Battery usage for voice calls on S6

[AC Question]

Hey guys, new here so sorry for starting off by posting a question.

I recently had my S6 replaced with a refurb unit under warranty (the last one had no end of problems). It is running Marshmellow 6.0.1.

New phone is great, but seems to have one weird thing. I just wanted to check if this was normal (as Samsung tells me it is) as i have never seen it before.

Voice calls use a *lot* of battery. For example, when I looked at Battery usage yesterday, 1 hour of voice calls had used more battery than 1 hour of screen time. In the vicinity of 17% of my battery by the end of the day.

I never noticed this on my old phone, nor did I ever see voice calls ever appear more than 1 or 2% on my previous phones (Note 4 and Galaxy S4).

Anyone else seen this? Google searching hasnt really turned up much at all. Tried factory resetting, hard factory resetting, installed other diallers (zero dialler and google dialler) but they have made no difference.

Any helps greatly appreciated.

 

[dpham00]

Mod Note, I will move this to the s6 forum for more visibility

 

[lucianus_luciferus]

what network you on?

 

[Gary_Berg]

Also, how strong of a signal do you have? If you are in a low signal area the phone needs more power to communicate with the cell tower.

 

[maraach]

Thanks for the reply. Reception is perfect (im located in the heart of the CBD).

Im comparing it to other samsung phones of people who work with me (Note 4, S5) and none of them seem to have the same problem.

Im trying to work out whether it is a bug with Marshmellow, something particular to the S6 or an issue with the device itself.

Just an update an hour of voice calls in perfect reception will use more battery than an hour of screen time. This strikes me as odd.

 

[Gary_Berg]

Well, if you have a strong signal then that's not the cause. You might try clearing the cache partition.

 

[maraach]

Well, if you have a strong signal then that's not the cause. You might try clearing the cache partition.

Thanks Gary. Would a factory reset do that?

 

[Hurrycanejohn]

Just speculating, but don't the other phones you mentioned have high capacity batteries? When you're talking in percentages wouldn't that explain the differences? A lower capacity battery would show a higher percentage used in the same talk time, as a phone with a high capacity battery. To get the S6 to be super thin and considering it's overall size, I think they had to compremise on battery size and that may be the issue. Then again I could be completely wrong?

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[Rukbat]

That 17% is 17% of the total amount of battery used, not 17% of the total battery capacity - bear that in mind.

Look at the battery stats. Tap the graph to get to the second page. Look at the bottom, at the mobile signal line. If it's not solid green, you don't have a good mobile signal. That alone could eat a full charge in a couple of hours.