Users claiming that the Samsung Galaxy S3's battery life is draining abnormally quickly now have a fix. The fix, or two, is courtesy the XDA-Developers forum and a GottaBeMobile tipster, regardless of whether Samsung rolls out a fix eventually.
First, we have the easier solution from GottaBeMobile.
Samsung Galaxy S3 owners will need to go to "Settings", then "Wi-Fi" followed by "Advance". Finally, toggle the "Connect to Wi-Fi while asleep" option to "Never".
The tipster, according to GottaBeMobile, said that the above method has "significantly" improved the battery life. GottaBeMobile didn't give exact figures on the improved battery life, but said pre-solution is around 8 hours.
The fix is confirmed to work on international versions of the Samsung Galaxy S3. No confirmation for U.S. devices is available.
Now, the harder method.
The fix on the XDA forums claims the battery drain from the standby feature is a "miscalculation of power." Therefore, the fix changes the wrong reporting of cell standby usage to "some extent" according to the XDA post.
The wrong reporting is changed by modifying the power drain value in power_profile.xml to 3.4mA from 34mA. The modification can be done through flashing the cwm ZIP file, or following the below steps.
Along with the post is a framework-res file, to be modified via 7zip or WinRar. So open the framework-res file with the programs, head to frameworkresxml, and delete the current power_profile xml file while attaching the file included in the post. Then put the framework-res.apk files on the S3, and restart to implement the fix.
The solution implies that "cell standby" won't be leading battery usage. A photo accompanying the XDA solution showed it taking 75 percent of usage, with 10 percent used after changing the XML file.
Samsung has said it is building a fix, though there's no word yet on a release date. Even for the technophobes, the solutions above aren't too difficult.
The Samsung Galaxy S3 is now available for purchase at all major U.S. wireleess carriers.
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