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An early release of the Samsung Galaxy S3 has had its battery put to the test and the results aren’t at all bad, putting to bed our fears about the power-sapping quad-core chip. For now, at least.
The folks over at GSM Arena have got their hands on the new superphone and have given its battery the once-over. It managed to give over 10 hours of talk-time which easily beats the 8.5 hours achieved by its predecessor the Galaxy S2 and is streaks ahead of the 7 hours 40 minutes the iPhone 4S managed.
Video playback was handled with aplomb too, with the S3 managing to keep going for just over 10 hours, while the 4S and S2 managed 9 hours 20 minutes and 8 hours respectively. I’m rather chuffed with these figures. The massive 4.8-inch Super AMOLED screen is sure to be a massive battery drain, as is the powerful quad-core processor, so I didn’t have my hopes set on the S3 even beating the S2 in the battery stakes. It seems that Samsung has been able to cram a more potent power source inside it’s smooth shell.
It’s not all good news though; the S3’s battery falls down on web browsing, only being able to last just over five hours which is considerably less than the nearly seven hours of the iPhone 4S — although it’s still better than the four hours 30 minutes of the S2. If you’re in dire need of a longer battery life then turn your Wi-Fi off and keep away from your 3G connection and you should be able to wangle another hour or two from it.
It’s important to bear in mind that the phone used is a pre-release model, so these figures might not be exactly the same as what you’d achieve. Samsung is likely to give the phone different software tweaks before launch to optimise it for the various networks across Britain, so it’s likely to handle battery life in different ways. Still, it’s a promising start and I’m certainly looking forward to seeing how it copes in our own test in the full review.
Are you pleased by these numbers? Do you intend to buy the S3 or have you already preordered it? Let me know in the comments below or over on our Facebook page.
