Battery Life Issues

[Felipe Jimenez]

Hi,

I'm new here, so my apologies if I'm not in the correct area. I have an S3 and my battery life is just horrible. Has been for a while now and I'm now just trying to be pro active about it. I'm running gsam and I get the info below. Does anyone know if what you see is leading to my ****ty battery life? If so, how can I fix it?

Some more background info: typically use wifi, screen timeout set to 15 sec. No NFC enabled and most sync is turned off and email syncs are set for once an hour. I hardly use the phone. For example, I have two batteries and I just swapped them out a handful of hours ago as the battery was dead. and now it's already at 47%. The phone is just sitting here on my desk with the wifi enabled. No blue tooth and gps. I also have power management enabled. Oh and I restored my phone yesterday to factory settings hoping that would have solved it, but no. One final piece of detail. My usb connector on the phone is busted. I can only charge my batteries with my external charger that came with my additional battery. So rooting the phone/tweaking it through usb is not doable.

Any help would be much appreciated as I go through 2-3 batteries a day.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! What's your cell signal usually like? I see that you have no bars in that screenshot--if the signal is poor, the cell radio will use up more battery straining to find a good signal.

It sounds like you've done a lot of things to optimize your battery, but check out this guide for other possible tips: http://forums.androidcentral.com/am...how-tos/298919-guide-battery-saving-tips.html

 

[Felipe Jimenez]

Welcome to Android Central! What's your cell signal usually like? I see that you have no bars in that screenshot--if the signal is poor, the cell radio will use up more battery straining to find a good signal.

It sounds like you've done a lot of things to optimize your battery, but check out this guide for other possible tips: http://forums.androidcentral.com/am...how-tos/298919-guide-battery-saving-tips.html

Thanks for the reply B. Diddy. At my job and at home, I have zero bars. I didn't think about this and I will try putting the phone into Airplane Mode. I checked out that link and I already do most of those things. I will look into google currents and try the airplane mode out and the cache trick (if I can).

 

[B. Diddy]

Yikes, zero bars at home AND work? Maybe it's time to look into switching carriers! You can get an idea of how much time your phone is spending searching for a signal by going to Settings/Battery, and tapping the "Cell Standby" listing. It will tell you the percentage of time without a signal.

 

[Felipe Jimenez]

Yeah Sprint sucks here in the Silicon Valley. Contract isn't up until August and I have been considering it as my reception is horrible indoors and non-existent at home and work. I just checked my time without signal and I'm at 75% without signal. ****! Since I'm mostly at work and at home, I'm probably spending 75-85% of my day without signal. **** me! Never really thought about it until now.

I doubt Sprint would be that nice/forgiving and let me cancel my contract without penalties due to my lack of reception.

I don't know when my battery issues started, but at my old place of living (that's the time I first got the phone), my battery was lasting 23-27 hours. I have the same job so the signal issue is still the same, but I guess I made it worse by moving into my current place that causes me to lose service.

Since my battery is almost dead already, I'll try the air plane mode on a fresh battery both at work and at home to see how that works.

 

[B. Diddy]

I'm in SV, too, and I agree, it's ridiculous how poor the cell signal can be right here in the heart of the tech world. I have Verizon, which is supposed to be tops in the whole Bay Area, and 4G can still be spotty, even right next door to Apple HQ!

Have you asked Sprint for a cell signal booster like the AIRAVE? I've read that some people have gotten it free from Sprint when they called to complain about the poor signal. Why don't you give Sprint a call and tell them you're seriously considering leaving them due to the poor signal, and that you know other people have gotten a signal booster for free from Sprint?

Sprint AIRAVE Wireless In-Home Signal Booster for Voice & Data

 

[Felipe Jimenez]

Yeah it's a bit of a joke how bad it is here. My buddy has AT&T and from what he tells me, he never loses signal and 4G is plentiful. I hardly have 4G and sadly it's not where I live, which is near SJSU. Leaving Sprint is sounding better and better. That's surprising about spotty 4G near Apple HQ. I would think that area would have the latest and greatest

I did not know about AIRAVE. When I moved over the summer and realized that I didn't have signal in my new place (Another thing to check for when moving into a place: Toilet flushing power, shower water pressure, and now cell phone signal hahaha) I looked into an antenna. Found one, but it was a bit hokey and the price was too much. I'll look into this AIRAVE device and see if I can't get it for free. Thanks for the heads up on this device.