Girlfriends Galaxy S3 battery sucks balls!

[Oyeve]

So my GF has an S3 for around 6 months and the battery is horrid. She will fully charge and within 3-4 hours it will be at 15%. I applied the 4.3 update last week and it didnt improve. She does have a lot of notifications using the LED all the time. I told her to replace it at tmo as it is still in the one year warranty. she is too busy she says. So, my question, will doing a full restore alleviate this perhaps? I had a similar problem recently with my Asus Memo pad HD 7" where the battery would die in a day even if not used, factory reset cleared that up. She has tons of data but I can always back that up. Mt S3 never had any problems like this. Thanks.

 

[s44]

Did you try swapping another battery to see if the original just lost its ability to hold a charge?

 

[dawheat]

So my GF has an S3 for around 6 months and the battery is horrid. She will fully charge and within 3-4 hours it will be at 15%. I applied the 4.3 update last week and it didnt improve. She does have a lot of notifications using the LED all the time. I told her to replace it at tmo as it is still in the one year warranty. she is too busy she says. So, my question, will doing a full restore alleviate this perhaps? I had a similar problem recently with my Asus Memo pad HD 7" where the battery would die in a day even if not used, factory reset cleared that up. She has tons of data but I can always back that up. Mt S3 never had any problems like this. Thanks.

Sounds like there's some rouge app - its a bit tedious but have you gone through her apps and made sure the notification settings are appropriate? Any non-mainstream app she's using that might be poorly coded?

 

[DefDC]

Do the factory reset. If that doesn't do the trick, take it in. Let them worry about the battery.

 

[Zargon]

sounds like a bad battery man

 

[Oyeve]

Sounds like there's some rouge app - its a bit tedious but have you gone through her apps and made sure the notification settings are appropriate? Any non-mainstream app she's using that might be poorly coded?

Shes running fairly clean. Nothing has raised any flags. I dont have a spare S3 battery to test. I disabled LTE as she doesnt the difference.

 

[SamQuint]

I am not a heavy user but my Galaxy S3 will last from 6:00am to 8:00pm on a typical day. So that is about 14 hours before completely drained.

She probably needs to turn down the screen brightness, turn off Bluetooth and wifi when not in use and also turn off the GPS.

I also talked to the T-Mobile phone support and they said that if you are in an area that gets good coverage you can switch the network setting.
Go to Settings>More settings>mobile networks>network mode> then change the setting to WCDMA only. This really helped to improve my battery life. Since it is not testing and trying to switch modes it consumes less battery. However if it affects your reception you will need to switch it back.

Also I downloaded Juice Defender, and Battery Drain Analyzer. Juice defender helps manage your settings for better battery life and battery drain analyzer tells you what is eating your battery.

Hope this helps and I hope others post their tips.

 

[vshah]

you need to check for wakelocks. get better battery stats.

 

[Yuriman]

you need to check for wakelocks. get better battery stats.

This. Better Battery Stats is free on XDA.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1179809

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Seriously, whenever people complain about battery, they need to post some battery screenshots.

1) Battery page from Android
2) BBS Wakelocks (Partial, Kernel, and Other screens)
3) Optional, but Wakelock Detector

 

[Oyeve]

Seriously, whenever people complain about battery, they need to post some battery screenshots.

1) Battery page from Android
2) BBS Wakelocks (Partial, Kernel, and Other screens)
3) Optional, but Wakelock Detector

I didnt because I know what to look for as far as wakelocks and shit like that. She has like 5 apps, candycrush and bejeweled and yahoo email and handcent. So, yeah, I checked all that.

 

[Jodell88]

I didnt because I know what to look for as far as wakelocks and shit like that. She has like 5 apps, candycrush and bejeweled and yahoo email and handcent. So, yeah, I checked all that.

I think you should check the capacity of the battery. It sounds like it needs replacing.

 

[PowerYoga]

Does she play games a lot? Games will eat battery life no matter what you do.

 

[Muadib]

Does she play games a lot? Games will eat battery life no matter what you do.

Exactly!!!

Since she had an update, I would do a factory data reset, and see what she thinks. I just went to 4.3 on my S4, and the reset worked for me.

 

[nOOky]

Send me the battery, I'll Paypal you $20. Having a battery that sucks balls sounds like a cheap solution to the nagging old lady I got

(Everybody was thinking it, I just said it)

 

[Zaap]

Looks like it might be time to pony up that hefty $10 for a spare battery.

 

[gmaster456]

This same problem is happening to my friend with a GS3. I ended up buying her an extending battery as a bandaid. The stock battery she is having to charge 3 times a day.

 

[MrSquished]

DS Battery Pro makes my S4's battery life insane. i set it to shutdown wifi, data and GPS when the screen is off, it then turns them on every 15 minutes so i can get my emails, then back off. you can customize all these settings. makes standby life super long.

 

[IeraseU]

I have an S3 and in my opinion the battery life is pretty substandard. I never make it through one full day without a battery swap or a recharge. Personally I just blame it on the S3 being an older and somewhat inefficient phone. Luckily the battery is removable so you can just swap in a fresh one or buy a larger capacity one depending on your preference. Samsung even makes an official 3000 Mah battery for the S3. It goes for about $50 on Amazon ( http://www.amazon.com/Genuine-Samsun...ah+battery+oem ).

 

[Lat]

Like most people have said, check for wakelocks with BetteryBatteryStats.

I've had an SGS3 since launch day (now the wife's), and it still has stellar battery life. You can always think about installing a stable CM10.2 build, which will definitely be less bloaty than TouchWiz. I currently have CM10.2 with LeanKernel, at stock clocks without undervolting, and it drains <1%/hour idle.

To optimize screen-on time, you can install Velis or Lux to ensure your screen isn't too bright, and also try to use darker themes in your apps.


That being said, maybe the battery was abused/overheated. If you buy a new one, remember that lithium ion doesn't like deep recharges. Basically, top off the battery whenever you have a charger handy; also don't let the battery heat up too much (charging while playing games, etc).
New batteries will typically last >2 years and ~300 deep cycle recharges before deterioration, if you don't overheat it.

 

[JimmiG]

Shes running fairly clean. Nothing has raised any flags. I dont have a spare S3 battery to test. I disabled LTE as she doesnt the difference.

Sometimes, even innocent looking games can include background services that push ads and notifications and keep the phone awake.

The S3 should last a full day of medium usage normally. Either the battery is bad, or some app is misbehaving. Use something like GSam Battery Monitor to check for rogue apps, or just do a factory reset. Those options are free while a replacement batter will cost you.

 

[Yuriman]

I have an S3 and in my opinion the battery life is pretty substandard. I never make it through one full day without a battery swap or a recharge. Personally I just blame it on the S3 being an older and somewhat inefficient phone. Luckily the battery is removable so you can just swap in a fresh one or buy a larger capacity one depending on your preference. Samsung even makes an official 3000 Mah battery for the S3. It goes for about $50 on Amazon ( http://www.amazon.com/Genuine-Samsun...ah+battery+oem ).

I still have my S2 around and I get around 24 hours with 4 hours of screen-time, or 4-5 days of standby with very light usage. The S3 should have better battery life. I'm almost certain it's software or situational (ie poor signal).

 

[Nec_V20]

Send me the battery, I'll Paypal you $20. Having a battery that sucks balls sounds like a cheap solution to the nagging old lady I got

(Everybody was thinking it, I just said it)

I was actually thinking something like that, but the way you put it it really made me laugh. Thank you for that.

 

[alangrift]

Well most cell companies if you take it in like that will give you a brand new phone fore FREE!!!! ,but this is as long as you havent jailbroken or done anything to the phone.

 

[alangrift]

You could probably just return it to your cell services store and say that your phone battery sucks and it is less than a year old. More than likely they will give you a new one for free.