Samsung Galaxy Alpha; Poor battery life - Is this normal or do I have a fake phone?

[skirush2014]

I just bought a new Samsung Galaxy Alpha. I've only been using it for a few hours and already I'm dissappointed at how poor the battery life is. I fully charged the phone to 100% and brought it to the AT&T store to get a new sim card. The same clerk and I probably had the phone on (i.e., using the screen) for 10-15 minutes tops. The battery dropped from 100% to 94%...that's in a matter of only 10 minutes of very light usage (just setting up basic settings and voicemail). I literally watched the percentage drop in front of me about every minute.

Currently, the phone is on and I've only been using it to send a few texts (not emails or web surfing) over a period of about a 2 hours; and, now it's down to 88%. That seems really pathetic to me...a 12% drop in battery from setting up my google account, voicemail, and sending a few texts! I recently had an iPhone 5 and galaxy S5 and note 3 and I don't recall their batteries being anywhere near as bad as this.

Is this normal? I just set the phone up; Are there things on that might be killing my battery like this?

Or...do I have fake phone. I called Samsung and they said the phone is legit and even covered by their warranty, but this battery has me worried about the legitimacy of the phone or the battery at least.

 

[gone down south]

It takes a couple days for a new battery to settle in, give it some time.

 

[skirush2014]

...

 

[Rukbat]

1) Don't unplug the charger the moment it hits 100%. (Due to the nature of the way we have to measure State of Charge, it's at about 99% at that point.) give it another half hour. (Leaving the charger plugged in for a month won't hurt anything but your electric bill - to the tune of a penny or two.)

2) as gone down south said, it takes a while for a battery to stabilize - which is why you should always condition a new battery.

3) He's not joking.

See The Care and Feeding of Lithium Polymer Batteries so that you know how to keep your battery at its best.

 

[skirush2014]

It takes a couple days for a new battery to settle in, give it some time.

I'm assuming you're joking...I've never heard of this before.

 

[Rukbat]

Most people have never heard of how to take proper care of lithium batteries - you just use them. Which is why we get so many posts asking why things are happening that indicate that the battery died in 6 months.

It's like never hearing that you have to do an oil change in a car and wondering why the engine seized up after 20,000 miles. Sagan, I think it was, said something to the effect of "in a society in which more and more depends on science and technology, almost no one knows anything about science or technology". It's true. If you don't know how to take care of the battery in your cellphone, you're going to be replacing it very often. (It should last until a Galaxy Alpha sells on Craig's List in brand new condition for $20. My V551 batteries are still at about 95% capacity. The phone was one of the first to have an actual camera. [640X480, but you could actually take pictures with your phone]. But the batteries are still good.)

 

[skirush2014]

So, how does one properly condition a new cell phone battery?

 

[sting7k]

I'm assuming you're joking...I've never heard of this before.

It's not so much that the battery itself has to settle but you have to settle and have everything configured how you want and are into a normal usage pattern. Don't judge the battery for at least week until you have gotten into a regular pattern.

Two hours of usage is not statistically significant to make a judgement on a battery.

Edit for your last post - Just use the phone as normal. Get everything set up. Then use it for a few days and see how it goes. If you still think the battery is bad you can run it all the way down until the phone shuts off. This will "zero" out the battery meter. Then charge all the way to 100% and try again. You can play around different power settings too.

 

[gone down south]

+1. - it's not that the battery itself changes, it's that your usage of a brand new phone is atypical the first few days.

 

[anrdoider]

So, how does one properly condition a new cell phone battery?

There are few things to keep in mind about the lithium batteries powering most (if not all) mobile devices today:

- A new battery need a couple of weeks to get to its full params and normal behavior. The internal chemicals require few charge/discharge cycles to get to full capacity.
- Never "format", "overcharge" and things like these, these apply to old NiMh batteries.
- Do not let it drain completely. Charge it at a minimum of 15-20%. Draining it completely shorten its life and reduce its capacity.
- Once full, remove the charger. You cannot really "overcharge" it since all devices have protection against it, but avoid to keep it under charging too much time. If you let it 24 hours under charge, what happen is that in time it goes to 99%, start charging again to 100%, and this will happen 100 times along those 24 hours. You should avoid this, some say its better not to charge it to 100% for a longer life, I don't think its really necessary, there are others more important.
- Do not leave it in sun or heat. This will overheat and damage it irreversibly.
- Also avoid depleting it under very low temperatures.
- If you don't use the device, make sure you charge the battery before storage, it discharge itself in time.