It's the first "smart" device I've ever owned, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect, though I did do my research prior to buying it.

While I'm extremely pleased with the device overall, I'm running into issues with the battery. I'm not getting anywhere near the estimated battery life I've read in reviews; I get maybe a couple hours at best, even just streaming music, and even less when streaming video and similar, higher stress tasks.

I've tried dimming the display, installing battery-saving apps (JuiceDefender), turning off WiFi and GPS, but it doesn't seem to make much of a difference. The battery still discharges far too quickly. I took it back to BestBuy, and Geek Squad told me I need to "condition" the battery first (charging it all the way up to full, using it to about 10 percent, then repeating the process). But after several days of doing this, I'm still not noticing any significant improvement.

He did tell me to go ahead and exchange it for a new model if this didn't work, but I'm wondering if that would help, and I'm reluctant to do so after putting so much information on it. To those of you who own the 4.2 (or are familiar with it), is it true I should be seeing substantially better battery life, or does it simply not perform as well as advertised? Is there something else I should try before making the exchange? Any and all advice would be appreciated.
 
That does not sound normal. I would exchange it. You should get at least a day from it I would imagine. I have a 5 and get 2-4 days depending on use
 
It didn't sound normal to me, either, but I was wondering if it was a difference in models since the 4.2 came out just a few months ago. Does WiFi really drain the battery all that much? I have it on all the time.
 
Hopefully some 4.2 users will jump in to give their experience, but I can tell you my experience with the 5.0 is the wifi puts a big load on the battery. You might try turning off the wifi and see how it compares to the specs. I turn the wifi and gps off when I'm not using it. The battery lasts for days. Wifi reduces this, but I still get several hours of use. But the 5.0 has a much larger battery than the 4.2.
 
The point of reference is definitely still appreciated, thanks. I'll try spending a day with the WiFi/GPS off just to test it, I still think it's a little early to do an exchange.
 
I have the 4 which has a smaller batt than yours and it can still go 6-8 hours with my 4 year old son playing games non stop screen at fully bright and wi fi on.
It sounds like yours might be defective in some way?
 
After extended testing and persistently mediocre battery life, I'll be exchanging the model for a new one tomorrow. Hopefully it was just a one off and BestBuy didn't get a defective shipment... in which case I'll be speaking with a manager and requesting a refund.
 
There are a couple threads on this here, you can do a search - there are a lot of hints. They did not help a lot with my 4.2 but did help. What I finally found is use the task manager that came with it, tap the RAM tab and clear memory every time you shut it off. I went from loosing 20-30 percent overnight to 2 percent or less overnight. It has been running several days with minimal use and is still 70+ percent.
 
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