8,4 LTE Battery is driving me nuts

[Commandermadi]

Hello everyone,

I am new to the forums so please allow me to introduce myself real quick. I am Madi from Egypt, 22 years old web developer. I am a tech enthusiast and I really adore everything that speaks tech, unless it drives me crazy.

I have had my Tab s 8.4 White dazzling version for a month till now. I bought the LTE version from amazon and I was really happy with it until I got this irritating problem. My battery reads wrong stuff. Here is the story.

A week ago, I started noticing that my tab s battery did insane drops from 60 to 40 and from 30 to 15, I just thought it is a bug and I restarted, still get the same issue.
I did some research here about the issue and many posts I read suggested doing a battery calibration but I wanted to make sure first.

1- So I charged my tablet yesterday from 0 to 100% and when I instantly plugged the charger off, it showed in a matter of 30 seconds "99%" I plugged in the charger again and it took a minute to reach 100% and here was the weird stuff. When the battery reached 100% it still showed "Charging, 100%" instead of charged and the black lightening on the battery icon up there still existed.

2- After a minute it said 100% charged. Plugged the charger off and instantly plugged it in again, it showed "Charging 100%" again instead of "charged" and the lightening bolt still existed!

3- I ignored it, plugged the charger off and used it till it dropped to 0. then when I put the charger in again, instantly it read 30% instead of 1% !!! then I unplugged it and in a matter of 2 minutes it did an insane drop to 15% as well then kept falling from 15 to 1% and it discharged!

4- I did a reset today morning and let it charge to 100%, still showing charging 100% instead of charged for like 2 minutes then it show charged. What issue it can be?

PS: It took like 4 hours to fully charge from zero to 100%. is that normal or just too fast?

Thank you!

BUMP >>

I tested it and watched two movies one directly after the other. It dropped from 95 to 67 after a non stop play of 305 minutes which I see great! However after I went and played clash of clans for about 20 mins and browsed, chatted and listened to music for an hour. It dropped from 67 to 37 in a matter of hour.

Here are screenshots (in attachments) of a 11% drop after only 20 mins of playing clash of clans and listening to library music in the background. Is that even normal?

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central!

--It is not unusual for the battery reading to drop from 100% to 99% pretty quickly after unplugging.

--When a device is charging and approaching 100%, the charging current really drops. So if the battery discharged slightly, and then you plugged it back in, the current is likely a trickle. It might be enough for the meter to read it as "Charging" instead of "Charged."

--Battery meter reading accuracy can suffer as the charge gets pretty low, so that might explain in part the behavior you're describing.

--I'm not too surprised by the different amount of battery used while watching video non-stop compared with doing various things like playing games, surfing the web, and listening to music. When you watch a video nonstop, the device is only focused on playing that video. When you're doing a bunch of other things, it takes energy to swap apps, open new ones, close out other ones to free up RAM, etc. Games also tend to be more processor intensive than videos. This is why the battery tests you read about in reviews always seem to overestimate the true battery life of a device. If a review cites 8 or 9 hours of battery life on video tests, you can be sure you'll never get 8 or 9 hours of screen-on time with real-world use (which means doing lots of different things).

 

[FF22]

And B Diddy, congrats on the "Senior Ambassador" status. We don't seem to have that over at Crackberry forums (or more posts are necessary!!!)

 

[B. Diddy]

And B Diddy, congrats on the "Senior Ambassador" status. We don't seem to have that over at Crackberry forums (or more posts are necessary!!!)

Yeah, I just had to bribe a few Mods for that title.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[Jon_Doh]

I had the same problem with my Nexus 7. After trying a number of things, none of which worked, I did a factory reset and then cleared the system cache (you can search on Google for how to do this for your device). After this the battery was normal. The downside to doing a reset is that it wipes your tablet and you have to reinstall all of your apps.

 

[Commandermadi]

Welcome to Android Central!

--It is not unusual for the battery reading to drop from 100% to 99% pretty quickly after unplugging.

--When a device is charging and approaching 100%, the charging current really drops. So if the battery discharged slightly, and then you plugged it back in, the current is likely a trickle. It might be enough for the meter to read it as "Charging" instead of "Charged."

--Battery meter reading accuracy can suffer as the charge gets pretty low, so that might explain in part the behavior you're describing.

--I'm not too surprised by the different amount of battery used while watching video non-stop compared with doing various things like playing games, surfing the web, and listening to music. When you watch a video nonstop, the device is only focused on playing that video. When you're doing a bunch of other things, it takes energy to swap apps, open new ones, close out other ones to free up RAM, etc. Games also tend to be more processor intensive than videos. This is why the battery tests you read about in reviews always seem to overestimate the true battery life of a device. If a review cites 8 or 9 hours of battery life on video tests, you can be sure you'll never get 8 or 9 hours of screen-on time with real-world use (which means doing lots of different things).

I had the same problem with my Nexus 7. After trying a number of things, none of which worked, I did a factory reset and then cleared the system cache (you can search on Google for how to do this for your device). After this the battery was normal. The downside to doing a reset is that it wipes your tablet and you have to reinstall all of your apps.

Thank you for your suggestion. I tested it today. Charged from ground zero up to 100% then I used it. My activity mainly was:

1- a lot of chatting (like 2 hours but not continuous) on whatsapp.
2- 45 mins of music and 15 mins on soundcloud.
3- 40 mins of Clash of Clans (drained my battery in a significant way)
4- Checking facebook notifications, gmail and browsing some websites on hourly timed intervals.

I managed only to get 5 hours screen on time and a total of 7h of battery on time. Screenshots below




More importantly, I used it from 100% till it drained to zero then I waited for like 15 mins and then put it on charger, it automatically read 15%! What is that?

Do you think this battery is defective? I own this LTE tablet for only 1 month. Or do you think it only performs poor? Why does it give me zero reading then when I put the charger it shows 15%?!

Also, I searched google for ways to clear the cache, tried the volume up + power but nothing happened. Any ideas?

Thank you

 

[Jon_Doh]

To clear the cache you have to power the unit down and then hold the power button and volume up as you restart. I'm not sure what's going on with the charger showing 15%. One thing I noticed on the photos you posted is that the screen is consuming the majority of your battery. What are your screen brightness setting? You might try dimming the screen. Super AMOLED screens consume a lot of power. Have you tried using the battery saving feature under settings? This will automatically dim the screen and save battery. One last thought - it normally takes a few draining and charging cycles for the battery to be normally calibrated. If after you have done this and the other things mentioned your battery is still draining fast you may want to seek to have your tablet replaced.

 

[Commandermadi]

To clear the cache you have to power the unit down and then hold the power button and volume up as you restart. I'm not sure what's going on with the charger showing 15%. One thing I noticed on the photos you posted is that the screen is consuming the majority of your battery. What are your screen brightness setting? You might try dimming the screen. Super AMOLED screens consume a lot of power. Have you tried using the battery saving feature under settings? This will automatically dim the screen and save battery. One last thought - it normally takes a few draining and charging cycles for the battery to be normally calibrated. If after you have done this and the other things mentioned your battery is still draining fast you may want to seek to have your tablet replaced.

Thank you for your reply Jon_Doh.

My screen brightness is 40%

I succeeded in clearing the cache yesterday and I restarted the phone. It was on zero percent so I put it on charger. Charged to 100% in exactly 3 hours and 20 minutes. I am testing it now by only using social apps like Fb, twitter and instagram and also do some web browsing, listen to some music and check emails on regular basis (No sync enabled though) I want to test it without any gaming or streaming video to see how much "Screen On Time" I get. Currently the battery on time is 13h 18m and screen on time is 3h. The charge sits right now at 44% with a significant obeservation that battery drains a lot faster from 100% to 50% but from 50% to zero seems to take much longer time. I will post final results when it drains to zero. If you are experienced with it, how much Screen on time I should get on average by using only social apps and web browsing, youtube and music (Mixed usage)

Thank you.

 

[Jon_Doh]

I am not sure how much screen time you can expect from one of these tablets. I have read two tests where the tablet was turned on and movies were played and both reviews said they got around 10 hours of battery time. These were both from internet tech magazines. But another reviewer on YouTube said he was only able to get seven hours and to me that sounds more reasonable.

I hope a few charges and discharges will calibrate your battery. Good luck and please report your findings.

 

[Commandermadi]

I am not sure how much screen time you can expect from one of these tablets. I have read two tests where the tablet was turned on and movies were played and both reviews said they got around 10 hours of battery time. These were both from internet tech magazines. But another reviewer on YouTube said he was only able to get seven hours and to me that sounds more reasonable.

I hope a few charges and discharges will calibrate your battery. Good luck and please report your findings.

Alright I will be posting my results as soon as possible. But can you tell me: is charging from zero up to 100% in between 3 to 4 hours max considered too fast or normal for the tab s 8.4? Because a samsung tech support guy told me it would normally take 6 hours to fully charge. (I'm using the default usb cable and charging adapter that came with the tablet)

 

[Jon_Doh]

I have read complaints on the forums where others said it took all night to completely charge their Samsung, but mine will fully charge between 3 and 4 hours, which I think is normal for most tablets.

 

[Alien from planet Blurghlesmurhh]

These battery issues are cleaned up pretty easily when you simply uninstall samsung's bloatware. Some apps seem to take out the battery fairly easily, very annoying since the TAB S would be so much more popular if developers didn't ignore it.
I get pretty good battery life, even though the TAB S has that hugely powerful octa-core processor and 3gb ram.
Be aware of what apps you're running and how much battery they use.
I'm hugely addicted to a game called osmos, and that seems to lack proper optimization because it eats soooo much battery.
But yeah, you know what I mean.

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