Battery Life on S6

Eldogg · Aug 4, 2015

I've had a new S6 since July 2015. I've owned a Galaxy S3 and S5, and tested an iphone 6p. I can't recall ever having the battery life issues that I am having with this S6.

I turn the phone on first thing in the morning (say around 8:30-9AM) and by 11 or 11:30Am, I am down to 70% and by 9PM, I am at 15%. All this with one 5 minute phone call, and minimal usage of apps. When I look at the battery usage, I see the top app is email sync at 10%, the screen is at 5%, and then about 3 or 4 others around 2%-3%. That's it.

Other days, I see the battery life go down to 80% within 2 hours of turning the phone on with no phone calls. During the same period with similar apps installed, the iphone 6P was down to maybe 95%.

Is the battery life on the S6 really this bad? Or do I have a defective device?

Sydney99 · Aug 6, 2015

You either have a rogue app/set-up or a defective device

Chigirl · Aug 15, 2015

My battery drains quickly. I keep wifi off at home now rather than leaving it on because I find it drains the battery. I just switch it on when I am going to use the wifi.

EarlyMon · Aug 15, 2015

http://androidforums.com/threads/phone-sloooow-after-5-1-1-update.936258/

If the main cache is tangled up, that can cause battery issues as well.

Eldogg · Aug 16, 2015

Chigirl said:
My battery drains quickly. I keep wifi off at home now rather than leaving it on because I find it drains the battery. I just switch it on when I am going to use the wifi.

Thanks. I keep my wifi off ... and it still drains awfully fast.

sidewinderz33 · Aug 17, 2015

Another work around, you may consider Galaxy S6 Extended Battery.

http://galaxys6extendedbattery.com/best-galaxy-s6-extended-battery-case-comparison-review/

Eldogg · Aug 17, 2015

sidewinderz33 said:
Another work around, you may consider Galaxy S6 Extended Battery.

http://galaxys6extendedbattery.com/best-galaxy-s6-extended-battery-case-comparison-review/

Thanks, will take a look.

AeolianReflex · Aug 18, 2015

Battery life is pretty bad on the S6. In their quest to make the thinnest phone possible the battery is just too small to support even average usage for a full day. Quick charging helps but bottom line is if your are going to put the phone to use you will need to charge it fairly often.

Eldogg · Aug 18, 2015

AeolianReflex said:
Battery life is pretty bad on the S6. In their quest to make the thinnest phone possible the battery is just too small to support even average usage for a full day. Quick charging helps but bottom line is if your are going to put the phone to use you will need to charge it fairly often.

Well, what's curious to me is this. Why ... was it SO much better on the S5? If you look at the rating, the S5 is something like 2800 mAh and the S6 is 2550 mAh. That is NOT a big difference, and does NOT explain the substantial difference I am seeing in battery life. With the S5, I barely got down to 50% during the course of a normal day - it was highly unusual to see 40% and at times, I would see 60%-70% at end of day. With the S6, I see 15%-30% pretty consistently. It's DRAMATICALLY worse, and I don't think the difference in battery spec explains that.

EarlyMon · Aug 18, 2015

64-bit processor means you're driving twice the transistors in the cores than you had before.

If it weren't for their recent breakthrough lowering the total silicon footprint the results would be MUCH worse.

(That's a fact, not Internet folklore, I've worked in semiconductor R&D for years.)

Plus, no telling what differences a change in antennas, radio transceivers and other support chips may be making, in either direction.

(That's an opinion but I think it stands up to common sense.)

Plus, the new generation beginning with the S6 has a different approach to task management (documented fact, they farm it out now) and based on the company's products that they farmed it out to, a number of us correctly predicted the initial multitasking problems. Point is, no telling if the 64-bit multicore is being managed as effectively as possible and if not, hopefully updates will address that.

Best you can do is clear cache from recovery (NOT with an app), maybe even regularly - try once every week or two - avoid task managers, ram cleaners, and battery helpers like the plague - and maybe try for an independent view to see if your radio signal or apps are doing anything suspicious.

I recommend GSam Battery Monitor and your target is to not have the phone reported as active (aside from occasional blips where email, weather, etc, are updating as expected) while the screen is off.

Eldogg · Aug 18, 2015

EarlyMon said:
64-bit processor means you're driving twice the transistors in the cores than you had before.

If it weren't for their recent breakthrough lowering the total silicon footprint the results would be MUCH worse.

(That's a fact, not Internet folklore, I've worked in semiconductor R&D for years.)

Plus, no telling what differences a change in antennas, radio transceivers and other support chips may be making, in either direction.

(That's an opinion but I think it stands up to common sense.)

Plus, the new generation beginning with the S6 has a different approach to task management (documented fact, they farm it out now) and based on the company's products that they farmed it out to, a number of us correctly predicted the initial multitasking problems. Point is, no telling if the 64-bit multicore is being managed as effectively as possible and if not, hopefully updates will address that.

Best you can do is clear cache from recovery (NOT with an app), maybe even regularly - try once every week or two - avoid task managers, ram cleaners, and battery helpers like the plague - and maybe try for an independent view to see if your radio signal or apps are doing anything suspicious.

I recommend GSam Battery Monitor and your target is to not have the phone reported as active (aside from occasional blips where email, weather, etc, are updating as expected) while the screen is off.

This is good info and what you say makes sense from a technology perspective. But frankly, I'm also in the computer industry and when we come to market with new generations of computers that do more work at higher processor speeds, we find ways to make them work better at lower costs. If what you say is the actual cause of this battery drain, Samsung never should have come out with a phone with this design and architecture. It's shameful. That's how bad the battery is. That's my take on it.

BTW, what is "clear cache from recovery"?

EarlyMon · Aug 18, 2015

Eldogg said:
This is good info and what you say makes sense from a technology perspective. But frankly, I'm also in the computer industry and when we come to market with new generations of computers that do more work at higher processor speeds, we find ways to make them work better at lower costs. If what you say is the actual cause of this battery drain, Samsung never should have come out with a phone with this design and architecture. It's shameful. That's how bad the battery is. That's my take on it.

BTW, what is "clear cache from recovery"?

I couldn't agree more.

Even if someone there did an analysis saying the smaller battery would be ok, no engineering manager in their right mind would go along with it. You always make allowances for tolerances and errors - and if nothing else had gone wrong, battery life would have increased with the old battery - and bingo, a selling point. No excuse for dropping the battery by almost 10% while staring down everything else.

Clear cache from recovery - a standard feature of better Android devices that lets you clean up one of two Android system caches (the one most likely to get stale or tangled).

Here's the instructions for the S5 but the Samsung procedure hasn't changed -

http://androidforums.com/threads/s5-lollipop-update-problems-dummies-guide.892800/

It's in paragraph 1.3 of that first post.

And yes, if doing that improves battery or performance, that's not a placebo effect, it's causal.

If it does nothing then your cache was clean already - but there's no way to inspect first and know.

No data will be harmed or lost by the procedure.

AeolianReflex · Aug 18, 2015

EarlyMon is spot on and you are right, I think Samsung may have rushed getting the S6 to market. While 250 mAh may not seem like much, it is almost 10% less capacity and that's quite a bit when you consider the higher speeds and more power hungry display on the S6. I am not an expert but I notice the phone searches for service and has worse radio reception than my S4 or even the S5. In places where my S4 got full bars the S6 struggles to keep 2 bars. When I do have more bars my battery life does improve quite a bit. I also think that the software though pared back to reduce bloat, actually causes the user to interact more with increased swipes, etc and that also has to take a toll on battery life as well. I love the build, the screen and the camera but the software is a step backward from even the S4 IMO.

EarlyMon · Aug 18, 2015

Yep.

So, I just want to toss this out there for everyone, your mileage may vary.

I don't know how many of you have seen that movie, but one of my favorite sayings has become - I like to fix problems, not fix blame.

If I had this phone, I'd root it and look into an alternative, hopefully more efficient rom.

Rooting isn't for everyone. Yes, you can lose your warranty and some features. Some of us like me don't care about those things and just say screw it - better to have no warranty and good performance than a warranty on a phone that's getting on our nerves.

Anyway - food for thought, proceed with caution if it's a new thing.

I just wanted to mention it because it's generally a safe bet that Samsung makes good hardware. And a lot of this might get fixed by them in the future. But if you're unhappy, maybe it's something to consider rather than living with upset or waiting.

Please ask in our rooting forum if interested, that's the best way, don't Google it and fly solo - that's the hard way.

Deleted User · Oct 3, 2015

"Is the battery life on the S6 really this bad? Or do I have a defective device? "

Your S6 is perfectly normal; it's a defective design flaw (like much of the rest of the phone...)

Battery Life on S6

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