S III Battery use

[hisup123]

Battery stats are from the last charge that was over 90%. If you recharge to 90% and unplug, your stats reset. If you charge to 95%, use down to 92%, plug in and charge to 98%, battery stats reset again.

So if my batter is 50% and i charge it upto 90% and go one the battery screen all the stats will show as 0?

 

[YankeeDudeL]

I only got mine yesterday afternoon. I charged it fully before activating it, and was on it pretty consistently testing out it's capabilities, turning on every feature, going in and out of 4G a couple times (majority of the time being on 3G), DLing over 100 of my apps back. Killed it after about 12 hours or so, the final 3 hours streaming music. Considering it being it's first charge, the usage, and how long it lasted, I'm pretty satisfied. My other phones never made it that far on the first day. Hopefully this is a trend.

 

[liteon163]

Yeah, whenever your battery is charged up to or past 90%, the battery usage stats start over again.

 

[jroyjohnson]

I had horrible battery life at first even days that I worked late and the phone was on standby most the day. Someone recommended a restart after a full nights charge, esp if you've been adding/removing a lot of apps (which I had). I did this and cannot believe the difference it has made!!! My phone lasts at least twice as long. I restart the phone at least twice a week now.

 

[Aknight86]

Same here. Any luck tracking it down? I'm getting 50+% on Android System! Something is not right.

I discovered, after seeing that, that when I exited out of my apps it wasn't actually killing them so they were running in the background. My battery ran down in 5 hours yesterday with light use. After killing those apps manually and then shutting down and taking out the battery for a few minutes for good measure I've gotten a full day of moderate use with 65% left.

I have been going into app management and making sure that my apps are actually off after use and discovered that it's still happening though. If anyone has any fixes for it it'd be great. I'm a novice so put describe the way you would to a complete idiot.

 

[alexander323bc]

I have been holding down the home button selecting the remove all button. After that I got task manager and select active running apps. There is still 1-2 apps still running I close those, Then I scroll over to the ram and clear that. Every time I do that it says 35 applications closed. It really does say 35. I have no idea why. So I cant think of a better way to make sure everything is closed.

 

[ylexot]

I have been holding down the home button selecting the remove all button. After that I got task manager and select active running apps. There is still 1-2 apps still running I close those, Then I scroll over to the ram and clear that. Every time I do that it says 35 applications closed. It really does say 35. I have no idea why. So I cant think of a better way to make sure everything is closed.

Don't worry about it. Let the operating system worry about killing tasks. You are probably making matters worse by randomly closing tasks that the os then has to restart.

 

[cmybliss]

Pretty heavy usage today in marginal to just plain bad signal areas.

 

[naviwilliams]

Only one hour 39 minutes screen time. I've not been on social media in the past 24 hours...

 

[news3owner]

New android user... just came from blackberry... and have had blackberry since the original pager sized unit.

Solely on Lte (wifi disabled), I got just over 8 hours on standby.
I had the phone screen on for about 30 minutes. So I'm really disappointed.

Download speeds are in the range of 28 Mb here in toronto. Which is awesome.

Today I have turned off lte completely and wifi. On hspa I have got 4.5 hours so far on standby. Much better. But am hoping for a solution to be able to leave lte as the default

 

[dennygreen]

definitely should be getting more than 8 hours on standby. I could probably get 8 hours with pretty heavy use.

 

[alison03]

That is strange. I had a bit of battery timing issues last night but charged it to 90% so it would 'reset' and left it unplugged on standby overnight (4g with everything on and 3 gmail/1 yahoo accounts still pushing). It drained 6% in 10 hours and when I woke up I had 15 new emails, and a facebook and instagram notification (and yes I had a massive sleep haha).

 

[snilloconator]

I think my battery is finally settling in. I'm pretty pleased with the GS3

 

[Devz]

I have terrible battery issues during the week, but during the weekend, almost no issues. I'll have to charge the phone during the workday, but on the weekends, today for example, it's been off the charger for 10 hours, and only at 79% battery.

The only thing I can figure is that when away from home, the phone is trying to find a 4G signal constantly. At work, I have spotty (at best) 4G coverage. Though at home, it's constant and blazing freaking fast.

I wish I could find a way to just turn off 4G when at work, since I don't have wifi access there. Damned Verizon and their gimping of the phone.

 

[snilloconator]

I have terrible battery issues during the week, but during the weekend, almost no issues. I'll have to charge the phone during the workday, but on the weekends, today for example, it's been off the charger for 10 hours, and only at 79% battery.

The only thing I can figure is that when away from home, the phone is trying to find a 4G signal constantly. At work, I have spotty (at best) 4G coverage. Though at home, it's constant and blazing freaking fast.

I wish I could find a way to just turn off 4G when at work, since I don't have wifi access there. Damned Verizon and their gimping of the phone.

That I believe is the exact reason! Your phone is under more load when searching for a signal. I experience the same thing.

 

[jaymf]

did you see the thread about turning 4G on/off with the Phone Info app? Seems to work for some people, maybe you could try that to preserve battery.

 

[flapjacky]

This is fairly typical, if I don't push it too hard...

I don't do anything "special." I'm not using power save, but I do keep my screen at 15% as much as possible. And the dark wallpaper probably helps. It looks like my wi-fi/LTE usage is more like a 66/34 split. Not sure if there's anything else I need to explain, though...

On an unrelated note, what's that widget you have with the battery and the display setting?

 

[tmacftw]

Yeah, Liteon, what are you using to get your task bar like that?

Also curious what launcher you're using and clock/weather widget.

thanks in advance!

 

[exwifeusesiphone]

The kids at XDA are discussing the same thing and narrowed it down to two system processes with wakelocks...But we have no idea what these do.

I'm getting the same thing on mine. 40% Android system usage SOMETIMES. I don't know if it's a widget or not, but people are reporting a reboot fixes it temporarily, at least until it hits the condition that causes these processes to wakelock and burn battery. I know in my case I think it has happened after I went into an area with no coverage (garage underground) and turned airplane mode on after the phone started burning a hole in my pocket looking for signal.

If anyone wants to go back to stock with a factory reset and try to use the phone without installing anything widget wise, that would be really helpful...

 

[naviwilliams]

With no use of Social Media for two days, this is what battery life gets you

 

[alexander323bc]

With no use of Social Media for two days, this is what battery life gets you

I agree, If I dont use facebook its amazing how much better my battery life is.

 

[jroyjohnson]

For those getting 20 hours plus (esp those with almost 2 days) of battery use, are you using an extended life battery or the stock one it came with? My battery was awful at first, got a little better after I tweaked it and cut down the screen brightness, vibration feedback, etc, but still nothing like that.

Yesterday I only had 20% after 9 hours of the charger from over nite. I did use 2.5 hours of screen use but other than that I had only checked a few emails and had 10 min of Google maps use. I had battery saver on the whole time, GPS,WiFi and BY we're all off.

Still wondering if my battery is a lemon. I took screen shots but will have to pay later as I can't seem to without an app

 

[alexander323bc]

For those getting 20 hours plus (esp those with almost 2 days) of battery use, are you using an extended life battery or the stock one it came with? My battery was awful at first, got a little better after I tweaked it and cut down the screen brightness, vibration feedback, etc, but still nothing like that.

Yesterday I only had 20% after 9 hours of the charger from over nite. I did use 2.5 hours of screen use but other than that I had only checked a few emails and had 10 min of Google maps use. I had battery saver on the whole time, GPS,WiFi and BY we're all off.

Still wondering if my battery is a lemon. I took screen shots but will have to pay later as I can't seem to without an app

I don't think its a lemon, I think its that 2.5 hours on a screen that's 4.8 inches large. Its just the nature of the beast. The first 2 days I used the phone was horrible because I was running Facebook, web searching and leaving apps open. Since closing the APPs and checking facebook maybe once an hour ( I get really bored at work) I get about 12 hours of battery. After I work I use the phone for an hour at the gym to play music. That drains it pretty good If I am using slacker or pandora. All in all the battery lasts longer than my Droid X. About 4 hours longer. One things I started doing was preforming a restart after the battery was charged and while still in the charger. Something I read on here, not sure if it really does anything but I don't think it hurts.

 

[naviwilliams]

I don't use any battery type app, or anything like that. When I go to bed, I make sure to close everything in Task Manager; that's it...

Oh, and I have cut out Social Media crap, too

For those getting 20 hours plus (esp those with almost 2 days) of battery use, are you using an extended life battery or the stock one it came with? My battery was awful at first, got a little better after I tweaked it and cut down the screen brightness, vibration feedback, etc, but still nothing like that.

Yesterday I only had 20% after 9 hours of the charger from over nite. I did use 2.5 hours of screen use but other than that I had only checked a few emails and had 10 min of Google maps use. I had battery saver on the whole time, GPS,WiFi and BY we're all off.

Still wondering if my battery is a lemon. I took screen shots but will have to pay later as I can't seem to without an app

 

[liteon163]

I'm using Nova Launcher (free), Beautiful Widgets, and Widgetsoid2.x.

That empty space is reserved for a calendar widget (S2 Calendar Widget 2) I have that's not yet compatible with the SGS3. It will display one month of my Google Calendar in a 2x1 widget, with all day events (my rotating off days) being a different color. I love that app, but even though it supposedly is compatible with ICS, it's not compatible with my SGS3. :-(

Oh, and I always try using dark wallpapers since SAMOLED displays use less power under these conditions (a lesson learned on my AMOLED DROID Incredible).