Hi All,
I got my Sensation 4G from T-Mobile US last week, and generally loving it. Beautiful form factor, great performance etc. However, I'm quite underwhelmed with both the battery life, and surprised and a little concerned with how hot the phone seems to get.
Regarding the battery, I've done a few full discharge-full recharge cycles, and what I find is that in idle, the battery seems very good. In fact it will stay at 100% for quite a while, but, when using it, the battery will visually decrease, losing charge every few minutes. This is with web browsing, twitter, facebook etc. The concerning thing is that when the battery goes down, it will frequently do a sharp 2-3% drop, instead of a 1% drop. I'm not sure if there are issues with the battery monitoring on this phone or not. If I leave the phone on idle, even for several hours, the battery will drop only a very few percent, which is great, but whilst using, half an hour or so will drop the battery by 10-15% or more. That's with the screen turned down to 25%, and sometimes 11%.
Does that more or less fit in line with everyone else's experiences?
About heat, on idle, the phone will generall maintain a temperature between 80-90F (26.6-32.2C) and feels almost completely cool. Same on charging, it barely noticeably warms up. However, when using, after maybe 10-15mins of web browsing, twitter etc, the phone will have reached temperatures of 105-110F or more (40.5-43.3C). The highest I saw it shoot to was 112F (44.4C). When at these temperatures, the phone is almost uncomfortable to hold. Not burning or dangerous, by any stretch of the imagination, but a little unpleasant. The heat is concentrated around the bottom of the phone - largely on the metal bottom back segment and base, but also the front of the screen - the capacitive buttons and the bottom of the screen.
I used it as a GPS navigator the other day for about 40 minutes in the car. Admittedly it was a sunny day, but by the end, the phone was displaying a temperature of 123F (50.5C) and showing an overheat warning. In addition, despite the fact I had it on a car charger, it had actually lost about 3% of battery.
To clarify, all the battery percentage and temperature readings I've quoted have come from the apps "batteryminder" and "battery life" - both with free versions on the marketplace.
I'm still within buyer's remorse period, so debating on whether to take it to the T-Mobile store and request a replacement unit, or, if this is normal and expected behaviour, then I have a decision to make about whether I want to keep this phone, or return it. Incidentally, I did take it to the T-Mobile store and got a replacement battery, to try that first, but it has so far made no difference.
So, I'd appreciate you folks' opinions and experience. Does what I've described seem like normal behaviour for this phone, or might I have a defective unit?
Thanks in advance for your help!
Craig
Do you have the screen on automatic brightness? Having the screen on for long periods at 100% will heat up the phone. Charging the battery and running CPU intensive tasks like navigation will obviously do that too. Add in some sunlight and this all adds up to a lot of heat in a very confined space.
Heat is a huge enemy of batteries and electronics. I'm not surprised you actually lost battery.
Moral: try to keep it cool.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App
Hey, thanks for your reply! Generally, I keep the screen brightness down at 11% or 25%. Those are the times when, after some use, I'll see the temps of 105-110F
The time I used navigation, it was up at 100% (or else I wouldn't have seen it, in the sunlight). I had an HTC Thunderbolt which, when I used it for navigation, with screen up at 100%, would also get pretty hot, although it wouldnt lose battery whilst on the car charger.
Where do you live? Ambient temperature may have something to do with it. I live in San Diego and I've seen mine get to 44° inside the house.
50°C is too hot though. Keep it out of the sun and if it continues to get that hot get a replacement.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA App
I'm in the Chicago suburbs and, yeah, it's been pretty hot and humid here recently. Also, my apartment doesnt have too great air conditioning - generally, when the phone is hot, I am too! I noticed the other day, at work, it was a noticeable few degrees cooler than it would get at home. Work has great AC. In addition, in the car, the day it got REALLY hot - it was an extremely hot day, and the car was like an oven anyway.
What you say certainly makes a lot of sense. I actually ran a test with the Thunderbolt last night, and found it would get up to 105F (40.5C) after a lot of browsing in the house. The sensation was maybe 5 or 6F higher than that - which is explainable by the dual-core and metal body. The metal body also being the reason the Sensation FEELS hotter.
Seems that the day-to-day general heat of the Sensation I experience may not be out of the ordinary. I am concerned about the overheating and battery loss when I used it for navigation though.
When i used my N1 for nav on its dock and charging for about 30 Mins (during fall, limited sun) the phone would get super hot as well. I checked the temp and it was around 47C. I have yet to test this on my sensation but i would imagine it being similar due to the similar materials.
In regards to battery temp on normal usage on the sensation I get as high as 38C while playing games, I haven't seen it go past 38C though. On idle it is about 26C, and ramps up to about 33C when I use the phone and not playing games. Compared to my Atrix which runs just as hot at 38C, being largely made of plastic, it actually FEELS hotter in the hand compared to the sensation, I don't think I will ever go back to a plastic phone due to this.
Sent from my MZ604 using XDA Premium App
Mine gets to around 45C during Angrybirds play and the ambient temperature is around 25. I don't think this should be a problem since the battery is new and may be it gets hotter during the first few charges/discharges. Furthermore the aluminum body helps to disperse the heat better.
Thanks for the replies! I think its looking like my experiences are not a problem, and the heat is not out of the ordinary.
Regarding my GPS experience, I tested this evening whilst driving home from work (a 20 minute drive). I used navigation on both the thunderbolt and the sensation to guide me home, and put both phones on the dashboard, in bright sunshine. By the time I got home, the sensation was reading 132F overheat, and the thunderbolt not much lower - 125F, overheat. Sensation felt hotter in the hand (not hot enough to burn though) than the thunderbolt - due to the metal backing I'm sure. Thunderbolt felt pretty darn hot though!
The really interesting thing was, once I got inside the house, the sensation cooled down WAY faster than the thunderbolt. I think the comment above about the metal casing dissipating heat better was right on the money.
I'm more and more edging towards keeping the sensation!
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA Premium App
ya camp i have the same phone as you and the battery ranges from about 8-14 hours with moderate use for me. if i'm using it a lot though i can get it to 0 in about 4-5 hours-before root anyway. so i believe yours is acting normal
Related
So, I've had my phone in my pocket for the last 30 minutes or so while listening to a podcast (not streamed, one that was downloaded) and I pulled the phone out and it was fairly warm. Nothing else going on with the phone besides the gmail sync, no downloads, no wifi, nada.
Anyone else seeing this as well, or do I potentially have a bad battery?
Mine gets a bit warm during charging, but not during usage i've experienced yet - but I haven't done heavy 4G data yet, only wifi and light 4G
Though to see it with no data usage is somewhat weirder.
I noticed with some heavy usage mine gets warm
um, your leg is typically warmer than your hand.
I notice my phones are usually warmer right out of my pocket.
or maybe i just have hot pants. BA DUM, CHING!
Mine gets warm as well with usage.
yes, when using my charger it heats up and after playing select games it heats up. Farm,city, and bakery story all make my phone heat up.
never when i'm not on the charger no matter if i am on wifi or 4g though.
I had the Zagg invisishield on mine melt and bubble last week while using GPS navigation for a few hours.
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA Premium App
I noticed the exact same thing today. I had flashed das BAMF 3.0 RC2 the night before, followed by the newest dream kernel 2.2.2, and noticed battery was diminishing very quickly (could just be coincidence - not saying it had anything to do with ROM or kernel). Then I noticed the battery was getting very warm - something that has never happened to me, even with heavy duty use.
No idea what it was, but I ran out of battery pretty quick and just turned the phone off. Flashed imo's lean kernel when I got home to see if I could save battery.
I've definitely noticed when it's warm, the battery drains extremely fast. I'm surprised how hot it can get...using extended 2750 battery.
Thunderbolt definitely has a heat issue. My phone overheats when used in official ThunderBolt Window Mount for navigation. I have Tasker produce a voice alert when this happens. This makes ThunderBolt pretty much unusable for any long distance navigation, something my old Treo did well. It is probably combination of charging and rather mild San Francisco sun shining on the phone. Anyone from Texas had their phone explode yet?
What's odd is that when I'm on 4G at my office, and put my phone on the charger, there's no issue. When I'm on wifi at home and I charge my phone gets very warm; so bad in fact, that I get an inevitable reboot from overtemp. I'm having trouble diagnosing what could be causing this issue.
This is on a stock unrooted phone with MR2.
sfctac said:
Anyone from Texas had their phone explode yet?
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i was in Texas when my original droid got up to 170 degrees. i was sleeping with pandora playing, so it was probably that hot for several hours.. it bricked 3 seconds after unlocking it. no explosion or anything it just burned the **** out of my hand.
soooo happy i have the tbolt now!!!!!
This is odd but my Sensation is perfect from a hardware perspective right now (no guarantees on dust under screen in the future!) but for some reason the bottom area where the capacitive buttons are and the backside in the same area gets pretty warm/hot at times. Strangely no other area of the phone gets warm and the battery remains pretty cool. Also the phone doesn't exhibit any weird behavior or instability. I haven't had a single reboot or crash with this phone and I've been pushing it quite a bit.
So my conclusion is this heat is normal and how it's meant to be. Am I right?
I have the same occurrences with my phone. Great performance- I have YET to have it freeze/lag up bad or reboot.. and that is just amazing. Like I said in the other thread, the back of my phone will get warm, but never hot. I do think its normal, because it only happens after I have been using it constantly for 20+ minutes. (Still frightens me though)
I don't know about the bottom area but my screen gets pretty warm while charging and I am using it to play games or whatever but for normal use I never noticed anything else getting warm.
Sent this sensational message for my sensation
Just as a theory, the bottom there could be the location of the CPU.. I have yet to know or see a dissection of the device but i think maybe either CPU or memory is there.
CPU, cell radio, and charging/discharging circuitry is down there. The screen getting warm is just heat passing through from the before-mentioned stuff. Pretty typical from a beefy phone like ours. Good stuff!!
My phone gets noticeably warm too, especially when transferring a lot of data.
Mine gets warm when charging it at the same time I'm playing a game. My G2X is the same exact way. I really could give two ****s less how hot it gets. These processors were made to burn and if they burn up. Get a replacement.
Amen brother!
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G using XDA Premium App
This happens to me too. It gets really hot when I'm charging it and doing something CPU-intensive.
all my touchscreen phones back to SPV's have got warm when in use for a while, so I wouldn't think this is an issue.
I think the reason why it gets warmer than other phones is due to the aluminum case. Aluminum is a great heat conductor, and the way I see it it's a good thing in this case. I'd rather have the heat spread to the outside of the phone, vs having all of those internal components burning up. With plastic shell phones, the heat builds up internally with nowhere to go. Hooray for heat.
If im charging and playing games for many hours, it gets a tad warm. A far cry from my other phones and unlike my iphone, the sensation does not lock up when. warm
I have same issue.I just buy sensation from tmobile store in full price and one day later I found when I am using phone for more than 10 mins the phone getting very very warm (hot) on the bottom of phone even more hot than hd 7
it is normal or not?? if not normal what can I do? can I call tmobile to exchange ?or htc ?
I think it's normal for our phone. and to be honest i'm sacred of using the phone for a long time either for gaming or web surfing it. well i just wonder would there be any water cooling solution for our phone like the one the pc. hahaha
Yes heat is normal. The CPU is in the bottom front of the phone. So that's where it gets hot. Heavy surfing and gaming will make for lots of heat.
For liquid cooling, place in ziplock and use under water
Sent from my Bricked Energy ROM Sensation.
Hey guys,
This last week has been absolutely brutal in the northeast us. We've had high 90s pretty much everyday. [Especially in the car] my g2x has been suffering from "random reboots" running fauxs 1.2.8 and kernel 0.3.2. It was a new phenomenon, I thought it was the DS kernel I had rather than CM7, but all that did was affect battery life.
I finally was using my device when it decided to "turn off" and the screen just kept turning off ( less and less time being on, fractions of seconds.) Then it just stays off and the battery temp reads 100+° at turn offs.
It requires a battery pull to turn back on ( and I guess turn off) but the heat doesn't seem to come from the battery, but behind the camera, im thinking processor.
Could it be from the OC/UV kernel. I had on? It's on standard now.
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App
OC'ing can easily overheat/fry the processor (hence why there's always large warnings around it), especially if the kernel hits a race condition or similar.
The phones are passively cooled. and the radios in the phone heat up the phone when used heavily. I have not had anyphone that didnt get extrememly hot while it is using the radio when its in above 80 degrees ambient temperature and overclocking would just add to this. luckily most have a feature ot turn off the phone at a certain temp to protect the hardware. But I dont think this is a specific g2x problme my old droid does the same thing.
I took mine to a pool in Vegas. It was probably about 90 degrees. I had it under my lounge chair shaded listening to music. It had a heat stroke after about an hour.
I understand why/how overheating can be caused by oc but honestly if its not running at stock (or benchmarking) I have it set to 800mhz by default- its still fast as hell. It hasn't overheated in the last few days, but the problem was that even if I don't use it, it'll overheat.
I use juice defender to keep my radio off when the screens off, so I can't even lay blame to that.
I haven't really dove into undervolting, but in theory wouldn't lower voltage equate to less residual heating?
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App
mine does this running stock. Mostly when I have the charger plugged in and am still doing something. It will be taking a charge but the batery level will still slowly fall, once it gets below a certain point it gets really hot behind the camera and the screen starts locking and unlocking. faster and faster until you finally have to pull the battery and let it cool down a while.
YES!!!! I have 2 G2x that do this, and a guy at work has one. All stock phones, and can be doing NOTHING - gets hot near the camera lens, and LOCKS!!!! Have to pull the battery. I pull the battery for 1 second, re-install, and G2x works fine. I know of 3 G2x, and all do this. I can't believe I don't see more of this on this forum. T-Mobile has a "discussion number" on this: 265747. LG claims ignorance. I'd love to know how to "fix" this. I'd also like to know if GB fixes this.
The occasional re-boots are live-able - this lock up is NOT.
namklak said:
YES!!!! I have 2 G2x that do this, and a guy at work has one. All stock phones, and can be doing NOTHING - gets hot near the camera lens, and LOCKS!!!! Have to pull the battery. I pull the battery for 1 second, re-install, and G2x works fine. I know of 3 G2x, and all do this. I can't believe I don't see more of this on this forum. T-Mobile has a "discussion number" on this: 265747. LG claims ignorance. I'd love to know how to "fix" this. I'd also like to know if GB fixes this.
The occasional re-boots are live-able - this lock up is NOT.
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I can verify this is an issue with my phone as well! It was happening all the damn time in both stock Froyo and EaglesBlood Froyo, but as soon as I went to CyanogenMod 7 RC1, I haven't had it happen once.
And to those of you who haven't had this happen, it's like the Sleep of Death + your phone gets REALLY hot by the camera lens and it keeps draining the battery and putting out TONS of heat until you do a battery pull. It brought my battery from 100% to 25% in like 30 minutes of doing this.
But CM7 seemed to solve the issue. No more SOD+heat!
This problem has been driving me absolutely insane. My wife and I both got g2x's at the dame time (new from tmobile), and hers rarely does this, while mine does it continually. I was wondering if it was related to the case we have - but we both have the same case - the speck one sold at tmobile.
My wife and I both have the little rubber buggy baby bumper condom case thing that does cover the back - that would reduce heat dissipation. I often carry mine in a belt case that came with the phone from CostCo - she almost never uses that case.
Hi everyone,
I'm about a week-long user of the M8 so far, and I'm loving it. I've been a fairly long time HTC user as well - I started with the Ozone, then fell back to a feature phone until I picked up the Incredible 2, which lasted for a long time.
At any rate, I'm no stranger to hot phones, literally. During my commute back and forth to work, I would use my Inc. 2 to record the drive with Dailyroads Voyager, while simultaneously monitoring road conditions with Waze. My good old Inc. 2 would power through those tasks like a boss, while at the same time burning up, and usually unable to pull enough power from the car USB charger. The only way to keep my phone stable was by running my car's defroster to blow cold air over the phone.
Now that I'm up to date hardware-wise, the M8 is no exception in the power house category. It can even keep charging while it's doing these things, although it does still get pretty warm. It's currently in a protective case which seems to dissipate the heat pretty well.
My question is, how warm do you guys let your M8 get? (Note: I'm rooted, but still running stock with no sort of overclocking involved.)
The only time I've ever had heat issues was when I mounted the phone to use as gps. And this was under direct 90 degree heat. Other than that, I've had no problems with heat whatsoever, even on prolonged lte usage and video watching.
My experience might be isolated though. I'd say, if your phone is uncomfortably hot to touch, you should probably ease up on it to be safe.
ReyStunner said:
The only time I've ever had heat issues was when I mounted the phone to use as gps. And this was under direct 90 degree heat. Other than that, I've had no problems with heat whatsoever, even on prolonged lte usage and video watching.
My experience might be isolated though. I'd say, if your phone is uncomfortably hot to touch, you should probably ease up on it to be safe.
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Yeah, always with the GPS navigation it seems. I wonder if this is something that can be fixed software wise (I.E filling a bug report to Waze/DRV), or if it's more on HTC's end for software/hardware...
I would assume it was just the metal body absorbing direct sunlight but I might be wrong. My HTC rezound used to double as a portable heater the way it used to get hot with extended usage. This one doesn't seem to be like that though.
Usually only heats when running tether for a period.
tgp1994 said:
Hi everyone,
I'm about a week-long user of the M8 so far, and I'm loving it. I've been a fairly long time HTC user as well - I started with the Ozone, then fell back to a feature phone until I picked up the Incredible 2, which lasted for a long time.
At any rate, I'm no stranger to hot phones, literally. During my commute back and forth to work, I would use my Inc. 2 to record the drive with Dailyroads Voyager, while simultaneously monitoring road conditions with Waze. My good old Inc. 2 would power through those tasks like a boss, while at the same time burning up, and usually unable to pull enough power from the car USB charger. The only way to keep my phone stable was by running my car's defroster to blow cold air over the phone.
Now that I'm up to date hardware-wise, the M8 is no exception in the power house category. It can even keep charging while it's doing these things, although it does still get pretty warm. It's currently in a protective case which seems to dissipate the heat pretty well.
My question is, how warm do you guys let your M8 get? (Note: I'm rooted, but still running stock with no sort of overclocking involved.)
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davidmatt34 said:
Usually only heats when running tether for a period.
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That's been my experience from the Inc 2, as well. So it seems like the mobile radio may generate quite a bit of heat...
I recently accidentally let my M8 get too hot while listening to music with it laying in direct sunlight face up. Didn't think about the black screen absorbing so much heat, got so hot it went into safety shut-off. It was almost too hot to touch, but after a couple minutes off it was relatively cool and turned back on fine with no problems or battery issue.
Low 40s Celsius is when I start to get uncomfortable. It's still safe, I just simply don't like it that warm. I get mad when my OC'd Intel cpu hits 60c even though 75+ is fine. I'm just anal about temps I guess
Sent from my HTC6525LVW using Tapatalk
As hot as it wants, it'll turn off by itself if it ever reaches critical temperatures
Sent from my HTC6525LVW using XDA Free mobile app
My Car mount clips onto the AC vents so my phone is always cool (I block some of the air through. Too cold isn't good either(
Sent from my HTC6525LVW using Tapatalk
I agree that the only time (and it was only once) my unit got hot was while I was using it in its car mount and GPS was on. Otherwise I have seen none of the heart issues that plagued my Rezound and my Incredible.
My name's Harold and I'm a flashaholic....
I usually put it in preheated to 400 degrees and flip halfway through at 10 minutes.
Suits my needs.
Sent from my HTC6525LVW
I like to burn things
But really though, I keep her around 451°F
Sent from my HTC6525LVW using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
If you're rooted, install XPosed and than install "CPU Temp in StatusBar" to keep really good track of the temps. Mine doesn't ever get over 110F, even under hard WiFi and streaming use. I've never used it for GPS in the car. At idle, it sits under 80F.
RikRong said:
If you're rooted, install XPosed and than install "CPU Temp in StatusBar" to keep really good track of the temps. Mine doesn't ever get over 110F, even under hard WiFi and streaming use. I've never used it for GPS in the car. At idle, it sits under 80F.
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Thank you, I've been looking for a CoreTemp-like feature for my phone. I'll give this a try!
I've been hammering on my new m8 (swapping roms, installing massive amounts of apps, running tests, playing games ) for over a day and the phone has never gotten beyond lukewarm. Nothing close to what my m7 used to do
I never look at the temp. It will auto throttle if it gets too hot anyway. Just use the phone how you want and don't worry about it...
Well, I gave the temp monitoring thing a try (very cool!) and I don't think my phone ever passed 65 degrees Celsius, which I guess is ok. So no worries it seems!
That's a hundred and forty nine degrees F. Lol you need more ac.
Sent from my HTC6525LVW using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Rushing said:
That's a hundred and forty nine degrees F. Lol you need more ac.
Sent from my HTC6525LVW using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
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I think I'm still doing better than your 451 degrees
I have received my P6a yesterday..
And I can feel device getting warm with normal use like WhatsApp, Phone call & Instagram...
Can feel device getting warm even when I'm using Wi-Fi..
It starts heating(because it's more than just warm) when charging...
Any fix or suggestion is welcomed..
CYB3R0ID694 said:
I have received my P6a yesterday..
And I can feel device getting warm with normal use like WhatsApp, Phone call & Instagram...
Can feel device getting warm even when I'm using Wi-Fi..
It starts heating(because it's more than just warm) when charging...
Any fix or suggestion is welcomed..
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When my Pixel 4 XL overheated, it was usually because I was charging and playing games on it at the same time. If it gets hot, then I would reboot it or leave it powered off for a minute. Could that be the case here?
Also, this is a new phone and you just installed a bunch of apps. My guess is that Android is likely evaluating and learning your habits so that it can optimize your battery and other stuff -- so there's alot of internal processing going on causing it to warm up.
Also, if you live in a city where the weather is warm or hot, then that'll make your phone warm or hot as well. So far, my 6a hasn't stayed warm very long except when I was transferring over/installing all my apps ... and it hasn't gotten hot yet.
The phone does get very warm, but it is also the middle of summer and we just set everything up. Tensor is also known for running on the toasty side. Unless your phone is warning you about excessive heat, it is within normal parameters.
it runs definitely warmer than a pixel 4 doing the same stuff.
I have sensor genius installed so it's logging temp 24/7. please do the same and let's share the graphs.
Mine is running substantially cooler using LTE rather than 5g, hopefully this is fixed through software updates.
I also put mine in LTE mode and it's much cooler. 5G is a bit overkill for mobile stuff at least for me, I just turn it on when using hotspot.
Ok, finally experienced the heating issue just doing normal browsing on LTE. Battery temp got up to around 43c on a cool day with no sunlight.
After some searching I found that turning off adaptive connectivity helps. After turning that off, temps are much better. I was in an area with poor signal so that likely was a part of it, but something else to try.
ctfrommn said:
Ok, finally experienced the heating issue just doing normal browsing on LTE. Battery temp got up to around 43c on a cool day with no sunlight.
After some searching I found that turning off adaptive connectivity helps. After turning that off, temps are much better. I was in an area with poor signal so that likely was a part of it, but something else to try.
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Another option to try is Disable Adaptive Battery, Disable 5G(If not necessary)..
I wouldn't worry too much. I absolutely assassinated my Pixel 3a XL. It was always hot. For couple of years. Huge amounts of onscreen time. Leaving it under blankets while charging on accident etc etc... Thing was fine. Also, a battery is only $12 and these pixels the easiest phones to open if you do somehow end up with severely reduced battery life couple years down the road
It's more the insane battery drain that goes along with the heat then the heat itself.
May be a CPU usage app that tracks what's taking up so much processor power.
My issue went away once I turned off adaptive connectivity.
ctfrommn said:
My issue went away once I turned off adaptive connectivity.
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Same. As in my country there is no 5G yet, I've changed to LTE preferred and phone is not hot anymore and battery doesn't drain.
It'd maybe gimp the overall performance some but u could try under-clocking your CPUs with FKM or EXKM while u track down the issue. (that is, if your bootloader is unlocked...in which case u could use BBS to track battery usage)