Battery: Defective?

Samtheman7

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Hey all,
I have had the S3 for about 4 months now, and while it is an awesome phone, I was just wondering whether or not I have something wrong with my battery. On an average day, I can get around 1.5 hours of screen time on a charge, with Data, GPS, Sync, and Bluetooth off. Brightness around 1/5. In addition, I have power saving mode on, and JuiceDefender Ultimate running. I also clear the app cache as often as possible. So, any tips on how to get better battery? Or do you think it's just defective? I'm just tired of hearing about people getting 4 hours of screen time on a charge when mine discharges 15 percent with 51 seconds of screen time. Either way, it's far better than the iPhone I came from.
Thanks!
 

pcprik

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That sounds pretty unusual to me. It depends on what you have running and how fast they update. Go through with a fine tooth comb and turn things off you don't use. Google Now, NFC and all S-Beam stuff. Do you use WiFi a lot?

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2
 

NickLippert

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That is a lot lower than it should be. My girlfriend was having the same problem with hers, we switched and now both batteries are doing fine both phones. That isn't exactly a fix but it is all I have.
 

Sashreek

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Thats unusual disable Google now if you are not using it, it is a big battery hog before I used to get 3 - 4 hrs of screen time and after disabling it, I am now getting 5 - 6 hrs of screen time and also I keep my brightness at the minimum when I am indoors.


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Samtheman7

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At the end of the day today I'll upload a screenshot with battery stats.
Don't get me wrong, the phone is awesome, it's just tough to nurse the battery all day long.
 

meyerweb#CB

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Hey all,
I have had the S3 for about 4 months now, and while it is an awesome phone, I was just wondering whether or not I have something wrong with my battery. On an average day, I can get around 1.5 hours of screen time on a charge, with Data, GPS, Sync, and Bluetooth off. Brightness around 1/5. In addition, I have power saving mode on, and JuiceDefender Ultimate running. I also clear the app cache as often as possible. So, any tips on how to get better battery? Or do you think it's just defective? I'm just tired of hearing about people getting 4 hours of screen time on a charge when mine discharges 15 percent with 51 seconds of screen time. Either way, it's far better than the iPhone I came from.
Thanks!

First, clearing the app cache doesn't help, and probably hurts. Memory is constantly refreshed whether it's "used" or not. If the app you want to access is in the cache, the OS can access it instantly. If it's not, the OS has to copy it from ROM into the cache, which slows things down and uses more energy. I haven't used Juice Defender, but most people seem to feel these battery programs, in general, make things worse.

Are you in a very weak signal area? That can certainly chew through battery.

Have you looked at the battery stats in settings? That could give us a clue as to what's eating the battery.
 

makaroni

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Is juice defender like a task manager type of app?

My GS3 sleeps in the bed and I make my girlfriend sleep on the couch
 

Uncle Reemus

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My juice defender was great for about 2 days, yesterday I got 6 hours on a full charge and today I uninstalled JD and with heavy use I still have 51%... great to start but took a severe nosedive

Sent from my GT-P3113 using Android Central Forums
 

Samtheman7

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Anyone know how to put screenshots up on here? Sorry, first time using screenshots on the forum. Got about 1.5 hours of screen with about 30 percent left today. Not horrible.
 

makaroni

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Anyone know how to put screenshots up on here? Sorry, first time using screenshots on the forum. Got about 1.5 hours of screen with about 30 percent left today. Not horrible.

When you're replying to a thread tap the icon that looks like a camera to add a pic from your gallery and just follow the rest.

My GS3 sleeps in the bed and I make my girlfriend sleep on the couch
 

funkylogik

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Defective phone or battery defo :( I can be online for 5-6hrs after a full charge

quadcore 1gb GS3, Neat Rom by Salesale. Paisley, Scotland, Western Europe :beer:
 

funkylogik

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My juice defender was great for about 2 days, yesterday I got 6 hours on a full charge and today I uninstalled JD and with heavy use I still have 51%... great to start but took a severe nosedive

Sent from my GT-P3113 using Android Central Forums

JD only does what u can quickly get into the habit of doin manualy without having an app wasting resources imo

quadcore 1gb GS3, Neat Rom by Salesale. Paisley, Scotland, Western Europe :beer:
 

V J

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That is unusually poor battery. I just got my 4G Galaxy S3 about 2 weeks ago and right out of the box I charged it to full, followed by a full discharge which lasted about roughly 7.5 hours of almost pure screen time on full brightness (set to auto-adjust). My discharge rate on standby was about 1.5%-2% per hour but decreased to less than 1% per hour after the second discharge.

I did try juice defender and other task killer apps early on and didn't notice any increase in battery life. From what I've read most people would advice against using any sort of task killing app claiming to help preserve battery life.

If you haven't tried yet, let your battery discharge completely after a full charge. Do it a couple of times for the next few days and then roughly once a month after that, at the very least it will help minimize your idle discharge. I would also get rid of Juice Defender and any other "bloatware" that may be running background services on your phone.

Also if you go into Settings > Battery you will see a populated list of apps that are using up your battery the most, take note of their percentages and see if there's anything that comes close to the Screen for battery usage, typically during heavy use the Screen should be 50-60% of total battery usage if not more. If your screen is less than 50% of total battery usage and you are still running out of battery in less than 2 hours, and there are no other visible apps causing heavy batter drain then you most definitely have either a defective battery or a severely discalibrated battery, the latter is something that a few full charge/discharge cycles will fix. A defective battery on the other hand is a different story.
 

funkylogik

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That is unusually poor battery. I just got my 4G Galaxy S3 about 2 weeks ago and right out of the box I charged it to full, followed by a full discharge which lasted about roughly 7.5 hours of almost pure screen time on full brightness (set to auto-adjust). My discharge rate on standby was about 1.5%-2% per hour but decreased to less than 1% per hour after the second discharge.

I did try juice defender and other task killer apps early on and didn't notice any increase in battery life. From what I've read most people would advice against using any sort of task killing app claiming to help preserve battery life.

If you haven't tried yet, let your battery discharge completely after a full charge. Do it a couple of times for the next few days and then roughly once a month after that, at the very least it will help minimize your idle discharge. I would also get rid of Juice Defender and any other "bloatware" that may be running background services on your phone.

Also if you go into Settings > Battery you will see a populated list of apps that are using up your battery the most, take note of their percentages and see if there's anything that comes close to the Screen for battery usage, typically during heavy use the Screen should be 50-60% of total battery usage if not more. If your screen is less than 50% of total battery usage and you are still running out of battery in less than 2 hours, and there are no other visible apps causing heavy batter drain then you most definitely have either a defective battery or a severely discalibrated battery, the latter is something that a few full charge/discharge cycles will fix. A defective battery on the other hand is a different story.

Good advice bro but i think with this gen' of Li-Ion batterys, all off that full charge/discharge makes no difference compared to the old ni-cad batterys that had a "memory"
Doesnt stop my dad from doing it with every new phone though lol.
Another option to look into is battery calibration but i doubt its that.
I think the phone or battery are dodgy tbh

quadcore 1gb GS3, Neat Rom by Salesale. Paisley, Scotland, Western Europe :beer:
 

meyerweb#CB

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I wouldn't fully discharge an Li battery more than once. Li batteries do not like being fully discharged, and doing so will decrease battery life. Now it's possible that Samsung has calibrated the battery to account for that, and the phone will shut off before the charge gets too low, but I don't know that.
 

V J

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Also keep in mind that it also depends on what you do with your screen time. From my experience for example, some games are graphically intensive like Wild Blood (utilizing the unreal engine) will greatly tax the cpu/gpu of the phone in addition to the screen's battery consumption so your battery won't last more than a couple of hours playing a game like that. Conversely, I've been able to watch a full-length movie (almost 3 hours) and only lost roughly 20% battery.

And I somewhat disagree about full discharging. It's been said many times that Lithium-based batteries are not meant to be fully discharged on a -regular- basis because in practice it does tend to affect the battery's estimated lifetime (ie it might start failing after 6 years instead of 8 or so). While this is true, it's also commonly advised by device manufacturers to let smartphones undergo a full charge/discharge cycle every now and then to keep the battery properly calibrated. Even Apple officially advises iphone/ipad users to do a full charge/discharge once a month.

I personally experience better battery performance after a couple of discharges. I'm not worried about the minimal effect on the battery lifetime as I'd have upgraded over to a new phone model well before the battery even starts showing any signs of failure, if any, during its lifetime.
 

funkylogik

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Also rememer that white uses the most power, pure black uses none (on an LED screen)

quadcore 1gb GS3, Neat Rom by Salesale. Paisley, Scotland, Western Europe :beer:
 

meyerweb#CB

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And I somewhat disagree about full discharging. It's been said many times that Lithium-based batteries are not meant to be fully discharged on a -regular- basis because in practice it does tend to affect the battery's estimated lifetime (ie it might start failing after 6 years instead of 8 or so). While this is true, it's also commonly advised by device manufacturers to let smartphones undergo a full charge/discharge cycle every now and then to keep the battery properly calibrated. Even Apple officially advises iphone/ipad users to do a full charge/discharge once a month.

Please point me to these device manufacturers recommendations. I've never seen one. The instructions that came with my GS3 certainly don't say anything about it. And good luck getting anywhere near 6 to 8 years of useful life out of a phone battery. In my experience, they start showing significantly shorter useful life on a charge after a couple of years. That may not matter if you buy a new phone everytime your contract is up, but not everyone wants to do that.
 

funkylogik

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I cant afford to do that lol il just get a new battery and hack the bejesus outa my s3 so it keeps up with the crowd.
Batt should last 5-600 full discharges though (a 20% charge/discharge counts as 1/5th of a charge/discharge
as far as i know

quadcore 1gb GS3, Neat Rom by Salesale. Paisley, Scotland, Western Europe :beer:
 

Samtheman7

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Alright, here are yesterday's screen shots. Battery was actually better than normal, but still pretty horrible. I shouldn't burn 70 percent of the battery with only 1.5 hours of screen time. It's not even like I'm playing really graphic intensive games. Nothing beyond like, Temple Run 2. (not even need for speed.)
PS: This post took 6 percent of my battery to complete. Awesome.
 

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