Samsung Galaxy S3 Releases With Battery Issues: How To Fix The Drain Problems And Find Out If Your Device Is Affected

By Lisa Eadicicco | August 12 2012 11:32 PM

Samsung's Galaxy S3 has become one of the leading smartphones on the market, hitting the 10 million-unit sales mark in less than two months after its launch. Although the device has been dubbed as the Korea-based company's flagship smartphone of 2012, it does come with its share of issues.

Samsung

Powered by a quad core processor and dazzled with a 4.8-inch Super AMOLED HD display, Samsung’s newest flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S3, surely delivered and lived up to the expectations of Samsung fans all around the globe. And according to the handset’s latest sales figures, people indeed embraced it like a glass of ice cold lemonade on a hot day.

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Last month, FixYa released a report that detailed the top five issues affecting Samsung's Galaxy S3, the most prominent being its battery life. This power issue is said to be affecting the international edition of the handset, according to Auto-O-Mobile.

On the XDA Developers forums, boasting the largest community of application developers and smartphone hackers, some users posted that the battery problem stems from the Galaxy S3's standby feature. They said the file on the smartphone that contains the drain value was wrongly set when the device shipped. This file, known as the framework-res.apk, was set at 34mA when it should have been set at 3.4mA.

For an owner of the Galaxy S3, this means the phone may incorrectly display a 50 percent to 70 percent battery drain, as Auto-O-Mobile has pointed out.

Users experiencing this problem can fix it by changing the power_profile.xml file located in the framework-res package. To do this, complete the following steps:

-- Download the updated file (510kb) from MediaFire.

-- Save the file on your microSD card or internal storage.

-- Reboot your Samsung Galaxy S3 into ClockWork Mod (CWM) Recovery Mode.

-- Choose "Install zip from SD card" and select the downloaded file.

-- Reboot your device. This should solve the battery drain issue.

Of course, there is a possibility this process could lead to a voiding of the device's warranty.

Samsung has not officially acknowledged or commented on this problem. It is most prominent in the international version of the device, and it does not affect all U.S. Galaxy S3 smartphones. The issue does not affect the LTE version at all, according to Software And Study.

News of the battery problem affecting the Galaxy S3 has surfaced just as allegedly leaked photos and rumors about the next-generation Apple iPhone 5's battery have circulated online.

Images published by 9to5 Mac have shown the iPhone 5 will contain a battery that is narrower than the previous model and features numerous markings. The website also indicated the alleged iPhone 5 battery is rated at 1440 mAh, which is about 10 mAh higher than the battery rating of the current-generation iPhone 4 and4S.

It was also recently reported that the Samsung Galaxy S3 will be the first device to incorporate voice over long-term evolution, or VoLTE, technology. This is expected to roll out late this month or early next month in South Korea, according to Mobile & Apps.

"We will continue to work to quickly roll out VoLTE-enabled products globally, providing the best LTE experience for our customers across the world," said JK Shin, president of the IT & Mobile Communications Division at Samsung Electronics.

According to Samsung's website, VoLTE would allow for new services to be introduced, such as the ability to convert from voice call to video call. It also offers more than twice the voice frequency of 3G and HD-level audio codec.

At the end of last month, JPMorgan Chase & Co. estimated the Samsung Galaxy S3 will hit the 15 million-unit mark by the end of the third quarter, Pop Herald reported. The quarter concludes Sept. 30, around the time of the rumored release date for Apple's iPhone 5.