Help S3 Battery Issues

[Glynnister]

Hi,

I have recently moved from iPhone to android and bagged myself a lovely s3. I really like it but have one major issue. The battery is lasting me about 5-6 hours.
I had the phone fully charged this morning (6) and it was dead by around half 12.
Admittedly I had been downloading games etc but I never expected the battery to nose dive like it has. I have since dimmed the battery to 30-40%, turned on some of the power saving options and it has improved but I am right now getting from 100-85% after just over an hour with general use (sending texts, browsing Facebook)

Am I missing something?
I am turning wifi off when I am out and 3G off when I am home but I just can't work this out.

Any help would be fantastic thank you.
Michael

 

[anna_p]

Wow, that sounds like my S2 (and I'll be getting the S3 the day it gets to Canada ).

There is a lot of things you can do (download juicedefender, turn off wifi wtc), but personally, I like to use everything on my phone and not worry about battery. Hopefully yours will get a little better as you use it more as I find that new batteries kind of suck in the beginning and gradually get better.

So what I do is get a couple spare batteries, with a separate charger, and everytime one runs out I just pop in a charged one and charge the dead one on the charger.

Its not perfect, and hopefully someone will have some better suggestions for you, but this is what I found to be the best way for so far without sacrificing features on my phone.

I was really hoping the S3 would have better battery life

 

[forza2020]

My SGS3 had 98% battery at 8.00 am. Recharged it when it was on 15% at 18.30.
I had spent the day downloading music and texting and using the internet on Wi Fi and H+

 

[kevindroid]

thats not strange leaving wifi on seem to use less battery. maybe because alot of power is used looking for signals 3g i suspect. juice defender works really well with the default setting. give it a try it wont get worse.hope this helps you with that awesome phone

 

[Android26]

Hi,

I have recently moved from iPhone to android and bagged myself a lovely s3. I really like it but have one major issue. The battery is lasting me about 5-6 hours.
I had the phone fully charged this morning (6) and it was dead by around half 12.
Admittedly I had been downloading games etc but I never expected the battery to nose dive like it has. I have since dimmed the battery to 30-40%, turned on some of the power saving options and it has improved

Once you're downloading all the apps you want, your battery performance will improve significantly.

It might take you a few weeks to get all your apps (especially since you're new to Android), but once you find your niche and have pretty much everything the market has to offer you, you'll see your battery performance jump because you're no longer constantly downloading.

If after that, you still feel the need for some extra percentage points on your battery, the biggest things you could do (settings-wise) in my opinion would be to keep your 4.8" screen on the absolute lowest brightness whenever possible, disallow apps (like GMail for ex.) from auto-refreshing every 2 seconds, and avoid using live wallpapers.

but I am right now getting from 100-85% after just over an hour with general use (sending texts, browsing Facebook)

Am I missing something?
I am turning wifi off when I am out and 3G off when I am home but I just can't work this out.

Any help would be fantastic thank you.
Michael

Some people might disagree with this method, but for the sake of offering tips, sometimes I like to think that 100% battery can be misleading (calibration could be slightly off, just for ex.) and to remedy this, sometimes I'll leave my phone on the charger a few minutes longer even after its said "Fully Charged" to make sure it really is.

You might already be doing this by charging your phone overnight and unplugging when you wake up, but I didn't want to assume that.

Hope I helped.

 

[Glynnister]

Thanks for al the help.
I'll definitely get juice defender and turn off the auto refresh for emails as I prefer to check them instead of being alerted anyway.

If possible I like to use all the settings on my phone so I don't really want to be turning the brightness off, and if possible I'd like to be able to have wifi and 3G on auto.

I have left the phone on charge overnight and will probably leave it on for a few hours into the day today to charge it past the 100% and I'll get back to you to see if it improves.

 

[stevierite]

i found leaving the phone on the network mode GSM/WCDMA (automode) is far better for battery life than just the WCDMA setting.

plus i found with last phone that the first few charges i was charging the phone fully and then lettting it run out completely before charing again and it really help with having a longer battery life. so i am doing the same with the s3 and it seems to be working so far.

 

[xanderyoyo]

mine dont seem to charge more than 97% ?????? it was on charge all night ???? also mine lasted from 7.30am to 12.40am and it was on 7% not as good as my old iphone 4 im hoping it will get better in time got mine on the 30th

 

[matttye]

Was your screen on for most of those 6 hours? If so, that's your problem

It's a massive, bright, 4.8" super AMOLED screen and uses massive amounts of battery if you're looking at light/white-coloured stuff. Black uses no power, but white uses about three times as much power as a traditional backlit LCD. A black wallpaper, changing themes on websites to black (if possible) and any other apps that allow theming will help a lot. Turning the brightness down will help.

Leaving WiFi on when you're within range of an open network will help, as it will stop the phone searching for a data network connection. Turning WiFi off when you're not in range will help. Turning off smart stay will help. If it doesn't work that well for you, you might want to consider turning it off.

Bear in mind that people play with their new smartphones a lot, so the battery will never last as long to begin with.

 

[partchimp]

charged mine to 100% yesterday morning. It's now 13.30 the following day and i was on 68% with moderate use. Very happy with that!

My old desire was constantly plugged in at work and at home.