The S6 Battery Life Conundrum

Adranalyne

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You've probably read about it ad nauseum by now. "My battery life sucks. I get like 2-3 hours on screen and have to charge it by 3PM". When T-Mobile decided that they would ship their devices early, I'm sure they didn't count on such an issue almost crippling their devices. Unfortunately, for a lot of you, it did cripple your phone. There's even some of you who were having performance issues alongside the battery issue and the complaints came rolling in. Honestly, I can't blame you; this is such an amazing phone and having it handicapped like that isn't exactly inspiring. There were a lot of us that didn't want to call it a dud that early, though, and wanted to wait until other carriers released their variants. When that happened, there seemed to be quite a bit of us that got devices with largely improved battery life and no performance issues. There's still those of you not on T-Mobile who are having the issues, too, but the important part is that there's S6 and S6 Edge devices out there that are performing as they should be.

That's the key part here. Battery life doesn't just increase for no reason. There's consistency in these devices that are getting 4-5 hours on screen and 17-24 hours of use. What that shows is that devoid of any issues, the battery life ceiling on this device as of right now is pretty high. That's good news, not bad news. The bad news centers around why some of you are having such terrible battery life on a phone capable of so much more.

Lollipop was supposed to be more efficient than ever before. Obviously it would take some time for Project Volta to sink in, but the new and improved ART was going to go a long way in increasing battery life. Somewhere along the line, there was confirmation of a cell standby issue on a variety of different Lollipop devices. My Nexus 6 suffers from it. My brother's Nexus 5 suffers from it. I wouldn't be surprised if some G3 and M8/M9 owners aren't having issues. This isn't confined to just the S6. Google has to be aware of this problem and a fix to correct it probably won't be too far off. If I sold my S6 to get a Nexus 6, I would be taking a risk that my Nexus 6 is afflicted by it, too. I can't stress enough that this isn't some isolated Samsung issue.

With that said, there seems to be a few of you who refuse to alter any settings to increase your battery life. While I don't agree at all, I can understand the position. It's not that you have to tweak anything---you don't, but you can if you want to. If I handed my coworker this device to use, set up as it comes out of the box, he could use it and get a full day out of it. He easily could if he turns off features/syncs that he doesn't use or want. The option to further battery life should be a welcome one, though some of you don't seem to agree.

I'd be 100% on board with the pitchforks some of you are carrying if this was some blatant error from Samsung and all these devices performed terribly out of the box. That isn't the case. You either have the patience for Google to fix this error or you don't. Just know that you may jump right back into the fire on a new Lollipop device if that's your response to this. Both the S6 and S6 Edge have solid battery life and excellent performance. You can either trust the vocal minority or the people who day in and day out see and share how well this phone performs. That's up to you.

Posted via Galaxy S6 edge
 

Rukbat

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One thing to do is check your wifi router. If it's running on 5GHz, change it to 2.4GHz. There seems to be a cell standby battery problem when the 5GHz wifi radio runs.
 

Tswfootball

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Why should I be switching off features on this phone to get good battery life, while I don't have to do that on many other phones?

Posted via the Android Central App
 

warpdrive

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Why should I be switching off features on this phone to get good battery life, while I don't have to do that on many other phones?

Posted via the Android Central App

If it's on lollypop, you do in most cases. That's what we are trying to tell you.
On kitkat, you won't have the bugs. But on lollypop you will, or in my case, almost little to none. (*whispers* but the bug is there, just not that much or as bad as if I was on T-Mobile)

Posted via the Android Central App
 

Zendroid1

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It's a fact of life with cell phones and Android in particular, if you want decent battery life you have to make sacrifices.
 

neo905

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You've probably read about it ad nauseum by now. "My battery life sucks. I get like 2-3 hours on screen and have to charge it by 3PM". When T-Mobile decided that they would ship their devices early, I'm sure they didn't count on such an issue almost crippling their devices. Unfortunately, for a lot of you, it did cripple your phone. There's even some of you who were having performance issues alongside the battery issue and the complaints came rolling in. Honestly, I can't blame you; this is such an amazing phone and having it handicapped like that isn't exactly inspiring. There were a lot of us that didn't want to call it a dud that early, though, and wanted to wait until other carriers released their variants. When that happened, there seemed to be quite a bit of us that got devices with largely improved battery life and no performance issues. There's still those of you not on T-Mobile who are having the issues, too, but the important part is that there's S6 and S6 Edge devices out there that are performing as they should be.

That's the key part here. Battery life doesn't just increase for no reason. There's consistency in these devices that are getting 4-5 hours on screen and 17-24 hours of use. What that shows is that devoid of any issues, the battery life ceiling on this device as of right now is pretty high. That's good news, not bad news. The bad news centers around why some of you are having such terrible battery life on a phone capable of so much more.

Lollipop was supposed to be more efficient than ever before. Obviously it would take some time for Project Volta to sink in, but the new and improved ART was going to go a long way in increasing battery life. Somewhere along the line, there was confirmation of a cell standby issue on a variety of different Lollipop devices. My Nexus 6 suffers from it. My brother's Nexus 5 suffers from it. I wouldn't be surprised if some G3 and M8/M9 owners aren't having issues. This isn't confined to just the S6. Google has to be aware of this problem and a fix to correct it probably won't be too far off. If I sold my S6 to get a Nexus 6, I would be taking a risk that my Nexus 6 is afflicted by it, too. I can't stress enough that this isn't some isolated Samsung issue.

With that said, there seems to be a few of you who refuse to alter any settings to increase your battery life. While I don't agree at all, I can understand the position. It's not that you have to tweak anything---you don't, but you can if you want to. If I handed my coworker this device to use, set up as it comes out of the box, he could use it and get a full day out of it. He easily could if he turns off features/syncs that he doesn't use or want. The option to further battery life should be a welcome one, though some of you don't seem to agree.

I'd be 100% on board with the pitchforks some of you are carrying if this was some blatant error from Samsung and all these devices performed terribly out of the box. That isn't the case. You either have the patience for Google to fix this error or you don't. Just know that you may jump right back into the fire on a new Lollipop device if that's your response to this. Both the S6 and S6 Edge have solid battery life and excellent performance. You can either trust the vocal minority or the people who day in and day out see and share how well this phone performs. That's up to you.

Posted via Galaxy S6 edge

If only the S6 battery were as long as this post...

Posted via the Android Central App
 

jcp007

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One of things that I like about Android is the tweaking and customization to tune the device to your needs and usage habits. There's not one locked ecosystem telling me to take or leave it and they know what you need and what is best for you. If you are coming to Android expecting it to be a locked, highly customizable ecosystem, you are going to be disappointed. Even that locked ecosystem has bugs and not as customizable.

Posted via My Samsung Galaxy S6 Handheld Device
 

Adranalyne

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If only the S6 battery were as long as this post...

Posted via the Android Central App

Fortunately for those of us that aren't seeing this issue, it is. Or maybe it's a conspiracy that a bunch of us got together and rigged battery stat screen shots just to mess with you guys. Sounds plausible.

Posted via Galaxy S6 edge
 

jcp007

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Fortunately for those of us that aren't seeing this issue, it is. Or maybe it's a conspiracy that a bunch of us got together and rigged battery stat screen shots just to mess with you guys. Sounds plausible.

Posted via Galaxy S6 edge

Oh, man! Thought we had an agreement to not spill the beans on our dastardly plans.
 

droidguy1964

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You've probably read about it ad nauseum by now. "My battery life sucks. I get like 2-3 hours on screen and have to charge it by 3PM". When T-Mobile decided that they would ship their devices early, I'm sure they didn't count on such an issue almost crippling their devices. Unfortunately, for a lot of you, it did cripple your phone. There's even some of you who were having performance issues alongside the battery issue and the complaints came rolling in. Honestly, I can't blame you; this is such an amazing phone and having it handicapped like that isn't exactly inspiring. There were a lot of us that didn't want to call it a dud that early, though, and wanted to wait until other carriers released their variants. When that happened, there seemed to be quite a bit of us that got devices with largely improved battery life and no performance issues. There's still those of you not on T-Mobile who are having the issues, too, but the important part is that there's S6 and S6 Edge devices out there that are performing as they should be.

That's the key part here. Battery life doesn't just increase for no reason. There's consistency in these devices that are getting 4-5 hours on screen and 17-24 hours of use. What that shows is that devoid of any issues, the battery life ceiling on this device as of right now is pretty high. That's good news, not bad news. The bad news centers around why some of you are having such terrible battery life on a phone capable of so much more.

Lollipop was supposed to be more efficient than ever before. Obviously it would take some time for Project Volta to sink in, but the new and improved ART was going to go a long way in increasing battery life. Somewhere along the line, there was confirmation of a cell standby issue on a variety of different Lollipop devices. My Nexus 6 suffers from it. My brother's Nexus 5 suffers from it. I wouldn't be surprised if some G3 and M8/M9 owners aren't having issues. This isn't confined to just the S6. Google has to be aware of this problem and a fix to correct it probably won't be too far off. If I sold my S6 to get a Nexus 6, I would be taking a risk that my Nexus 6 is afflicted by it, too. I can't stress enough that this isn't some isolated Samsung issue.

With that said, there seems to be a few of you who refuse to alter any settings to increase your battery life. While I don't agree at all, I can understand the position. It's not that you have to tweak anything---you don't, but you can if you want to. If I handed my coworker this device to use, set up as it comes out of the box, he could use it and get a full day out of it. He easily could if he turns off features/syncs that he doesn't use or want. The option to further battery life should be a welcome one, though some of you don't seem to agree.

I'd be 100% on board with the pitchforks some of you are carrying if this was some blatant error from Samsung and all these devices performed terribly out of the box. That isn't the case. You either have the patience for Google to fix this error or you don't. Just know that you may jump right back into the fire on a new Lollipop device if that's your response to this. Both the S6 and S6 Edge have solid battery life and excellent performance. You can either trust the vocal minority or the people who day in and day out see and share how well this phone performs. That's up to you.

Posted via Galaxy S6 edge

I stopped after the second or third paragraph but can't you post in one of the many many many battery threads that are already open?

Posted via the Android Central App
 

Adranalyne

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I stopped after the second or third paragraph but can't you post in one of the many many many battery threads that are already open?

Posted via the Android Central App

I could, but apparently some people can't comprehend it's a software issue. I know it's tough, but we'll get there.

Posted via Galaxy S6 edge
 

Techno-guy

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Hey guys - don't give the OP a hard time. He makes a very fair point and not in an accusatory way. Lord knows I've been plagued by the Cell standby drain through no fault of my own resulting in pretty terrible battery life. But it's been fixed by today's Samsung Push Service update so now that I'm not handicapped with that Standby drain anymore, the OP's point is that I get to choose how far to take my battery life. That is, if I'm willing to disable some services that I'm not using. My choice entirely.

The phone has the potential for 4-5 hours of SoT (even as high as 6-7 for some people) and 15-20+ hours of Standby so you have to know that going in. Is that in the league of my iPhone 6 Plus (sorry OP! ;)) or a Note 4, no way, but at least for me, with my Standby gremlin drain off my back, it's more than acceptable for a phone with the best screen ever made, the perfect size and some other stellar features.

If that general range doesn't work for you, then the S6 is not for you, and that's ok! There are a lot of other outstanding choices out there!
 

t11rmh

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It's a fact of life with cell phones and Android in particular, if you want decent battery life you have to make sacrifices.

Not necessarily true. I don't see the point in having to turn off stuff just to get good battery life. Battery technology should keep up with the demands of a modern smartphone.

Posted via a kicking Note4 on Lollipop.
 

Adranalyne

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Hey guys - don't give the OP a hard time. He makes a very fair point and not in an accusatory way. Lord knows I've been plagued by the Cell standby drain through no fault of my own resulting in pretty terrible battery life. But it's been fixed by today's Samsung Push Service update so now that I'm not handicapped with that Standby drain anymore, the OP's point is that I get to choose how far to take my battery life. That is, if I'm willing to disable some services that I'm not using. My choice entirely.

The phone has the potential for 4-5 hours of SoT (even as high as 6-7 for some people) and 15-20+ hours of Standby so you have to know that going in. Is that in the league of my iPhone 6 Plus (sorry OP! ;)) or a Note 4, no way, but at least for me, with my Standby gremlin drain off my back, it's more than acceptable for a phone with the best screen ever made, the perfect size and some other stellar features.

If that general range doesn't work for you, then the S6 is not for you, and that's ok! There are a lot of other outstanding choices out there!

What's telling about this is that we've been going back and forth for awhile on this device. He likes his iPhone 6+ (and he should; it's a great phone), but he wasn't seeing the S6 like I was. Now that might have changed and I'm glad he's seeing the better side of a great phone.

Posted via Galaxy S6 edge
 

clevin

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Why should I be switching off features on this phone to get good battery life, while I don't have to do that on many other phones?

Posted via the Android Central App

If you gonna call every piece of thing thrown in the phone by Google, Samsung and carriers "features"................. ...

Just a reminder, phone is mass produced, they didn't customized the experience for you.
 

atishc

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If you gonna call every piece of thing thrown in the phone by Google, Samsung and carriers "features"................. ...

Just a reminder, phone is mass produced, they didn't customized the experience for you.

A perfect way to phrase it. It will work all day out of the box for those with light use (I really don't think most lay people use more than 2 hours SOT in a single day). Once you start adding on more intensive apps and heavier use, you need to turn off the things you don't use to make it last from all day taking it off the charger in the morning bed to going to bed at night.
 

droidguy1964

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I could, but apparently some people can't comprehend it's a software issue. I know it's tough, but we'll get there.

Posted via Galaxy S6 edge

Maybe tough for you but I'm not having battery issues. This thread needs to be merged with another battery thread. Nothing here is group breaking.

Posted via the Android Central App
 

katiheefner

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So what you're saying is an update will fix this issue? The update from yesterday has not helped my phone and I'm on att. Are we clear it is not defective batteries out there or something hardware related? I'm on 92 percent with 28 minutes of screen time. Not much different from before the update.
 

jcp007

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A perfect way to phrase it. It will work all day out of the box for those with light use (I really don't think most lay people use more than 2 hours SOT in a single day). Once you start adding on more intensive apps and heavier use, you need to turn off the things you don't use to make it last from all day taking it off the charger in the morning bed to going to bed at night.

Just as everyone's usage habit vary, resource management habits vary as well. Why leave apps open if you aren't using them. If you get in the habit, it is not very taxing. I know that I am just old school but it's leaving lights on around the house that you aren't using. You're just wasting resources.
 

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