Crappy battery

racrgrl

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What is the best settings to get the most out of my battery? Only had the phone since sat and battery is awful.....help


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SpookDroid

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The usual tips: Turn off whatever you're not using... GPS, WiFi, NFC, Air Gestures you don't use, Motion Gestures you don't use, SmartStay/Scroll if you don't use them... AutoBrightness enabled and Haptic feedback disabled if you can stand it.

What I've learned took the worst bite out of my battery was Google Now and Maps. At least in my country Google Now is crap, so I had no trouble disabling it and not missing it. The thing is Google Now CONSTANTLY polls for your location; this also enables the "Automatically Update Location" option on Google Maps. When I disabled those two things my battery life nearly doubled.
 

racrgrl

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Thanks so much for your sugestions, ill give those things a try

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patelkedar91

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If you have a google search bar on one of your homescreens, click on it.
Then hit menu, settings, and turn off google now (cards and everything).

Hope that helps. I noticed MAPS were taking up a lot of my battery, and Google Now is responsible for that.

I suggest turning Google Now on when you're looking for events around you.
 

hobbsave

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The S4 battery is far from crappy. Last hours more than the S3. I'm getting 17+ before it's down to 20%. And that's with Google now on, GPS, mobile data LTE. And most of the gestures on. The screen uses 60+ % on auto.
Besides You can buy second battery for under $20. Just in case.
No battery problem here!

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SpookDroid

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Remember guys, mileage will vary on all phones because we all use them differently and in different conditions (cell signal strength, data, environment, temp, etc.) I do agree that this battery is FAR FROM CRAPPY. I definitely get more juice out of it than my GSII, but this has a bigger screen and bigger battery. Also I have better performance than my friend's S3, and I'm getting pretty much the same (maybe a liiiiittle bit less) than my Note 2 (UNLESS I compare to the Note 2's battery life before the 4.1.2+Exynos update...in that case, the S4 bites the dust).

This phone will usually take you throughout the day with a single charge, but in my case, turning Google Now and it's location-hungry polling off helped A LOT to improve that, so instead of going to bed with 5% left, I can go now with 20 or 30%.
 

decepticlone

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There seems to be a myth that GPS and BT should be disabled if you don't use them. They ARE virtually disabled UNLESS you are using them, so if you're not using Google maps or something that needs your location (you should, however, turn off or delay your weather app updates) these features are in a resting state even if you have them enabled. I get no less battery life with them enabled (my phone connects to my car receiver and I use GPS for certain apps) on my GS2 skyrocket and GS4 than with them disabled.

- Disable automatic screen brightness and turn the brightness down below 50%. This is the main drain on your battery.
- Turn off or pare down syncing for Gmail, Exchange, Google, etc. Push messages, to my experience, doesn't affect the system too much.

These 2 things will give you much longer battery life. My wife gets about 10 hours or so with heavy gaming, web surfing, texting, etc. I had 50% battery left before bed last night after 15 hours with moderate surfing, lots of texting and quite a bit of configuration changes in the GUI and Nova Launcher. The battery in this phone is phenomenal.
 

SpookDroid

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Yeah, but if you turn syncing off, you don't get push messages, so no instant notifications if you get an e-mail or something (that's a no-go for me). As for the radio toggles, you're right. Now the radios are not 'powered' unless used by an app (but if active they do use a marginal amount of battery when in stand-by, though). BUT when juice is a matter of importance, whatever you can get is good, so turning these off is good practice.
 

Almeuit

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Yeah, but if you turn syncing off, you don't get push messages, so no instant notifications if you get an e-mail or something (that's a no-go for me). As for the radio toggles, you're right. Now the radios are not 'powered' unless used by an app (but if active they do use a marginal amount of battery when in stand-by, though). BUT when juice is a matter of importance, whatever you can get is good, so turning these off is good practice.

I would never turn syncing off personally. I agree with you that I like to get push mail and if I add a new contact or calendar event I want it syncd in real time to the cloud. That's one of the joys about smartphones.. Everything can stay in sync easily :).

Sent from my Sprint S3 using AC forums.
 

decepticlone

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Yeah, but if you turn syncing off, you don't get push messages, so no instant notifications if you get an e-mail or something (that's a no-go for me). As for the radio toggles, you're right. Now the radios are not 'powered' unless used by an app (but if active they do use a marginal amount of battery when in stand-by, though). BUT when juice is a matter of importance, whatever you can get is good, so turning these off is good practice.

You can disable Sync at a modular level for apps like Google such as Calendar, Chrome, Photos, etc. That's why I said to pare them down. Obviously a smart phone is not that smart with syncing turned off completely. :) But, I have my news and weather widgets set to update every few hours or twice a day instead of hourly, for instance, and I only sync my Gmail, Calendar and Contacts as far as Google features go.
 

Jonegroove

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I use a lot of syncing, but i dont like it running in the background when im not on my phone.I use a app called Automateit, and have to where it syncs only when my display is one, and off when the display is off. It has helped with some battery life.
 

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