Should I switch?: New Note 7 Battery abysmal, Samsung not helpful

[thejtl]

So, I picked up a new Note7 last Thursday (a week ago) and my battery has been unbelievably bad. I've had around 2 hours screen on time almost every day. I contacted Samsung support and they keep telling me to shut off features, etc. I didn't buy a $900 phone to have to handicap it to get through the day on a battery charge.

At this point I'm considering switch to another phone altogether but I guess I'm here wondering if folks have any sage words before I do something drastic. I've run package disabler to shut down bloat, but only just recently. Battery seems a little better, but it's 2:30pm here and I'm down to 65% battery, which seems terrible for a 3000mah battery and only 1hour and 20 minutes screen on time. At this rate I'll get about 2.5 hours SCT.

Thoughts?

 

[GrooveRite]

Welcome to the forums!

1. Factory reset it
2. After FR, if still not improved....return/exchange.

 

[skatergirl]

Welcome to the forums!

1. Factory reset it
2. After FR, if still not improved....return/exchange.

I agree. Also, have you checked your battery stats for any pesky app that might be draining the battery?

 

[thejtl]

Yeah, There hasn't been anything unusual in terms of battery hogs. It just goes down by a percent every minute or so when I'm using it.

Factory reset...ugh. So much to set up again...

 

[Nakrohtap]

Yeah, There hasn't been anything unusual in terms of battery hogs. It just goes down by a percent every minute or so when I'm using it.

Factory reset...ugh. So much to set up again...

You'll have to setup everything again anyways with a new phone. Just don't put a lot on there until you determine its not your phone.

 

[thejtl]

Good point!

 

[TabGuy]

Yeah, There hasn't been anything unusual in terms of battery hogs. It just goes down by a percent every minute or so when I'm using it.

Factory reset...ugh. So much to set up again...

No. That's the point. Don't install any apps, unless the're absolutely necessary, until you've verified that the battery is fine. Then only install one app per day until you find the culprit.

 

[geraldem]

Did a factory reset and installed basics...one app per day. Been rock solid 4 to 5 SOT per day with lots to spare. I have it narrowed down to MSN Finance App...Outlook and maybe Garmin Connect. Those seemed to be the culprits for me.

 

[mmohn01]

My new Note 7 2.0 has great battery life except when using Google Maps.

 

[chyeo1979]

Although my new Note 7 has no issue whatsoever, there seem to be more and more reports of others with the battery draining issue.

Samsung/Android should really optimize and make their software more robust to rogue apps (assuming that's the cause) instead of users having to hunt down the cause themselves, especially for those of us who only download apps from the official Play store.

 

[RenoD2010]

My LG G3 and G4 batteries were toast. I even bought a replacement for my G4. I still could only get maybe nine hours out of the phone with under 3 hours SOT.

By comparison, this Note 7 which I only received yesterday, has been much better. I'm currently at 73% with 2:20 SOT.

I run Google Play Music and Waze whenever I drive too. Oh and as far as KABOOM goes, I was watching YouTube in HD WHILE quick charging (OEM charger) and the phone BARELY got warm.

I have auto brightness set, screen time out at 30 seconds night mode on any app I can set it and very dark wallpapers. I have always on display on though I turned off the edge screen clock and date (which is too bad because that looks so slick).

 

[edubb256]

Although my new Note 7 has no issue whatsoever, there seem to be more and more reports of others with the battery draining issue.

Samsung/Android should really optimize and make their software more robust to rogue apps (assuming that's the cause) instead of users having to hunt down the cause themselves, especially for those of us who only download apps from the official Play store.

Yes, I get pretty good battery life also. 5-6 hours SOT, easily. I've seen some people complain about Samsung RAM management closing apps aggressively. I've always suspected, Samsung does that to reduce the impact of rogue/misbehaving apps.

Before doing a FDR, I suggest the OP try:
- Clearing device cache
- Give it a few days to settle down. If you loaded a lot of old data from your last phone, your new phone will need to index and back up all that.

Not sure these will help, but may be worth a try.

 

[rushmore]

My new Note 7 2.0 has great battery life except when using Google Maps.

Set to FHD. Map gpu hunger much less and normal battery drain for the app. I can not tell the difference with FHD and still smokes the Plus.

At least 20% more SOT with FHD. Even more if use a lot of heavy gpu apps.

 

[fr4nk1yn]

I don't have a Note 7, my wife does though. It also sounds like the OP has the issue resolved but for future reference...

The built in battery stats in some devices, like my Moto Z, sucks. GSM Battery Monitor in needed to find wayward apps.
I traced my problem down to a widget.

 

[WingLT]

My battery has been excellent. Been getting almost 8 hours of SOT and 2 days of a charge.

 

[jsk0703]

So, I picked up a new Note7 last Thursday (a week ago) and my battery has been unbelievably bad. I've had around 2 hours screen on time almost every day. I contacted Samsung support and they keep telling me to shut off features, etc. I didn't buy a $900 phone to have to handicap it to get through the day on a battery charge.

At this point I'm considering switch to another phone altogether but I guess I'm here wondering if folks have any sage words before I do something drastic. I've run package disabler to shut down bloat, but only just recently. Battery seems a little better, but it's 2:30pm here and I'm down to 65% battery, which seems terrible for a 3000mah battery and only 1hour and 20 minutes screen on time. At this rate I'll get about 2.5 hours SCT.

Thoughts?

I think something is up, either an app eating battery or some other issue. As I'm typing this I have 60% battery left and my SOT is 2h 55min. The phone has been off the charger for nearly 5hrs but I've been gaming for a solid 2h.

 

[dsignori]

For the OP, do you get much better battery life with other / previous phones?

1.5 hours of SOT after 7 hours at 2:30 - at 65% battery left - doesn't sound awful to me. That equates to over 3 hours of SOT , which could be fine, depending on a number of other factors unique to each user. In any case "abysmal" might not be how I would describe it perhaps.

How is your network connection? What was your screen brightness? If it were me, I wouldn't panic as it doesn't seem that bad to me.

 

[D13H4RD2L1V3]

It would be helpful if you can share the battery graph, usage bars and provide a description of your usage pattern.

I always tell users to not only share SOT numbers, but also overall device uptime, battery graph and roughly how your usage pattern is like as it paints a better picture of how a battery should theoretically perform since we can add more factors.

SOT directly correlates to usage pattern. 12 hours of SOT might sound impressive, but if it's 12 hours from constantly watching a movie until it drains, that's not as impressive as 12 hours of SOT from normal use (though that depends on what you constitute as "normal use")

 

[underway99]

Before doing the FDR, have you considered rebooting into safe mode? That will help you to differentiate a system issue from an app issue.

 

[juliesdroidsync]

...another Note7 chiming in with great battery life and approx 175 apps installed. I'm betting it's one of your apps.