• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

GPS drains battery fast...

S

sweetbee

Lurker
My first thread here;)

Sharing my day(with extended battery ):

Unplug my phone at 7a.m.
At 9 a.m.drive up to a near city for around 4.5 hours with low brightness and GPS on the whole time.
Reached the city at 11:40. Phone is at around 40%

I've owned my SGS3 for a while. For the first couple of months, its battery life was not bad…but now my phone battery died much faster than before. Each time I went out morning by car/bike and want to use GPS at dusk but the battery was completely dead(even though GPS not on the whole time) and the phone was off. Usually my GPS on the most time cuz I need to find routes from street, town, city or landmark to my destination.

I notice not much apps might take up high usage, so I think it is because of my regularly usage on GPS…Since carrying an extra battery or swapping to a bulky battery is acceptable for me so recently I began using extended battery to increase battery life and now I rely to a MPJ extra battery and a battery pack.

Wandering if I am the only one pick up extended battery/battery pack due to heavy use of GPS, or not? ;-)
 
You have the screen on and GPS running for over 4 hours and you wonder about battery drain??

You'll also find as you are driving between phone towers the phone will be constantly searching for a signal.

Can you not plug the phone into the car charger; this won't keep up with the drain but it will slow it down.
 
As others have mentioned, your screen is always the highest battery drain. As a result, having it on for 4+ hours is going to drain the battery, no matter the brightness setting.

Couple that with an active GPS signal, and I'd say you are actually getting pretty good battery life.

I'd wager your average user doesn't have the screen on for 4+ hours in a an entire day, and as a result don't see the drain you are getting.
 
mydian said:
If you can run the GPS for 4 hours and still have 40% of your battery left I'd say you're getting excellent battery life.

Not many car chargers can keep up with this phone while the GPS is running but this one can:
MICRO USB NEW LUXMO FAST 1000mA CAR CHARGER FOR CELL PHONE with DUAL TAIL-LIGHT LED:Amazon:Cell Phones & Accessories

I can use the GPS and stream music and it keeps up along with charging at around 10% an hour no problem.
Click to expand...

no...only if i used a bulky extended battery it may remain 40% after running GPS for 4 hours
 
Rxpert83 said:
As others have mentioned, your screen is always the highest battery drain. As a result, having it on for 4+ hours is going to drain the battery, no matter the brightness setting.

Couple that with an active GPS signal, and I'd say you are actually getting pretty good battery life.

I'd wager your average user doesn't have the screen on for 4+ hours in a an entire day, and as a result don't see the drain you are getting.
Click to expand...

sorry,i didn't write clearly...actually it is a result after swaping extended battery, otherwise my s3 might last half day at most..
 
mydian said:
If you can run the GPS for 4 hours and still have 40% of your battery left I'd say you're getting excellent battery life.

Not many car chargers can keep up with this phone while the GPS is running but this one can:
MICRO USB NEW LUXMO FAST 1000mA CAR CHARGER FOR CELL PHONE with DUAL TAIL-LIGHT LED:Amazon:Cell Phones & Accessories

I can use the GPS and stream music and it keeps up along with charging at around 10% an hour no problem.
Click to expand...

I have a cheap dollar store charger that looks like this:
51jjENFsnML._AA1500_.jpg


It has no problem charging my phone while I'm running my navigation application.
 
If I use the GPS, my phone would only last 2.5 hours. I normally charge it at work in the afternoon or it will be almost dead by the time I get home.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom