My top four gripes about the S7 - can anyone help?

montyross

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I purchased the S7 about four weeks ago. These are my top four complaints after making the switch from an Iphone 4S. If someone is aware of a feature I am not or can suggest a work around I would appreciate it.
- Raised home button. I had my first **** dialing experience by keeping the S7 in my pocket. I had to program a security code which I don’t like or use the fingerprint which doesn’t work very well to prevent the **** dial. Even absent the **** dial, it is a battery drain to constantly activate the home button. The Iphone of course has a depressed circle for the home button which is not activated when the phone is in tight quarters.
- No physical mute switch on side of phone. It is a pain to activate the phone in order to turn down the ringer until it mutes.
- Clearing notifications. I used to have a Droid before the Iphone but forgot about the constant notifications a person receives via Android. I have turned off all notifications except for the phone and text. On the Iphone, notifications appearing on the lock screen are immediately cleared after pressing the home button. On the S7 you have to go into the message app and look at the new message before the message clears on the lock screen. This is a huge time waster after you have already read the message on the lock screen. Argh!
- Battery Life no better that Iphone 4S. The battery life on this phone was supposed to be great. I am a super lite phone user. I use less than a ½ gig of data per month. I still have to charge this phone every day even with wifi off!

The main reason I got rid of my Iphone was I don’t like Itunes as a music manager and figured the navigation would be better on the S7 although with apps like Waze now available on the Iphone this really doesn’t apply like it once did. I hate to take a hit on a brand new phone, but may have to switch back to Iphone. Please send helpful suggestions if you can. - Thanks
 

johna22

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I don't know how well it works, but under Display and wallpaper there is an option for "Keep screen turned off". If you turn this feature on it is supposed to help prevent accidentally turning on the phone in your pocket. I use the fingerprint lock so I don't have this feature turned on to know if it helps much or not.

For battery, if you're not paying with the phone you can turn off NFC. Another option, at least on Verizon, if go to Location you can change to "power saving" instead of "high accuracy".

I haven't played around with it yet, but I think there is a way to disable or limit apps you don't use from running in the background.
 

SpookDroid

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Hi there,

It can be troublesome to move to a different brand and even more when the OS is different from what you're used to, but we'll try to help :)

1) The best way to keep this from happening is, like you said, the secure lockscreen (and yes, even iPhones do **** dialing... I can't tell you how many times I've heard the Siri voice when I sit down at a meeting with the phone in my pocket). If your finger isn't properly recognized, I'd try re-setting the fingerprint; for me and most users out there, the reader on the S7/S7 Edge is pretty fast and accurate, even with callousness and with some amount of water on top. But you also have a setting to prevent the phone from turning the screen on in dark places (like a pocket); this will keep that from happening. Just remember to turn it off if you use your phone in any opaque pouches or the screen won't turn on in there.

2)No way around this one. You will need to turn the screen on to mute/vibrate. You can set up widgets to quickly access this on the Home Screen, but you still need to turn the screen on.

3). If you swipe down on the notification bar on your phone you should see a CLEAR ALL button that gets rid of all your notifications. (something I miss on the iPhone... goes to show we don't all like the same things hehe). You also have it on the lockscreen if you swipe down on the notification area.

4) Definitely not the case for me (and most I've seen). There's no way my iPhone will make it for over a day with the amount of use I put on my S7. So there might be an app taking too much battery or it's still 'settling'.
 

SpookDroid

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I don't know how well it works, but under Display and wallpaper there is an option for "Keep screen turned off". If you turn this feature on it is supposed to help prevent accidentally turning on the phone in your pocket. I use the fingerprint lock so I don't have this feature turned on to know if it helps much or not.

For battery, if you're not paying with the phone you can turn off NFC. Another option, at least on Verizon, if go to Location you can change to "power saving" instead of "high accuracy".

I haven't played around with it yet, but I think there is a way to disable or limit apps you don't use from running in the background.

If you're using Samsung Pay, you can have anything you want turned off. Samsung Pay turns on (and back off) whatever it needs...and it only uses NFC as a 'last resort' as it first tries to do so via MST (the whole point of Samsung Pay, in the end).
 

7AndTRT

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I'm having the same issue as you. I've had to charge it twice today. I'm off charger for under three hours and at 65%. My 6S Plus gets two DAYS and have no power saving on with it and running Bluetooth for apple watch. I'm no newbie to android so I've done all the tweaks but a week on the battery should be settled. It's going to be the deal breaker with using this as my daily driver or going back to my iPhone.
 

Alanhd

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You can swipe down and access the quick settings, just double tap sound to activate mute. this can be done even if the phone is locked
 

Alanhd

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I'm having the same issue as you. I've had to charge it twice today. I'm off charger for under three hours and at 65%. My 6S Plus gets two DAYS and have no power saving on with it and running Bluetooth for apple watch. I'm no newbie to android so I've done all the tweaks but a week on the battery should be settled. It's going to be the deal breaker with using this as my daily driver or going back to my iPhone.

Do you have I Heart installed, I've read this is causing problems for lots of people,
 

7AndTRT

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Do you have I Heart installed, I've read this is causing problems for lots of people,
Nope. I have very few apps installed actually. Only music app I have is apple music because I'm a family subscriber (and don't like Spotify or play music curated lists nearly as much). As it stands apple music only used 2%.

According to the monitor it's screen - and if I turn it down any further I won't be able to see it. All the smart stay the functions off and always on isn't. It's turned off (so now the phone actually goes into Doze)..
 

GadgetGator

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I'm having the same issue as you. I've had to charge it twice today. I'm off charger for under three hours and at 65%. My 6S Plus gets two DAYS and have no power saving on with it and running Bluetooth for apple watch. I'm no newbie to android so I've done all the tweaks but a week on the battery should be settled. It's going to be the deal breaker with using this as my daily driver or going back to my iPhone.

This is not normal. I can be heavily using my phone all day at a theme park taking photos and videos, streaming music in the car both on the way and way back, make phone calls and still have half my battery. And that's with wifi and bluetooth left on all day and screen set on auto so it is quite bright a lot of the time outdoors! So something is wrong. Perhaps there is a bad battery in your phone. The S7 is capable of much better life than you are getting.
 
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TJA3500

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My wife only uses her phone to text and email. With data on, GPS set to high accrucy and WiFi left on all the time she's away from home, she still has 80% left after 12 hr day.
 

t0ked

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Your battery life does not seem typical. I would return it too if mine was discharging that quickly. My battery life is more typical of others on the forums. I used it about 2-3 hours and the phone is off charger for 12-14 hours which leaves me around 20% at the end of the day. This is with wifi and NFC on and location set to battery saving. If you were expecting a 2 day battery, then yes it won't reach that longevity. But as others say, quick charge and wireless charging can pick up the slack. If you're in a poor wireless signal area, I notice it drains the battery very quickly. If you travel or work in an area like this or work in a building that blocks reception, try turning off mobile data during those times and see if battery life improves. If this is the case, workarounds are available.

The option of preventing the screen from turning on in a pocket or dark area has saved me has worked well for me. Make sure that is switched on. I've also never had any issues with the finger print reader. I'd try reregistering your finger prints. And remember to shift your finger each time you put your finger on the sensor so it gets a complete picture of your finger.

Hope you end up keeping the phone.
 

ahmadveg

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- No physical mute switch on side of phone. It is a pain to activate the phone in order to turn down the ringer until it mutes.
If you go to settings--- Advanced features--- Easy Mute, and turn this feature on. This allows you to mute your phones ringer by flipping it face down or waving your hand across the screen. this works just as well as a mute button for me.
 

jcp007

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How about being able to disable the alarm clock from the night shade instead of going to the clock. Maybe I missed something.

Posted via the Android Central App
 

SpookDroid

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How about being able to disable the alarm clock from the night shade instead of going to the clock. Maybe I missed something.

Posted via the Android Central App

I'm not sure what you mean by disabling the alarm clock or night shade, but if you want to mute an alarm when it's ringing you can activate that motion gesture and do so by placing your hand on top of the phone (covering the sensor) or by flipping the phone over to face down.