Why is my battery life so bad?

[robertkoa]

Yes. I am hoping for an S6 Pro or maybe they will have to call it Note 5 Compact- but essentially an S6 at about 7.6 mm thick with a 3100 Mah Battery-
I hope I am wrong but any time we see a mediocre Camera and everyone says wait for the new Software- the Camera gets a little better - that's all.
The 2550 Battery with hungry CPU and hungry screen is probably not going to change radically.
You can lower screen brightness, location, sync,wifi, VoLTE OFF unless you need them and find "limit background processes"and set to three or four instead of standard limit.
But the "Thinness Race" has forced a small battery- IMO just as beautiful at 7.6mm or even more with a big Battery.
The S6 and Edge are made for more casual users ...unfortunately- we need a larger battery.

 

[eak1570]

I think S6 battery is solid.. I can get at lease 5-6 SOT..

 

[Bodzm]

They have been saying that since Android was released. Its either google services, or cell standbye or some other battery sucking activity that shows up in our battery usage screen. And I dont care what anybody says, I dont care what results they post. Nobody is getting 5+ SOT with this phone with my kind of usage. I am lucky to get 2 and I dont play a lot of games or stream a ton a video's. If you want great battery life, you need a big battery. My Xperia Z has great battery life as did my Note 4. Both battery's are 25% bigger that what the GS6 has.

Totally agree. You can't bank on an imaginary update that may or may not resolve the issue. You can only go on the phone's performance right now and decide whether it should be returned.

Can't wait to see what the Sony Z4 offers. I need a charge in the middle of the day on my current phone and I'll be damned if I'm gonna do that on a brand new, exorbitantly expensive, flagship device.

 

[clevin]

Let me repeat this because it bears repeating. Their market cap is $366 billion dollars. They have 1.2 billion Android devices out in the wild last year. They can devote 0.00001% of their resources to fixing this and make everyone happy.

LOL, wrong, think this way:

At the core, Google is an ad company, which is the foundation of its $366 billion market cap and motivation behind 1.2 billion android devices.

It's only by making these devices work as mini ads machine in some direct and indirect ways, that they are making money (granted, some of these "services" also provide some convenience for users, but nothing is must-have functions). They have precisely no reason to "fix" the mechanism the rely on to make money.

An android phone that does not consume battery to communicate with somewhere on internet when the screen is off? No way, Jose.

 

[Haalcyon]

If you have Facebook and or Twitter try running a day or so with those uninstalled and see if makes any difference.

from the n.3 Monolith

 

[FuzzyB]

Some of you need to read these threads where there are tons of tips on battery life and implement it.

I have adjusted numerous settings of what others recommended on here and I am getting great battery life.

Yesterday for example...unplugged at approx 6:30am plugged back in at 10:30pm with 52% left. Moderate use. I am ecstatic at this battery life! So to say this phone is not capable is complete BS.

 

[neo905]

LOL, wrong, think this way:

At the core, Google is an ad company, which is the foundation of its $366 billion market cap and motivation behind 1.2 billion android devices.

It's only by making these devices work as mini ads machine in some direct and indirect ways, that they are making money (granted, some of these "services" also provide some convenience for users, but nothing is must-have functions). They have precisely no reason to "fix" the mechanism the rely on to make money.

An android phone that does not consume battery to communicate with somewhere on internet when the screen is off? No way, Jose.

I know they are at the root of it an ad company. I mentioned that explicitly in my follow up post. Apple is a marketing company that sells consumer products. The difference is Apple makes it barrier to entry very easy so a 10 year old or an 80 year old will equally feel comfortable and have a uniform experience with their hardware and software. Google on the other hand doesn't really care either way and are caught up in a numbers game because all they care about are eyeballs so their handsets are flooded in the global marketplace. My point is they could have BOTH if they wanted. They could have wide adoption AND a great optimized user experience and gain even better traction which would increase there ad platform because more people would use it because there would be more on screen time available and less of a hassle to use. It would be to their greater benefit even as a ad company the same way it is to Apple's benefit as a marketing company because then when they release new products like Wear they wouldn't be crushed in a weekend by Apple equivalent that sold more that Wear's entire existence. There are guys over at XDA that do this in their spare time and fix and make these issues more palatable. You can't tell me they couldn't easily do this internally. I know they work on the software since they release new app versions every Wednesday like clockwork. Like I said, just overall unacceptable.

 

[katiheefner]

Some of you need to read these threads where there are tons of tips on battery life and implement it.

I have adjusted numerous settings of what others recommended on here and I am getting great battery life.

Yesterday for example...unplugged at approx 6:30am plugged back in at 10:30pm with 52% left. Moderate use. I am ecstatic at this battery life! So to say this phone is not capable is complete BS.

I have read the boards, made the adjustments, and still no change. Maybe you could tell us which ones worked best for you? Thanks.

 

[jcp007]

Some of you need to read these threads where there are tons of tips on battery life and implement it.

I have adjusted numerous settings of what others recommended on here and I am getting great battery life.

Yesterday for example...unplugged at approx 6:30am plugged back in at 10:30pm with 52% left. Moderate use. I am ecstatic at this battery life! So to say this phone is not capable is complete BS.

Amen, brother. I am amazed at those that have the hours necessary to test SoT but I appreciate their efforts. Everyone has different usage and resource management habits. Lollipop could be one of the factors and would affect more Android devices not just the GS6. Expecting to leave default device settings and a dozen apps open as well as the browser not to drain the battery is a bit much. Take some responsibility for your own device management and read some of the tips in this forum both from a resource and a hardware perspective. Not directing this comment at anyone specifically.

 

[mferrinda]

I'm also not getting the 5 hours screen time that others are claiming. I'm loving the phone but would like to replicate others positive experience of battery life. It's not that terrible for me just not that great. I didn't really use the phone much today as you can see in screen time. Don't really want to turn everything off.

 

[clevin]

I know they are at the root of it an ad company. I mentioned that explicitly in my follow up post. Apple is a marketing company that sells consumer products. The difference is Apple makes it barrier to entry very easy so a 10 year old or an 80 year old will equally feel comfortable and have a uniform experience with their hardware and software. Google on the other hand doesn't really care either way and are caught up in a numbers game because all they care about are eyeballs so their handsets are flooded in the global marketplace. My point is they could have BOTH if they wanted. They could have wide adoption AND a great optimized user experience and gain even better traction which would increase there ad platform because more people would use it because there would be more on screen time available and less of a hassle to use. It would be to their greater benefit even as a ad company the same way it is to Apple's benefit as a marketing company because then when they release new products like Wear they wouldn't be crushed in a weekend by Apple equivalent that sold more that Wear's entire existence. There are guys over at XDA that do this in their spare time and fix and make these issues more palatable. You can't tell me they couldn't easily do this internally. I know they work on the software since they release new app versions every Wednesday like clockwork. Like I said, just overall unacceptable.

I agree its unacceptable, but what choice do we have as end-users? Yes, they have the capability if they want to really focus on it. But They have no reason to.

They have dominate smartphone market, "getting more users" are not really something motivates them anymore. In the same time, manufacturers and carriers are on their tails for more services/functions added.

Sure bugs will get fixed easy, XDA people can do it, google can do it. The problem with the efficiency, however, is deeper than that. Whenever XDA product produces drastic improvement on battery life, mostly its due to removal or disabling services/functions. And removal of these things run opposite to google, manufacturer, carrier's benefit.

As end-users, if we do appreciate the semi-openness of android, we should not reject the idea that we may need to manually take the situation into our own hand and disable/removal things we don't need.

Thats why its strange to claim somehow the out-of-box configuration represents "what the phone should be", or that "whatever google put on is divine and should be used over other options", and any action to improve its battery by disabling things is "crippling the phone".

 

[Bodzm]

Amen, brother. I am amazed at those that have the hours necessary to test SoT but I appreciate their efforts. Everyone has different usage and resource management habits. Lollipop could be one of the factors and would affect more Android devices not just the GS6. Expecting to leave default device settings and a dozen apps open as well as the browser not to drain the battery is a bit much. Take some responsibility for your own device management and read some of the tips in this forum both from a resource and a hardware perspective. Not directing this comment at anyone specifically.

Totally disagree and this is old way of thinking is what Android needs to come away from. We should NOT have to micro-manage a modern device. It's absurd to buy a new, exorbitantly priced device then need to apply 101 fixes to get it working the way it should have out the box. This is exactly why Apple is so far ahead in perception, usability and profits. Please get out of the tech middle ages.

 

[Adranalyne]

Totally disagree and this is old way of thinking is what Android needs to come away from. We should NOT have to micro-manage a modern device. It's absurd to buy a new, exorbitantly priced device then need to apply 101 fixes to get it working the way it should have out the box. This is exactly why Apple is so far ahead in perception, usability and profits. Please get out of the tech middle ages.

I turned off WiFi scanning, set location to battery saver, and made sure only the Google apps I use were syncing. I'm getting 15-20 hours with 4:30-5:30 hours on screen. I wouldn't say that's micromanaging at all.

Posted via Galaxy S6 edge

 

[neo905]

I agree its unacceptable, but what choice do we have as end-users? Yes, they have the capability if they want to really focus on it. But They have no reason to.

They have dominate smartphone market, "getting more users" are not really something motivates them anymore. In the same time, manufacturers and carriers are on their tails for more services/functions added.

Sure bugs will get fixed easy, XDA people can do it, google can do it. The problem with the efficiency, however, is deeper than that. Whenever XDA product produces drastic improvement on battery life, mostly its due to removal or disabling services/functions. And removal of these things run opposite to google, manufacturer, carrier's benefit.

As end-users, if we do appreciate the semi-openness of android, we should not reject the idea that we may need to manually take the situation into our own hand and disable/removal things we don't need.

Thats why its strange to claim somehow the out-of-box configuration represents "what the phone should be", or that "whatever google put on is divine and should be used over other options", and any action to improve its battery by disabling things is "crippling the phone".

Here's the thing I think got overlooked in my post. As an ad company wouldn't you want more SOT. That mean's more engagement and more opportunity to sell ads. That is the metric even they should consider improving. If they could squeeze 1-2 more hours of SOT on billions of devices wouldn't that make them more $$$$$$$$$$ and we would benefit as well.

 

[clevin]

Totally disagree and this is old way of thinking is what Android needs to come away from. We should NOT have to micro-manage a modern device. It's absurd to buy a new, exorbitantly priced device then need to apply 101 fixes to get it working the way it should have out the box. This is exactly why Apple is so far ahead in perception, usability and profits. Please get out of the tech middle ages.

Why do you must assume "out of box" config is always the best?

There is no secret here, just look at windows pc, is out of box config the best? no. You can spend $3000 on a high end gaming pc, it still need your attention once you got it.

The question is not about if out-of-box config need to be fixed, it just is, the question is if you will do it.

Here's the thing I think got overlooked in my post. As an ad company wouldn't you want more SOT. That mean's more engagement and more opportunity to sell ads. That is the metric even they should consider improving. If they could squeeze 1-2 more hours of SOT on billions of devices wouldn't that make them more $$$$$$$$$$ and we would benefit as well.

Thats true from our point of view. But Google ecosystem is so complex, it would not surprise me if they had calculation somewhere that says they get more benefit from a different kind of "phone-server communication" than asking people to actively use it....

 

[Inders99]

Some interesting discussion here. I don't think it's a bad thing to need to tweak our devices to get them where we want them, to a reasonable degree. Most aren't tech types and don't have the time/understanding to delve into the inner workings of the phone, but the beauty of Android is that you can, with a bit of effort, make it your own. On the other end of the spectrum is Apple where you have Jony Ivy's idea of what a phone should be and nothing else.

It is in Google's best interest to make sure these phones run well because many of us are immersed into their ecosystem which integrate well into their operating design. These phones are so complicated these days that the initial releases are akin to a beta test, however there needs to be communication from the manufacturers/developers that there are issues that they know about and are working on. If you're a recent purchaser of a phone and have no idea if the fix is going to be rolled out, in some cases they'll return the phone within the 14 day period and purchase something else. It's called communication and the manufacturers/developers suck at it.

One thing is for sure, Google will have to get a handle on the run-away train that is Android because the more sprawling and unchecked it gets the more power it'll use and a bigger battery will be needed...which is not progress. The one thing that attracts me to the S6 is the size (which I still think is too big) relative to the others, but if it's having issues I'm going to continue to wait. The G4 is coming out soon but I really don't want a clunker like that but I'll keep an open mind.

 

[Bodzm]

Why do you must assume "out of box" config is always the best?

There is no secret here, just look at windows pc, is out of box config the best? no. You can spend $3000 on a high end gaming pc, it still need your attention once you got it.

The question is not about if out-of-box config need to be fixed, it just is, the question is if you will do it.



Thats true from our point of view. But Google ecosystem is so complex, it would not surprise me if they had calculation somewhere that says they get more benefit from a different kind of "phone-server communication" than asking people to actively use it....

The market leader is Apple and their phones work perfectly well out of the box. This is the kind of simplicity we need. If you want to customise your device beyond that, that's all well and good and that's the choice Android provides, but it shouldn't need endless tinkering and micro-managing to get decent out of the box performance. Customisation is about enhancing your experience, not eking out battery percentage points because the phone is sub-par.

 

[nyc_rock]

I disagree. What Seperates android and, Imo makes it better, is its customizability. The fact that apps can update in the background. This is great stuff and makes android much more fun and, in many ways, more powerful. But this comes at a cost. And the cost is battery life. That's why I say the gs6 battery life isn't bad, it's just not good. The reason is simple, the battery is too small. For some it's fine. For others it's not. For the people who don't find it acceptable there is the note 4, z3 ( soon to be Z4) and the G3 (soon to be G4). But to think that a setting or software update is the answer, well, it isn't.

 

[getbretweir]

The market leader is Apple and their phones work perfectly well out of the box. This is the kind of simplicity we need. If you want to customise your device beyond that, that's all well and good and that's the choice Android provides, but it shouldn't need endless tinkering and micro-managing to get decent out of the box performance. Customisation is about enhancing your experience, not eking out battery percentage points because the phone is sub-par.

perfectly stated and my thoughts exactly.

this is an interesting topic, with obviously no right answer, but I agree that out of the box it shouldn't require tinkering for near optimal use. personally, I absolutely love playing around with my phone and customizing it. it's why I choose android.

that said, I shouldn't be rewarded with 3 extra hours SOC vs the guy that uses his S6 as is out of the box. I don't see how that would benefit anyone.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[Bodzm]

I disagree. What Seperates android and, Imo makes it better, is its customizability. The fact that apps can update in the background. This is great stuff and makes android much more fun and, in many ways, more powerful. But this comes at a cost. And the cost is battery life. That's why I say the gs6 battery life isn't bad, it's just not good. The reason is simple, the battery is too small. For some it's fine. For others it's not. For the people who don't find it acceptable there is the note 4, z3 ( soon to be Z4) and the G3 (soon to be G4). But to think that a setting or software update is the answer, well, it isn't.

Well I would disagree because you're assuming customisability means poor battery by default. That's just not true. There are plenty of Android phones with good battery life without having an overly large battery. Android doesn't need a large battery to compensate. It's up to the manufacturers and Google to put in a good operating system as optimally functioning as possible-- this isn't something the user should have to do.

In all fairness, iPhones (besides the recent 6+) have average battery life. They're not stellar performers by any standards. Android gets comparative battery performance with a lot more choice.