Samsung phones' battery life VS. Everyone else

[Montana Man]

This one is for those of you who have owned, or are current owners of any Samsung smartphone.
In a nutshell - what's been YOUR experience with the phone's battery life under moderate to heavy use? Did you have to upgrade the battery right out of the gate? Or was the stock battery sufficient? How does Samsung's battery management compare to other brands that you have owned? Any and all input would be greatly appreciated!

 

[ItIsLikeThat]

This one is for those of you who have owned, or are current owners of any Samsung smartphone.
In a nutshell - what's been YOUR experience with the phone's battery life under moderate to heavy use? Did you have to upgrade the battery right out of the gate? Or was the stock battery sufficient? How does Samsung's battery management compare to other brands that you have owned? Any and all input would be greatly appreciated!

Droid Charge review -- Engadget

The charge is wayyyyy better than the Thunderbolt (both 4g) from a battery perspective.

 

[sean76]

I've had both the Fascinate and Charge, Samsungs battery life is pretty much head and shoulders above HTC and Moto in my experience ...

 

[nj02vette]

This one is for those of you who have owned, or are current owners of any Samsung smartphone.
In a nutshell - what's been YOUR experience with the phone's battery life under moderate to heavy use? Did you have to upgrade the battery right out of the gate? Or was the stock battery sufficient? How does Samsung's battery management compare to other brands that you have owned? Any and all input would be greatly appreciated!

It's hard to say, becuase past experience doesn't necessarily translate into future product performance.

The Fascinate had poorer battery life than the Droid X, but was light years better than the DInc. Thunderbolt was worse than DInc, but Charge better. GalaxySII seems to be decent from initial reports, but far from great.

HTC does seem to have a track record of very poor battery performance, partly because of thier use the the Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC. Current iterations are just battery hogs, and no amount of power management is going to help.

Samsung has traditionally used thier own designed Hummingbird SoC for many of thier recent models, and battery performance has been midrange, for the most part. Standby isn't bad, but movies and graphics will drain the battery pretty quick.

Moto used a lot of Ti OMAP SoCs (Tegra in a few recent models), and battery performance has been OK. About a days use with some typical use.

So with the rumors that the Prime will have the OMAP 4460, that may give you a slight indication. Or will it have the rumored Exynos 4412? Either way, neither of these SoCs is available in a mobile device so its uncertain what the battery life is expected to be.

4G also throws a wrench into the equation, so when in a 4G area, you can expect the phone to draw more power.

But by far, the screen is the single largest power drain, so a lot hinges on that. Pentile helps the power consumption, but 1280x720 is a lot of pixels to push, so my guess is that it will drain pretty fast with the screen active. My guess is that this phone will not be a great battery performer.

That's just my educated guess.

 

[ItIsLikeThat]

Theoretically, the 32nm Exynos 4412 should be better than past devices...but that depends on utilization...watching a 720P x264 file will task any smartphone's battery, it will just look GORGEOUS on the Prime.

 

[Shocky]

Don't have any problems with battery life on my Galaxy S II, easily lasts a day and oftern will go over two days.

That said if I played games on the phone constantly I could drain the battery in 4-6 hours, all depends how you use your phone.

 

[Lenerdosy]

Don't have any problems with battery life on my Galaxy S II, easily lasts a day and oftern will go over two days.

That said if I played games on the phone constantly I could drain the battery in 4-6 hours, all depends how you use your phone.

So 1-2 days texting, calls, email, web type use? Thats pretty good then.

 

[MRW1215]

Well, doesn't software play a part in battery life, too, if even a small one? I've heard people call HTC's Sense UI, for example, a "battery hog", and people who root seem to imply that bloatware can cause the battery to drain a bit more than it would without said bloatware.

Being that the Prime is supposed to be a "pure" Android experience (no manufacturer UIs, supposedly no bloatware), shouldn't that help a bit, too?

 

[Shocky]

So 1-2 days texting, calls, email, web type use? Thats pretty good then.

Some gaming as well, plus music, radio and video, theres nothing wrong with the battery, just some users have difficultly understanding what uses most of the power.

It mostly comes down to the screen on time mainly(obviously depends on brightness), then WIFI, 3G, GPS and Bluetooth.

Also the new power saving options in 2.3.4 can help, however I've done over 2 days without using it.