Develop Bugs

[Q] Battery starts draining at exactly 5am.

I started using JuicePlotter yesterday, and noticed that at night my battery barely drains, if at all (hooray for setcpu!). Until exactly 5am when it starts draining heavily at a steady rate. I've done all of the obvious stuff (I think), like making sure I have nothing set to begin syncing at that time, but I can't seem to pin it down.
Does anyone know of a way to find out what's turning on at 5am and draining the battery?

Do you have an Exchange sync setup?
If you do you may want to check and see if your Peak times start at 5AM. If so you may want to set it to update less frequently.

Does JuiceDefender run on a schedule and keep 3G off until 5am?

Thanks for the suggestions guys
I have exchange set up, but its set to "as items arrive" for both peak and non-peak hours (which is set to 8am anyway - yeah, being on call 24/7 sucks).
I'm also not using any kind of timing app like juice defender to schedule anything.
One wierd thing I noticed that may be tied to this, is that certain apps like twitdroyd and fb update immediately when I open the apps, even though they're set to refresh manually, and not to update when I open the apps. Still trying to figure that one out.

Night mode is enabled from 2 am to 5 am. Depending on your settings, Data/3G/Wifi are disabled between those times.

nslouie said:
Night mode is enabled from 2 am to 5 am. Depending on your settings, Data/3G/Wifi are disabled between those times.
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Click to collapse
This sounds promising - can you tell me how to check any night mode settings? (searching turns up nada)

fachadick said:
This sounds promising - can you tell me how to check any night mode settings? (searching turns up nada)
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He is referring to JuiceDefender, I bet. I would guess a lot of people who use JuicePlotter also use JuiceDefender. It does exactly as he described: turns data off from 2am to 5am. I use it, and it does help. It also keeps data off when the screen is off during the rest of the day, except for a quick check every so often.

hankbear said:
He is referring to JuiceDefender, I bet. I would guess a lot of people who use JuicePlotter also use JuiceDefender. It does exactly as he described: turns data off from 2am to 5am. I use it, and it does help. It also keeps data off when the screen is off during the rest of the day, except for a quick check every so often.
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Click to collapse
rats - I was hoping he was referring to something in regular settings. I'm not using JuiceDefender, or anything similar.

well if you do have it setup for everything to be off between 2 - 5 then wouldn't that make sense that as soon as 5 hit your apps will start syncing even Google apps as they have been trying to sync that whole time and just started queuing up and finally your radios turned back on. I have not used juice yet so i do not know much about it just throwing in some pennies.
One other thing the refresh manually is only for when the app is closed as soon as that app opens its going to sync with its servers. When you set it to manual then that means when you open the app you manually refreshed it and the phone did not do that while idle or you were busy on some other app. Its like twitter for desktops if you set your refresh manually then while the app is open it will not refresh until you hit refresh

fachadick said:
rats - I was hoping he was referring to something in regular settings. I'm not using JuiceDefender, or anything similar.
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Click to collapse
One thought: Do you have a good signal in the spot where your phone sits at 5am? A bad signal is the best way to drain a battery fast. A friend's house has an awful Sprint signal, and my battery will drain in four or five hours there, even with no use, whereas I get well over 24 hours with average use in good signal strength areas.
Back when I first got my phone, I used System Panel to figure out what was causing the battery drain. I liked using it so much, I even ended up purchasing it. The history part is what you want, and it will work without paying for a bit, so you can find the problem.

xlrdxrevengex said:
well if you do have it setup for everything to be off between 2 - 5 then wouldn't that make sense that as soon as 5 hit your apps will start syncing even Google apps as they have been trying to sync that whole time and just started queuing up and finally your radios turned back on. I have not used juice yet so i do not know much about it just throwing in some pennies.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that would make sense if I was running something like that, but I'm not - as a part of my job, I need to be able to reply immediately to specific emails. At any hour. Total PITA, but hell, it's better than not having a job, right? JuicePlotter's pretty neat though - it just sits in the background monitoring your battery levels and graphs them. For example, it was showing an almost horizontal line from when I stopped using the phone the night before until exactly 5am when it started a gradual decline.
xlrdxrevengex said:
One other thing the refresh manually is only for when the app is closed as soon as that app opens its going to sync with its servers. When you set it to manual then that means when you open the app you manually refreshed it and the phone did not do that while idle or you were busy on some other app. Its like twitter for desktops if you set your refresh manually then while the app is open it will not refresh until you hit refresh
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you sure about this? I mean it makes sense, but I would be willing to swear that back when I was running stock I would open FB or Twitdroyd and it would wait for me to hit refresh before syncing with their servers. Twitdroyd, for example, I would set to keep 80 tweets, and I would check it only occasionally, so I could read those 80 tweets whenever I wanted. Now when I check it, because it syncs immediately, I lose anything older than the most recent 80 tweets. As a workaround, I've increased the number of tweets to keep, but it's still annoying.

ok so hmm what rom are you using. not wanting to bash the dev but could it be that rom?

hankbear said:
One thought: Do you have a good signal in the spot where your phone sits at 5am? A bad signal is the best way to drain a battery fast. A friend's house has an awful Sprint signal, and my battery will drain in four or five hours there, even with no use, whereas I get well over 24 hours with average use in good signal strength areas.
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Click to collapse
My signal's not great, but the phone didn't move between 4am and 5am, and the battery only started draining at 5am.
hankbear said:
Back when I first got my phone, I used System Panel to figure out what was causing the battery drain. I liked using it so much, I even ended up purchasing it. The history part is what you want, and it will work without paying for a bit, so you can find the problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I actually purchased SystemPanel this morning with the hope that it would help me get to the bottom of this (I had been using the free version for a while, and now I had an excuse to buy it). It shows me history of battery, device usage, and cpu activity, but even if I see that the cpu or the device is being used, I'm still not sure how that's going to help me pinpoint what's going on. First I need to build up some history anyway though.

If you get great battery life, please share your tips here!

I'm currently on the CM7 ROM, I have juice defender and done all the minor tweaks as far as disabling wireless network location, turn off the wifi and GPS, and an app killer. I still only manage at max 9 hours before my phone tells me to recharge.
If your getting great battery life, help me and others by sharing your tips here.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

Best tip is to stay on wifi as much as possible. I got 3 days on wifi and about 4 hours use.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

I turn data off when im not using the internet and when I'm just listening to musc I just put my phone in airplane mode

Yeah, I need some help too. I get about a day and a half with no use at all, and about 10 hours with minimal use. 4 hours with real world usage... I can't deal with this. Could it be the battery? It performs like a 1 year old, used, refurb battery came with a stock phone!
Sent from my Samsung Epic 4G with Tapatalk

Have you configured the battery since flashing the rom?
I get decent enough battery life, with light usage I can go about 36 hours w/o a charge but on my heavy usage days I usually have to use the car charger a few times a day.

kennyglass123 said:
Best tip is to stay on wifi as much as possible. I got 3 days on wifi and about 4 hours use.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
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masaidjet said:
I turn data off when im not using the internet and when I'm just listening to musc I just put my phone in airplane mode
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Click to collapse
liquiddetox said:
Have you configured the battery since flashing the rom?
I get decent enough battery life, with light usage I can go about 36 hours w/o a charge but on my heavy usage days I usually have to use the car charger a few times a day.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
all of these... biggest one is to turn off data when the phone is in your pocket. use wifi when u can, avoid using 4g unless plugged in, configure the battery in recovery (i've actually notice that this helps less than anything else for me), and finally: get an extended battery. it's worth the extra hours u can squeeze out of it. don't expect more than 4-5 hours screen on time with any rom/kernel/modem combo with a stock battery.

liquiddetox said:
Have you configured the battery since flashing the rom?
I get decent enough battery life, with light usage I can go about 36 hours w/o a charge but on my heavy usage days I usually have to use the car charger a few times a day.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I also did that wipe battery stats at recovery.
I just thought maybe my expectations were too high, although it seems as if my battery drains drop pretty fast.
I would say about -10% battery drop every hour, just checking the time and send/receive text messages. Occasionally I surf the Web on the phone when on break at work. Other than that the phone is in my pocket, and after my 9 hour workday my phone demands the charger.
This is with the stock battery, so I guess this is normal unless I'm using the extended battery?
...
Sent from I guess my SPH-D700 using XDA App

u could also run a kernel that allows for over (under) clocking/undervolting. that helps some, too

get the duricell portable battery extender, add milliamps to your arsinal in one way or another with extended batterys or whatever, if you call sprint and complain loudly and dickly they will rebate you the cost that u spend on a new battery or batt extender whatever... that being said all the above options work great, u can also use night mode on chainfire 3d to save battery, or perhaps half your pixel rate, or perhapes turn off some colors (havent seen an app to do this yet) and reset your battery memory in cwm, kill ur batt, charg while off, then cycle again like that. (theres an app for that) if your not rooted, root your phone. if you dont want to root your phone, cycle ur battery the old fasion way or pop it into a rooted phone and do it.

I used to get really poor battery life (due to my phone not sleeping as evidenced by Spare Parts app). I rooted, used Titanium Backup to freeze various apps, and got an Zboost antenna booster for the office and called Sprint who sent me an Airave for the house. I wiped battery stats and cleared my Dalvic cache and the thing the finally got me right was finding out the Amazon MP3 app was still logged in though not running. Once I made sure I was logged out of that and Lattitude (Google Map feature) and Facebook, I haven't had any problem with a sleeping phone. Stock Froyo, standard battery, but rooted. When they say a bad app keeps your phone from sleeping I think they mean an app that requires log in...although this does not seem to be a problem if you stay logged in from a browser, only from an app!

Breezy357 said:
I'm currently on the CM7 ROM, I have juice defender and done all the minor tweaks as far as disabling wireless network location, turn off the wifi and GPS, and an app killer. I still only manage at max 9 hours before my phone tells me to recharge.
If your getting great battery life, help me and others by sharing your tips here.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You may be shooting yourself in the foot with some of those things. App killers aren't that useful on Gingerbread since they keep killing apps that just reload on their own, and every time the reload it uses power. Just because an app is loaded doesn't mean it is running. Try letting the system take care of it. Juice Defender may help a little but it keeps shutting down data and starting it up, which means you don't get as much usefulness out of the phone and may waste power in some circumstances.
See what you have set to sync. Turn off any autosyncs you don't need, like weather screens, facebook, etc. If at all possible set them to only sync when you open the program.
I use the exchange option for gmail using the stock samsung app, which gives me push email but doesn't have to keep polling the server. I don't know if that makes a difference compared to imap, but it works well for me. don't think you have that option in CM7.
Wifi is a much more efficient way transfer data than 3G, use it whenever you can, and set it to never sleep. Otherwise the 3G radio keeps starting up again and wasting battery.
You can freeze the DRM stuff if you don't use it. I don't know if it really makes a difference but everyone thinks it does, so I do it.
Having a black wallpaper helps a little because on a AMOLED screen a black pixel uses no power.
The biggest battery killer is being in a bad signal area. If you always have 0 or 1 bars then your phone is going to always be draining the battery trying to find a good cell. In that case Roam Control may help you.
That's about all I do, and with the latest Stock gingerbread EH17 and EI22 I'm sitting with about 40 to 50% left after 12 hours, that's with light to moderate use.

I've been through the ringer with this. I'm pretty comfortable now, routinely managing to have 33% of battery left after 12hrs w/3g always on, sync always on, intermittent music listening, 2.5-3hrs of gaming and general "screen on" time (auto brightness), 1.1 GHz OC, no undervolting, and GPS always on. Here's what I'd suggest:
Flash a ROM w/ NO CIQ (thanks k0nane!) - In addition to being a leech on your privacy it's a leech on your battery. It's old news to long-time Epic owners at this point, but ditching CIQ improves battery life and overall responsiveness of the Epic. A popular stable Froyo ROM for this is SFR 1.2.
Minimize always-running services - Long press your homescreen, select "shortcuts," select "settings," and select "running services." Tap this to see what's running ongoing services (not apps) your phone is running. All of these are drawing current to stay in RAM. Things like Juice Defender, Tasker, and others show up here and draw power in doing so. JD and Tasker especially can drain a lot because they perform constant tasks as well. Uninstall them and let your phone manage itself.
The same goes for task managers and app-stoppers - Froyo and above does this fine on it's own
Freeze/Uninstall system services you don't use - This includes things like Sprint voicemail, the "Email" app, and the "SprintAndroidExtension.apk," and SNS services. You'll most likely find these on the "Running Services Page" as well. You can Titanium Backup to uninstall them, but I recommend the SDX Stock App Remover as that can restore them (TB can't reliably). TB can freeze these as well, which accomplishes basically the same thing. SNS is connected to Facebook, so if you use that a lot you might want to keep it. DRM services can also be removed, but may cause problems reading the SD card. I stay away from it.
Use Spare Parts to monitor wakelock and CPU usage - If you notice something giving you persistent trouble, shut it down. This is time-consuming, but you'll get a good feel for what apps are out there to accomplish similar tasks and which one best suits your needs.
Uninstall apps you don't use - Next time you wipe and flash a new ROM, reinstall or restore backed up apps as you need to use them and not all at once. You may find you don't need quite a few of them, allowing you to keep more space open on your phone and requiring less current to maintain them
Don't charge the battery overnight - most phones can reach capacity in 2-4 hours depending on charge level. Beyond that, holding at or around fully charged will degrade the battery by denying it the ability to release the stored energy. I charge mine in the evening a few hours before bed and top it off in the morning before leaving for work.
Get an 1800mAh battery sold for the Epic Touch - this is what moved me form "getting by" to "definitely comfortable." For around $25 (incl shipping) on ebay, I've gotten a new lease on my Epic's life. It may seem like cheating to bring in a new battery, but it makes a lot of difference WITHOUT adding more bulge to your phone (makes it a tad heavier though).
Hope this helps. Remember, of course, that what works for one phone won't necessarily work for another. Despite being the same model, minor imperfections in silicone can create individual temperaments for each phone.

I as always trying to make my battery last by stopping this and uninstalling that. Then I thought; why did I buy this phone with all of these capabilities to turn them all off

So, something like the "Hyperion Sprint Samsung Epic Touch 4G 2 x Battery + Charger" (too "young" to post a direct link)
Would fit in/work with the Epic 4G (without needing a new cover)? Even though its for the Touch?
Lol, I've been doing many of the suggestions across the board, and have gotten much better results. But I'm still not "comfortable" with my battery strength, especially when I'm unable to charge my phone all day...

Looking into your running services is a big one. week ago my battery life greatly decreased. I kept seeing market update pending and it wouldnt go away. Never update never go away. I manually updated the market and the battery is back to wonderful. It drops 2-3% at night off charger. Thats about 8 hours.
A sticky with all the main running services and which ones you can stop would be wonderful. I have sns services running. I think i can stop it but not positive. I also have sanservice running supposedly some type of samsung update. Its not doing anything but its been running for 2 days. No negative effect on battery(that i notice) but its running. Also make sure you turn location off. Ive also noticed that even when you back out of google maps its still in running services. A restart fixes that but thats annoying.

themow said:
Looking into your running services is a big one. week ago my battery life greatly decreased. I kept seeing market update pending and it wouldnt go away. Never update never go away. I manually updated the market and the battery is back to wonderful. It drops 2-3% at night off charger. Thats about 8 hours.
A sticky with all the main running services and which ones you can stop would be wonderful. I have sns services running. I think i can stop it but not positive. I also have sanservice running supposedly some type of samsung update. Its not doing anything but its been running for 2 days. No negative effect on battery(that i notice) but its running. Also make sure you turn location off. Ive also noticed that even when you back out of google maps its still in running services. A restart fixes that but thats annoying.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
SNSservice is a Facebook and Feeds and Updates Widget service. ALWAYS stop it. It does not matter to Facebook, even if you use it, but if you remove the Feeds and Updates Widget on one of your screens, that service continues to search for it and will kill your battery in a matter of hours (it starts a "restarting" loop). Either leave the widget on or kill this service after every reboot or if you are rooted, freeze it along with DRM service.
My other battery tips are to log out or sign out of every app such as Lattitude, Facebook, Amazon MP3 (it's ok to use them, but don't just back/exit out, actually sign out of them so you have to log back in next time). Apparently, staying signed in causes your phone to not sleep and you can't find what is causing it (i.e. you can't see it "running" anywhere...people call it a misbehaving app, and you would have to delete apps one at a time to find it by trial and error).

[Q] Battery draining too fast

i am running cm9 alpha 4 with kernel fe16 and i cant get through 5 hours without having to charge or throwing my extended battery in. i need my phone to last the day with the job that i do email,calls,text,social networks,ect. i would really like to know why my battery is draining so fast. i deleted alot of apps that were draining the battery, but it dies too fast still. please help.
Thanks
jordan

Let it get hit by lightning, did that and now my phone stays 100% all day
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium

Lol thats funny ill try it
Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2

are you using a custom ROM? I'm kinda new to Samsung devices, but I know HTC's Sense was a battery hog, so I'm sure Touchwiz is the same.
Try installing CM9 or AOKP build 37.
I have AOKP Build 37 installed and my battery lasts the whole day.

jordan0314 said:
i am running cm9 alpha 4 with kernel fe16 and i cant get through 5 hours without having to charge or throwing my extended battery in. i need my phone to last the day with the job that i do email,calls,text,social networks,ect. i would really like to know why my battery is draining so fast. i deleted alot of apps that were draining the battery, but it dies too fast still. please help.
Thanks
jordan
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You and me both brother. Been dealing with it for months. Pisses me off to no end when I see others posting 20-30 plus hours -_-
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium

http://e4gtcm.blogspot.com/p/customization-guide.html
Read the power saving options.
Wrong section by the way. It should be in Q and A, not general.

Try a different rom, tfe16 has been the best yet for me and agat has an updated version coming soon. Also dont use 4g, wifi, gps etc unless you need them. Solid black background and lockscreen, inverted apps and dark settings. Ditch facebook twitter and crap like that that updates and burns battery.

someguyatx said:
Try a different rom, tfe16 has been the best yet for me and agat has an updated version coming soon. Also dont use 4g, wifi, gps etc unless you need them. Solid black background and lockscreen, inverted apps and dark settings. Ditch facebook twitter and crap like that that updates and burns battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Really no point on running ICS if the phone is half way neutured. Just my opinion.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2

someguyatx said:
Try a different rom, tfe16 has been the best yet for me and agat has an updated version coming soon. Also dont use 4g, wifi, gps etc unless you need them. Solid black background and lockscreen, inverted apps and dark settings. Ditch facebook twitter and crap like that that updates and burns battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Basically if you don't use your phone, your battery is awesome...

Go outside and play instead of sitting on your phone youtube'in

Whatever guys that stuff applies to any mobile device. Turn off stuff you arent using, ditch the live wallpapers, worthless apps, and status updates and you get more battery life. You want to surf, download, stream then by all means toggle wifi or 4g on but no reason to leave it on while you are doing nothing. Same goes with gps and bluetooth.

someguyatx said:
Whatever guys that stuff applies to any mobile device. Turn off stuff you arent using, ditch the live wallpapers, worthless apps, and status updates and you get more battery life. You want to surf, download, stream then by all means toggle wifi or 4g on but no reason to leave it on while you are doing nothing. Same goes with gps and bluetooth.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With the exact same setup I have now, I get 20-30 hours on gingerbread. On cm9... I get five.
I don't leave wifi on. Don't leave 4G on. Usually have a minimal screen on time of around thirty freaking minutes.
Don't tell me that I need to cripple my phone (i use it for business). Because there is something clearly wrong. I suspect it is the kernel. I don't have unnecessary apps installed (aside from ones that work great with gb). Don't use a live wallpaper. I do however, refuse to disable auto syncing.
There is clearly an issue with ICS.
I'm not going to turn my smartphone into a paperweight like you suggest.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium

Not using stuff you don't need is hardly crippling your phone its smart use. I never said anything about turning off auto sync either but you should be selective what you sync. Google plus, drive, picasa all sync pics and other crap in the background without telling you and it kills your battery especially if you are in a bad signal area. Figure out whats draining your battery by using better battery stats and apps like system panel lite http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1179809
Honestly though try another rom and do a clean install. If you get 80% less battery life no amount of tweaks will fix it and the ics leaks are good now. Several months ago the battery life was half of gb and now they are about the same.

someguyatx said:
Not using stuff you don't need is hardly crippling your phone its smart use. I never said anything about turning off auto sync either but you should be selective what you sync. Google plus, drive, picasa all sync pics and other crap in the background without telling you and it kills your battery especially if you are in a bad signal area. Figure out whats draining your battery by using better battery stats and apps like system panel lite http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1179809
Honestly though try another rom and do a clean install. If you get 80% less battery life no amount of tweaks will fix it and the ics leaks are good now. Several months ago the battery life was half of gb and now they are about the same.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Trust me, I've done all this. I have the same battery life with ICS now that I did a couple months ago. Going to stock, it is wonderful. Had my battery tested by sprint yesterday, it's fine. So, i'm just waiting for a real kernel and hoping for the best.
Sent from my SPH-D710 using xda premium

Turn off LED notifications they're a known issue for wake-lock.

I get terrible battery life on alpha 5. Change to a stock kernel might help.

Kobridge's tweaks http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1668853 along with Badass Battery and CPU Spy have helped me trace battery drainers. Also wholeheartedly agree turning off apk's and functions that are of specious value helps greatly ie.( auto rotate, auto brightness, dialing back on sync; etc.)
Good luck

SGSIII / General Android Battery Tips (Can triple battery life!) | Updated 8/27/12

This thread that I've revamped from my Evo 4G/3D days, hoping to share some of the love with newer users. Over the time I've been on android, I've learned a few simple things that can greatly assist in the battery life of our wonderful smartphones.
If you get anything out of the thread, please don't hesitate to rate it and drop me a thanks!
If you read the thread and like the tips, have a new one to suggest, or have a revision, please post it.
On a similar note, moderators, thanks for the sticky!
General Lithium Ion Battery Information
^^This link includes stuff about charging, including trickle charging aka SBC (Why NOT to use it, or at your own peril)
My tips for good battery life:
Tips for Non-Rooted users
1. Turn off all radios when not in use.
(Bluetooth, wifi, data, 4G/Wimax/LTE, NFC, etc) Use a widget like the default power widgets, Switchpro, or a similar app from the market. Newer android versions generally allows users to access these radios and other settings from the notification pulldown menu, , under the "Quick Settings" tab or a row at the top of the pulldown. The radios of the phone draw power if on even if the user isn't actually utilizing the radio's functions. A radio searching for signal (if you are in a low-signal area) drains more than a radio with good signal, so again, turn 'em off when you aren't using 'em.
To manually turn off radios without a toggle, go to menu>settings>wireless & networks.
Wifi uses less battery than 3G, so use wifi when you can.
Unlike the others, GPS radios only draw power when you actually need them, so you can leave it on all the time.
2. Juice Defender is one of my favorite apps. Basically it controls your data for you to maximize life.
More explanations are on their page, search it on the market for free, or upgrade for more features.
Here are my settings for it: Click me
Note that for me at least, juice defender likes to deny apps data privileges whether you allow them or not, so screen on = data on works best for me.
3. I love live wallpapers, and I’ve always been a fan of pixel zombies, but they are really only good for showing off due to their battery drain.
4. Sadly, the "always on mobile data" setting is gone. This tip is invalid.
Go to menu>settings>wireless & networks>mobile networks>disable always on mobile data.
Product F(RED) said:
To clarify, "Always On Mobile Data", when turned off, lets the 3G modem go to sleep after the screen has been off for 5 minutes. It doesn't interfere with anything like email or any other application that requires an internet connection at that moment because it turns on on-demand rather than being on all the time and wasting battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
5. Set your screen timeout to something that fits you.
The screen is the highest drain of battery power on any smartphone. BY setting the timeout, you can prevent your phone from staying on when you don’t manually turn off the screen. Also, manually turn off your screen when you’re done with your phone.
Menu>Settings>Display>Screen Timeout
I use 30 seconds.
6. Task killers used to be the shiz, but no longer.
Here is the ultimate, in depth, graphically assisted, explanation by the famous Fresh ROM's chef, Flipz. Shortly, in light of recent testing, really don’t do anything but force apps that the android OS needed to be open, and thus didn’t close, to re-open. So try not using them, unless for stuff like trying to figure out why your phone isn’t sleeping with system panel. You really won’t notice a performance difference, and the adverse effects you aren’t seeing will stop
+=+ A good alternative is the application SystemPanel Pro. It has a free version, but I highly reccomend purchasing the paid app. It basically monitors everything going on with your phone's usage both in real time an in terms of usage history. If your battery is draiging fast, it tells you what app was doing it, how much it was doing it, and allows you to stop it.
7. I'm sure you have all heard around that your phone isn't "sleeping".
This is referring to the phone's "awake" time, hence the name. When you go to Menu>Settings>About Phone>Battery>click on the small battery graphical, you can compare the two lines, time on and awake. Generally, up time refers to the amount of time since the last reboot. The "awake time" is how long the screen has been active. The problem is, a lot of the time, due to the endless possibilities of inconsistencies between apps/ROMs/kernels/phones, the phone will not go to "sleep", drawing power proportionate to the screen being in use when it reality the phone is sitting idle.
If you compare these numbers, and they are the same, or if you note the difference, turn off the screen for a minute, then re-check and they are the same, then your phone is not sleeping.
One solution is to reboot.
I recommend two apps to help monitor:System Panel and Better Battery Stats. These two apps (explained in their FAQ's and descriptions greatly aid in finding those rogues.
Usually, SystemPanel will show an app that has gone "rogue" and is keeping your phone awake.
-This is done by hitting menu>settings>monitoring enabled. Then after some time has passed, ht menu>monitoring>history>change tab to top apps, and see if anything is above, say, 2-4%.
Uninstall applications/reinstalling them slowly, checking after every install to see what is causing it is one tedious but surefire solution.
Lastly,
Follow these steps that I have discovered almost always work.
1. Reboot phone.
2. Instantly upon reboot, as soon as you gain control, open up some type of monitor/taskkiller
3. "kill all" tasks on startup; about 5 times in quick succession should do the trick.
4. Turn off the screen and leave it for about five minutes.
5. Check the up time v. awake time and see if they are the same.
6. If they are, repeat steps 1-5. If they are different, you are good.
8. Apps and Combinations to watch out for!
-Facebook- Tries to sync live feed all the time, HIGHLY recommend unchecking this box, as it creates a massive draw on data
-Skype- This app reportedly (I've seen it myself) likes to sync random data and open up the network for fun. Sign out of app when not in use to fix
A rogue process called "gsiff_daemon", associated with the gyroscope. Changing its name seems to be the only semi-permanent solution. It's located in system/bin.
Lightflow is a pretty damn cool notification/led manager, but it eats up ridiculous system resources using its alarm wakeups. Use at your own risk.
9. Manage your syncing.
This is a big one, and it differs from person to person. Go to Menu>Settings>Accounts and Sync, and take a look at what's going on there. The green or checked or activated box to the right of the option means that there is an account syncing data. I for example have four email addresses, facebook, dropbox, box, weather, etc. That is bad. You should go through and turn off syncing for nasty apps you didn't even know where accessing the internet, or limit the access of apps and services that you do want to allow.
The problem lies in the way this syncing is handled. Each app/service runs on its own schedule, making it particularly likely that your phone could almost always be establishing a data connection and trying to download data for your various apps. See step 2 regarding the app Juice Defender to handle this problem.
10. Vibrate Settings
Vibration and haptic feedback eat up a surprising amount of battery. If you have the haptic feedback enabled, then every time you press anything your phone puts out some juice to make itself dance.
At least on the GSIII, the settings are in menu>settings>sound
Some apps have their own haptic feedback settings, and notifications are their own set entirely.
Root Tips LIVE
Tips for Rooted users:
1. Try out custom kernels.
By going to the Galaxy S III Android Development section of the forums, you can see all of the different kernels being developed. These allow for all kinds of modifications like underclocking the CPU and undervolting, both of which save battery. To see how to use them, read the FAQ's in each thread's OPs.
Here is a great guide to custom kernel's by mroneeyedboh.
2. Use SetCPU in compliance with whatever your custom kernel allows.
This site will explain the basics of SetCPU: http://www.setcpu.com/
-Profiles from SetCPU should usually involve these for battery life optimization:
-Screen off at the minimum clock speed for both, with the max raised on level if sluggishness is apparent
-A temperature greater than “X”
-General power related profiles that lower cpu speed at lower battery levels
-Here are my SetCPU profiles: 1 , 2 , 3
-My profiles change a lot as time goes by, because different kernel creators recommend different settings. I suggest reading up on whatever kernel you are using to gather settings.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTES:
*Some apps or processes begin to run at startup and keep the phone awake. These apps are not detected by things like spare parts or system panel, unless sometimes represented in the "system" process, in which case its usage will be unusually high.
This shouldn't take more than three repeats, and if it does, you need to factory reset, and slowly add apps back to see what's causing the problem.
___--- When it comes to actually "calibrating" one's battery, there are a couple of methods floating around. The method I first learned is to charge the phone all the way, boot into recovery immediately, and "wipe battery stats". Then reboot quickly, and run your phone all the way to death without charging it, then charge it all the way without interrupting it, and you should be good to go. Do this when changing ROMs/kernels for best results.
----When it comes to people claiming 20 plus hours of moderate/heavy use out of their current setup or other ridiculous absurdities, consider my position: No matter what you do, the Evo battery is the Evo battery. You can tweak it and customize it with kernels, ROMs, and settings, but none of that will turn it into a car battery. The main problem (besides a false sense of pride) that leads to these reports is the misunderstanding of what the usage levels are, so here’s my best summary:
* *Light usage – Phone screen actually on for maybe 0-2 hours. Things like a few texts, some emails, 20 minutes web browsing, etc.
* *Moderate usage – You watched a few youtube videos or similar apps, sustained web browsing, hundreds of texts, some games. Hours range from about 2-5 of screen on
* *Heavy usage – LOTS of video watching and games, 3D pics or video, or some high def gaming/movie watching for at least an hour to an hour and a half in total, with lots of emails and texts, browsing, and other app shenanigans. 5+ hours
*I’m sure everyone doesn’t agree with all these numbers, but this is most likely a good average of what powerusers think. All specific hourage may vary due to differences in phones, batteries, ROMs, and kernels… Which also means that most battery comparisons are pointless; it’s only what you can improve on that counts!
I’ll update this whenever I see good stuff, people remind me, or I remember/come across things I do.
Hope it helps everybody!
Hit the "THANKS" button if I help you!
Vote for Your Favorite Tip

Nice tips

I'm not quite sure if leaving the GPS on actually eats up battery now. I've seen articles now that state that GPS is only used if a program needs it. When I go into battery and usage, GPS will only show it has been used only a couple times with the apps that I opened such as Facebook, Speed Test or Gas Buddy. I think with ICS, it has changed in the way that GPS actually works and it is not actually constantly using battery.

jhuff83 said:
I'm not quite sure if leaving the GPS on actually eats up battery now. I've seen articles now that state that GPS is only used if a program needs it. When I go into battery and usage, GPS will only show it has been used only a couple times with the apps that I opened such as Facebook, Speed Test or Gas Buddy. I think with ICS, it has changed in the way that GPS actually works and it is not actually constantly using battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is correct and I have confirmed it. Just haven't updated the op.
Thanks for calling that to my attention.

The one about turning radios off is one that makes all the sense in the world, but I'm not sure in practice if it makes a significant enough difference to override the inconvenience of having to flip things on and off as needed.
I can only speak from personal experience but for about two weeks my wife and I, both with S3's, were shutting radios off when not needed out of habit from our Epic days. However, since then (well over a month now) we just leave everything on all the time... and I do mean *everything*: GPS, Wi-Fi, NFC, cell radio, BT... and the difference has been... wait for it... so little it's actually been hard to quantify!
My own take on that rule is to leave everything on and see what you see... it's always easy enough to turn things off if you find your battery life not living up to expectations and if it winds up being a trend, so be it, leave things off as suggested in the OP. For my wife and I at least we can get through an average day and finish up before going to bed around 30%-40% battery most days. To me, even if I could get that to 40%-50% left, that 10% difference I can accept for never having to worry about what's on or off.
Laziness has a price, and it's around 10% of my battery life apparently

great tips!!!! definitely improved my battery with these!

The radios are extremely dependent upon your area, signal strength, the walls of your house, the apps you have installed that actually call upon the data... So ideally, if your area has amazing signal, your walls are hyper radio permeable, and you don't have many data intensive apps, then you can probably get by with minimal loss. People who are feeling the itch to test should certainly go ahead and try, but the same could be said with most of these tips. This is simply a guide of suggestions. YMMV
fzammetti said:
The one about turning radios off is one that makes all the sense in the world, but I'm not sure in practice if it makes a significant enough difference to override the inconvenience of having to flip things on and off as needed.
I can only speak from personal experience but for about two weeks my wife and I, both with S3's, were shutting radios off when not needed out of habit from our Epic days. However, since then (well over a month now) we just leave everything on all the time... and I do mean *everything*: GPS, Wi-Fi, NFC, cell radio, BT... and the difference has been... wait for it... so little it's actually been hard to quantify!
My own take on that rule is to leave everything on and see what you see... it's always easy enough to turn things off if you find your battery life not living up to expectations and if it winds up being a trend, so be it, leave things off as suggested in the OP. For my wife and I at least we can get through an average day and finish up before going to bed around 30%-40% battery most days. To me, even if I could get that to 40%-50% left, that 10% difference I can accept for never having to worry about what's on or off.
Laziness has a price, and it's around 10% of my battery life apparently
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Gps Radio?
Really? The radio, even if left on, uses power only when an app needs the position. I am kinda boggled by this? Wouldn't it take longer to aquire the location from the 3-7 sateilites upon the request and then shut back down. What would be the diference? This can't be true about the GPS not sucking any power in ICS when idle.
BUMP

551skydiver said:
Really? The radio, even if left on, uses power only when an app needs the position. I am kinda boggled by this? Wouldn't it take longer to aquire the location from the 3-7 sateilites upon the request and then shut back down. What would be the diference? This can't be true about the GPS not sucking any power in ICS when idle.
BUMP
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try leaving it on for the day and go into battery and click on the graph. You will see that it should be black across the board for GPS if the signal was not used. Only time it would be green is when a program utilized it.

ICS changed the Battery Stats. It doesn't display that information in About Device. Uptime is there but awake time isn't.

sekigah84 said:
ICS changed the Battery Stats. It doesn't display that information in About Device. Uptime is there but awake time isn't.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually, that's incorrect. Menu>Settings>Battery>click on the small graph picture. It gives you many things, including time on battery, Awake time, Screen on time, and charging time. It's just graphically represented.

How do you accomplish #4?
Go to menu>settings>wireless & networks>mobile networks>disable always on mobile data.
---------- Post added at 08:09 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:06 AM ----------
found it under Data Usage
---------- Post added at 08:24 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:09 AM ----------
well, when I turned Mobile Data Off, didn't receive any data (emails, etc.) so I turned it back on

I'm curiouis about this 1 as well. How do we accomplish this as I don't see that option?

Remove that "wipe battery stats" from your tips. its a old myth that needs to die permanently.

Shoulon said:
Remove that "wipe battery stats" from your tips. its a old myth that needs to die permanently.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are correct.
www.landofdroid.acom/2012/to-wipe-battery-stats-or-not-to-in-androidthat-is-the-question/

I disable everything when I go to sleep at night, or when I am putting my phone on charge in middle of the day to maybe help it gain battery while not draining it, sort of like a power charge I like to think. It's so easy to do, just slide down status bar, uncheck everything (WiFi, Mobile Data, Sync, dim screen all the way) and that's it. I had 22h1m running since last charge today when I was at 4%.

General Android Battery Tips (Can triple battery life!) | Updated
Thank you for sharing this is to improve life of the battery

battery
shuiguo said:
Thank you for sharing this is to improve life of the battery
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It helps to use the right ROM and know how to work your phone:
:good:

Also, apparently Google apps backup is broken for some users. I had a problem with the phone not sleeping and traced it to google backup, apparently it's a common problem with ICS. This is unrelated to contacts/calendar sync. If you have the phone device rooted and use titanium you can leave this off, and as long as you don't lose your phone it's no big deal. Setting is under system settings -> backup and reset.
Figure I would show this off here, had the flu last week and was basically comatose for 30 hours. Only about 2 hrs screen on time, but all radios on and even passed out with navigation on after checking traffic at one point. 51 hours
Sent from my SPH-L710 using xda premium

I would try disabling Google backup so it no longer updated/synced my info to the web until I next turned it on, but the option says it deletes all the info already stored on the web. I suppose this is good if someone wanted to delete this info for privacy concerns, but there should be an option to just turn the syncing off, or to schedule it for once a day or something.
I have not tried disabling it as I do not want to wipe my info.

Coming from an iphone.

Hey guys just wanted to take some time to make a post about some things that I am getting use to. I have been an apple product owner for the past 5 years and this is my first non iphone. So far I enjoy my phone but there are some small quirks that I am having issues with. I will list and detail these issues.
1. Haptic feedback always finds a way to disable itself. I always have to go back into the settings and re apply the haptic feedback.
2. The battery is god-awful. I'm not rooted or undervolted. Just stock at&t phone and I'm lucky to get 6 hours off the charger. As in my phone comes off the charger at 9am and by 3pm it is already dead. Is this typical? I read that the facebook app affects the battery life, so I removed it.
This is one of my biggest complaints. My iphone 4S easily went from 9am-7 or 8 in the evening.
3. My home button is not solid. When I push it the feedback is not consistent. Sometimes it makes a light click, other times it feels normal. I feel like maybe something has gotten into the surrounding area around the home button. I take care of all my electronics so I doubt this is the issue, but I didn't want to discount the idea.
4. I have downloaded an advanced task killer, but are there any other tricks or tips you guys could let me in on? Or any apps that would be recommended? I would appreciate the feedback!
5. When receiving photos from iphone owners my phone displays pics as a video file? How can I just get normal mms's from iphones?
OH YEA...when is the GS3 going to get jellybean? My at&t phone still has ICS, and I keep checking for software updates every 24 hours and as of this evening I have not found any updates to the new OS.

1. where are you enabling haptic feedback?
2. as always, battery life depends on usage. screen on time? do you have a lot of apps that could use data? do you have both wifi and data enabled when you're not around wifi? try disabling any stock apps you don't use.
3. i don't have anything to say about this. try comparing to other s3s if you can. then you can figure out if your phone is a problem or it's all of them. i personally don't care nor try to feel the difference if there is one. i tend to use back until i exit the app, not use the home button.
4. task killers are not beneficial to you at all. they actually tend to kill the battery faster. uninstall yours and see how your battery life fares.
5. no one knows when official jelly bean will come. if you root and install a custom recovery and start flashing roms you can try jelly bean right now. but it won't be with touchwiz nor will it have everything working as you would find it in your stock rom.
sent from my I747.

cehf said:
1. where are you enabling haptic feedback?
2. as always, battery life depends on usage. screen on time? do you have a lot of apps that could use data? do you have both wifi and data enabled when you're not around wifi? try disabling any stock apps you don't use.
3. i don't have anything to say about this. try comparing to other s3s if you can. then you can figure out if your phone is a problem or it's all of them. i personally don't care nor try to feel the difference if there is one. i tend to use back until i exit the app, not use the home button.
4. task killers are not beneficial to you at all. they actually tend to kill the battery faster. uninstall yours and see how your battery life fares.
5. no one knows when official jelly bean will come. if you root and install a custom recovery and start flashing roms you can try jelly bean right now. but it won't be with touchwiz nor will it have everything working as you would find it in your stock rom.
sent from my I747.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the quick reply. My on screen time is typically in the lower 4 hour range, I would post a screenshot but I am unable to since I am a junior member. I will not disable data as that is completely unacceptable on a smart phone. I didn't realize but my friend deleted my task killer a couple days ago. Using his GS3 I can tell a noticeable difference in home buttons-I wonder if at&t will replace my phone (within 22 days)? I guess I'm waiting for JB just like everyone else.

I am enabling haptic feedback via settings>sound>haptic feedback btw.

I've had my GS3 for about 4 days now and my battery life is awesome. I can go from about 8:00am to around 11pm before the battery icon even turns red.

apparently there's a gsiff_daemon bug or cell standby bug? i haven't personally experienced those, so i couldn't tell you much about them. turning off data is only acceptable if you're trying to avoid an overage, so i get where you're coming from. if your task killer is gone and you're still getting horrible battery life, something else may be the culprit.
a few suggestions: disabling unused stock apps (flipboard, those att apps if you don't use them). i don't know what you need synced but if you don't need your calendar or browser synced you should turn off sync for that. do you use the power saving option? if you don't need much processing power i'd turn that on. auto brightness may help too.
about the home button, if it irritates you too much att will likely replace it. maybe the new unit will have better battery life?
kicker18 said:
I am enabling haptic feedback via settings>sound>haptic feedback btw.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
try enabling from accessibility?
sent from my I747

I think the biggest thing that seems to help battery life is keeping the power saving mode turned on all the time. Seems to make a HUGE difference with battery life (especially on stock), but doesn't really seem to affect functionality.

Yea I removed all those crappy widgets.
My phone is always in power saver mode! I'm going to try to get a new unit tomorrow. How does this work? When i had my iPhone I just scheduled an appt at the apple store and they would always switch my phone out whenever I had issues under 1 year.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app

If you bought at a local store, you should be able to call them up and ask for a replacement for a defective device.
It shouldn't cost you anything as you are within their 30 day return window.

Oh... and as for official JellyBean.... isn't the rumor so far saying potentially late Q3/early Q4? Apparently the International version of the S3 with the quad-core processor is expected to get Jellybean shortly after the "Samsung Mobile Unpacked" event taking place in Germany tomorrow. Haven't really seen anything concrete about when our S3's will see an official release... but seeing as T-Mobile also just recently had an official build leak for the S3, i wouldn't be surprised if the late Q3/Early Q4 speculation could be correct.

Root, install custom rom, install Ktoonsez kernel... Battery life will easily double. If you really want to get the most out of your battery, consider AOKP or CM10... Jelly Bean based, with 0 bloat and almost none of the background process the stock TW rom runs in the background.
Sent from my SGS III

kicker18 said:
Thanks for the quick reply. My on screen time is typically in the lower 4 hour range, I would post a screenshot but I am unable to since I am a junior member. I will not disable data as that is completely unacceptable on a smart phone. I didn't realize but my friend deleted my task killer a couple days ago. Using his GS3 I can tell a noticeable difference in home buttons-I wonder if at&t will replace my phone (within 22 days)? I guess I'm waiting for JB just like everyone else.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
4 hours screen time is a lot... even on my iPhone 4 and priors (I had them all) with that much screen time I wouldn't get more than 7-8 hours. Keep in mind you are going from a 3.5 screen to a 4.8... this screen will eat up battery at a faster rate.
With an average of 2 hour screen time I usually get 15-20 hours out of a full charge pending usage. Nothing special, rooted running triune, stock cpu settings.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda premium

That's right 3-4 hours of 720p quality is good
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium

I haven't even began reading up on rooting. I probably wont root my phone unless I absolutely have to. I enjoy stock reliability. Also when I go into settings> accessibility, there is no option to enable haptic feedback.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app

I think after a bit of tweaking you will see better battery life. I get much better battery life than my sister does on her 4S. Also, disabling data won't hurt anything if you are not using the phone. I. Don't charge my phone overnight anymore.... I disable data while I'm sleeping and charge in the am while I'm getting ready for my day. With a few tweaks you should be able to make it through a full day, even with 4 hours screen time. Take some of the suggestions others have mentioned here.

kicker18 said:
Hey guys just wanted to take some time to make a post about some things that I am getting use to. I have been an apple product owner for the past 5 years and this is my first non iphone. So far I enjoy my phone but there are some small quirks that I am having issues with. I will list and detail these issues.
1. Haptic feedback always finds a way to disable itself. I always have to go back into the settings and re apply the haptic feedback.
2. The battery is god-awful. I'm not rooted or undervolted. Just stock at&t phone and I'm lucky to get 6 hours off the charger. As in my phone comes off the charger at 9am and by 3pm it is already dead. Is this typical? I read that the facebook app affects the battery life, so I removed it.
This is one of my biggest complaints. My iphone 4S easily went from 9am-7 or 8 in the evening.
3. My home button is not solid. When I push it the feedback is not consistent. Sometimes it makes a light click, other times it feels normal. I feel like maybe something has gotten into the surrounding area around the home button. I take care of all my electronics so I doubt this is the issue, but I didn't want to discount the idea.
4. I have downloaded an advanced task killer, but are there any other tricks or tips you guys could let me in on? Or any apps that would be recommended? I would appreciate the feedback!
5. When receiving photos from iphone owners my phone displays pics as a video file? How can I just get normal mms's from iphones?
OH YEA...when is the GS3 going to get jellybean? My at&t phone still has ICS, and I keep checking for software updates every 24 hours and as of this evening I have not found any updates to the new OS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. happens to me as well when i turn powersaver on and then off again. (powersave disables haptic feedback, but it doesn't turn on again sometimes when i turn powersave back off) probably will be fixed in next update.
2. don't have this issue at all. how is your screen on time and what do you do on your phone? (ie: any specific apps/games you use?)
3. my home button is definitely solid.
4. do NOT download advanced task killer. it is not needed as android will kill off apps when it needs to. there's also a built in task killer if you'd like. just long press home button and click task manager.
5. happens to me as well but when i save the photo it changes back to jpq file.
6. jellybean hasn't been released yet for s3

Root your phone, install CWM and ktoonsez's sammy kernal. Stock rom by default has the performance governor enabled, which I believe has the phone either running at the lowest clock or the highest clock with no real middle. Rooting your phone and installing a custom rom will allow you to have access to more governors that will treat your battery much nicer as well as his custom kernal has added features and just performs faster as well as has better battery life.
There are all kinds of tutorials on the site and I'm sure even some youtube videos on the process. The only other thing I'll add is to READ READ READ on how to do the process, READ READ READ the thread for possible issues and READ READ READ some more for fixes to any issues that may arise.
The great thing about android is the ability to change almost everything about how your phone acts and operates. Once you start you'll end up like me that whenever you get a new phone, you'll already have downloaded root/custom rom/custom kernal on your home computer so that you're ready to get off of stock within 30minutes of being home.

kicker18 said:
Hey guys just wanted to take some time to make a post about some things that I am getting use to. I have been an apple product owner for the past 5 years and this is my first non iphone. So far I enjoy my phone but there are some small quirks that I am having issues with. I will list and detail these issues.
1. Haptic feedback always finds a way to disable itself. I always have to go back into the settings and re apply the haptic feedback.
2. The battery is god-awful. I'm not rooted or undervolted. Just stock at&t phone and I'm lucky to get 6 hours off the charger. As in my phone comes off the charger at 9am and by 3pm it is already dead. Is this typical? I read that the facebook app affects the battery life, so I removed it.
This is one of my biggest complaints. My iphone 4S easily went from 9am-7 or 8 in the evening.
3. My home button is not solid. When I push it the feedback is not consistent. Sometimes it makes a light click, other times it feels normal. I feel like maybe something has gotten into the surrounding area around the home button. I take care of all my electronics so I doubt this is the issue, but I didn't want to discount the idea.
4. I have downloaded an advanced task killer, but are there any other tricks or tips you guys could let me in on? Or any apps that would be recommended? I would appreciate the feedback!
5. When receiving photos from iphone owners my phone displays pics as a video file? How can I just get normal mms's from iphones?
OH YEA...when is the GS3 going to get jellybean? My at&t phone still has ICS, and I keep checking for software updates every 24 hours and as of this evening I have not found any updates to the new OS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. I've noticed that when I enable battery save mode, it turns off haptic feedback, so it might be that.
2. Like others said it depends on what you do with your phone, but on average, I usually get 15-20+ hours on a charge with at least 3 hours screen time.
4. I wouldn't use task killers. But it's smart to do a little management of tasks yourself. For example, when you want to exit an application, don't just hit the home button, hit the back button until the app exits. From my experience, depending on the app, this will actually exit the app and not just leave it running in the background. Also, every once in a while, I pull up the multitasking screen by long pressing the home button, and I hit the "remove all" button to close any applications that I don't need running in the background.
Also, you may want to try installing Juice Defender. What that app does is turn off the data connection when the phone is in idle, and it turns it back on every 15 or 30 minutes (configurable) to synch, check email, etc. The phone connection is always on. It's actually made a noticeable improvement to my battery life. But this also depends on if it's ok with you that you only synch every 15 minutes. For my girlfriend, she likes to get 10 minute warnings when ebay auctions end, and with this installed she's missed some auctions. So it doesn't work for her.

Imo, the single best way to save battery is to get an app to automate toggling data off when you lock your phone. I've been using a Tasker profile to turn my data off after the phone has been locked for 10 minutes, and turns it back on when my screen unlocks. With data off, my phone drains maybe ~1.5%/hr.
Whatever you do though, you likely won't get more than 3-4hrs of screen time, considering the phone is 720p and 4.8".
Herp derp SGS3 Tapatalk 2

Just a departure from what I'm use to(my battery on my old 4S was substantially better)...if I didn't want my data on all the time I could have bought a dumb phone ya know? Anyways with data turned off battery drain was better ~5% hour.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda app-developers app