Galaxy Note 4: Battery Life Concerns Check Here First

[hdhuntr]

I don't know what this will turn into but this original post is meant to be a starting place for anyone thinking they are not getting enough from the battery. I am putting this out there because it should be easier for people to skip to this point without reading all the stuff I did. I won't say what I think the standard ought to be but I'll say I am extremely happy with this Note 4 battery performance compared to all prior devices.
My Note 3 was fine until they "upgraded" to KitKat. When that happened almost everyone in the forum was talking about how bad it got. I'd go off charge and be at 80% by the time I went to the grocery store and back. Before I discovered GSam (Link below) the Note 4 came out and I didn't have to worry about the 3 anymore. The point is that Note 3 post KitKat almost everyone was talking about battery. Here with the Note 4 it's some people seeing what they consider problems and some people having actual issues and many people happy like I am.
SO, start from the premise that you are running something, or a number of things, that people who are satisfied are not running. It could be from the thread with the list of things they turned off (link below). It could be a lot of things. It could be a couple apps interacting. The only real way to check it is to look at what each app does. You can probably do it best by using an app called GSAM in the Play store. It'll show you which apps and processes are doing what. There's a lot in there and some of it isn't obvious. Just know that it won't help to assume you have a bad piece of hardware (phone OR battery) that's statistically rare.

I found GSam when my great battery started going down faster...It showed me that my gut was right. Words With Friends I got to play with my daughter was a juice hog. I tweaked the settings and now it is fine.

LaTuFu also suggests Greenify(Link below) I don't use ti because I don't need it but it has a lot of stars. Good luck! Now you can go read all the other threads but don't be misled into thinking there's a systemic problem.

https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...ails?id=com.gsamlabs.bbm&hl=en&token=9fKHBO9X

https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...d=com.oasisfeng.greenify&hl=en&token=1W-MBcZT

http://forums.androidcentral.com/sa...-what-apps-have-you-uninstalled-disabled.html

 

[GregMargie]

Thank you.... May I ask, What settings did you tweak for 'words with friends'

 

[hdhuntr]

I think I found something for restricting background data usage. That is trivial but what I remember reading somewhere when I googled it is that it was using a lot of juce because instead of waiting for notifications it was constantly polling to see if one was there. (These are NOT the technical terms, just what I took away from it). It reduced the drain but it affects play. It's a flaw in the program. I don't know if it is better when played through facebook because I only do facebook on my PC and I do not have that game thing turned on at all.

Thank you.... May I ask, What settings did you tweak for 'words with friends'

 

[debsawyer]

Also make sure you don't have tons of email. My battery lasted only 6-8 hours. My Gmail had over 14,000 emails, and after I deleted them down to 4,000. My longest battery life is 19 hours. Yea!!!

 

[LaTuFu]

Also make sure you don't have tons of email. My battery lasted only 6-8 hours. My Gmail had over 14,000 emails, and after I deleted them down to 4,000. My longest battery life is 19 hours. Yea!!!

You know, I never thought about this part. Deleting/archiving Gmail may be very important. Does anyone know if Gmail indexes the email folders frequently if there are messages in there (not archived?). There is a reason archive is a feature. I'll try to find some time to dig around and get more answers on this.

 

[LaTuFu]

LaTuFu also suggests Greenify(Link below) I don't use ti because I don't need it but it has a lot of stars. Good luck! Now you can go read all the other threads but don't be misled into thinking there's a systemic problem.

I suggest Greenify because it is a pretty well known app, and it is a pretty quick and easy way to get a screen shot posted up for other users to check out and provide feedback with.

 

[LaTuFu]

It might help for anyone looking for suggestions on battery life to be prepared to post their system stats.

Here are the screenshots I've been asking for in recent threads. Other users can offer suggestions of other screens if they think it would be helpful.

Maybe we can get a Mod to sticky this thread so we don't keep getting eleventy-five battery threads a day in this forum.

Suggested stats to post for review:
Let's start with:

1. Screen shot of your Power Saving Main Screen


2. Screen shot of the history screen (access it by clicking on the line graph in the middle of your power saving screen.)


3. Download and install Greenify. Take a screenshot of the list of apps that it recommends for hibernation.


4. Take a screen shot of your notification panel pulled down, so we can see the brightness settings you have set up.

 

[GregMargie]

LaTuFu, thanks for helping sort things out... I am trying to determine if my new N4 is misbehaving.... First I have never seen on anyone else's screen shot of battery show 'index service' like it shows on my screen shot below. I also turned off the air wake command, restarted my phone and yet it still shows up.... Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[LaTuFu]

How long have you had your phone? The index service, iirc, is something that only runs periodically--but it does run for quite a while when you first get the phone. It's one of those items that causes the first couple of days to be worse on the battery. If you transferred your SD card over from a previous Galaxy phone, it is probably ripping through all of the files on the card to index them for the new phone. It should settle down in a day or two after it has ripped through your library.

AirWakeUp is something you can disable under the accessibility settings.

 

[GregMargie]

Took phone off charger 8am checked email, played words with friends, searched AC forums, a little Facebook all on and off throughout the morning.... Now it is 1:34pm and battery is down to 18%!! Something is definitely wrong!

 

[LaTuFu]

Okay. How long have you actually owned the phone is what I meant.

As far as playing words with friends, that can eat battery, too. What is your screen brightness set to? Can you post that screen shot?

 

[GregMargie]

How long have you had your phone? The index service, iirc, is something that only runs periodically--but it does run for quite a while when you first get the phone. It's one of those items that causes the first couple of days to be worse on the battery. If you transferred your SD card over from a previous Galaxy phone, it is probably ripping through all of the files on the card to index them for the new phone. It should settle down in a day or two after it has ripped through your library.

AirWakeUp is something you can disable under the accessibility settings.

I got the phone a week ago tomorrow (Sat). My guy at Coscto 'did' take my SD card from my Note 2 and put into the Note 4. I did turn Air Wake Up, Off.....restarted phone and it still shows up in the battery stats, as well does the 'index servicing' so for a week?

 

[GregMargie]

Okay. How long have you actually owned the phone is what I meant.

As far as playing words with friends, that can eat battery, too. What is your screen brightness set to? Can you post that screen shot?

I like the screen brightness pretty high and did have it at at least 75% the first few days, but lowered to about about 50% or just under yesterday.

 

[LaTuFu]

How much stuff did you have on the card from your Note 2? I had 1,000 pictures +/- from my S4, and a couple hundred mp3s. Not much else, though.

A week is about as long as I would expect, unless you've got a few thousand pictures.

I'm actually planning to sit down this weekend and archive a bunch of these photos onto a flash drive. I just don't need to be carrying them around on the phone.

 

[LaTuFu]

Yeah, your screen brightness is set pretty high. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but if you're playing a lot of Words with Friends and surfing Facebook with it set that high, you'll definitely run down the battery pretty quick.

More bright=more battery

 

[GregMargie]

How much stuff did you have on the card from your Note 2? I had 1,000 pictures +/- from my S4, and a couple hundred mp3s. Not much else, though.

A week is about as long as I would expect, unless you've got a few thousand pictures.

I'm actually planning to sit down this weekend and archive a bunch of these photos onto a flash drive. I just don't need to be carrying them around on the phone.

Well, just looked at my gallery on Note 4, pictures maybe around 600-700 and around/just under 50 song files. All pictures and songs are there on my phone so it should be done 'indexing' they were all there right away......i'm not that techy on how that works.

 

[LaTuFu]

Okay. Yeah. Officially scratching my head trying to think of new suggestions now.

 

[GregMargie]

Yeah, your screen brightness is set pretty high. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but if you're playing a lot of Words with Friends and surfing Facebook with it set that high, you'll definitely run down the battery pretty quick.

More bright=more battery

I basically play words with friends once in the morning and sometimes once in the evening with one person. I did all the same stuff on my Note 2 that was close to 2 years old when I switched a week ago to Note 4 and note 2 battery held up waaaay longer.

 

[GregMargie]

Okay. Yeah. Officially scratching my head trying to think of new suggestions now.

Haha, no way did I stump you......and by the way, I really appreciate all your help! I didn't mean to single you out here as I do appreciate the knowledge you have! As much as I would DEFINITELY hate to have to do it, do you think doing a Factory Reset would make a difference????

 

[LaTuFu]

It might. At this point though, if you don't want to go that route, maybe trying to do a cache partition clear would be the next thing to try. Not as "start over" as a factory wipe, and it might do the trick.