Average battery life for S7 Active?

[flyingkytez]

Hey guys, is this normal for an S7 Active? Average 5-6 hours of screen on time? What have you guys been getting?

 

[bryanmsi]

That is consistent with what I am getting on mine. 5 hours and 8 minutes average with 5 hours 46 being the max. According to the GSam app.

 

[T48]

Would have thought it would have been more given some report the S7E/Note 7 do similar times with a somewhat smaller battery.

 

[bkrell]

Mine doesn't get great battery life for this giant boat anchor battery. I'm not one that likes to turn off all the features because I use all of them. I do keep wifi off a lot since getting unlimited data. But I always have GPS and Bluetooth going. I took my phone off the charger at 4 am and right now it's telling me it should be dead by 8 pm. That's not in power saving mode and that's with 360 security running. If I'm specifically worried I'm going to be away from my charger for a while, I will put it in power saving mode. But if I want to use my Gear S2 for a running GPS watch, I don't turn on power saver because it won't allow the GPS on the watch to function for some reason. And if I need to use my Sirius XM app, power saver causes it to not function properly.

No one on here believes me but my iPhone 6 Plus had a lot better battery life with a similar lack of power saving features employed.

 

[TylerLV76]

I was averaging 8 hours screen on time when I had mine. With really heavy usage I would get between 6 and 7 hours.

 

[djarvik]

3-4 Max.

No idea how people get 5-6-7-8.

 

[TylerLV76]

3-4 Max.

No idea how people get 5-6-7-8.

Thats not normal at all. Unless you have your screen brightness on max and maybe playing videos non stop in a horrible cell area.

 

[bkrell]

OK so HOW are you guys determining screen time? Is it in settings or do you need an app? I'm very curious now.

 

[TylerLV76]

OK so HOW are you guys determining screen time? Is it in settings or do you need an app? I'm very curious now.

I always viewed it in the battery settings area. Screen on time is what I went by.

 

[bkrell]

Ah ok got it. Well, after watching 40 mins of video with my phone at 51%, I've got 2h 15m of screen on time.

 

[bkrell]

I have the AT&T Protec support package w/ my phone. I ironically got a notification from them yesterday telling me to call if I was having battery issues. I did and he had me go through and delete my cache and confirm all my settings were ok. He's going to check w/ me tomorrow to see if it helped. If not, he said they'd do a factory reset and if that didn't help, send a new phone.

 

[bkrell]

Oh, he also told me to turn off fast charging!

 

[Visc]

How would turning fast charge off help?

 

[benjamminh]

Fast charging over time may, may degrade the battery. I think I experienced that with an MXPE fwiw.

 

[br0adband]

Made a post over at XDA about my own experience with the GS7A I just acquired a little over a week ago, can't say it's typical usage by any means but it's typical for me so, if you're interested you can catch the post here:

Battery life, simply amazing... | Samsung Galaxy S7 Active

As stated that's without using any battery saving apps of any kind, with the noted use, and no power saving modes at all. Drained it down to 1% and it actually shut off as I was saving the SOT screenshot, actually.

 

[bkrell]

How would turning fast charge off help?

Honestly, I think it was made up mumbo jumbo. His thought was fast charge mode may TELL you the battery is at 100% but you don't get the same quality of charge that you do if you charge it in regular charging mode. Again, I shrugged at it but said "OK." I will say this, turning off background data REALLY made an incredible difference. I've got the blanket restrict setting turned on now. But I'm going to go through and see if doing it selectively by app makes near as big of a difference.

 

[flyingkytez]

Hey guys, is this normal for an S7 Active? Average 5-6 hours of screen on time? What have you guys been getting?

After owning it for 3 months, I still get really good battery life. Here's what I get:

Light Use, Power Saving Mode On = 8 hours screen on time, 10-11 hours battery life

Moderate - Heavy Use, Power Saving Mode Off = 5-6 hours screen on time or 8 hours battery life

Heavy Use, Power Saving Mode Off = 4-5 hours screen on time or 6-7 hours battery life


My current apps and settings:

- No Facebook or Facebook Messenger installed (using web browser or Metal or Folio apps instead)
- Force Doze app enabled, default settings
- Greenify app enabled, default settings, auto hibernate off (only use manual hibernate)
- Package Disabler Pro installed and default bloatware disabled plus KNOX disabled
- Using "Material Black" Samsung Theme with all black wallpapers
- Sync off
- Brightness usually kept between zero to 25%

I lose 1% battery life with airplane mode on overnight (8 hours idle). I keep Always On Display off.

 

[bkrell]

Wow, that's about what I get without all that extra stuff and I've been complaining about it.

 

[matt3470]

I was excited for the S7 Active when I recently switched back to AT&T. I was VERY disappointed though, and I returned it within the 14-day remorse period. I thought that surely with a 4,000mAh battery and 5" screen this thing should get upwards of 8 hours of screen on time. Nope. I'm not a heavy user, I keep bluetooth off, I used power saving mode, all I did was basically using social media and e-mail most of the day, never got more than 6 hours of screen on time in a 24 hour day! Hell, my iPhone 7 Plus ran longer than this thing! I ended up dropping below 40% by the end of my work day at 5pm, and that's just not good enough for me, that's only half my day!

I just picked up the Moto Z Play (unlocked) and have been impressed with its 3500mAh battery life! It gets up to 8 hours of screen on time EASILY. With light use, I can easily go two full days. The only draw back, for me, is the ****ty camera. I *really* like the S7 camera, and the ruggedness was pretty appealing, but I just can't deal with poor battery life because I'm not going to be hugging the wall or carrying batteries everywhere. So I traded camera for battery.

I wonder if the Android 7.0 upgrade would help this device any? I'm starting to think Sammy just can't make battery-sipping phones!

 

[bkrell]

Glad to see I'm not the only one that isn't enchanted with the battery life vs. the iPhone. I still like the phone a lot but feel like it's an overweight brick for no reason.