Real World Battery life for LTE GS3

The screen can use anywhere upto 70% and over. Theres nothing abnormal about that. You can take a phone off charge, put the screen on for 2 seconds and the percentage of the USED battery associated with screen use could seem ridiculously high.

Its only a proportional thing. Of the 0.0001% of battery used, 70% of that is screen during those 2 seconds, because during those 2 seconds, nothing else much happened.

Hogan773 said:

I switched mine to 4G only (not LTE) and have been letting it sit on the desk all day. I haven't used it hardly at all. Look at this graph....see all the millions of wakeups that the phone has had all day long. I'm still getting about 3% per hour with the LTE off, so it doesn't seem like there is that much difference vs LTE.

One question I have is why is my mobile networks line basically empty....shouldn't it be green with some tan from time to time?

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Basically, yeah, tan / green line.

Aside, you sure have stuff waking up a lot!
Do you do a lot of social networking??

ATT S3. Was in Boston this week on vacation, major LTE city (fast as hell too, kicks the crap out of vzw LTE). From a non-LTE area. LTE abused my battery. In my home area, the S3 in 4G mode is pretty darn good. No pictures, no this many texts, no this many emails, no this many calls... Figure on charging several times a day (if you actually plan on using the phone) when in a LTE market. It will tear your phone to shreds....

TheXFactor said:

ATT S3. Was in Boston this week on vacation, major LTE city (fast as hell too, kicks the crap out of vzw LTE). From a non-LTE area. LTE abused my battery. In my home area, the S3 in 4G mode is pretty darn good. No pictures, no this many texts, no this many emails, no this many calls... Figure on charging several times a day (if you actually plan on using the phone) when in a LTE market. It will tear your phone to shreds....

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+1 LTE drinks battery like kool aid.

WiMax is much easier on battery life.

And honestly my phone doesn't move any faster on 20 mbps vs 8 or 9.

For the VZW version, I am not seeing the battery drain fast unless 3G or 4G are in weak signal areas. If medium to good signal, I can stream content and browse without noticing a big change in drain. Opposite if a weak signal area.

The battery life with 4G in better signal areas is actually better than the Razr using 3G- even when offsetting for the bigger battery in the GS3. My guess is there needs to be better signal management with the kernel in weaker signal areas. The power draw needs to be throttled, rather than turned up to "11" with weaker signal.

Be nice to have a built in control option to actually shut off data in weak signal areas.

I always left my phones on charge from the time I got home from work until I woke up in the morning. With the S3, it says on the screen, "phone charged 100% remove from charger" I have been doing that every night since I got the thing and I found that just a 2 +/- hour charge each day is all I need with this phone. My battery life is awesome!

EarlyMon said:

Basically, yeah, tan / green line.

Aside, you sure have stuff waking up a lot!
Do you do a lot of social networking??

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Re: green line, it's weird. Yesterday mine was showing the green/tan correctly. Sometimes when I pull up the graph it doesn't show, then other times it does. Oh well, must be a little bug since I know I'm in LTE signal the whole time.

Re: waking up, NO I actually am a Luddite and don't have Facebook or anything like that! I do have Hotmail app on Push Sync as well as Calendar and Contact Sync, and I also have Tango and Skype installed and those sync the contacts once a day. Also Gmail is set to sync mail and contacts although I don't really use that. I can't tell which program is causing the wakes without Better Battery Stats correct? I'm too cheap to pay for the BBS app right at the moment since I am getting better life now that I shut off wifi during the day while at work!

KeithSr said:

I always left my phones on charge from the time I got home from work until I woke up in the morning. With the S3, it says on the screen, "phone charged 100% remove from charger" I have been doing that every night since I got the thing and I found that just a 2 +/- hour charge each day is all I need with this phone. My battery life is awesome!

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You realize with the 1 amp Samsung charger that 2 hrs can basically charge your WHOLE BATTERY right? I mean from basically zero %!

2100 mA battery....1000 mA charge per hour.....

Hogan773 said:

Re: waking up, NO I actually am a Luddite and don't have Facebook or anything like that! I do have Hotmail app on Push Sync as well as Calendar and Contact Sync, and I also have Tango and Skype installed and those sync the contacts once a day. Also Gmail is set to sync mail and contacts although I don't really use that. I can't tell which program is causing the wakes without Better Battery Stats correct? I'm too cheap to pay for the BBS app right at the moment since I am getting better life now that I shut off wifi during the day while at work!

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I suggest you sign out of Skype, Tango to see if it improves battery life. I think it will for sure. Those apps not only sync with phone contact but are constantly running in background and periodically checking your contacts in those apps. I don't use Tango, but that's the case with Skype from what I see.

Also there is free app similar to Better Battery Stats. It's GSam Battery Monitor. There is paid Pro version of it too. But free version seems good enough to look at any battery related problem. It will tell you which apps, widgets, radios are drinking juice badly.

Sandroidfan said:

I suggest you sign out of Skype, Tango to see if it improves battery life. I think it will for sure. Those apps not only sync with phone contact but are constantly running in background and periodically checking your contacts in those apps. I don't use Tango, but that's the case with Skype from what I see.

Also there is free app similar to Better Battery Stats. It's GSam Battery Monitor. There is paid Pro version of it too. But free version seems good enough to look at any battery related problem. It will tell you which apps, widgets, radios are drinking juice badly.

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I don't think I am even "signed into" Skype or Tango, but I might be wrong. They don't appear as Running Apps. When I look at them in the Application Sync page they seem to only sync contacts once per day, which seems reasonable (for example Tango shows last sync at 7:06pm last night)

Thanks for the tip on GSAM Battery I'll check it out.

Hogan773 said:

You realize with the 1 amp Samsung charger that 2 hrs can basically charge your WHOLE BATTERY right? I mean from basically zero %!

2100 mA battery....1000 mA charge per hour.....

Click to expand...

Soooo... you agree? The battery is awesome?