Samsung has started pushing out a new software update for UK Galaxy S3 smartphones which aims to improve battery usage and overall stability.
If you’ve got a Samsung Galaxy SIII and you’ve taken a look at the battery usage in the settings menu, no doubt you’ll be familiar with something called Cell Standby. This sucker can really drain your battery big time, and is generally second in the usage table behind the screen. It’s the phone’s radio checking for signal more often than it should, and thankfully Samsung has issued an update to fix it.
UK S3 owners should see their phone flash up with a notification for the update soon, which can be installed over the air using either 3G or Wi-Fi. The file itself is around 1MB in size, so it can be done over 3G without much worry, and it installs pretty quickly.
Alternatively, the update can be installed via your Mac or PC using Samsung’s Kies PC suite. Simply open the software, plug in the phone and wait for the update notification.
Your phone should reboot after doing the update, after which you’ll need to give it a full charge and see how your battery life has improved. With Cell Standby accounting for upwards of 25% of battery drain per day on our phone, we’re anticipating an extra 3-4 hours at least thanks to this update.
Let us know how you get on!
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