Samsung Galaxy s2X Battery Life

[blackout33]

Hi there I just recently bought myself a Samsung Galaxy S2X from TELUS beginning of November im finding if I take my phone off the charger by 8am and by time I get home from work which is 5 or 6pm ish its already down to 55% it seems like the battery is draining I have been using the Advanced Task Killer I tried Juice Defender doesnt help out very much and ive always made sure bluetooth wifi n gps are off brightness is set low im just not sure whats eating the battery any ideas? It would be greatly appreciated.

 

[blackout33]

Im currently at 52% battery life and in the battery stats it shows

12 hrs 11min 6s on battery

Android System 29%
Display 26%
CellStand By 12%
Facebook 10%
Phone Idle 8%
Android OS 4%
Email 4%
Android Core Apps 2%
Media Server 2%
Messaging 2%
Dialer 2%

 

[andruoid]

Just got my IIX yesterday and from a full charge this morning I'm nearly drained 15 hours later. Wifi on the entire time, installing apps and setting up the way I like it and being the first charge that's not bad.

 

[The_Gnome_]

Hi there I just recently bought myself a Samsung Galaxy S2X from TELUS beginning of November im finding if I take my phone off the charger by 8am and by time I get home from work which is 5 or 6pm ish its already down to 55% it seems like the battery is draining I have been using the Advanced Task Killer I tried Juice Defender doesnt help out very much and ive always made sure bluetooth wifi n gps are off brightness is set low im just not sure whats eating the battery any ideas? It would be greatly appreciated.

I think (at least in my experience) 9-10 hours of use eating up 45% of your battery is pretty standard (or even good in some cases).

Off topic, but be careful using task killers - they can often do more damage than good. If you're interested google it, there's lots of opinions on both side of the matter but more and more it seems people are leaning to the fact that Android does a very good job of task/memory management and task killers can often kill processes you'd rather leave on.

 

[andruoid]

Task Mgr that is builtin on the SII X is good. I never use 3rd party "optimization" utilities ...just a rule carried over from the PC days.

 

[murph1523]

I have had the phone for about a week.

I keep the Brightness nice and low and mostly do not run wifi while at office (government). Thus, mostly texting, emails...turned phone on at 100% at 07:30 now 12:08 and i am at 33% battery life.

Obviously I am missing something?

Any advice and or suggestions would be greatful.

 

[MenaceInc]

Does anyone know how to blank out the screen (instead of wallpaper) in time out setting? My friend has Bell version of S2 and I saw his phone has that feature.

This may save the battery life.

 

[andruoid]

Just thought I'd report back on battery life after a month of owning the phone. On the stock OS I'm getting anywhere from a full day to day and a half. Usage varies day to day but generally consists of light gaming, texting, surfing, short calls and chat.

 

[BadderBrad]

A couple of things that helped me were to use a dark background wallpaper. Plus make sure you use the power savings mode. Settings/power saving mode.

Also one of the best options is to buy an extra battery. This is one of the biggest reasons android kills the iPhone. I carry extras in my pocket. That way I can use a brighter screen and do anything I like. I bought a 3800mha extended battery on eBay for $20. This gives you a full day easily. The case backing is a bit bigger so if you like to go with the stock back you can order many battery's around 2500mha for around $10 that fit in the stock case that will last longer than the battery that came with the phone.

Good luck.

 

[ashgarg]

Hey Guys,

I've been using the S2X on Telus for about 4 days and having terrible results. On day 1 I charged it up to 100% before turning it on. Here's what I have today as an example:

6h 18m 42s on battery, down to 13% now.

Display 57%
Voice Calls 11%
Android System 6%
Android OS 6% etc

Is this normal? My display settings aren't crazy, it's auto-brightness, auto-rotate is off. I don't have any major apps or widgets that are draining it either.

Please help! If this is an error, I'd like to work with Telus / Samsung and get the device / battery replaced ASAP.

Thanks!

 

[Xerses]

Hey Guys,

I've been using the S2X on Telus for about 4 days and having terrible results. On day 1 I charged it up to 100% before turning it on. Here's what I have today as an example:

6h 18m 42s on battery, down to 13% now.

Display 57%
Voice Calls 11%
Android System 6%
Android OS 6% etc

Is this normal? My display settings aren't crazy, it's auto-brightness, auto-rotate is off. I don't have any major apps or widgets that are draining it either.

Please help! If this is an error, I'd like to work with Telus / Samsung and get the device / battery replaced ASAP.

Thanks!

Seeing as nobody is replying to your question, I will chime in.

I got my S II X the morning of Oct. 28th when it came out and had read about the varying battery results, but...

1) The battery needs to be cycled (100% to 0%, turned off and charged to 100%) a few times in order to achieve maximum battery life and duration.

2) You should only charge your battery when it is very low (20% or preferably less) if you want it to live long.

3) You are better off charging with your phone off in order to avoid uselss cycles (gets to 100%, drops to 98% because it is on then charges to 100%, and so on, all night). If you don't, you are reducing the useable life of the battery.

4) The S II X has a fantastic screen, but it will kill your battery if you leave brightness up very high and if you use a bright background. Use automatic brightness (works very well) and set your background to a dark image, or dark live wallpaper. I use live wallpaper all of the time, but the backgrounds are dark. AMOLED displays have the advantage of turning off pixels to make black, so using a darker/black theme wallpaper turns off all of the black parts of the screen saving battery.

5) Juice Defender is very good and does make a difference. I used the free version for a few months and bought the Ultimate version in order to have it control Bluetooth and other more advanced settings. Worth every penny. I use my phone extensively for work, unplug, turn on at about 8:30am and by 5pm I have between 50 and 70% left.

6) Be sure to turn off auto sync of your accounts, unless absolutely needed. Settings - Accounts and sync - Under the manage accounts section select the accounts one by one and uncheck all of the things that you don't need to have sync (I use none since my e-mail is what is important).

7) Using the GPS for navigation, Google Maps or other apps that require location verification will also drain battery. If you don't need it, turn it off. If you do need it then get Juice Defender Free or paid, to manage it automatically. Using Navigation in your car will drain the battery, this is when I plug in the car charger. Once done with Navigation, I disconnect it.

8) Keep a car charger handy because you will eventually get into a situation where your battery will be too low for comfort and it will save you.

Hope this helps!

 

[habs1523]

I have followed all of the suggestions. I have been through 3 other Droids before (Motorola, Dex, HTC). Thus, I am not a newbie to the positives of the Android phone. However, this model is a PIG on battery life. I did cycle the battery life to 0% and recharged fully to 100% at least 5-7 times. Display settings are always very low...I do not even use auto setting as I do not like it fluctuating up and down. During every day use I do not use GPS and rarely wifi as I have 6GB data plan. I do not watch You Tube or movies on it and rarely use the music. Normal use for me is primarily texting, email and some social networking. If I turn the phone on at 07:00 at 100% it will dip below 20% shortly after 14:00 - 15:00. Now that should not happen?

Cheers,

 

[vancitydrizzy]

Just got my IIX yesterday and from a full charge this morning I'm nearly drained 15 hours later. Wifi on the entire time, installing apps and setting up the way I like it and being the first charge that's not bad.

Did you discharge your battery completely and then charge it, because I find it if you do that it's the only way for you to get it to last like this guy (15+ hours) while still using the basic necessities (as in Wifi/3G, GPS, bluetooth).

I just got mine too, completely discharged the battery, fully charged it, ran it down and charged it again.

This increases the life threshold of the battery and allows it to get down to almost zero before dieing on you instead of dieing on you at 20% because you didn't completely drain it the first time around.

Batteries are based on use. If you flex it to its maximum use before you ever actually put it through that test, it will do quite well.

If you straight just charge it to full and try to get a 20 hour life out of it, your not gonna be happy.

 

[vancitydrizzy]

I have followed all of the suggestions. I have been through 3 other Droids before (Motorola, Dex, HTC). Thus, I am not a newbie to the positives of the Android phone. However, this model is a PIG on battery life. I did cycle the battery life to 0% and recharged fully to 100% at least 5-7 times. Display settings are always very low...I do not even use auto setting as I do not like it fluctuating up and down. During every day use I do not use GPS and rarely wifi as I have 6GB data plan. I do not watch You Tube or movies on it and rarely use the music. Normal use for me is primarily texting, email and some social networking. If I turn the phone on at 07:00 at 100% it will dip below 20% shortly after 14:00 - 15:00. Now that should not happen?

Cheers,

Just read this response. Sorry, I don't know what else to say. Yes, the battery life is already sub-par on the S2x because of it's superior capabilities, so if your planning for heavy use make sure you've got a portable battery or a charger in your phone.

I plan on tethering it to my iPad continuously at work (we use iPad for all transactions so we can be paperless) and I'm sure as soon as I attempt this the battery will start giving my problems.

Your only option seems to be buying a new battery, and doing the drain/discharge method prior to actually putting it to use. It doesn't really help once you've already used the phone with the battery for a few days and then discharging it, because that discharge level is still about 20% higher than the battery life due to the way the battery had been treated thus far.

I hope that makes sense.

 

[wahaaja]

So i just switched from an lg optimus 2x to the telus s2x. On the optimus I was running cyanogenmod and was looking for something similar for the galaxy. Unfortunately I couldn't find anything and I ended up here. I installed mr.x's custom rom and everything seems to be working fine but I have one problem. I understand that smartphone batteries nowadays don't exactly last u a whole day but why does my phone take forever to charge? I went from 5% to 33% in 1hr15mins (before i rooted and installed the rom my phone would be fully charged within 45mins-1hr) what did I do wrong???? Pls help!

 

[PaulC74]

In regards to a high battery usage. You need to find out what apps and or services are causing a high number of wakelocks. Wakelocks prevent your Android from going into a deep sleep and that usually is the biggest reason for a high battery usage. The biggest issue for me was how often the apps would sync.

Best app I ever bought was betterbatterystats. It helped tremendously in finding out what was using my batteries.

 

[manig]

I think the best option is to go for extended batteries. can someone who used extended batteries suggest some.

i am looking at amazon.ca and ebay.ca.. cant find which one will fit properly.

seidioonline.com

can i charge this inside phone?

 

[IceAge]

I hate to be the one to have to point this out, but all that talk about draining the battery to 0% to extend the life of your battery is incorrect. Furthermore, it is also incorrect that you should charge your battery when it is 20% of full or less.

These things were likely true in the days of nickel cadmium batteries or otherwise. It is now well documented that Li-On batteries do not have the same type of shortcomings.

Studies show that Li-On batteries actually last longer if you keep them powered up, and suffer much shorter life spans if you let them drain down too much too often. I would include the link to the study, but I'm not allowed to in my first post, according to the rules.

In my own experience, I'd have to concur with what most people are saying here. If you intend to use this phone, you WILL suffer serious battery drain, plain and simple. Make sure to have a charger with you always, and I do believe a spare battery would be an excellent option. Perhaps an extended battery as well.

I used to use Juice Defender, which did a pretty decent job of adding on a few hours to the battery life. Ultimately, however, the best solution I have found was to root the phone, and then install CPU Tuner, and use aggressive power saving settings. Basically, it steps down the CPU to save power. Most of the time, the 1500MHz dual core processor is simply complete overkill. Furthermore, I have the program set to basically shut off all data services when the screen is off. While that isn't ideal for some, it works for me since when my phone is off, I'm usually at work anyway, and not using it.

As of right now, my phone has been on battery for 15h 54m, and it's at a whopping 83% charge! However, the screen has been off nearly the entire time... Point made, I think, that if you use the phone, your battery is going down FAST. After 2 hours of heavy use, I'm usually down below 40%, even down below 20% at times.

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries

 

[Xerses]

The link has excellent information! Thank you.

 

[IceAge]

You're welcome! Incidentally, I'm still going on the same charge (well, mostly), 1 day, 13 hours, 54 minutes, and at 22% now. I did charge it for about 20 minutes or so this morning, so I kind of cheated. Still, it's by far the longest charge I've ever had with this beast.

If Cyanogen mod worked with this model, I think I would permanently underclock the CPU to something like 1000 MHz.

 

[Xerses]

In the last week or so I have not been using my phone heavily. Over the weekend I would turn it on at around 9am, off at about 9 or 10pm and it would still have about 70% left since the screen would be off 95% of the time (I was renovating my house, not on the phone).

If I root and tune the CPU down I would get epic battery life. I have been hesitant to root for warranty reasons (have the phone since Oct. 28 2011) and wanted to wait for ICS before doing it.

I suppose I can create a new thread about rooting and ICS update so as not to hijack this thread.

 

[dominatro92]

Not sure if this thread is dead or not but just wanted to chime in on battery life of the s2x. I used to get crappy battery life and ultra slow performance when i upgraded to Telus' stock jelly bean. It was FREAKING terrible. So i rooted, installed app quarantine, clean master, and 2x battery. In app quarantine i block all apps i dont use regular, the most invasive being facebook. it also allows you to make a widget for apps so u can quickly unquarantine and re-quarantine an app.

One very memorable time i achieved 4 straight days without charging. On that occasion i only used my phone for texting. But i regularly get two full days on one charge.

Recently i noticed my battery life was getting pretty crappy again. Realized why with some research. My wallpapers were too bright, and an android service was stuck in a loop, killing battery. It's called App Media Service.

I discovered it when i downloaded watchhound, an app that monitors what's using all your cpu, because my cpu also always seemed fully used for some reason, well over the acceptable threshold. Normally the cpu in this phone is quite good, it uses power dynamically even with the phone on to save battery.