Just switched from iPhone 5 and HATING the battery. Any suggestions?

[Andrew Grafeman]

Hello,

I just switched from an iPhone 5 to the new Galaxy S4. I've had it for about 24 hours now so far it is extremely overwhelming compared to the iPhone, however I like to take time to figure out all the little details. One problem that is really concerning me is the battery life though, if I can't get it working better I will have to trade back in the to iPhone. I got it yesterday and it was dead by evening, I plugged it in over night and in the morning I woke up to about an 80% charge. After one hour of very light usage I'm already at 65%. First, why can't I get a full charge over a WHOLE night? Second how can I stop it from draining so fast? I have all of the power saving options turned on and it's not seeming to help at all...This is my first post and my first android. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[callmeforge]

Re: Just switched from iPhone5 and HATING the battery. Any suggestions?

What are your current settings like? Be sure to turn down screen brightness and Samsung add-ons.

 

[Andrew Grafeman]

Re: Just switched from iPhone5 and HATING the battery. Any suggestions?

Screen brightness is on auto. Which Samsung add-ons? Just delete all those apps they had pre-installed?

 

[Darnell0216]

If you just got the Sprint version and installed the MF9 update, the best thing to do is a factory reset. There's pages and pages of complaints on the Sprint forums about it, and 99% get bugs out and battery life back to normal after doing it, including the 2hr charge time and 16+ hours of usage. Hopefully you haven't dug in too deep to do it. My wife and ours did the MF9 update out of the box and factory reset both phones. Neither of us have had issues. Of course, YMMV.

 

[r_dog]

I'm suffering the same problems. How do I know if I have the sprint version (maybe a dumb question) and how do I do a factory reset. I'm in Australia.

 

[Darnell0216]

I'm suffering the same problems. How do I know if I have the sprint version (maybe a dumb question) and how do I do a factory reset. I'm in Australia.

If you got the 300+ MB update to allow moving apps to SD, you may be suffering from the same software issues (Sprint or not). If you haven't installed a custom recovery, you'll find Backup and Reset under the Accounts menu. If you've installed custom recovery, you must use it to Wipe Data.

 

[r_dog]

Thanks for your help. I have done a hard reset and all seems OK for now. I'll monitor the battery over next few days and let you know
Whilst I have your assistance... I changed from TouchWiz to GOLauncher. Is that a reliable one or can you suggest any others? Would that have contributed to the battery problem?

 

[josearmz10789]

Thanks for your help. I have done a hard reset and all seems OK for now. I'll monitor the battery over next few days and let you know
Whilst I have your assistance... I changed from TouchWiz to GOLauncher. Is that a reliable one or can you suggest any others? Would that have contributed to the battery problem?

Good launcher but many like nova or apex as they give you the vanilla android look without losing the tw widgets.

Sent from my SPH-L720 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[Darnell0216]

Thanks for your help. I have done a hard reset and all seems OK for now. I'll monitor the battery over next few days and let you know
Whilst I have your assistance... I changed from TouchWiz to GOLauncher. Is that a reliable one or can you suggest any others? Would that have contributed to the battery problem?

Launchers may affect performance, but not necessarily the battery. The only time (that I've encountered) your home screen/launcher may wear down the battery is when you have a live wallpaper that is extremely active. I myself use GoLauncher and haven't had a problem with the battery on any of my androids. Many use Nova and Apex as well.

The issue with this update and the battery burn lies somewhere between Android and Samsung since many are encountering the issue regardless of carrier.

 

[GiantJay]

There is a lot to do to save battery. Turn off WiFi unless in a area like by our house, not while driving around. Go through the settings and just turn off anything you aren't using, this including syncing apps you don't use. Black or dark wallpapers help with battery life too.

Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk 4

 

[r_dog]

The factory reset has seemed to have fixed it and have decided not to throw it against the wall any more. I've also switched to Apex for the moment and all seems wonderful.

Thanks heaps for your help and suggestions

 

[paintdrinkingpete]

Hello,

I just switched from an iPhone 5 to the new Galaxy S4. I've had it for about 24 hours now so far it is extremely overwhelming compared to the iPhone, however I like to take time to figure out all the little details. One problem that is really concerning me is the battery life though, if I can't get it working better I will have to trade back in the to iPhone. I got it yesterday and it was dead by evening, I plugged it in over night and in the morning I woke up to about an 80% charge. After one hour of very light usage I'm already at 65%. First, why can't I get a full charge over a WHOLE night? Second how can I stop it from draining so fast? I have all of the power saving options turned on and it's not seeming to help at all...This is my first post and my first android. Any help would be appreciated.

While many of the suggestions posted here are actually good suggestions for improving battery life, the behavior you describe is simply not normal, and I highly doubt your issue is a matter of simply tweaking some common settings.

Using the supplied charger, you should be able to charge fully fairly quickly (depending on battery level when you started), and should DEFINITELY be at 100% if charging overnight in almost any condition. Your rate of discharge also seems abnormally high unless you were constantly using it.

Hard to say if it's the battery or device that is the point of failure, but either way I'd contact Sprint about the issue.

 

[Darnell0216]

While many of the suggestions posted here are actually good suggestions for improving battery life, the behavior you describe is simply not normal, and I highly doubt your issue is a matter of simply tweaking some common settings.

Using the supplied charger, you should be able to charge fully fairly quickly (depending on battery level when you started), and should DEFINITELY be at 100% if charging overnight in almost any condition. Your rate of discharge also seems abnormally high unless you were constantly using it.

Hard to say if it's the battery or device that is the point of failure, but either way I'd contact Sprint about the issue.

Unfortunately this is an issue with the latest update for the S4. Every android and carrier forum has threads and threads about this issue (except Google Edition). There's a conflict somewhere in the software that causes the phone's CPU to constantly run, draining batteries in mere hours and heating up the phone. Even Samsung Support has admitted the problem exists and is now telling people who have received the update to factory reset when they have the battery drain issue. If that fails to resolve the problem, then they begin to suspect hardware.

 

[r_dog]

So what do you think the solution is? An update to the software

 

[Darnell0216]

So what do you think the solution is? An update to the software

If they were going to fix it with a patch job, it would've been released or at least publicly acknowledged within 2 weeks of complaining after the "Apps2SD" update started rolling out. Right now the easiest fix for them is to just tell people that call them to perform a factory reset and call back if the problem persists. Of course, they'd hear a lot more about it if we didn't all resort to our favorite forums to fix our phones these days .

 

[B. Diddy]

Here are some suggestions, although they might not help much if there's some OS glitch.

http://forums.androidcentral.com/showthread.php?t=298919

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