How To Improve Battery Life On Samsung Galaxy S3

How To Improve Battery Life On Samsung Galaxy S3
How To Improve Battery Life On Samsung Galaxy S3

Learn how to improve battery life on your Samsung Galaxy S3. Samsung Galaxy S3 comes with a 2100 mAh battery; which is fairly large comparing to other smartphones. But you can still improve the battery life of Samsung Galaxy S3, read the tips and tricks below to improve the battery life of your S3.

Use the Power saving option

Power saving mode Samsung Galaxy 3

The Galaxy S3 comes with a built-in ‘Power saving’ option, which is the logical first port of call because it’s disabled by default when you first use the phone. When enabled, it will limit the maximum CPU speed, lower the screen power, and change background colours throughout your system apps in order to save as much power as possible.

To enable power saving, all you have to do is go to Settings and toggle the ‘Power saving’ switch.

Turn off Bluetooth, GPS

If you dont use Bluetooth or GPS, turn them off. Turn them on when needed only.

Alter your display’s color profile

On certain types of displays, such as the AMOLED screen in the Galaxy S3, some colour profiles will use less power than others. For example, black will use less power than white. So if you have a black background then your phone should conserve battery a little better.

The closest feature that the Galaxy S3 has to a color profile editor is the ‘Screen mode’ option in Settings. You can get to this by going to Settings > Display > Screen mode. It will allow you to choose from four different profiles.

There are a few third-party apps available that will give you further customization options, but some require root access. A popular desktop app called f.lux is making its way over to Android soon as well, so keep an eye out for that.

Adjust your screen brightness

The default brightness setting on phones may look good, but it’s a big battery killer if you’re constantly checking Facebook and Twitter throughout the day.

If you’re indoors, you probably don’t need the brightness set too high. You can easily change it by going to Settings > Display > Brightness and adjusting the slider until its set to an acceptable level.

When it comes to battery life, low brightness is better, but you may want to take advantage of the ‘Automatic brightness’ option so that your Galaxy S3 will automatically become brighter when you’re out in the sun.

Change the screen timeout settings

Samsung has included a lot of clever features in the Galaxy S3, such as the ability to tell whether or not you’re looking at the phone directly and adjusting the display as necessary. But if you have this feature turned off, you’ll want to check your screen timeout settings.

You can find the screen timeout option by going to Settings > Display > Screen timeout and adjusting the settings so that the screen will turn itself off after you’ve been inactive for a certain amount of time.

Again, lower values are better for battery life, as your phone will conserve power by switching off the display when it isn’t needed.

Disable any radios you aren’t using

When radios such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are enabled, they’re constantly scanning for devices and make themselves available even if you aren’t currently using them.

Turning off these radios is as easy as pulling down the notification bar and switching the toggles at the top of the screen. Alternatively, you could go to Settings and turn them on and off here instead.

Remove unused widget

Widgets are nice on Android. But they are battery eaters especially those widgets that use data connection and auto sync based on schedule. Therefore, only keep those widgets that you really need.

Poor signal decrease battery life

Phone will use more power when signal is weak because it uses more power to increase signal strength. Always make sure that your phone has a good signal reception. Switch to 2G if 3G connection signal is poor at your area.

Use Wi-Fi when available

Always gets connected with Wi-Fi when available and turn off 3G data connection. 3G data connection eats more battery compare to Wi-Fi connection. Turn off both of them when not needed.

Disable / reduce auto-sync

Data connection eats battery life. Disable or reduce background scheduled auto-sync applications like Gmail, Twitter. And reduce the frequency of auto-sync will also help to improve battery life too.

Turn off motion sensor

Samsung Galaxy S3 has lot of Motion features like Direct call, Smart alert, Tap to top, Tilt to zoom, Pan to move icon, Pan to browse images, Shake to update and Turn over to mute/pause. Only activate those you need.

Use solid black static wallpaper

Samsung Galaxy S3 HD Super AMOLED uses less power on solid black wallpaper because less backlight is output. And try not to use beautiful live wallpaper. Why? Lovely animated live wallpaper costs you more CPU power usage is equal to lower battery life.

Fully close application that not use

SGS3 is a great multitasking machine. But by letting lot of applications running at background actually increase battery usage because they still require CPU processing. So fully close those applications that not needed. Example: GPS navigation application.

Disable unused built-in system applications

You can disable Samsung bundle software like ChatON, S Voice, and Game Hub if you dont need them with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich disable application feature. Why? Some of them are running as service even you are not using them at all.

Undervolt and underclock CPU

Besides display, SGS3 CPU is the second biggest battery eater. If you dont need 1.4 GHz processing power, underclock it and undervolt Samsung Galaxy S3 with SetCPU.

Amarnath Natarajan

I am a freelance programmer and tech enthusiast. In my spare time I contribute to this website.

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