Utterly woeful battery life on S3

[blizeH]

http://i.imgur.com/GbO55.png

Pretty average use - took maybe 5 photos, used the GPS for directions for maybe 5 minutes tops, and some light browsing and texting, and yet my battery won't last even a day? I went out at 11am and it didn't even last until I got home.

I do have power saving set to on by the way, and the brightness almost as low as possible (which btw, is still far too bright, especially at night in bed, the phone is unusable) and the battery got destroyed.

Any tips? I don't want to have to switch to a Nexus 4 so soon, I've only been using this one for around a month.

 

[boofer]

http://i.imgur.com/GbO55.png

Pretty average use - took maybe 5 photos, used the GPS for directions for maybe 5 minutes tops, and some light browsing and texting, and yet my battery won't last even a day? I went out at 11am and it didn't even last until I got home.

I do have power saving set to on by the way, and the brightness almost as low as possible (which btw, is still far too bright, especially at night in bed, the phone is unusable) and the battery got destroyed.

Any tips? I don't want to have to switch to a Nexus 4 so soon, I've only been using this one for around a month.

do you use the Email app for your gmail account, or the actual gmail app? three friends of mine used the email app instead of gmail and its weird push setting would drain the battery from 100% to 0% in 8 hours with no usage. they either deleted their accounts from the Email app or changed the retrieval setting from push/instant to once an hour or so and their battery life improved dramatically.

as it is, i don't use the Email app, only Gmail, it's set to sync at all times, and i get about 3.5-4 hours of screen-on time over an ~18 hour period before i go to sleep at night. pretty good. if your battery is draining that fast, it's either (1) the Email app, (2) another rogue app that's constantly sending/receiving data, or (3) a faulty battery. i would think that #1 or #2 would be the culprit 99% of the time. it is for this reason that i only install apps when i absolutely have to, and use mobile-optimized websites when i can.

people come on here with facebook, twitter, ebay, and all sorts of other apps running all the time, and they wonder why their battery life is bad. the simple math of it is that with more apps running in the background, more data is being sent/received, and more battery juice is being used.

 

[blizeH]

Thanks for the heads up on that, I exclusively use Gmail though, don't have my details in the Email app.

I do have Facebook, Ebay etc installed though - how do I stop them from checking things in the background?

 

[Heisenberg123]

click your screen to see the lenght of time it was on 44% is pretty high, somthing might be waking your phone up

 

[Lato9905]

Download gsam battery monitor and fully charged it and let it drain, it should tell you the culprit. It helped me.

 

[blizeH]

Thanks Heisenberg, I'll keep an eye on that - I imagine it's just due to brightness... is there anyway to make the phone go below the standard allowed brightness?

Have downloaded GSaM too, thanks

 

[CDPlant]

Are you on Jelly Bean or Ice Cream Sandwich? If you are on Jelly Bean do you have Google Now switched on?

 

[Heisenberg123]

Thanks Heisenberg, I'll keep an eye on that - I imagine it's just due to brightness... is there anyway to make the phone go below the standard allowed brightness?

Have downloaded GSaM too, thanks

brightness effects it but the length of time its on is what i would consentrate on, your screen shot shows you were on battery 10hours if your screen was on for 3 of those hours than your battery would drain as fast as your example shows.

 

[Roadie1015]

Doesn't the blue bar under the graph mean that your phone is awake? The fact that it is continuous tells me your phone is never sleeping.

Also your screen is using way too much of your battery, there actually could be something wrong with it. Mine is actually pretty dim most of the time. Is your wallpaper really bright? Maybe try switching to a darker theme.

 

[Heisenberg123]

Doesn't the blue bar under the graph mean that your phone is awake? The fact that it is continuous tells me your phone is never sleeping.

Also your screen is using way too much of your battery, there actually could be something wrong with it. Mine is actually pretty dim most of the time. Is your wallpaper really bright? Maybe try switching to a darker theme.

good catch, yes my blue bar is scattered its not solid all the way accross

 

[cameronmx9]

Something is keeping your screen on. After my normal days of 18hours+ I still have 40% battery, and this is with a good bit of use at school. Try JuiceDefender, which allows your phone to sleep properly.

 

[thes3user]

Hey guys, can anyone help me out here, i just had some strange behavior from my gs3, my screen would dim after 30sec. but wouldnt shut off completely? Did anyone have that issue? Im also having battery drain problems.

 

[Heisenberg123]

Hey guys, can anyone help me out here, i just had some strange behavior from my gs3, my screen would dim after 30sec. but wouldnt shut off completely? Did anyone have that issue? Im also having battery drain problems.

try one of the battery monitor apps in the play store it will tell you if something is continously running

 

[Metfanant]

what is your screen on time? screen is using 44% of that battery which is normal...if youre screen on time is like 4+ hours...you're doing pretty damn good

 

[kingjavs]

My battery life is good, I guess, I wouldnt say excellent until I know for sure that it is. Here how I used my phone yesterday.
I unplugged my phone from charger at 7:30am

Pandora on the background for like 25 mins
Played hill climb racer for another 20 mins
the usual facebook 10-15 mins.
Watch the hangover II(1:40) with headphones, and my phone died right after that. (around 12:30pm)
brightness about 27-30%

Is that a good battery cycle? I mean 3 hours of usage seems a bit too low, but then again watching a HD movie on that big of a screen should drain the battery fast.

What do you guys think?

 

[davidmanvell]

Hey guys, can anyone help me out here, i just had some strange behavior from my gs3, my screen would dim after 30sec. but wouldnt shut off completely? Did anyone have that issue? Im also having battery drain problems.

There are several things in the phone that could be doing this. power saver mode could be dinning it, the phones auto brightness could be adjusting it, also the chrome default browser in its settings has an auto brightness adjustment. Also there is another (Can't remember where in the settings) that turns your colors to a darker color to save power. If you have all of these on sometimes they can fight each other and you end up with erratic behavior with auto brightness.

I turned all of mine off and just control the brightness manually.

 

[thes3user]

There are several things in the phone that could be doing this. power saver mode could be dinning it, the phones auto brightness could be adjusting it, also the chrome default browser in its settings has an auto brightness adjustment. Also there is another (Can't remember where in the settings) that turns your colors to a darker color to save power. If you have all of these on sometimes they can fight each other and you end up with erratic behavior with auto brightness.

I turned all of mine off and just control the brightness manually.

Thanks for the response, all of the above mentioned are off, except the chrome brightness, will try to set it off as well and will se what heppens.

 

[blizeH]

Are you on Jelly Bean or Ice Cream Sandwich? If you are on Jelly Bean do you have Google Now switched on?

Jelly Bean, and yup Google Now is on

Doesn't the blue bar under the graph mean that your phone is awake? The fact that it is continuous tells me your phone is never sleeping.

Also your screen is using way too much of your battery, there actually could be something wrong with it. Mine is actually pretty dim most of the time. Is your wallpaper really bright? Maybe try switching to a darker theme.

Could it be kept awake because of Google Now? Or something else...? My screen is mostly on the dimmest setting, or at the very least I have it set to auto with power saving turned on. My background theme is quite dark, it's the default Apex one...

Something is keeping your screen on. After my normal days of 18hours+ I still have 40% battery, and this is with a good bit of use at school. Try JuiceDefender, which allows your phone to sleep properly.

Will try JuiceDefender, thanks - currently using GSaM but it seems to basically be a more complicated version of the regular battery discharge screen, which is already confusing

 

[dan55]

screen and then mobile data are the main killers I've
found. but with s3 there seems to be quite a wide range
of different stat times it seems.

I have mine set with about 75% screen,
I like to see its glory :-D. I'm a light call user, but
am tending to play with the phone quite
a lot still, so screen on a fair bit.
I'm getting a day out of it, just.
which is about what you'd expect in guess

 

[Heisenberg123]

screen and then mobile data are the main killers I've
found. but with s3 there seems to be quite a wide range
of different stat times it seems.

I have mine set with about 75% screen,
I like to see its glory :-D. I'm a light call user, but
am tending to play with the phone quite
a lot still, so screen on a fair bit.
I'm getting a day out of it, just.
which is about what you'd expect in guess

im lucky enough to work in an office all day so I usually plug it in around 2 its usually at 60% by than, its usually fully charged when i leave at 3:30 and i can breaze through the night.

there are times ive not done the mid day charge and the phone dies around 11PM that with taking off the charger in the morning around 630am

 

[CDPlant]

Jelly Bean, and yup Google Now is on

I posted this in another thread earlier, hopefully this might help a bit. My battery was pretty bad on JB with Google Now turned on. If you go to Maps (the main maps app) > Settings > Location Settings and turn off Location Reporting it seems to improve the battery life by a fair amount (it seems Google Now is using location reporting constantly and thus wakelocking the phone an awful lot and using up power sending locations etc)

Give it a try and see if it helps at all

 

[Jeepmaster]

To me the biggest drain is DATA and WiFi. I use tasker to control WiFi at home and switch to data when I'm out. Turn off WiFi at night. It last me over a day and i have my screen to auto, email push, Facebook on all day...debloated of course.

 

[cameronmx9]

Jelly Bean, and yup Google Now is on


Could it be kept awake because of Google Now? Or something else...? My screen is mostly on the dimmest setting, or at the very least I have it set to auto with power saving turned on. My background theme is quite dark, it's the default Apex one...


Will try JuiceDefender, thanks - currently using GSaM but it seems to basically be a more complicated version of the regular battery discharge screen, which is already confusing

Juice defender is much different than a battery monitor as it actually prevents apps from accessing wifi/4g while the screen is locked. I saw a double increase in battery life after using it.

 

[Roadie1015]

Yeah I'm not on Jell Bean yet but I keep hearing Google Now is a big battery drain.

My battery seems to have gotten worse after installing Go Launcher, but I can't verify it. My phone also sometimes reports some battery drain by Gallery and Maps even though I never use them.

 

[rushmore]

The main thing that tends to drain battery the most is if in a weak signal area a lot. Worst battery drain of any device I have owned in weak signal areas, but best device in medium to strong areas.

If I did not have a 4000mah battery in mine, I would turn the data off in weak areas. Text and calls still work when data is off.