Samsung Galaxy 3 Battery Life

[razcal88]

I was just wondering what everyone's experience is with the battery life. It seems to drain quite quickly. I have rooted the phone and applied the fix to 3.4mA which brings the cell stanby down to about 5-6%, but it still feels like it is draining fast.

How long does the battery last for you guys with regular usage?

[Migzyboy]

I get quite good battery life with my galaxy s3(i747) with the stock OS. Battery is currently at 39% after 36 hours and at least 2 or so hours of game playing, some web browsing, auto updates on apps, facebook auto updates, gmail, etc.

I have been home the whole time so data is exclusively over WiFi which will explain some of that. I've also disabled LTE and went HSPA only as LTE is sketchy in my area which was causing the Cell radio to cut out as it switched between them(when not on WiFi), not to mention low signal, especially with LTE, is a battery hog.

I've only had for 8 days now so pretty much everything is still at default values, meaning power saving option is disabled, screen is on auto brightness, etc.

And if I go hog wild, I can get roughly 5 solid hours of gameplay or more before low battery warning. Which is a good 2 hours longer than my old Galaxy S Vibrant(i9000m).

One thing to be aware of, is like most Li-Ion battery devices, when the message comes up to say its fully charged, it actually isn't yet fully charged. Li-ion batteries can be quick charged up to a certain point(which is when it says fully charged), after that they need to charge slower to get to full capacity. I noticed that when I took my phone off the charger right away when it said it was charged and ~15-20 minutes later of being off, the charge was already down to 90%, which is when I remembered about the Li-Ion charging pattern.

[phonejunkie.org]

Take it in or call your provider and have them send you another one so you can send that back..... Say some other stuff is wrong, if you need help on what to say to get them to send you a new phone in the mail, PM me.

[phonejunkie.org]

Check out these tips in my video.....http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lf421yicDh0

[ZeroCoolZ]

Powering up my phone at 7.30am in the morning and I have to charge it around 4pm. I use skype for 20-30 mins over lunch but otherwise I'm working so a bit of FB and twitter and FB chat but that's pretty much it... is that normal? I'm coming from a BB so the guy at the store told me it was normal but doesn't feel normal to me considering that I read great reviews about the S3's battery life...

[Steve]

I tried the S3 and returned it. Unplugged at 10am, streamed audio for 30 mins, sent 20-30 texts, checked a few web pages. By 2pm I was at 23%.
At first I thought it was because the phone was 'new' and therefore I was playing with it more. However, I factory reset the phone, started from scratch and didn't load any software. I got similar results.
I don't know if I had a defective phone or battery or whatever, but I also noticed it took FOREVER to charge compared to my iPhone 4.
So I returned it within my 14 days. Now I don't know what do do, because it was a great phone aside from a few other minor gripes I had with it.

[SweetCell]

Well I see I'm not the only one with battery issues. I thought I perhaps at first was using it a lot but last night I charged it fully. Unplugged at at 8am and didn't use it except to play a fast game for about 5 minutes and by noon I was at 16% and had to charge it. That's a bit crazy. I have power save on, end all the programs regularly in task manager and have my screen at 50% brightness.. I'm not sure what more I can do to cut on battery life. 4 hours with little to no use draining 85% of the battery seems a bit much.

[havarti]

Could you provide a link to this battery fix please? Thanks

[Oettinger]

I tried the S3 and returned it. Unplugged at 10am, streamed audio for 30 mins, sent 20-30 texts, checked a few web pages. By 2pm I was at 23%.
At first I thought it was because the phone was 'new' and therefore I was playing with it more. However, I factory reset the phone, started from scratch and didn't load any software. I got similar results.
I don't know if I had a defective phone or battery or whatever, but I also noticed it took FOREVER to charge compared to my iPhone 4.
So I returned it within my 14 days. Now I don't know what do do, because it was a great phone aside from a few other minor gripes I had with it.

Sounds like my experience as well. I kept my phone for a month and said bye bye.

[Steve]

I'm trying the Note 2 next week (pre-ordered) we'll see if the battery life is any better notwithstanding the larger screen.

[bill_n_opus]

Wife and I have s3's ... battery life has typically been "pretty good'. However, my wife's s3 was draining pretty fast compared to me and her usage is fairly non-aggressive. We found out that she was playing a particular game/program and leaving it on standby and that seemed to increase the batt drain significantly. She modified her behaviour a bit and batt life was better.

I also installed Juice Defender and tweaked her phone a little bit and that seemed to help as well. Shutting off wifi etc when not needed helps for sure. Now her phone lasts pretty much all day with 50% left at least.

[HankB]

Somewhere (elsewhere on this site?) I recall reading about a battery conditioning process to get the most out of our battery. (Not so much battery conditioning I suppose as helping the system determine charge levels.) The process was:

Charge to 100% with the phone off. Apparently the power usage with the phone on makes it difficult for the battery control algorithm to determine full charge,

Turn the phone on and use it until it drains to below 15%. (This completes the calibration.)

Then use the phone normally after that but repeat the process several times a year to0 refresh the battery calibration.

This was for to a Moto Droid but is probably worth a try on a Samsung phone as well.

Also check which apps are using excessive battery in settings and deal with them. (Uninstall or disable background processing.)

HTH,
hank