I hate my new Galaxy S4 .. Battery life drains 1% every MINUTE of use.

[ncreptile]

PROBLEM SOLVED!! After TWO! bad batteries.. the third works like a charm.. go figure?
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Before you copy paste ways to conserve battery let me tell you what all I have sacrificed.
Every gadget and cool feature from air gesture to S voice to eye scan is OFF.
My brightness is at 30% which I can barely see in daylight.
I have frozen 80% of the apps(bloatware) on the phone.
I have power saver turned on.
I have data turned off and wifi turned on.


I had my phone on for a total of 30 minutes yesterday doing talking on speakerphone and then checked my emails twice. The rest of the day it just idled(with screen off) in my pocket. Battery went down 25%.

Today I get up, phone is fully charged. I watch a 4 minute youtube video, visit 3 websites for a total of 6-8 minutes and my battery is down to 94%(thats a 6% drop!!)

I have changed batteries to the higher yield 3250mah and back and forth, it simply does not change.

I got this phone to use all the features, I got it for the bright screen, I got it because my iphone 4 would not last a day of my moderate usage(im on the internet a good 3 hours a day and then check my emails constantly) without recharge.
And im finding I hate this phone.. To conserve battery even to this point of constant drain I have turned off all the gadgets I bought it for, I have turned off the bright screen. And according to the phone at 95% battery I have 40 minutes of use left!!!

So whats up? Everyone talks about "Oh this phone will do 8 hours of pure internet surfing"
How? It seems I cant even leave my screen on idling for 3 hours before my battery goes kaput!!

Really regretting my switch from apple.. Its one annoyance after another. I did not pay $600 to be annoyed.. in fact I paid $600 to AVOID those annoyances.

 

[smooth4lyfe]

Re: I hate my new Galaxy s4.. Battery life drains 1% every MINUTE of use.

Turn off location reporting, turn of auto sync, turn off GPS until u need it, also turn off Google Now.... All those location services run in the background... U should see a difference when u turn those off

Sent from my Galaxy S4 Exynos via Tapatalk 4... I LOVE THIS PHONE

 

[maryjane2300]

Re: I hate my new Galaxy s4.. Battery life drains 1% every MINUTE of use.

You got a dud. Stop complaining. If you don't like android, SWITCH BACK. It's that easy.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[nestafaria]

Re: I hate my new Galaxy s4.. Battery life drains 1% every MINUTE of use.

Turn off location reporting, turn of auto sync, turn off GPS until u need it, also turn off Google Now.... All those location services run in the background... U should see a difference when u turn those off

Sent from my Galaxy S4 Exynos via Tapatalk 4... I LOVE THIS PHONE

Thats ridiculous. You shouldn't have to turn anything off. I leave wifi, bluetooth, everything ON and get tremendous battery life. What's the point of the phone if you turn off the functionality? Leaving my phone unplugged for the night with all that on will drain a few percentage points.

OP -- Get some apps to track your battery stats and find where your drain is.

 

[BlackPrince310]

Re: I hate my new Galaxy s4.. Battery life drains 1% every MINUTE of use.

Yeah that's really frustrating man. You shouldnt have to manage the phone like that just to get decent battery life. I really think these 1080p screens are huge battery drains. The only way to get great battery life is to root (which shouldn't be necessary) or buy a phone with a huge battery like a Note.

I also don't get these reviews that post ridiculous things like 8 hours of web browsing. I've never got anywhere close to that much screen on time on any phone.

 

[ncreptile]

Re: I hate my new Galaxy s4.. Battery life drains 1% every MINUTE of use.

Thanks to most for encouraging help.
I downloaded Carat?(Only app I could find that monitors the programs chewing away at your battery life? the rest just seem to tell you what % your battery is at) and it did not give me any improvements.. it said if I turned off "Active App" manager I would add 20 minutes battery life but 20 minutes is nothing..

I turned off location services as well.


Any other idea's?
I have rooted my phone.. But keep in mind this is a new phone to me so there are likely many things I am unaware of that are running somewhere.

 

[ncreptile]

Re: I hate my new Galaxy s4.. Battery life drains 1% every MINUTE of use.

Its funny you say that, I was going to get the Razzer but the Galaxy S4 features(which I seemingly cant use now) and 13mp camera swayed me to the Galaxy. Not to mention the fact they are the same price for some reason.

Next phone my 2 top priorities will be battery life and camera.. funny because I said that about this phone.

Yeah that's really frustrating man. You shouldnt have to manage the phone like that just to get decent battery life. I really think these 1080p screens are huge battery drains. The only way to get great battery life is to root (which shouldn't be necessary) or buy a phone with a huge battery like a Note.

I also don't get these reviews that post ridiculous things like 8 hours of web browsing. I've never got anywhere close to that much screen on time on any phone.

 

[Almeuit]

Re: I hate my new Galaxy s4.. Battery life drains 1% every MINUTE of use.

Thanks to most for encouraging help.
I downloaded Carat?(Only app I could find that monitors the programs chewing away at your battery life? the rest just seem to tell you what % your battery is at) and it did not give me any improvements.. it said if I turned off "Active App" manager I would add 20 minutes battery life but 20 minutes is nothing..

I turned off location services as well.


Any other idea's?
I have rooted my phone.. But keep in mind this is a new phone to me so there are likely many things I am unaware of that are running somewhere.

Get better battery stats. It is a good battery monitoring app.

Sent from my Sprint HTC One using AC forums.

 

[jneusch]

Re: I hate my new Galaxy s4.. Battery life drains 1% every MINUTE of use.

You stated that you are rooted. Maybe the install went wonky. Try going back to factory and see if you can identify the culprit app. It may be something corrupted eating at your battery. You shouldn't have to turn off all the cool features to use the phone.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[smooth4lyfe]

Re: I hate my new Galaxy s4.. Battery life drains 1% every MINUTE of use.

Thats ridiculous. You shouldn't have to turn anything off. I leave wifi, bluetooth, everything ON and get tremendous battery life. What's the point of the phone if you turn off the functionality? Leaving my phone unplugged for the night with all that on will drain a few percentage points.

OP -- Get some apps to track your battery stats and find where your drain is.

Well I have amazing battery life and I have Google Now and location reporting off... I have air view on and power saving mode off... The phone is still functional and u can turn them on when needed... Maybe the OP needs to factory reset the phone

Sent from my Galaxy S4 Exynos via Tapatalk 4... I LOVE THIS PHONE

 

[nickgalaxys4]

Re: I hate my new Galaxy s4.. Battery life drains 1% every MINUTE of use.

I get about a day an a half with all my features on and screen on bright. What I do to keep the batttery like new is let my phone fall all thw way to 1% then charge till 100% let it say fully charge and leave it charging for some more. It helps

 

[Notsosure]

Re: I hate my new Galaxy s4.. Battery life drains 1% every MINUTE of use.

I find that Google Now drains my battery extremely fast. Considering I rarely ever use it there's actually not any point for me to leave it on. I turned off features I know I definitely won't use also. All those air view features and such I find it more annoying to use it actually, so I keep it turned off. It was interesting in the beginning when I first bought the phone but it is just simply pointless for me personally. My battery life isn't great but isn't terrible. But I'm still not satisfied with the battery. So I actually just ordered the Anker 5200 mah battery for my s4. The beauty of having removable battery. If the battery issue is the only reason that's keeping you from loving your phone then I suggest looking in to get a bigger sized battery. Zerolemon has a high capacity battery to replace the stock battery. And its only 40 bucks on amazon which is cheap. Hope this helps.

Sent from my Galaxy S4

 

[ncreptile]

Re: I hate my new Galaxy s4.. Battery life drains 1% every MINUTE of use.

I may have to do a factory reset as you all say. But God I hope not.. I have done so much work to this phone after the past week to get it where I want it and now.. gah

Thanks for your help.

 

[Almeuit]

Re: I hate my new Galaxy s4.. Battery life drains 1% every MINUTE of use.

I get about a day an a half with all my features on and screen on bright. What I do to keep the batttery like new is let my phone fall all thw way to 1% then charge till 100% let it say fully charge and leave it charging for some more. It helps

That is usually the exact opposite of what everyone says to do.

Sent from my Sprint HTC One using AC forums.

 

[htabbach]

Re: I hate my new Galaxy s4.. Battery life drains 1% every MINUTE of use.

Turn off location reporting, turn of auto sync, turn off GPS until u need it, also turn off Google Now.... All those location services run in the background... U should see a difference when u turn those off

Sent from my Galaxy S4 Exynos via Tapatalk 4... I LOVE THIS PHONE

Yeah, like he said. You need to treat this phone as a dumb phone by turning off all the smart phone features until you need them. LMAO!

 

[npunk42]

Re: I hate my new Galaxy s4.. Battery life drains 1% every MINUTE of use.

Really regretting my switch from apple.. Its one annoyance after another. I did not pay $600 to be annoyed.. in fact I paid $600 to AVOID those annoyances.

So you paid 600 dollars for an Android devise because you wanted to avoid the annoyances that your apple device gave you? Now you want to go back to apple? Maybe you just picked the wrong Android. Whats wrong with trading yours in for a Note2, or an HTC One? There is a lot more to choose from here. But maybe you would rather just accept the annoyances from apple.

 

[anon6136263]

Re: I hate my new Galaxy s4.. Battery life drains 1% every MINUTE of use.

I don't buy people saying they are getting all-day or day and a half battery life from this phone. I can barely make it through my work day. 30 minutes before I leave work, I need to plug it in. I listen to podcasts and music for all the day and check some apps like twitter/facebook from time to time. I'm beginning to think that people that say Android is better than iPhone is in complete denial. I buy a smartphone to perform like a smartphone - to to turn every damn thing off and one when I need it. I shouldn't have to worry about that. I'm not a tinkerer. I never had to worry about battery life on my iPhone, that's for sure.

 

[consequence7]

Re: I hate my new Galaxy s4.. Battery life drains 1% every MINUTE of use.

I leave all of my smart features and Google now and I get great battery life. I do not have anything disabled or turned off.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[maskedcarrot]

Re: I hate my new Galaxy s4.. Battery life drains 1% every MINUTE of use.

Try installing a GE 4.2.2 ROM.

After putting it on my GS4 I don't think I could ever go back to a non GE type phone. I didn't use any of the Samsung stuff anyway.

This way you have the great hardware of the GS4 and the great ROM the way Google intended it to be.

 

[MrSmith317]

Re: I hate my new Galaxy s4.. Battery life drains 1% every MINUTE of use.

OP: I know it may not sound like it but you might have a bad handset. Odin it back to stock. If the battery issue persists, I'd wager it was a handset problem and you should get it warranty replaced. If the problem does not persist in stock, then you should try a different ROM.. Bottom line is that I have everything enabled including air view, Google now, GPS, data, etc... and my battery can go almost a full 48 hours.