Had to make important call: Battery Dead..Ready to jump ship

vzwuser76 · Jul 29, 2012

sean76 said:
I always kill everything running in my background before I shut my phone off. Everything I'm using as far as apps has been used on my previous 2 Android devices which were the Original Razor, and the VZW Gnex...Never seen a battery drain like this before on wifi, LTE yes, but never before on wifi. The router is a Verizon Fios router that has never givin me any issues with the Gnex or the iPhone 4S. But with the GS3 I can basically sit and watch the battery meter run like a NYC taxi cab...lmaoo

Just curious, but why would you kill everything before shutting the phone down? When you shut the phone down, obviously everything is killed when it's shut down. If you open an app that was running before you powered down, it will not be where you left it.

For the op, while the s3 has a couple issues, like the standby bug & wifi dropouts (haven't experienced them myself but have heard others having the isue) this is easily the best phone for battery life of any android I've owned. Before this I had the Incredible 1 & 2, the Thunderbolt for a bit, and the Rezound. The S4 cpu is the biggest reason because of the 28nm die process and the LTE radio built into it. While your wife gets better battery life than you do, does she use her iPhone the same way you do? Maybe swap with her and see if you get the battery life you're looking for out of it. The reason it may do better is like others have said, it has a smaller screen, no LTE, and multitasking is not the same as on android. With android you can have many things running simultaneously, but with ios, some things can run in the background but most simply freeze when not on screen. HTC is doing something similar on their Sense 4 devices, which has been met negatively by their users.

As others have said the iPhone 5 is coming in a few months, and as far as we know it will have LTE capability. You may want to wait and see how good their battery life is with that in the mix. I've used a few iPhones and was always bored with them. While they have a good app selection, the look of the OS looks like something you could've seen on phones like the LG Dare or Voyager, a grid of icons. Hell you could've seen that on old PDAs. Unless they really step up their game and get an OS refresh, they're gonna have an OS that for the most part looks the same as it did when it launched 6 years ago.

treb1797 · Jul 29, 2012

eluno said:
i hear ya i had the same problem i'm a very heavy cell user and i had a iphone 4s and i just had to make a call but couldn't cause the battery had died due to my heavy cell use. so i had no choice but to jump ship to android because the dumb ass ip4s dosen't have a removable batt. now everything is all good, cause whenever my batt dies it just takes less than min and i'm back with full speed ahead

I'm confused now by this thread ? OP is saying he hates the battery life on the S3 & likes it on his wifes iPhone ? But this post is agreeing w/ the OP & saying the battery life was bad on his iPhone, but likes it on his S3. Not being rude, just want to make sure I'm clear.

djedgarftw · Jul 29, 2012

I have used both the 4s and the s3 and the s3 has better battery i have lte on most of the time. I am a moderate user and i also have mine oc my 4s would be dead when i would still have 30% or more on my s3.

ldivinag · Jul 29, 2012

me?

S3 can pop off the back panel and R&R the batt.

batts are cheap. cheaper if you dont need NFC.

also, USB micro cables are cheap. 12v cig lighter usb chargers are cheap.

i found a car cig lighter charger that also has a/c prongs that pop out so i can plug into a/c wall socket which came in handy when i was at a restaurant and was getting worried that i was at 20%

i even have a sears 12v drill/driver that i found they have an accessory that will take the batt from it and goes into a thingee that has 2 usb ports and a cig lighter port!

12V POWER SOURCE- Craftsman-Tools-Power Tool Accessories-Batteries and Chargers

when my nephew recently visited he was glad to use that since his nitendo ds only had a cig lighter charger...

matttye · Jul 29, 2012

I take mine off charge at 6:15am on a work day and usually have about 70% left by the time I go to bed - 11pm.

That's on an average day with listening to music on the way to from/work, a few texts and calls, I go out running for about half an hour and have a gps running app map my runs and listen to music at the same time.

Battery life on this phone is great.

If you have like 5 hours of screen on time that seems to be about the limit for most people.

sean76 · Jul 29, 2012

vzwuser76 said:
Just curious, but why would you kill everything before shutting the phone down? When you shut the phone down, obviously everything is killed when it's shut down. If you open an app that was running before you powered down, it will not be where you left it.

For the op, while the s3 has a couple issues, like the standby bug & wifi dropouts (haven't experienced them myself but have heard others having the isue) this is easily the best phone for battery life of any android I've owned. Before this I had the Incredible 1 & 2, the Thunderbolt for a bit, and the Rezound. The S4 cpu is the biggest reason because of the 28nm die process and the LTE radio built into it. While your wife gets better battery life than you do, does she use her iPhone the same way you do? Maybe swap with her and see if you get the battery life you're looking for out of it. The reason it may do better is like others have said, it has a smaller screen, no LTE, and multitasking is not the same as on android. With android you can have many things running simultaneously, but with ios, some things can run in the background but most simply freeze when not on screen. HTC is doing something similar on their Sense 4 devices, which has been met negatively by their users.

As others have said the iPhone 5 is coming in a few months, and as far as we know it will have LTE capability. You may want to wait and see how good their battery life is with that in the mix. I've used a few iPhones and was always bored with them. While they have a good app selection, the look of the OS looks like something you could've seen on phones like the LG Dare or Voyager, a grid of icons. Hell you could've seen that on old PDAs. Unless they really step up their game and get an OS refresh, they're gonna have an OS that for the most part looks the same as it did when it launched 6 years ago.

Why would I kill everything? Have you been following this thread? Obviously my phone is basically loosing lots of battery life while my phone Is just sitting on the counter while on wifi? So why wouldn't I go into the Task manager and kill all the running apps before setting the phone on the counter?

Now I'm really confused as towards what you are saying...because you saying ios freezes the apps and Android does not, which we all know, which is why I kill everything before the phone will not be in use? If I'm reading this right, your almost agreeing with us about ios, but disagreeing just to disagree? These statements are not helping the OP, nor helping me either.

If your going to tell me that an S3's battery just running along without using the task manger, and leaving everything running at all times will out last a 4's I'd have to say your absolutely crazy...which is not my intended point. My goal is not to have an S3 that lasts longer then a 4s...Its to have an S3 that doesn't die and loose so much power while on wifi and not being used. Which hopefully an exchange will solve.

sean76 · Jul 29, 2012

@ the OP...

There is no doubt in my mind that I and probably you as well have gotten a lemon or a lemon battery. I've been on these Forums for a long time, and I have good solid feedback from people I'm really cool with on here that own the GS3 that are getting very very good battery life, maybe not 4s battery life but what can ya expect...The GS3 is just a different animal with a huge screen and LTE. The point is I trust their judgment and will be doing an exchange to give the GS3 another shot.

My expectations are not for the GS3 to outlast a phone with a 3.5 inch screen and the lack of LTE, but to just get me though the day and not die while its not in use, especially while on wifi...

sherlock5545 · Jul 29, 2012

I get about 4/5 hours of life with the screen on. I think this battery life is kind of good, my iPhone 4 was pretty much the same. Is your battery faulty maybe?

sean76 · Jul 29, 2012

sherlock5545 said:
I get about 4/5 hours of life with the screen on. I think this battery life is kind of good, my iPhone 4 was pretty much the same. Is your battery faulty maybe?

Could be, we'll see after I do a swap!

sparksd · Jul 29, 2012

Isn't the cell standby bug just a reporting issue, not a real battery drain problem? Samsung mis-programmed the standby battery drain as 34 mA instead of 3.4 mA, resulting in misreporting how much battery usage was due to cell standby. It doesn't actually affect battery usage itself (or affect the reporting of available battery capacity remaining). The reporting of what processes used what percentage of used battery capacity is all that is wrong. Or is there some other cell standby bug being referenced?

Dave

sherlock5545 · Jul 29, 2012

Yeah, the cell standby isn't a battery life issue, just a reporting issue.

SUroot · Jul 29, 2012

jlm86 said:
not able to handle more the 6 hours of hard use

Depends what you mean by "Hard use". If that is 6 hours of screen on time, then that is good. I wouldn't expect any more out of any device... Not even an iphone.

Perhaps if you could quantify this "hard use", we could tell you if you are expecting too much out of your device or if you have a hardware / software fault.

matttye · Jul 29, 2012

sean76 said:
No way, no how, is the GS3's battery even in the same universe as the iPhone 4s. I'm a realist, and love Android just as much as most people here, but that is not a valid statement. I've owned way to many Android Phones, and every single iPhone to date...and honestly,,,ios basically beats us down when battery life is the topic.

Now I've just recently gave up my 4s for the GS3, and there is a world of difference in battery life...now there are some common sense reasons why...These are the 2 biggest IMO

A-That Big beautiful screen, which is just plain beautiful indoors..
B- LTE connectivity

However...The standby bug is just ridiculous, I'm a seasoned person when it comes to setting up my phone... I can start the day with 100%, not use it for a half hr and still loose 15% while its sitting on my counter. And this is with nothing syncing expect my 4 email accounts every 4 hours, other then that.. nothing.

Samsung has some work to do with an update...ASAP.

That's not a bug with the OS necessarily..download an app called "better battery stats" and it will tell you which, if any, wakelocks your phone is suffering from.

My phone probably wouldn't even drop 1% in half an hour on standby..depends what the signal is like. Bad network signal = higher battery drain. Nothing can be done about that.

greggebhardt · Jul 29, 2012

jlm86 said:
Have now owned 3 Androids, (2 HTC, and now a S3), my wife has Iphone 4s..

I swear i'm ready to go over to Apple... i've NEVER seen my wife have to run around and find a outlet to plug her phone in..

I was REALLY hoping the S3 would not do this, and am very sad, no different than my HTC's...

The battery capacity is just is not able to keep up with the display, quad processors etc, and i am always having to plug my damn phone in some type of power outlet: car, work, home, friends' houses etc...

i'm a techno-file, and love the android custom apps, and all the neat stuff we all do with them, but i'm hitting the damn wall now with frustration.

The android form factor I believe is a failed system in our mobile world. If the system is not able to handle more the 6 hours of hard use, which i do at times, then what is the point?

Today's phones are always a compromise. If you are running your device down in "6 hours of hard use", you are outside the normal use. I have no doubt that you will not even be happy with a iPhone. The GS3 battery could have been much larger to make people like you happy but we would then have a fatter phone.

THE W · Jul 29, 2012

turn your wifi and 4g off when you're not using them.

i do this with my lg connect with an extended battery installed and i consistently get 16 hours out of the battery with 73% to go. i imagine my connect isnt anywhere near as energy efficient as the s3.

it all depends on how you use it.

JimmyRayBob · Jul 29, 2012

thinking outside the box ....

if you use the phone heavily for 6 hours ... maybe consider a tablet to supplement the phone. Yes, it is another thing to carry, but the bigger screen might help productivity. I know my phone battery life went up significantly when i got my tablet.

Shockwave78 · Jul 29, 2012

jlm86 said:
Have now owned 3 Androids, (2 HTC, and now a S3), my wife has Iphone 4s..

I swear i'm ready to go over to Apple... i've NEVER seen my wife have to run around and find a outlet to plug her phone in..

I was REALLY hoping the S3 would not do this, and am very sad, no different than my HTC's...

The battery capacity is just is not able to keep up with the display, quad processors etc, and i am always having to plug my damn phone in some type of power outlet: car, work, home, friends' houses etc...

i'm a techno-file, and love the android custom apps, and all the neat stuff we all do with them, but i'm hitting the damn wall now with frustration.

The android form factor I believe is a failed system in our mobile world. If the system is not able to handle more the 6 hours of hard use, which i do at times, then what is the point?

I'm in the opposite boat, iOS is stale after 5yrs now. The battery life has slowly gotten worse with the release of the iPhone 4 and now the 4s. I would be lucky to squeeze out more than 3 1/2hrs usage time of my 4s. Usage time was as high as 5-6hra back with the 3GS then went down to about 4 1/2 with iPhone 4.

At this point battery life is a non factor in my choice as the iPhone has sunk to the levels of android. The one thing with the iPhone though is that you won't get those weird situations that something , be it an app or memory leak of some sort will just drain your battery like there's no tomorrow even if your not using it. That's a big android fault. Maybe jellybean takes care of it, dunno.

tilk23 · Jul 29, 2012

jlm86 said:
Have now owned 3 Androids, (2 HTC, and now a S3), my wife has Iphone 4s..

I swear i'm ready to go over to Apple... i've NEVER seen my wife have to run around and find a outlet to plug her phone in..

I was REALLY hoping the S3 would not do this, and am very sad, no different than my HTC's...

The battery capacity is just is not able to keep up with the display, quad processors etc, and i am always having to plug my damn phone in some type of power outlet: car, work, home, friends' houses etc...

i'm a techno-file, and love the android custom apps, and all the neat stuff we all do with them, but i'm hitting the damn wall now with frustration.

The android form factor I believe is a failed system in our mobile world. If the system is not able to handle more the 6 hours of hard use, which i do at times, then what is the point?

Does your wife use her phone nearly as much as you do . If she doesn't maybe that's why she doesn't need to charge it all the time. With light use I've done 2d 4h 33m with 5% battery left on the S3.

vzwuser76 · Jul 29, 2012

sean76 said:
Why would I kill everything? Have you been following this thread? Obviously my phone is basically loosing lots of battery life while my phone Is just sitting on the counter while on wifi? So why wouldn't I go into the Task manager and kill all the running apps before setting the phone on the counter?

Now I'm really confused as towards what you are saying...because you saying ios freezes the apps and Android does not, which we all know, which is why I kill everything before the phone will not be in use? If I'm reading this right, your almost agreeing with us about ios, but disagreeing just to disagree? These statements are not helping the OP, nor helping me either.

If your going to tell me that an S3's battery just running along without using the task manger, and leaving everything running at all times will out last a 4's I'd have to say your absolutely crazy...which is not my intended point. My goal is not to have an S3 that lasts longer then a 4s...Its to have an S3 that doesn't die and loose so much power while on wifi and not being used. Which hopefully an exchange will solve.

Okay, I get what you're saying now. When you said you kill everything before you shut it off, you weren't meaning power down, but turning off the screen. I thought you meant you were killing everything and then turning the phone completely off. My bad.

sean76 · Jul 29, 2012

vzwuser76 said:
Okay, I get what you're saying now. When you said you kill everything before you shut it off, you weren't meaning power down, but turning off the screen. I thought you meant you were killing everything and then turning the phone completely off. My bad.

Lol...yea in my eyes the great thing about Samsung is that they usually have an awesome task killer on board that's built in.
So that's what I meant....no harm done ; )

I'm deff exchanging tomorrow or Tuesday..Because from what I'm getting from alot of peeps that I know on here is that this phone is really great on battery life. Prob just got a lemon.

miyooper · Jul 29, 2012

I've felt like I've been getting great battery life so left it on last night after charging it to 100%, leaving the wifi on. Basically after 9 hours I was down to 91%. So I'm only losing 1% an hour when it's just sitting. Right now with admittedly only light use, 1/2 hour screen time, I'm at 84% in just over 14 hours.

jackdubl · Jul 29, 2012

This phone has the best battery of any phone I have owned, so I won't be able help you.

sean76 · Jul 29, 2012

miyooper said:
I've felt like I've been getting great battery life so left it on last night after charging it to 100%, leaving the wifi on. Basically after 9 hours I was down to 91%. So I'm only losing 1% an hour when it's just sitting. Right now with admittedly only light use, 1/2 hour screen time, I'm at 84% in just over 14 hours.

Lol...mine would be down to 30%

TheXFactor · Jul 29, 2012

4 hours unplugged and I am down to 95%. Haven't done much with the phone except check email, but nonetheless, on par with what I expect.

If you're having battery issues, get the rzr Maxx. Beats the living shit out of the iHone....

YankeeDudeL · Jul 29, 2012

If battery life is your most important spec, then you were mislead or made the wrong choice when you went with the HTC phones as they've been by and large the worst for that (before the One series). Even when you got the GS3, you probably should have went for the RAZR Maxx. But you wanted the best, as it sounds.

If you're a technophile, you're not going to be happy with an iPhone. You already know that. I'd also point out that battery life is one of the biggest complaints on the iPhone. Also, I highly doubt your wife's phone usage mirrors yours.

There's some good suggestions here, give it a whirl. I understand the knee-jerk reaction when you need your phone to do something and it does not perform. But we all must remember technology isn't as far as we want it to be. There's apps, tips and tricks, battery chargers, extended batteries, portable chargers, and a plethora of places to charge phones (especially as everyone has extra chargers these days (with the exception of the iPhone, which even changes chargers from phone to phone).

If you make a lot of voice calls, no smartphone is going to give you great battery life. Make sure your bluetooth and wifi are off, close down your background processes, keep a charger in your car, your home, and your work, DL an app like Juice Defender, and shift your perception of what your phone can do, and what your phone does. These are all free solutions.

Had to make important call: Battery Dead..Ready to jump ship

Android Expert

Extreme Android User

Android Enthusiast

Well-Known Member

Android Expert

Android Expert

Android Expert

Android Expert

Android Expert

Well-Known Member

Android Expert

Extreme Android User

Android Expert

Android Enthusiast

Android Expert

Android Enthusiast

Android Enthusiast

Member

Android Expert

Android Expert

Well-Known Member

Android Expert

Android Expert

Android Enthusiast

Android Expert

BEST TECH IN 2023

Smartphones

Best Android Phones

Upcoming

Best iPhones

Upcoming

Tablets

Best Tablets

Upcoming

Laptops

Best Laptops

Upcoming

Televisions

Best TVs

Upcoming

Game Consoles

Best Game Consoles

Upcoming

Wearables

Best Wearables

Upcoming

Smart Home

Smart Home Tech

Upcoming

Similar threads