Samsung Galaxy Discover -- Battery SUCKS?

Is this your first smartphone? If so, then you are in for a shock; smartphones eat batteries far faster than dumbphones. Also note that auto-updates drain a bit, and that includes updating Facebook and Twitter while the phone sleeps.

You get what you pay for, really. That phone comes with a 1300mah battery, which is really only feasible because of it’s relatively slow processor. Still, the backlight on the display draws a considerable amount of power; when I check my battery usage, on average, ~47% of the power I put in there during my last charge goes just to power the display!

Samsung makes decent phones, but you have to have reasonable expectations. You can’t have computing power without using a lot of battery power, you can’t have a lot of battery power from a small battery, and you can’t get much of either from a $100 smartphone since both computing power and Lithium-ion batteries are expensive. You can lessen the battery drain by turning the power-drawing options down/off though.

My sympathies. The battery “life” of my Samsung Galaxy 3 was the puniest of any smartphone I ever owned—and I’ve owned a bunch. I exchanged it for an iPhone, which stays juiced twice as long. That’s only two days, but it’s better than the one day my Samsung stayed alive.

@jerv My friend who has the same phone gets 2 days out of it.

Which power-drawing options do you suggest I turn down? I know about the screen and backlight but is there anything else?

It is my first Smart Phone and I’ve heard the batteries suck but I wasn’t aware it was this bad. I may not even want this phone.. we’ll see. I can still exchange it for something else, maybe a ‘dumb’ (aka. actually good) phone.

Go into your settings, look at the battery usage, and that will tell you what is eating your charges. Aside from teh backlight, there are two other main culprits:

- Do you have the phone check {social networking sites of choice} every 5 minutes? I turned my updates off so that it only checks when I open the Facebook app. That right there saves a lot of power.

- How about auto-updates for your apps? That also can sting you a bit; all that data at uncontrolled times.

As for dumbphones being better, it depends on what you need. If you only text, sure, there are dumbphones that can do that quite well. Some even have full QWERTY keyboards, and most have excellent battery life.

I use mine for far more than that though. Find a dumbphone that can replace an MP3 player, digital video camera, portable DVD player, GPS, flashlight, level, wifi network analyzer, image editor, RDP client (to remotely control a computer), HP 48G graphing calculator, and library (I have a ton of PDF files on my phone, including the 2704-page Machinery’s Handbook:28th edition, an essential book for my trade) and I might switch back.

If you think smartphones are bad (or rather, non-good) then you obviously have different needs from me.

I only use the phone for texting, and I think I’ve made a really bad choice and I’ve screwed myself over without knowing it or realizing it because I’m not that tech savvy. On top of that I think BestBuy scammed me.

My other phone was full QUERTY keyboard, and that’s what I should have went for. I should have simply purchased the same model of phone I had before; it lasted 2 years before seriously breaking, and that was with numerous drops and some water damage.

If you just text and have no use for the vast multitude of other features a smartphone has, then maybe smartphones aren’t for you.

Right now, I’m using mine to make this post during one of my breaks at work, but if that sort of thing isn’t useful to you then c’est la vie. BTW, my last smartphone is still working 3 years later (I use it as a mini-tablet now), so durability isn’t an issue unless you skimp and get a cheap one.

I can’t go online at my work because I have no time. I think I’ll just invest in the slide out keyboard, because I text but don’t go online.

You don’t get breaks? Hmm…

Anyways, at the end of the day, the important thing is to have a phone that you like and that meets your needs. If your needs are more meager and or desires more humble than mine, then a dumbphone with a QWERTY keyboard is perfect for you. A phone should do what you want (like last all day on a charge), not make you miserable, and not have you pay for functions you don’t use.

However, I’ll stick with my RAZR HD with it’s tough Kevlar™ and Gorilla Glass™ body, a battery that still has at least a 30% charge after a long day of fairly heavy use, and features I actually use, even if it costs more. Buy cheap, buy twice ;)

The phone is definitely defective. Sometimes it will be off and the battery will drain on its own. On top of that, I’ve recently stopped receiving texts from various people, and it’ll go on ‘safe mode’ when it turns on (I don’t know how to stop that).

Are you talking about the lock screen when it wakes up from sleep mode? If so, the phone is still on even if the screen is off. If you don’t like that then you’ll have to learn to love 3-hour battery life and butt-dialing.

As for the texting issue, that might be a reception issue for all I know.

What I did was have the phone exchanged for a new one, and it turns out the new one is incomparably better. I didn’t even have to delete all of my apps like I did in the other one. All I Have is the wifi and data turned off and the battery so far has went down about 40% in just under 20 hrs of the phone being on all the time.

I’m very satisfied with this phone at the moment. Obviously, the battery isn’t as good as the old phones where you could leave it on for 3 days without worrying, but it would be more than sufficient to get me through a day. And I have the added smart phone features in case I ever needed to use Wifi somewhere.

Wifi eats batteries; that’s why I rarely use mine. Having the data turned on all the time doesn’t affect battery life much unless you have it updating Facebook every 5 minutes because it’s inactive 90% of the time. If I keep my data on and leave my phone in my pocket, it only loses about 1%/hr; it’s surfing the net (like I’m doing now, on 4G) and playing games that takes my battery down to 45% by day’s end.

Glad to hear your new one is working better. I admit that I sometimes miss being able to last 3 days on a charge, but my car dock replenishes ~20% charge during my commute, so I’m fine and can go all day so long as I remember to plug in before I go to sleep.

Am happy to have both found this website, and to be able to add to this thread! Given that, can someone tell me if an extended battery has finally been made for this phone? I managed to get one for my ZTE Score, and I am using the Discover w/no service strictly for free Wi-Fi connects, my games, movies, videos, and music. Anyone using this great phone w/an extended battery, please? :-)