Galaxy S8 / S8 + Battery Life Thread

[Soggly]

Screen on, look at that though, I didn't even disable anything

 

[steven Hadjez]

So I just proved to myself that signal is not what is causing my battery to be so bad. I used a local sim card yesterday with no roaming and perfect 5 bars all day long. Still got 4 hours of SOT only. My life SUCKS

 

[sweetypie31]

Some of you are going to drive yourself crazy trying to either get the same stats as the next guy or trying to get what's deemed the perfect stats. Just use the phone. If the phone is dying within 2 hours like my note 5 used to then that's a problem, but if not stop worrying so much and just use the phone.

 

[steven Hadjez]

Dude, battery anxiety is a serious disease. Dont underestimate our condition. We need serious help.

 

[sweetypie31]

Dude, battery anxiety is a serious disease. Dont underestimate our condition. We need serious help.

If you could see my face as I read your post.

 

[steven Hadjez]

And I stick with what I said, the real test is whether or not you're getting better battery than you were on your previous device. And with the S8 plus, I am getting nearly double the battery life I was getting.

I'm getting the same. Basically crap.

 

[erasat]

I'm getting the same. Basically crap.

Then, you know that it's not the phone, it's your environment causing you the drain.

 

[steven Hadjez]

If you going to tell me its the signal, i dont think it is. I know it because if theres a day i dont use my phone, the drain doesn't happen. For example, two days ago, i used 4 hours of screen on time during 14 hours off the charger and my battery died. But yesterday, i took me 24 hours to use the 4 hours of SOT, and the phone lasted fine. Basically what im saying is that the value that never changes is the 4 hours of SOT. The time off the charger can vary depending on the usage i make of my phone. Proof that i dont have a signal issue draining the phone constantly. It looks more to be related to my usage of the screen. Not sure what im doing wrong

 

[erasat]

If you going to tell me its the signal, i dont think it is. I know it because if theres a day i dont use my phone, the drain doesn't happen. For example, two days ago, i used 4 hours of screen on time during 14 hours off the charger and my battery died. But yesterday, i took me 24 hours to use the 4 hours of SOT, and the phone lasted fine. Basically what im saying is that the value that never changes is the 4 hours of SOT. The time off the charger can vary depending on the usage i make of my phone. Proof that i dont have a signal issue draining the phone constantly. It looks more to be related to my usage of the screen. Not sure what im doing wrong

I'm just saying that you replied to a post that mentioned that his actual SOT is double the one before on his previous phone, then you said that you were getting the same, basically crap, so I assumed that you were talking about that you were getting the same SOT than your previous phones too, and if that's right then you must know by now that it's not the S8, it's something on your end.

I'm not reading your tons of posts on this thread again, so I really can't remember if you talked about brightness or not, but if you are sure that your drain is strictly related to your real time of the phone, then the only thing is Brightness and Screen related settings, or maybe if you have your Wifi to be off while the screen is on, then once you turn your screen on the wifi activates, maybe your wifi is causing some drain, that won't be the first time, last year I needed to run my phones without wifi for a while because of a Bug that seems to have been fixed now, the drain was huge with Wifi on.

 

[steven Hadjez]

Oh yes, you're absolutely right on this. The problem is not on the phone, i dont plan on exchanging it. The problem is with me. I have been trying to identify it with my s7 edge and now with my s8+.
And if you can solve this mystery for me, if you can help me reach a solid 6 hours SOT on my new phone, I will take a plane ticket to fly wherever you live in the world, and I will clean your dishes and tie your shoelaces until the end of 2017. You have my word.

 

[dejanh]

And I stick with what I said, the real test is whether or not you're getting better battery than you were on your previous device. And with the S8 plus, I am getting nearly double the battery life I was getting.

Well, that much I can agree with. Compared to my Exynos S7 Edge this phone gets slightly worse battery life and compare to my iPhone 7 Plus noticeably worse battery life.

 

[steven Hadjez]

Oh yes, you're absolutely right on this. The problem is not on the phone, i dont plan on exchanging it. The problem is with me. I have been trying to identify it with my s7 edge and now with my s8+.
And if you can solve this mystery for me, if you can help me reach a solid 6 hours SOT on my new phone, I will take a plane ticket to fly wherever you live in the world, and I will clean your dishes and tie your shoelaces until the end of 2017. You have my word.

The offer of the shoelaces and the dishes stands for everyone, not just Erasat `!!

 

[erasat]

Oh yes, you're absolutely right on this. The problem is not on the phone, i dont plan on exchanging it. The problem is with me. I have been trying to identify it with my s7 edge and now with my s8+.
And if you can solve this mystery for me, if you can help me reach a solid 6 hours SOT on my new phone, I will take a plane ticket to fly wherever you live in the world, and I will clean your dishes and tie your shoelaces until the end of 2017. You have my word.

A follow up to what I mentioned above, if you are sure it's just with Screen on and not your standby times, then adjust brightness and see if by turning wifi off for a while it helps.

 

[steven Hadjez]

A follow up to what I mentioned above, if you are sure it's just with Screen on and not your standby times, then adjust brightness and see if by turning wifi off for a while it helps.

I tried to leave the brightness on manual at 35% for a full day, didn't help.
When Wifi is on all day, i seem to get an extra 30 mins of sot compared to 4g only.

 

[dejanh]

Oh yes, you're absolutely right on this. The problem is not on the phone, i dont plan on exchanging it. The problem is with me. I have been trying to identify it with my s7 edge and now with my s8+.
And if you can solve this mystery for me, if you can help me reach a solid 6 hours SOT on my new phone, I will take a plane ticket to fly wherever you live in the world, and I will clean your dishes and tie your shoelaces until the end of 2017. You have my word.

Do you have AOD enabled? If yes, turn it off to start. Turning off AOD for me added about 1h of total active runtime as AOD was draining the battery a lot when the phone is in standby.

Besides this, you may want to clear the cache of Google Play Services, and also go into system restore mode and clear the cache from there. Finally, toggle auto-brightness off and on just to make sure the slider has reset to out of the box settings.

 

[erasat]

I tried to leave the brightness on manual at 35% for a full day, didn't help.
When Wifi is on all day, i seem to get an extra 30 mins of sot compared to 4g only.

Then your signal is indeed draining your battery, maybe not as much to being the only reason but considerable. That gets me to this question, are you using a carrier specific phone? I remember a girl from Australia that is no longer here on Android Central and she basically had your same issue for years, in a summary her carrier had some issues with some bands and when getting an Unlocked phone the constant switching between bands, frequencies and between 4G and 3G (No LTE concept in that Region) was killing her battery just like yours.

Last time I heard from her I suggested her to try flashing other region's firmware and it worked better for a while, then the carrier made some more adjustments and she needed to get back to her carrier's firmware and was working better again.

I can see that in most of your screenshots you are having signal issues and even Roaming, that alone my friend will never be good for you.

 

[steven Hadjez]

Then your signal is indeed draining your battery, maybe not as much to being the only reason but considerable. That gets me to this question, are you using a carrier specific phone? I remember a girl from Australia that is no longer here on Android Central and she basically had your same issue for years, in a summary her carrier had some issues with some bands and when getting an Unlocked phone the constant switching between bands, frequencies and between 4G and 3G (No LTE concept in that Region) was killing her battery just like yours.

Last time I heard from her I suggested her to try flashing other region's firmware and it worked better for a while, then the carrier made some more adjustments and she needed to get back to her carrier's firmware and was working better again.

I can see that in most of your screenshots you are having signal issues and even Roaming, that alone my friend will never be good for you.

Thanks, I've just done everything you've mentioned about the cash hoping that this will solve my problems. I really appreciate your help.

What you say about the carrier is actually very interesting. Maybe this is the source of my problem since I've been using that sim card for ever.

I bought my phone on samsung, carrier free. Its the 955 exynos model. I live in belgium but i use my french sim card (SFR) since i have a very advantageous plan that lets me roam and call unlimited anywhere around the world. I guess this could be my issue. Any idea how I could find out ? Maybe change the automatically select network to manual ? Or maybe try another sim card to see if the problem continues ?

Thanks in advance for your help

 

[erasat]

First thing and easiest one to try would be just getting a new SIM card from your carrier.

Second, go to the firmware page of Sammobile, if you don't know, you should know learn how to flash a new Rom on your Galaxy, they have all the information you need, but basically you'll need good drivers and the latest Odin version. Then look at this link (assuming your phone's model is the S8 SM-G950F) or here (if it's the S8+ SM-G955F) and I'd say that you download the firmware for the exact region you are, that should allow for the phone to activate the correct bands available in your area, but given the information that you are currently using a French carrier sim card I really don't know if it will be better for you to download and use one from any France carrier instead, that my friend will be your task, we can't help you on it.

I think you have some options and like I said, based on previous experiences with people with problems somehow similar to yours, flashing other ROMS help a lot.

**NOTE** if you are going to do this, please, read well all the instructions plus I'd advise you to go to xdadevelopers forums and look for all the threads about how to flash so you have all the basic knowledge before you even try it, not that hard once you have the basics of it.

 

[theelite1x87]

Did a quick test, YouTube playback, 4K content (maxes out at 1440p on this phone), 60fps. Auto brightness in a dark room and a full brightness tests averaged out, video expanded to fill the screen and video enhancer enabled. All other apps except YouTube shut down. I purposely watched a very bright, vibrant clip found here https://youtu.be/aqz-KE-bpKQ to see what would be worst case drain while using YouTube. Drain is somewhere between 2% to 2.5% per 10 minutes of playback, or 12% to 15% per hour. This gives roughly 6.5-8.5h of continuous YouTube playback. I am using Snapdragon version of the S8+ .

So, for those that claim that they are intense users because they watch YouTube, unless all your content is exactly like the above, which it 100% is not, you're eating through a lot less battery than you think. Sure, YouTube can be draining, but it is only so in pretty extreme circumstances.

So yeah, I stick by what I said before. With mixed moderate to heavy use the normal battery life for the Snapdragon version of the S8+, assuming good signal and no WiFi use is probably between 5h-6h of SOT, and about 15-16h of total time on. It's okay, but nothing to write home about. Those seeing substantially better numbers have a usage pattern that can extend the battery life a lot more. It is not related to superior battery capacity of the S8+.

Most of my usage is Google chrome and Facebook. Probably two of the biggest battery hogs in android land. With those apps I see 5.5 to 6hrs. With lighter use I've seen as high as 7 personally. I can certainly see getting more under different circumstances. Under same usage patterns my v10 struggled to get 2.5hrs. My G4 pretty regularly got 3 to 4. My Note 4 got 4.5 to 5 (6 was max I ever got with it). In comparison to my devices going back several years, the S8 plus is amazing. If you have experience with another HIGH END flagship level device besting the S8 plus id like to know what device it is.

 

[dario12v]

Oh yes, you're absolutely right on this. The problem is not on the phone, i dont plan on exchanging it. The problem is with me. I have been trying to identify it with my s7 edge and now with my s8+.
And if you can solve this mystery for me, if you can help me reach a solid 6 hours SOT on my new phone, I will take a plane ticket to fly wherever you live in the world, and I will clean your dishes and tie your shoelaces until the end of 2017. You have my word.

OK
It all depends on how you use your phone and on signal strength
I unplugged my phone about 4 hours ago and watch a movie on my video player (MX Player pro) the movie was 2 hours, then I talked on the phone for 10 min... Then I read for another hour
(Play books by Google)
When I checked my stats I had 3 hours on screen time and the phone was at 80%
So logic would tell you, if I did this for the whole day I would get 15 hours SOT
I have full signal strength (5 bars)
Keep my phone on wqhd + and have always on display on since day one and play video at full brightness (rest of the time, I keep auto brightness)
Play book I use on black background and sepia letters,(easier on my eyes and more battery efficient)
On the other hand I'm pretty sure if I download 10 torrents(movies) at the same time and play a battery depleting game all at the same time I would run through a full charge in Less than 4 hours... So what I'm saying is if you use your s8+ for normal use...(wich I understand is different for everyone) this phone should give you 12 hours SOT easy... If not... Your phone is defective (provided of course you have full signal