I read someplace recently that using Wi-Fi for internet browsing on a cell phone consumes less battery than using 3G. I've been told previously that Wi-Fi, while being a faster connection, also uses more battery. So which is true?
budgreen24 said:
I read someplace recently that using Wi-Fi for internet browsing on a cell phone consumes less battery than using 3G. I've been told previously that Wi-Fi, while being a faster connection, also uses more battery. So which is true?
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I've noticed when I use wifi I have longer battery life then when I have 3g on
Sent from my SPH-L720 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
3G consumes a hell lot more power than wifi. My n7.2 has wifi running all the day, and the battery lasts for 1.5 days. My ol' HTC Desire couldn't last 2 hours under 3G.
Wi-Fi uses much less power than 3G. I keep it on 24/7 and there isn't much difference in battery consumption compared to Wi-Fi turned OFF.
Taking a close look at the long battery review thread, while there is a lot of information there regarding individual battery usage, the screen-on and overall usage times vary by a lot. It is impossible to draw conclusions regarding why the results vary so much, because most people did not give enough relevant information there.
I think it will be very interesting if we all used the same *comprehensive* method to compare our battery usage. We could really discover important things about our individual usage and how it compares to others (and how to make it even better).
It is important to note that when battery life is low (in comparison to other G2 users), sometimes this could be because we are taxing our device with heavy usage (and nothing is actually wrong), but other times something is definitely wrong (wakelocks, bad phone reception, etc.). This thread will help each and every one of us (that get lower than expected battery life) understand which of these two possibilities is correct for him (something wrong VS taxing usage).
In order to do this, let's use the excellent "GSam Battery Monitor" app, which could be downloaded freely from the Play Store.
Please post your results when your battery becomes low (around 10 percent), after it was fully charged.
If you want an accurate opinion about your battery behavior, with tips on how to improve things, please provide all the attached screens (please provide the graph image in landscape mode, and sort it by "other"):
Is this really necessary? The G2 has a fat battery. But any amount of power can be drained if you drain it. Enough said.
Sent from my LG-D801 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
RiverdALIEN said:
Is this really necessary? The G2 has a fat battery. But any amount of power can be drained if you drain it. Enough said.
Sent from my LG-D801 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
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I say let's give this a shot. This phone has a beefy battery indeed, but still, some of us are posting 7 hours screen-on times, while some of us only 4. Let's see what this thread will provide us with. I have a good hunch this will be a very revealing thread.
Noam23 said:
I say let's give this a shot. This phone has a beefy battery indeed, but still, some of us are posting 7 hours screen-on times, while some of us only 4. Let's see what this thread will provide us with. I have a good hunch this will be a very revealing thread.
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Okay Well in the interest of troubleshooting good luck. I get 1.5 days easily with a good amount of music play. I always suggest people delete the Facebook app and use it in the browser, and disable data/sync while you're in a bad reception building/area
Sent from my LG-D801 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
RiverdALIEN said:
Okay Well in the interest of troubleshooting good luck. I get 1.5 days easily with a good amount of music play. I always suggest people delete the Facebook app and use it in the browser, and disable data/sync while you're in a bad reception building/area
Sent from my LG-D801 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
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Waiting to see your GSam results here
Don't delete face book...use greenify. Turn off location sharing unless on WiFi. No Google now. Simple
Sent from my VS980 4G using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
jrgilbert79 said:
Don't delete face book...use greenify. Turn off location sharing unless on WiFi. No Google now. Simple
Sent from my VS980 4G using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
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Yep, these are some solid good general advices.
I could only drain the battery to 50% today, so I'm posting this for now to get this thread running (and tomorrow I'll post the 10% results). It's funny because I have no trouble finishing the battery everyday, yet today it's giving me "problems". It's like it knows it is being monitored, and the battery hogs are afraid of being greenified...
Let's get over my results in the main screen:
Phone: yes, I did not use the phone to make phone calls. Not unusual for me...
Screen: almost 4 hours screen time, pretty impressive considering the phone has been running for more than 13 hours, and the battery is at 50%. On the other hand I did not make any phone calls, so this could be part of the reason for that excellent screen-on time. Btw, I'm using "Lux brightness control" instead of the LG2's pathetic brightness control feature, the Lux app itself drew practically zero power (as can be seen at the "App Sucker" screen, or actually, you can't even see it because it's too down in the list).
Phone Radio: At 7.9%, I don't really know whether it's good or bad, although this is definitely not a major battery user. I've attached the cellular reception screen too, just so people could reference with theirs. I think overall the reception is pretty good according to that image.
Wifi Active: The Wifi has been on the entire operating time. Most of the time it was connected to my home router, and some of the time it was not connected at all, but still on (when I was out of the house). I'm attaching the Wifi screen so people could see how much traffic the phone had through wifi, for reference. With only 3.9% battery usage, I think there is no need to turn the wifi off, ever.
Held Awake: The phone was awake for 1 hour (while the screen off, that is). Out of 13 hours being awake for 1 hour, I'm not sure whether this is good or bad. This will become clearer when more people will post their result here. It says that the power that was drawn during this 1 wake hour is 0.0%, I'm not sure if this is true, or some kind of inability of GSam to calculate battery usage for this awake period (if GSam IS correct, then I guess I don't understand what's the point of deep sleep, if the phone draws practically zero power even when awake...).
Bluetooth: The BT was on the entire operating time, but connected to a device only a short amount of time. In any case it drew no power according to this screen... like wifi, I think there is no need to turn the BT off, ever.
Regarding the "App Sucker" screen, I can't really say anything intelligent about this, no app seem to drain the battery too much. The 4 hours screen-on time was mainly spent browsing the internet, using Whatsapp, watching youtube, using XDA app (not even listed in the first screen) neither of which seem to drain the battery too much...
So, now that we have some reference (and a reference for a pretty good battery behavior, I think) It will be interesting to see how your results compare...
Just a quick question. I work in a building where there is terrible service. I mean so bad sometimes I get none at all. How does turning off mobile data save battery. Essentially your phone is still trying to connect to the mobile network all the same. I'm kind of looking for a technical explanation not just the 4g uses more battery type.
Sent from my VS980 4G using xda app-developers app
Don't forget, the vzw version will throw a wrench into these comparisons.
Thanks Devs. From my VZW G2.
djraimondi said:
Just a quick question. I work in a building where there is terrible service. I mean so bad sometimes I get none at all. How does turning off mobile data save battery. Essentially your phone is still trying to connect to the mobile network all the same. I'm kind of looking for a technical explanation not just the 4g uses more battery type.
Sent from my VS980 4G using xda app-developers app
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If you have bad cellular reception, turning off mobile data can help, but as you said it won't completely solve the problem because the phone still needs to connect to the network so you could talk and send SMS. I think switching to airplane mode (and using WIFI) is the best solution for battery life in this case. Still, I think you should use GSam to really see how much battery is drained by your bad cellular reception.
I am using it now. Waiting until it drops to around 20% to post my results. Will get back.
Edit:
Here are my statistics. You think my phone just has bad reception and is in a bad area or there is something wrong with my antenna? My old Droid Razr HD was the same way, barely any service. I'm definitely not staying with Verizon. I pay out the noodle for "the best service" and I get crap. I live on Long Island outside New York City, my service should be amazing.
http://i.imgur.com/PDuWzZM.png
http://i.imgur.com/u4AR9Vl.png
http://i.imgur.com/IEA0Lir.png
http://i.imgur.com/K6rkYnD.png
Sent from my VS980 4G using xda app-developers app
Ok, as promised, here are my 10% results:
Phone: did have some phone calls today, though nothing significant. I guess my usage can't really tell how significant phone calls are going to be with the G2, though this should not be a significant battery drainer for most.
Screen: As you remember, yesterday, after 13 hour phone usage, I had 50% battery, I had 3 hours 47 minutes of screen-on time. At that point I thought I might get over 7 hours screen-on time, but here I show about 5 hours 25 minutes. I guess that if I completely drained it, I would have gotten close to 6 hours, not bad.
Phone radio: seems similar to yesterday, about 10% of the battery... I still get good reception, as the image shows.
Wifi active: Wifi had been on the entire time, using 5.6% of the battery.
Held awake: So, yesterday after 13 hours of usage, the screen was held awake 1 hours. Today, after a total of 31 hours, the phone was held awake a total of 3 hours. It seems that the phone consistently is held awake for about 1 hour, every 10 hours of operation time (under my specific configuration, that is). I still find it weird that this "held awake" time did not tax the battery at all. How is this possible ?
Bluetooth: was on the entire time, not connected most of the time. Zero impact on battery.
Regarding the App Sucker screen, similar to yesterday, can't say anything special about this. This day I kept browsing the interned using Opera browser, and added another hour using Runkeeper with GPS tracking (with screen off). After a full cycle of battery usage, the main battery draw comes from the Home launcher, next is Opera browser, and then the apps become pretty much insignificant in terms of battery usage. Maybe two last points here: I'm using both Lux brightness control (to control auto brightness) and Delayed Lock (to remove the lock when connected to certain wifi points and BT devices), both of these apps always run in the background, yet consume practically zero battery, so high recommendation for both of these (they also work great with the G2). Last point, I'm using all the google location access services (everything is turned on there), and I really don't see this taxing in any way, using this GSam report.
That's it for now. Waiting for your results for comparison.
djraimondi said:
I am using it now. Waiting until it drops to around 20% to post my results. Will get back.
Edit:
Here are my statistics. You think my phone just has bad reception and is in a bad area or there is something wrong with my antenna? My old Droid Razr HD was the same way, barely any service. I'm definitely not staying with Verizon. I pay out the noodle for "the best service" and I get crap. I live on Long Island outside New York City, my service should be amazing.
http://i.imgur.com/PDuWzZM.png
http://i.imgur.com/u4AR9Vl.png
http://i.imgur.com/IEA0Lir.png
http://i.imgur.com/K6rkYnD.png
Sent from my VS980 4G using xda app-developers app
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Interesting results. I thought this thread would be revealing, and it doesn't disappoint already.
Your phone reception is pretty bad, much much worse than mine. BUT, you can see that the difference in battery draw is not really significant between my case (I have great reception) and yours, in both cases the phone radio took about 10% of the battery. It seems that the phone reception qaulity doesn't make much difference on the battery (whether it's pretty good, or pretty bad. Maybe this will change if the reception is horrific... like 0 and 1). Comparing my GSam report to yours, you will gain practically no battery advantage by making your phone reception better (at least considering your current phone usage - you barely made phone calls, but still phone reception is also important in order to keep the phone connected to the network, and also for mobile data...). This is REALLY surprising, I thought that when comparing my excellent reception to your very bad one, if I got 10% battery usage (for phone radio), you'll get something like 30%. This did not happen at all, surprisingly!.
Your Held awake time is pretty much similar to mine, as evertything else is similar to mine (wifi active, etc.), yet you seem to get significantly less screen-on time than I. I can think of one explantion: I see you are using G2's automatic brightness control, which is pretty horrible, while I use Lux brightness control, which can reduce the brightness much much more, when it's appropriate. I really can't think of any other major contributor to your battery drainage in comparison to mine...
One thing still keeps me bewildered: why doesn't the "held awake" period tax the battery ?? I mean, the phone is awake, yet no battery is being used... how could this be possible ? Is this a problem of GSam which can't read this information right ?
djraimondi said:
Just a quick question. I work in a building where there is terrible service. I mean so bad sometimes I get none at all. How does turning off mobile data save battery. Essentially your phone is still trying to connect to the mobile network all the same. I'm kind of looking for a technical explanation not just the 4g uses more battery type.
Sent from my VS980 4G using xda app-developers app
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When you turn off mobile data the phone stops searching for a data connection, thus this battery draining process is halted
Sent from my LG-D801 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Barely read through the details but I charged my phone to 100% last night, pulled it around 6am today. Been texting and tweeting moderately. Made a few phone calls, checked voicemail. Used the flashlight a couple times and took a few pictures, flash off.
Sent from my LG-D801 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
This is true but look at the sent part of data of the phone radio. My received data is much higher then yours but I can assure you I only receive data via WiFi because my phone signal is so bad. Your sent in comparison much more data then me probably via your phone signal.
This is also very important. I had my mobile data OFF while at work today. I have a shift tomorrow where I will keep the mobile data on and post new results.
Edit: Also about the phone being kept awake and not using any battery. It does seem odd. Perhaps we should also use the orginal screenshots of the stock battery app (pending you still have stock rom).
Sent from my VS980 4G using xda app-developers app
Something wrong with my photo attachments
Sent from my LG-D801 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
The rest of my screenshots
djraimondi said:
This is true but look at the sent part of data of the phone radio. My received data is much higher then yours but I can assure you I only receive data via WiFi because my phone signal is so bad. Your sent in comparison much more data then me probably via your phone signal.
This is also very important. I had my mobile data OFF while at work today. I have a shift tomorrow where I will keep the mobile data on and post new results.
Edit: Also about the phone being kept awake and not using any battery. It does seem odd. Perhaps we should also use the orginal screenshots of the stock battery app (pending you still have stock rom).
Sent from my VS980 4G using xda app-developers app
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But, I don't see how the stock battery app will shed any new light on the kept awake period, if anything, the stock battery app is less detailed regarding almost everything...
Hi there,
My friend has an S3, and we are baffled to the problem.
Basically the phone has 3-4 hrs battery life from a full charge. We tried a hard reset, new battery, app killers, disabling apps, virus scans, adware scans, etc. No avail. It just eats battery on or off.
The phone does run very hot, just sitting there the temperature is up around 50°c. The SD card also won't register.
Has the handset developed a fault?
Sent from my SM-N9005 using XDA Free mobile app
badgeronimous said:
Hi there,
My friend has an S3, and we are baffled to the problem.
Basically the phone has 3-4 hrs battery life from a full charge. We tried a hard reset, new battery, app killers, disabling apps, virus scans, adware scans, etc. No avail. It just eats battery on or off.
The phone does run very hot, just sitting there the temperature is up around 50°c. The SD card also won't register.
Has the handset developed a fault?
Sent from my SM-N9005 using XDA Free mobile app
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Click to collapse
Of couse. Faulty chip.
badgeronimous said:
Hi there,
My friend has an S3, and we are baffled to the problem.
Basically the phone has 3-4 hrs battery life from a full charge. We tried a hard reset, new battery, app killers, disabling apps, virus scans, adware scans, etc. No avail. It just eats battery on or off.
The phone does run very hot, just sitting there the temperature is up around 50°c. The SD card also won't register.
Has the handset developed a fault?
Sent from my SM-N9005 using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
stock rom ?
use better battery stat monitor wake lock and disable service that wake your phone
Yes stock Rom. Phone hasn't been molested.
As said even at rest, just sitting, the bottom of the phone is hot.
Sent from my SM-N9005 using XDA Free mobile app
badgeronimous said:
Yes stock Rom. Phone hasn't been molested.
As said even at rest, just sitting, the bottom of the phone is hot.
Sent from my SM-N9005 using XDA Free mobile app
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Did you use always 3G internet connection ?
Always had 3g
Sent from my SM-N9005 using XDA Free mobile app
badgeronimous said:
Always had 3g
Sent from my SM-N9005 using XDA Free mobile app
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I think that normal battery stat if you always connect 3g internet. Try to use 2g when screen off using tasker profile, monitor wake lock then disable it, disable location service and enable power saving mode. It should reduce power consumption.
buddybin said:
I think that normal battery stat if you always connect 3g internet. Try to use 2g when screen off using tasker profile, monitor wake lock then disable it, disable location service and enable power saving mode. It should reduce power consumption.
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Click to collapse
Well I had an S3 before I got a Note 3. I've set his phone up exactly as I have both of these set up. I could go a day or 2 on the S3 without needing a charge, if I wasn't using it.
Even on the note, I'm always in a 4G signal, and always have apps running in the background, and diddle on my phone for a fair bit during the day.... I still easily have over 50% battery come home time.
His S3, even left with data network deactivated, and not using the phone at all, will be flat within 6hrs.
Time for a new battery , if thats won't help . paint it blue and throw it to deep waters . Good Luck .
Some users, including myself struggle with a massive battery drain after the latest Google Play Services update. It might be that perhaps?
Eleve11 said:
Some users, including myself struggle with a massive battery drain after the latest Google Play Services update. It might be that perhaps?
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Click to collapse
Not sure if it is that,but with stock ROMs I feel kind of a battery drain,while with aosp it's amazing. Google services updated right when I went back to stock,though. So,not sure.
Use trickster mod to force the phone to go in a deep sleep and handle the wake locks
Check this..
1. Use LTE Only When Needed
Never use LTE if you're not using it at all and select 3G instead. 4G/LTE features high-speed mobile data connection but eats a lot on the battery more than you think than 3G.
2. Selective Features
Features are amazing and may actually help you every day but not all of them are good for the battery. Keep those features you use at all times and turn off others which are not needed on every day activities.
3. Wireless Connectivity
Aside from mobile data, watch out for other wireless radios such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and NFC which consumes power and you must turn them off whenever not in use.
4. Preferred Internet Connection
Whenever there is an available and decent Internet connection via Wi-Fi, use it instead of mobile data to preserve power on your phone.
5. Display Screen
Around 50 per cent of power consumption is allocated on the screen which means you need to manually set the brightness level comfortable to you, minimise screen timeout and use static yet dark wallpapers to save energy on the display.
6. Location Services
GPS can kill your battery life and set only certain apps allowed to use location services - those which requires it.
7. Apps and Widgets
Widgets are good display designs on the home screen but only a few helps your battery. Remove widgets you're not using anymore and uninstall the app altogether. In addition, be careful with certain apps which are poorly written that may eat away battery faster or damage system files on the worst part.
8. Don't Forget This!
Samsung installed a non-removable Power Saver on your Galaxy S3 and you should use it as much as needed. Whenever you are not using any Internet connection or high tasking services, activate the Power Saver from the notifications shade to manage battery life better.
9. Colour Profile
Galaxy S3 features screen mode and you should use customise the profile to help save power consumption on the Super AMOLED display screen.
10. Refresh Regularly
It is recommended to restart your phone once a day to refresh the entire system after an entire day of full work just like a computer. It will also help the memory to perform better after a reboot.
11. Factory Reset
In worst case scenario of apps damaging the system, you'll need to reset the smartphone. It will restore the default apps and remove all other culprits which may have caused the battery last shorter and poor performance on the phone.
12. Drain the Battery
Certain times require battery drain similar with laptops and notebooks to enabling healthy charging cycle. Usually, battery draining a device once a month then getting a full charge for about four hours keep cycles healthy than those units without recharging cycle.
13. Avoid High Temperature
Avoid leaving the phone inside your car or putting it on a surface with direct sunlight to prevent damaging its battery. High temperature will damage the battery pack leading to poor performance. However, extreme cold can also affect the device leading to moisture damage.
14. Root Access
Rooting will void the warranty but if it's already gone, why not do it anyway. Root access will enable you to control various aspect on the battery and processor to improve power management.
15. Custom ROMs
Samsung Galaxy S apps and TouchWiz UI consume high amount of battery which makes other Galaxy S3 users to resort on custom ROMs. Custom ROMs always feature better power management, CPU tweaking and larger memory compared to stock ROM and if you want longer battery life, get a custom ROM.