Why is my battery life so bad?

[Jdroids]

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.

I don't think simply upping the battery size is smart way. Apparently there are many getting good battery life over 5 SoT and it means S6 hardware is capable of decent endurance performance if it's not bogged down by some software glitches. There is definitely some issues with Lollipop right now. There is nothing wrong in trying to address issues by adjusting some simple settings. It's not like micro-managing as it's just one time change at least until next major update comes. If you are getting only 2 SoT, I think there is something wrong with yours, either software or hardware. Even if S6 had 3000mAh, that would barely get it around 2.35 SoT for your case. Something else must be fixed.

 

[microserfs]

So these are the stats I was getting at the end of last night. Not sure if there has been any improvement yet, but I'm only getting around just over 4 hours of screen time (percentage drops quite quickly when using the phone) so I'm nowhere near hitting the 5-6 hours everyone else is getting. I've disabled MOST notifications from Facebook though some are still somehow getting through, and I've now installed wake lock detector on the phone to see what apps are waking the phone the most while idle.

As someone mentioned previously about trying the tips in various threads, I've actually attempted a lot of the tips mentioned so if there are any in particular that worked the most, I'd love to know what helped!

 

[cwise222]

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.

Apple's phones work out of the box because of two reasons. The first is because Apple controls everything about iOS; nobody else gets to tinker with it. Nobody. With Android Google does their thing, the OEM's do their thing then the carrier does their thing. Andriod will never be like iOS in that regard, though Google's next big challenge is to streamline updates. The second is all iOS, and Windows phone to an extent, is a a never ending screen of app icons. That's it, noting more nothing less. You can argue about services and compare iTunes and Google Play and all that but at it's core iOS is nothing more then screen after screen of app icons. You don't get widgets, you don't get to change icons or colors, you can't customize the lock screen, you get a barebones smartphone experience. For a lot of people that works and that's great; alot of people just want a phone that makes calls, checks Facebook and twitter, and maybe read the news on. iPhone is perfect for that.

Google and Android are complex for a reason, because for as many people love simple as many love to customize and create. Android is for someone who loves to tinker. You don't need constant tinkering either; disabling some Google stuff that you would never use anyway along with some extra features like WiFi scanning that don't enhance your experience isn't some huge burden. The hardware of the S6 is capable of doing 15 - 19 hours with 3-4 hours of SoT, which I'd guess is average for 'normal' use for alot of people who don't use their phones like we do and my phone does it on a daily basis without disabling anything vital Google wise and no tinkering outside of maybe the first day or two. There are people, and not necessarily a small number either, who can't get that and that is where software fixes come in from Google. Use like that can be achieved because it is being achieved by people now.

For someone who wants longer battery life or 6+ hours of SoT or that use apps like Google Maps a lot that case faster drain then there are many other options out there. Bringing the 'simplicity' of iOS into Android isn't the answer and Android has done just fine without it all these years.

 

[DoyouFanBoyBro]

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.

It's NOT BS, you have to turn off all of the stuff that makes it an Android phone practically just to get good B life

 

[DoyouFanBoyBro]

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.

100% this

 

[jcp007]

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.

Micro-manage? Do it once and forget it. Then, just close an app when you're done? I can see how taxing that must be. It's like leaving lights on in rooms you aren't using. Please refrain from personal comments about my tech savviness. It's about taking ownership of something that is yours and you paid good money for it. Do you not change the oil in your vehicle? If you don't, what happens? If you leave your lights on, dead battery and the car doesn't start.

Posted via My Samsung Galaxy S6 Handheld Device

 

[racedog]

There is a reason why the iPhone comes out of the box the way Apple put it there and that is because IOS is a proprietary OS, Apple owns it and no one can make changes without their approval and they won't approve it. Android is open source and anyone can do what they want with it. That leaves android open to changes from the phone manufacturers and further changes from the carriers. That leads to a lot of chaos and fragmentation.

The reason that Google did it this way is because as open source, manufacturers can put android on their devices at no cost and the more devices that have android, the better for Google since they make money via the advertising and data mining that is done by android on each device that is in someone's hands. There are strong tradeoffs for each model. As the purchasing public we have to decide which works best for us and which tradeoffs we can live with. It also has tradeoffs in terms of the way the OS works and how it affects the device hardware.

I've used both and each has its own advantages and disadvantages. I prefer android but I'm not about to claim that it is a perfect OS. It leaves a lot to be desired in many areas but I find that I prefer it to IOS, at least for now. Everyone has to make up their own mind.

The cell standby issue on the S6 is a serious one. I stand on the side that this is more of an OS problem than a hardware problem. However, it has a strong and negative impact on the battery and most people will blame Samsung for that when it is not their issue. On the other hand, it can be argued that Samsung should have seen this and loaded the S6 up with a larger battery because of it. Samsung seemed determined to have the S6 be slimmer than the iPhone, they felt that this was more important than a longer battery life. For me, its six of one and half dozen of the other.

I am very bothered by the battery life, I don't feel that I should have to work this hard to make this phone more usable between charges, but, for me, I like the things it does and am looking forward to Samsung Pay so I'm willing to make the tradeoff in favor of the S6.

 

[erasat]

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.

Man, I'm already frustrated with some users here, we try our best to collect as much info as possible to try to look for a fix as a community and there are people that don't participate, look for their selfish attitude and even criticize those that come here to provide hints or solutions to their problems.

First thing I do when I buy a new device (7 in the past 12 months) is to let it run with my personalized settings and Bloat removed or disabled and that gives me an idea of what that device is capable of in relation to battery, then I may or may not do some more tweaks here or there to try to accomplish what I want. Pretending to buy a device, leave every possible features or options ON all the time, syncing everything possible in all the accounts and then complaints about poor life on a 2550-2600mAh battery device with a QHD display is totally nonsense to me. Yes, it maybe a bug with Wifi that is causing havoc, but the only way to know if you have a device affected by it or not is adjusting and turning things off so you should know for sure what it is.

You should have known better before buying it, and the fact that this phone is giving to a lot of us more than 5 hours and up to 6 hours of SoT is the proof of what this device is capable of, if yours is not giving you that, you may have a rogue app, defective device or your usage and/or personal preferences related to brightness and features and options On will make this and any other device suffer in this department and sorry my friends but if this is your case then there is nobody else's fault but yours, you couldn't pretend to achieve better battery life than the 5-6 SoT of us or whatever you are getting if you are a heavy user and/or your settings and preferences won't allow for similar results, you should have opted for a Phablet or something like the Xperia Z3 with Huge batteries and in the case of the Z3, great optimization in Standby mode for better battery life.

One thing you must accept even when you hate or simply criticize Samsung and the S6, is that if they give us 5-6 SoT in a device with a 2550-2600 mAh battery on a QHD display with one of the thinnest and lightest bezel, they managed to designed a wonderful device with even greater potential once the bugs are all figured it out and fixed.

 

[Alex_NJ]

I agree with the above. I wonder if they did attempt a bigger battery but it still didn't breast iOS so they went to eat on thinness instead

 

[mferrinda]

So these are the stats I was getting at the end of last night. Not sure if there has been any improvement yet, but I'm only getting around just over 4 hours of screen time (percentage drops quite quickly when using the phone) so I'm nowhere near hitting the 5-6 hours everyone else is getting. I've disabled MOST notifications from Facebook though some are still somehow getting through, and I've now installed wake lock detector on the phone to see what apps are waking the phone the most while idle.

As someone mentioned previously about trying the tips in various threads, I've actually attempted a lot of the tips mentioned so if there are any in particular that worked the most, I'd love to know what helped!

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I'm in Australia on Optus network, experiencing same issue, can't seem to get over 3 to 4 hours SoT. Have been testing and trying numerous things.

 

[racedog]

Man, I'm already frustrated with some users here, we try our best to collect as much info as possible to try to look for a fix as a community and there are people that don't participate, look for their selfish attitude and even criticize those that come here to provide hints or solutions to their problems.

First off, I am getting good battery life and good sot. This is hardly my first dance with android so I knew what to expect and first thing I did was to disable unused system apps, reset animations from1 to .5, turn off location etc. I didn't take part in the tips threads because you did an excellent job of going through all the details and showing people how to jump through those hoops.

But, that still doesn't change my mind that hardware manufacturers should provide enough battery power so that the average joe purchaser doesn't have to do all those things. That's just my opinion and we all know about opinions and how everyone has one. It is also my opinion that we should be grateful to people like yourself who inhabit these boards and supply help where needed. But, sometimes some people just refuse to be helped. No point in getting all riled up, just do what you can do and leave it at that. Almost every day there is a new battery thread here (and other threads) that just keep rehashing the same old complaints, over and over and over. Some people can't be bothered to read, complaining seems to be just more fun that finding resolution. I have read all your suggestions to see if there are things I missed. There were some, but there are some things that I use that I don't turn off such as location, I use it, I want it and even with it turned on my battery life is very decent because I have done a lot of other tweaks that offset that one. So, thanks for your help, it is appreciated by many of us that aren't constant posters.

 

[erasat]

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.

Your missing the whole point here, that's the Trade-Off, if you want the simplicity of out of the box settings and don't want to work around this, then don't look further, iPhone is your choice, but if you want the multiple options and custom enhancement for your own device, then Android in general, out of the box comes with every little thing and feature turned on.

Do you need all your Account sync everything by default?, do you need Wifi Calling all the time?, do you need Scanning Always Available (For Google services be syncing all the time) and Smart network ( for the device to decide if it uses wifi or your Data)? do you really need VoLTE, and even if you like the idea, what different does it make when you are in market without it, like mine? Do you need the brightness cranked up to 100% and in Auto, Auto adjusting everytime and draining your battery every time you look at your screen?

Comparing iPhone with Android on the above aspects is ridiculous, you can say that you want to compare platform Vs platform and their market competition because both are smartphones, when you talk about out of the box features and customization and the freedom to do basically what you want after that, is like comparing Apples to bottles. They will never be the same, when apple decide to open up their platform (NEVER) then we can compare both of them at the same level.

 

[atishc]

I'm in Australia on Optus network, experiencing same issue, can't seem to get over 3 to 4 hours SoT. Have been testing and trying numerous things.

You have 23% left with 16 hours of use and 4 hours of SOT - this comes out to about 20 hours with 5 hours SOT on a single charge. What are your expectations here? You can dim the screen dramatically and start crippling features of your phone to eke out more battery life, but this phone is not designed to last 2 days on a charge.

 

[mferrinda]

You have 23% left with 16 hours of use and 4 hours of SOT - this comes out to about 20 hours with 5 hours SOT on a single charge. What are your expectations here? You can dim the screen dramatically and start crippling features of your phone to eke out more battery life, but this phone is not designed to last 2 days on a charge.

They weren't my screens, I'd posted some earlier in thread. I'm not unrealistic in my expectations, just trying to pin point and work out what could be causing un necessary drain. I don't believe in crippling a phone to get battery life, just trying to find the balance that others are experiencing.

 

[jcp007]

I agree with the above. I wonder if they did attempt a bigger battery but it still didn't breast iOS so they went to eat on thinness instead

Freudian slip about iOS?

Posted via My Samsung Galaxy S6 Handheld Device

 

[atishc]

They weren't my screens, I'd posted some earlier in thread. I'm not unrealistic in my expectations, just trying to pin point and work out what could be causing un necessary drain. I don't believe in crippling a phone to get battery life, just trying to find the balance that others are experiencing.

I'm sorry, I didn't realize they weren't your screens. The part that no one has mentioned is that signal strength matters a lot, so if your phone is constantly trying to exchange data over poor data connections, there is no way that your battery life will be as good as people in a good strength area, or on strong WiFi all day, even with the same tweaks. Also, I use apps with a heavy background data component like Facebook and Outlook, and there is no way I would get the same battery life as people who do not have these intensive apps running all the time.

 

[jcp007]

Galaxy S6 battery life bad? This update might help http://www.androidcentral.com/galaxy-s6-battery-life-bad-update-might-help

Android Central as of now. Hope this really is being seen by other users.

Posted via My Samsung Galaxy S6 Handheld Device

 

[Alex_NJ]

Freudian slip about iOS?

Posted via My Samsung Galaxy S6 Handheld Device

Wow google keyboard really does mess up sometimes.

they couldn't beat iOS*

So went to war on thinness*

 

[naviman1]

Galaxy S6 battery life bad? This update might help

Android Central as of now. Hope this really is being seen by other users.

Posted via My Samsung Galaxy S6 Handheld Device

lol that is a terrible post by Android Central. I've already disabled that app, it doesn't do anything and has had no impact on my battery life.

 

[maj71303]

I'm going to sum things up for like minded folks like me. Doing tweaks to gain battery life or better efficiency of a smart phone in 2015 is an absolute cop out. I'm a very advance user and I've just had to finally put my foot down and said enough is enough for all of that. The money spent of these devices now demand that I don't settle anymore for the same old song and dance. It is not my job to solve Google and the OEM's problems. Alot of you may want to keep doing that, but tell me when does the compromises stop? When does the excuses and cop outs stop?

My S6E went back yesterday as I won't put up with the compromises and excuses from android and it's OEM's anymore. Tweaking the themes, changing backgrounds, sounds, icons are indeed tweaks. Having to shutoff WiFi, VOLTE, WiFi calling, lower brightness, disable autosync on accounts /email, and doing cache wipes are compromises. Sorry to bust peoples bubbles but the definition of tweaks and compromises to me must be different than a good group of people on this forum. My Smartphone resolution for 2015 is no compromises anymore. I will not compromise on battery life or smartphone functions. I will not disable autosync, smartphone functions like WiFi, VOLTE, and the such for better battery life. I will take the device back and get something that can do the job of a smartphone which is to be smart and capable. I will lastly not compromise myself or this creed just for a few extra new uber features.

This is my Smartphone resolution and prayer for now until I die. I will not compromise anymore.