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Disappointed with my Galaxy S3

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protokol

Lurker
i was an iphone user who switched to android phones and decided to get the Samsung Galaxy S3 but the Battery life on it is very disappointing. I turn off wifi, sync everything... when my phone is on standby it drains so quickly....i lose like 30% in a hour..Sadly i think im going to have to return this phone...the only fix ive seen online is to root my NEW phone.
 
that's not right. when my phone is on standby it lasts 2 days - with everything turned on. either you have a rouge app sucking your battery, or something is defective. the condition you describe is just not normal.

yesterday i ran mine as a wifi hotspot and it lasted a little over 12 hours on a full charge before it shut down...
 
firstly, this is not normal.
secondly, there's nothing wrong with rooting a NEW phone. I never heard android phone having to be x days old to root.
thridly, please give us a screenshot of this, it will allow us to better help you on this issue.
 
Protocol, make sure you try a factory reset which should fix ur battery issue. Otherwise take it in to get checked out at the store.
 
You also need to give it some time to learn. You didn't mention how long you have owned it but if it is less than a couple of weeks, give it more time. My battery life got better by leaps and bounds after the first few weeks. A little bit of that is how much playing we do with it when brand new and then that wears off somewhat, but the battery monitoring software and battery also improve with time.
 
same here, the battery was crap at first, then it improved drastically, it is called battery run in time, give it some time to calibrate the levels d00d

I am a noobie to Android (switched from BlackBerry) and I rooted after using the phone for 5 days, Rooting takes literally no more thna 3 minutes and is very easy if you follow the guides
 
I got mine on Monday and whilst the battery is not as good as I thought it may be, its lasting over 14 hours without a problem. Has others have said either a faulty app or faulty phone.
 
Granted, I just bought mine literally 2 days ago, that's the one thing that somewhat surprised and disappointed me (aside from the fact that I can't seem to pair it with my Jambox through Bluetooth). Despite the 2100mAh, it seems as though I'm watching my battery percentage melt away by 1% every couple of minutes. Its a good thing I have a Nexus 7, cause this thing would never make it through a whole day of LIGHT usage. Cell standby was quite high on the battery usage meter, even with Juice Defender on. I took it off the charger at 8am 100%, and by 4pm it was already down to 36% with mere web browsing and standby, requiring a recharge (my school day ending at 8pm). And this is just the hspa+ T-Mobile version. I'd hate to see what the LTE versions get... (non rooted, of course)
 
I have posted this several times, when the S3 is new - everyone experiences the battery being almost useless, after a good few charges over a couple of weeks the battery improves.

I was really disappointed with battery life at first then it started lasting longer and longer. Had it for a few months now and its all good.
 
yea im on the lte network for atnt, i havent done a factory reset yet but yea when i go to battery it seems standby is killin the battery and the phone takes a long time to charge too. i use juice defender as well but not sure how much that is working. i am mostly scare of rooting because i dont want to lose the insurance coverage but i think i might have to root it anyways.
 
protokol said:
yea im on the lte network for atnt, i havent done a factory reset yet but yea when i go to battery it seems standby is killin the battery and the phone takes a long time to charge too. i use juice defender as well but not sure how much that is working. i am mostly scare of rooting because i dont want to lose the insurance coverage but i think i might have to root it anyways.
Click to expand...

i would uninstall juice defender. the S3 doesn't need it and it's likely doing more harm to your battery life than good. same for task killers.
 
Come on, guys. Battery run in time? This is a myth just like resetting your battery stats. A battery is a battery. There may be some slight varations from first few charges but its not going to fix his battery draining in 3 hours doing nothing.

OP: What kind of dbm readings are you getting? You could be in a fringe area which is destroying your battery. If you can, try turning off mobile and keeping it on wifi to see how your battery fairs. My s3 gets excellent wifi battery life; it also gets excellent battery life in general.

Even in bad area's my phone does fine. A lot of people complained about the TB and i thought the battery life was decent on that thing, as well. I think its a YMMV type thing. So do some more digging to see if you are missing an app that is draining or your signal strength etc.

I am not a believer in battery saving apps. They simply do next to nothing IMHO. If you are looking to save an hour with your phone when you aren't using it, then throw it into Airplane Mode.
 
Is your coverage wherever your phone spends most of its time really poor? That could be an issue. The phone might be draining the battery as it strains to pick up any kind of a 4G signal.
 
I've had my S3 for about a week and the battery seems to last me about one day. I mostly text and upload pics to FB.

I do a lot of long distance motorcycle touring and I installed a car charger plug into my BMW R12GSA so I can charge the Samsung on the fly. I really, really want to have a full charge on my phone if things go Tango Uniform :D out on the open highway....:smokingsomb:

Cheers,
Steve
 
Thats not right. The SG3 has one of the best battery lifes around for a smartphone of it's type. Make sure an app isn't draining your battery. I also shutdown my phone every few days and clear memory to keep apps from draining the device.

With airplane mode enable at night I'll lose 1% in 8 hours which is fkin insane.
 
barryl85 said:
I have posted this several times, when the S3 is new - everyone experiences the battery being almost useless, after a good few charges over a couple of weeks the battery improves.

I was really disappointed with battery life at first then it started lasting longer and longer. Had it for a few months now and its all good.
Click to expand...

Well you have posted incorrect information "several times" then. The type of batteries used in the s3 dont get conditioned. the reason why people see more time after a few weeks is they are not playing with all the new features every second and they are learning to make a few tweaks in settings and behaviors
 
darkestred said:
Come on, guys. Battery run in time? This is a myth just like resetting your battery stats. A battery is a battery. There may be some slight varations from first few charges but its not going to fix his battery draining in 3 hours doing nothing.
Click to expand...

Aero1 said:
Well you have posted incorrect information "several times" then. The type of batteries used in the s3 dont get conditioned. the reason why people see more time after a few weeks is they are not playing with all the new features every second and they are learning to make a few tweaks in settings and behaviors
Click to expand...

No i'm not wrong, I know of 3 other people with the same phone and reported the exact same thing, when the phone was new out of the box the battery drain was ridiculous then after a couple of weeks it was a lot better.

Its nothing to do with not using the damn thing cos i was never off it.
 
barryl85 said:
No i'm not wrong, I know of 3 other people with the same phone and reported the exact same thing, when the phone was new out of the box the battery drain was ridiculous then after a couple of weeks it was a lot better.

Its nothing to do with not using the damn thing cos i was never off it.
Click to expand...

I have experienced the same thing with 3 different smartphones. All of them had better battery life after a few weeks. The instruction manual on my HTC Desire Z also stated that this will be the case that new batteries will not last as long as one that is a few weeks old.
 
protokol said:
i was an iphone user who switched to android phones and decided to get the Samsung Galaxy S3 but the Battery life on it is very disappointing. I turn off wifi, sync everything... when my phone is on standby it drains so quickly....i lose like 30% in a hour..Sadly i think im going to have to return this phone...the only fix ive seen online is to root my NEW phone.
Click to expand...

its not the gs3. its android in general. androids consume a whole lot of battery life. just turn on the power saving mode.
 
I have a VZW S3 with LTE, with amazing battery life, (24+ hrs-medium use) , and an AT&T S3 with horrible battery life, (5/6 hrs- medium use). Same apps are installed on both, and I live in the middle of Tucson AZ. I think it depends a lot on the service provider.
 
real hand experience with puffing lipo cells over here, fresh out of the store, they dont last as long as a couple weeks, well with lithium polymer as to lithium ion cells.... but they start taking more maH after a month then when first cycled

no, its not conditioning, your right about that. the weird thing is, if you truly quick charge these batteries (anything above a 1c charging rate) they tend to last longer and handle drain better, BUT, just like aero1 said, it will diminish cycle life and once that happens, its it. usually a lipo will have 100 or so cycles before you will notice the difference, if i am not mistaken, and the li-ion upwards of 1000. the difference between the 2, check lipo fire on youtube.... i dont think you want that in your phone, just incase something malfunctions
 
Jelly Bean will be officially released next month and will drastically improve battery life. My battery life has more than doubled since flashing one of the latest leaks.
 
The first thing to do with ANY new phone is check for firmware updates. Either OTA or through Kies. Once these are done if you suffer force closes or other negative activities, do a factory reset as the updates 'may not' have taken hold properly.

Coming from an international S3, battery life increased significantly after the three OTA updates and luckily for me I didn't need to factory reset.

No need for task killers, not since Android progressed past 1.6/2.1. Android has grown up enough to handle memory much better since these days.

The main battery drains you'll find are the screen, especially with live wallpapers or a bright coloured background, having wireless networks enabled, as well as wifi (simply because it periodically scans for new networks unlike GPS that's only active when an app that uses it is open) also email syncing is set by default I believe to every 15 mins, but you can change that and there is evan a provision to specify 'peak & off peak' times and set a profile accordingly. And remember widgets that 'poll' the net (much like email) also use battery as they are regularly checking for updates.

Once you get used to the way Android works, you'll get better performance from your phone.

A handy app to toggle pretty much anything on or off Inc 2G/3G/4G is a free app called "Elixir 2" although it takes a little attention to figure it out, but definitely a very useful app.
 
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