Samsung Galaxy S4 Battery Life

[harrison914]

What are you doing on your phone? I play games, use twitter and listen to music and my battery will last 12 with heavy use.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[monsieurms]

I'm an iPhone convert as well. Charged my S4 to 100% before going to bed and
thought I had turned off the phone. Instead I must have only shut down the
screen. When I woke up, I had 75% battery left. My iPhone would have 99% battery
left doing the same thing. Obviously there is a lot of background syncing or other
activity going on that I don't know enough about yet to shut off.

Suggestions or a source for improving battery life? I just installed the snap dragon
guru app.

Thanks.

I discovered in looking at battery usage that the principal drain (even after I went into AIRPLANE mode to turn off connectivity) was SAMSUNG LINK. Uninstall it. I also turn off GPS now. Usually, that means in about 7 hours overnight I lose about 9%, which is acceptable. I was having huge drains --like 88% to 15%. (Maybe I was wrong in blaming Snapdragon--however, it also did no good.)

a) Airplane mode
b) no GPS
c) Uninstall Samsung link

Life returns to normal overnight. I go back to normal for a and b when I wake up.

P.s. I got an update today on T-Mobile's Visual Voicemail app. They said one reason for it was that the old version drained batteries!

I can't say I used it much and my problems seemed solved before the update, but take note.

 

[chrissiitia]

Hey guys. I have this thing on my s4 that sometimes the charging percent goes fast and sometimes it took for almost half an hour for a percent to go up. So I just want to know what causes that issue .
Thanks

 

[sfrrr]

I've read on these pages that snapdragon seems to encourage battery drain. I've also read that airplane mode doesn't help preserve battery. I think it was something about the S3 and S4 trying to update... Maybe some long - time AC member will remember. (there have been many, many, many battery-drain threads in the last year or so.)

I very rarely have had these problems (maybe 3 or 4 times each). The last time, I installed a free app called Carat (from U. C. Berkeley.) it tells you what battery-draining apps are running on your phone. it runs only when you launch it, so does not contribute to battery drain, and you keep it open less than 5 minutes each use.


Sent from my unrooted 32 GB Polish Samsung Galaxy GT I9300 running 4.1.2.

 

[monsieurms]

Hey guys. I have this thing on my s4 that sometimes the charging percent goes fast and sometimes it took for almost half an hour for a percent to go up. So I just want to know what causes that issue .
Thanks

Are you sometimes charging on USB and sometimes the wall charger? USB is painfully slow.

I've also read that airplane mode doesn't help preserve battery. I think it was something about the S3 and S4 trying to update... Maybe some long - time AC member will remember. (there have been many, many, many battery-drain threads in the last year or so.)

I very rarely have had these problems (maybe 3 or 4 times each). The last time, I installed a free app called Carat (from U. C. Berkeley.) it tells you what battery-draining apps are running on your phone. ...

I imagine if everything keeps trying to update when Airplane mode is on, it is not as effective as it might be in saving battery life. However, when Airplane mode is OFF, it is still trying to update, PLUS the cell network is on, wi-fi is on etc. I would think it has to have some benefit, even if smaller, to disable all connectivity. I also disable GPS overnight when I'm sleeping. In any event, I can live with the 10% or so drain I get overnight and the most important on going into Airplane mode for me overnight is to turn off connectivity and make sure nothing is waking me up!

As for Carat, I don't understand what it does that the device itself doesn't. It tells you pretty clearly in the SETTINGS what is using your battery, as photos posted in this thread show. Inevitably, the biggest use during the day is screen time. I found one item misbehaving (Samsung Link) and uninstalled it. After that, it is usually Google Services. That encompasses a wide variety of things, but it is usually dwarfed by screen time and significant as a percentage of the whole only when the device isn't actually being used. So, maybe it'll drain 10% or so overnight when I'm sleeping.

 

[STARGATE]

I've also read that airplane mode doesn't help preserve battery. I think it was something about the S3 and S4 trying to update...


Sent from my unrooted 32 GB Polish Samsung Galaxy GT I9300 running 4.1.2.

Every night I set my GS4 to airplane mode and the next day I see only 1% down from where it was the night before.

Sent From a Galaxy S4 Away!

 

[swiedom]

I can go days and days in airplane mode.

 

[monsieurms]

Every night I set my GS4 to airplane mode and the next day I see only 1% down from where it was the night before.

Sent From a Galaxy S4 Away!

What are your settings on things like Google calendar, contacts, GPS. Do you let those all sync regularly? (I do....and I get about 10% drain overnight.)
I envy your 1%, but I like all those things to sync regularly.

 

[STARGATE]

What are your settings on things like Google calendar, contacts, GPS. Do you let those all sync regularly? (I do....and I get about 10% drain overnight.)
I envy your 1%, but I like all those things to sync regularly.

GPS if not in use is normally off. Everything else (Facebook, Twitter, 4 Gmails, 1 Yahoo mail, 1 Ymail, 2 Live mails, 1 Outlook mail, etc) syncs regularly. :beer:

Sent From a Galaxy S4 Away!

 

[sparayno1]

AT&T S4 with stock battery. Mostly on wifi. MDOB rom/stock kernel, all smart features off, power saving mode enabled, auto brightness, dark themes on apps. Usage consisted of browsing, xda, pulse, instagram, FB, youtube, emails, 10 min of phone calls, and texting. No battery saving apps except greenify.

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[monsieurms]

GPS if not in use is normally off. Everything else (Facebook, Twitter, 4 Gmails, 1 Yahoo mail, 1 Ymail, 2 Live mails, 1 Outlook mail, etc) syncs regularly. :beer:

Sent From a Galaxy S4 Away!

Well, I tried some experiments.....I left the phone on, with everything on that I normally have on (although since my home's router was OFF, it couldn't connect to wi-fi whether allowed to or not). One exception, turned GPS off. Did not go into airplane mode. The overnight drain basically doubled.

I suppose there are many possible options, combos of events and the like, but I'm not too ticked off at, say, a 10% drain overnight.

 

[STARGATE]

Well, I tried some experiments.....I left the phone on, with everything on that I normally have on (although since my home's router was OFF, it couldn't connect to wi-fi whether allowed to or not). One exception, turned GPS off. Did not go into airplane mode. The overnight drain basically doubled.

I suppose there are many possible options, combos of events and the like, but I'm not too ticked off at, say, a 10% drain overnight.

Last night I went to sleep at 1:20 am battery was at 75%, phone set to airplane mode, woke up at 9:32 am and battery was at 72%.

That's the most major drainage during a night I've had with airplane mode on. I normally sleep 4-5 hours, this time a bit over 8 hours. I'm not sure if that has anything to do with it.

Sent From a Galaxy S4 Away!

 

[monsieurms]

I have battery drain envy! Wish I could do that.

But I'm guessing now that the difference in our stats is not airplane mode, but some other combo of stuff. I tend to have everything sync'ing a lot, I use google services, bluetooth, evernote, yada, yada.

I keep looking in the battery usage section of the settings. Without airplane mode, then suddenly idle mode and cell was having some effect, but with airplane mode on, it is mostly google services and a variety of small things that I guess add up.

 

[STARGATE]

Lol at battery drain envy

You know, I think the syncing stuff is what drains the battery, check my screenshots from just now with and without airplane mode.
The one with airplane mode turns 'mobile data' off but keeps the 'sync' mode on.

Sent From a Galaxy S4 Away!

 

[monsieurms]

That's a good point. I will have to play around with that. If it keeps trying to sync, whether it can or can't, it has to affect the battery.

 

[STARGATE]

What I will try tonight before I go to sleep I will turn off that sync toggle then turn airplane mode on and see how it looks tomorrow.

Sent From a Galaxy S4 Away!

 

[monsieurms]

No matter what I try, there doesn't seem to be much change. I've experimented with SYNC on and off, with GPS on and OFF, leaving the cell system on and off, airplane mode on/off, I can't replicate your results or anything close to it. Oh well.

 

[STARGATE]

Ok, I been testing with sync off and airplane mode on. My battery goes down 9-10 % during the night!

Sent From a Galaxy S4 Away!

 

[monsieurms]

That's fascinating. I can in theory understand why airplane mode might not be a complete solution if apps keep trying to sync and can never get a connection. Then they might try to sync so often that they use up MORE energy. (Honestly don't see how that equates to the cell network on, but ok...) But then if you have the SYNC off, too, that should take care of that one fly in the ointment of putting airplane mode ON.

So, I don't get it. Even if it's happening.

 

[torndownunit]

AT&T S4 with stock battery. Mostly on wifi. MDOB rom/stock kernel, all smart features off, power saving mode enabled, auto brightness, dark themes on apps. Usage consisted of browsing, xda, pulse, instagram, FB, youtube, emails, 10 min of phone calls, and texting. No battery saving apps except greenify.

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Sorry for a silly question guys but I am a complete newb to this phone. Where do I access these settings/stats?

I seem to be getting about 9-10 hours out of mine after following tips in various threads. One interesting thing I see mention of in this thread though is that I also find airplane mode seems to have very little effect on the battery drain. My last phone was an iPhone 4 and I got in the habit of putting it in airplane mode at night, and the battery would barely budge. I notice about the same battery loss on the S4 whether it's on or off.

One issue I have that didn't seem to affect my iPhone as badly is the area I work in during the day is sketchy signal wise. It's a huge outdoor property that has some areas that have practically no signal. The phone seems to jump all over the place as far as what networks it's trying to connect to (LTE, 3G etc). I just disable LTE while I am there, and that seemed to help quite a bit. I do get much better battery life when I am just out around my town for the day though.

Overall I am really enjoying the phone. I do find I prefer the Vanilla Android on my Nexus 7, which was my first venture into Android. I have contemplated rooting, but don't know if I am comfortable doing it. I couldn't afford to buy a Play version outright, but that would have been my choice.