Galaxy Note10+ 4300mAh (typical) - What is the truth?

TechBob

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I noticed that my battery on my week old Note 10+ 5G phone was draining rather fast. I have the Accubattery app and thought I would go in and see what is using the juice. I do not have 5G at my home and my 4G LTE signal is strong, so I don't think it is signal related. Regardless, I went into the Accubattery app and it is asking me again to set the battery design capacity, but it is suggesting 4170 mAh. Wait. I thought this phone had a 4300 mAh battery. i checked the Phone Info (Samung) App and under the hardware screen I also saw the battery capacity of 4170 mAh. Checked the battery screen and I saw what I have posted in the attachment. Since when did we start quoting pretend capacities. It says I may see 4300, but they sure aren't going to guarantee that. 4170 is what they are saying I should have. Screenshot_20191212-153822_Settings.jpg

I don't recall seeing that before. I just sent my trade-in to T-Mobile and can't check it. But I have to say, I feel a little cheated. Am I the only one bothered by this? Feel free to adjust my thinking.
 

Mike Dee

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It's exactly what it states....it's an average rating and a minimum rating. I'm not concerned, though I can understand that some might find it misleading. Reality is that if you didn't have that information you wouldn't notice the difference. I'm sure all OEMs do it.
 

TechBob

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It's exactly what it states....it's an average rating and a minimum rating. I'm not concerned, though I can understand that some might find it misleading. Reality is that if you didn't have that information you wouldn't notice the difference. I'm sure all OEMs do it.

Kindly, I have to somewhat disagree. I just checked the S10+ specs on Samsung's web site and the word "typical" is missing from the battery spec. Same for the Note 9. No "typical" there either, just on the Note 10+ page. I have had the Note 8, S9+, Note 9, S10+ and now the Note 10+. I have used the same tools on all. I have never had to override the design capacity spec because, as my Note 10+ did, that the built in capacity is lower that what I was told. This is a first for me with the Note 10 series . I appears to be a way to advertise a larger battery capacity than you are committing to. They are saying, in the fine print, that this is a 4170 mAh battery. Will I notice it? Not right away, but it is the same as a loss that I would experience after some months of use. So I have less capacity than I expected out of the box.
 

Mooncatt

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They are saying, in the fine print, that this is a 4170 mAh battery.

No, they are saying that's the minimum it could be, not that all batteries are 4,170mAh. If that were the case, they wouldn't be able to average out the 4,300 mAh rating. But this is nothing new.

Www.batteryuniversity.com/index.php/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries

They note almost at the very beginning that none of their test batteries had full advertised capacity when new. My week old Razer Phone 2 is advertised at 4,000mAh, but AccuBattery is estimating 3,887 mAh actual. As the Battery University article also notes, there are various factors that could contribute to early capacity loss before the phone ever hits your hands. Factors beyond the control of the manufacturer. And let's face it, this isn't an exact science in manufacturing batteries. It's simply not possible to make every battery of given capacity to measure exactly that. Even in the manufacture, there are variations.

If anything, this is making things more clear. These variances in batteries have always existed, it's just that now you know about it. Let AccuBattery run a bit, maybe even do a full 0-100% (and then leave another hour until true charging shutoff) calibration charge as AccuBattery suggests, then see what the estimated true capacity is. If it's still lower than you think is acceptable, try to go for a warranty exchange.
 

Mike Dee

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Kindly, I have to somewhat disagree. I just checked the S10+ specs on Samsung's web site and the word "typical" is missing from the battery spec. Same for the Note 9. No "typical" there either, just on the Note 10+ page. I have had the Note 8, S9+, Note 9, S10+ and now the Note 10+. I have used the same tools on all. I have never had to override the design capacity spec because, as my Note 10+ did, that the built in capacity is lower that what I was told. This is a first for me with the Note 10 series . I appears to be a way to advertise a larger battery capacity than you are committing to. They are saying, in the fine print, that this is a 4170 mAh battery. Will I notice it? Not right away, but it is the same as a loss that I would experience after some months of use. So I have less capacity than I expected out of the box.
Here's a live S10+
They mention Typical and minimum. Even if you got the minimum you would never notice as it ages because it's not a good idea to bring your device down to zero.
Screenshot_20191212-205844_Settings.jpeg
 

GDany

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And look what message I got after optimizing my Note 10+. Not very encouraging, I'd say….
fd85eda053d52a0bc1c18597eb1ec250.jpg
 

j_hansen

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4170 is what comes up in the Ampere app as well, not something I could get upset about to be honest, all the manufacturers use every trick in the book when it comes to to showcase power and performance etc.... And then there is real life....
 

Mike Dee

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What do you say about this? Looks like the design is indeed 4170 but it can be charged a little bit more.
20f22dcd05afcaa97b9e614ac335bbbd.jpg
Unless I'm misinterpreting what I'm reading, all that says to me is you can change the Design Capacity number to track relative degradation.
 

Mike Dee

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After downloading the app it seems that the 4170 is the default number the app populates for everyone and then it's up to the user to change it. Based on variation tolerances its inconceivable that everyone has the exact same size battery, so it's my guess that it's detecting the device model number and using 4170 by default. The app even tells you to update it if not correct.Screenshot_20191219-100656_AccuBattery.jpeg
 

Mooncatt

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After downloading the app it seems that the 4170 is the default number the app populates for everyone and then it's up to the user to change it. Based on variation tolerances its inconceivable that everyone has the exact same size battery, so it's my guess that it's detecting the device model number and using 4170 by default. The app even tells you to update it if not correct.View attachment 314456
Yes, you can change the design capacity, but it doesn't default to 4,170 for everyone. All of my phones have defaulted to their advertised rated capacities. Odd that it picked up on that for the N10+. It would be interesting to know how it's getting the info to set the default capacity rating.
 

GDany

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You are perfectly right, the app reads and verifies the battery capacity, it doesn't show a default value for every phone model. And yes, for me also, this is the first phone which reports a lower capacity than the one advertised, from the beginning. So, if different apps show the same capacity, this should be the truth. But then, why Samsung advertises this phone as having a 4300 mAh battery when the phone reports 4170? This is called cheating, IMHO.
 

bassplayrguy

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I noticed that my battery on my week old Note 10+ 5G phone was draining rather fast. I have the Accubattery app and thought I would go in and see what is using the juice. I do not have 5G at my home and my 4G LTE signal is strong, so I don't think it is signal related. Regardless, I went into the Accubattery app and it is asking me again to set the battery design capacity, but it is suggesting 4170 mAh. Wait. I thought this phone had a 4300 mAh battery. i checked the Phone Info (Samung) App and under the hardware screen I also saw the battery capacity of 4170 mAh. Checked the battery screen and I saw what I have posted in the attachment. Since when did we start quoting pretend capacities. It says I may see 4300, but they sure aren't going to guarantee that. 4170 is what they are saying I should have. View attachment 314159

I don't recall seeing that before. I just sent my trade-in to T-Mobile and can't check it. But I have to say, I feel a little cheated. Am I the only one bothered by this? Feel free to adjust my thinking.
Battery apps are the worst things for battery life.
 

Mooncatt

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Battery apps are the worst things for battery life.
Not ones like AccuBattery. That app only reports, it doesn't change anything or try to optimize stuff. It's the battery (and memory) managers that claim to increase speed and battery life by killing apps that are the problem.
 

Mike Dee

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Yes, you can change the design capacity, but it doesn't default to 4,170 for everyone. All of my phones have defaulted to their advertised rated capacities. Odd that it picked up on that for the N10+. It would be interesting to know how it's getting the info to set the default capacity rating.
Who said everyone?
I meant everyone that has the Note 10 + since that is what we are discussing.

4170 is the minimum rated capacity and its linked the the model number.
 

nintendo1889

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I wonder if you set your phone to 5g only, if the battery would be better. MetroPCS had this problem in the early days of 4g (except there's was 3g/cdma and 4g/gsm).I'd get to work and an hour later the battery would die on my LG Motion! Even the extended battery would last until lunch!