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Terrible battery life, please help!

Hello I am new to this forum, I just got the Samsung galaxy s 4g this Wednesday and I was wondering if anyone else was having battery issues. Right now I have my phone set to minimum brightness, auto sync off, black bckground and juice defender on. So I don't understand why am I getting only about 3 hours of battery life when all I'm doing most of the time is surfing the web(this forum) and facebook. I even get better battery life from my dads vibrant which is completely stock, has auto sync on, no juice defender, and screen brightness set to 50%. From reading the stats of both phones, the vibrant 4g is supposed to have a slightly better battery. I also don't understand why if the screen is at the minimum it still takes up 94% of the battery whereas on my dads vibrant 50% screen brightness takes up 30%. Is there anything I can do? Will wiping the battery stats help? If so how do I do that from a stock unrooted vibrant?
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA App

Check your notifications settings. I know that Samsung's contacts integration with social networks takes a big toll on the battery, hence why I've disabled it. Also, disable T-Mobile's Contact Backup Sync, just use Google's contacts integration.

Thanks for helping, but yeah I have those disabled already.
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icy56 said:
Thanks for helping, but yeah I have those disabled already.
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No, I charged mine this morning at 630AM, and I have been playing with it all day. It is currently 610PM, and I am at 60% still. Seems pretty good to me.

troby1986 said:
No, I charged mine this morning at 630AM, and I have been playing with it all day. It is currently 610PM, and I am at 60% still. Seems pretty good to me.
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Wow thats much better than what I have been getting, have you changed any settings that might have increased the battery life for your phone?
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA App

Does the trick to fully discharge and recharge 3 times work with these batteries? According the the Li-on technology this is not supposed to be necessary but I've heard stories in the forums of folks getting great battery life on other phones after doing this. Many people also say their batteries work a lot better after a week of use (supposedly after "training" them as well.)
I believe the G2 is clocked down for this reason. You could try CPU-set app, clocking down to 500-800mhz when not gaming.
Anyone tried these tricks?

gggirlgeek said:
Does the trick to fully discharge and recharge 3 times work with these batteries? According the the Li-on technology this is not supposed to be necessary but I've heard stories in the forums of folks getting great battery life on other phones after doing this. Many people also say their batteries work a lot better after a week of use (supposedly after "training" them as well.)
I believe the G2 is clocked down for this reason. You could try CPU-set app, clocking down to 500-800mhz when not gaming.
Anyone tried these tricks?
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Click to collapse
Will ill try to cycle charge the vibrant and use it for a week, and ill try out cpu set. if this doesn't improve I'm definitely returning this phone. I had soo much expectation for this because I have seen people getting up to 24 hours. I can't even get halfway through the day barely using the phone.
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Thats weird... I unplugged at 9:30 used it moderately untill 12:30 at which time i turned brightness to max and watched the intire incpetion movie and watched an episode of kitchen nightmares and ended up at 56%.
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mavictb said:
Thats weird... I unplugged at 9:30 used it moderately untill 12:30 at which time i turned brightness to max and watched the intire incpetion movie and watched an episode of kitchen nightmares and ended up at 56%.
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA App
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Yeah there's gotta be something wrong with my phone, after watching halfway through inception from a full charge and at 0% brightness I had 30% battery left.
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I'm also struggling to make it through the day. I check Facebook / xda on occasion and text moderately, Gps off, notifications and auto sync off, display set to 0% with an all black background, even 3g off in areas where its spotty... I don't remember the vibrant being this bad...
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did you guys do a full battery break in? I charged my phone to 100% drained it till it died charged it to 100% again with the power off then drained till it died again... I have great battery life.

What is your usage like? Im breaking in my battery again today.
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rando191 said:
What is your usage like? Im breaking in my battery again today.
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Auto brightness on GPS on sync on 20 texts 30 min playing games 20 min on Facebook now on xda app for 15 min. And standby for 3 hours... currently at 80%. Also have hepatic feedback on the Mtm gingergread keyboard. If that matters.
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I got my replacement 4g today. Hopefully ill have better results. I have a question for those of you that are getting really good battery life, are you running juice defender or something similar in the background? Maybe that's a factor in why I've been getting terrible battery.
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Im having the same issue with battery life.. for me its a deal breaker.. I use my phone pretty heavily for keeping up with email and a little web browsing as well as talking quite a bit.. My iPhone 3Gs lasted me all day of heavy use and with the SGS4G I have to charge the damn thing at least once a day with light usage and if I have to be on the phone a lot then its twice a day.. Not acceptable at all...
Thats with wifi and gps disabled..
On the 3Gs I had wifi, bluetooth and the gps running all the damn time...

Took my phone off charge at 6:30 this morning haven't put it on charge yet at 88% never had this much juice with the nexus one.
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I'm not having any issues with battery life or heating. I use wifi teather most of the day and I'm getting to use it all day without issue. I did cycle my battery 4 times already just in case it matters. FYI

The batteries that our phone uses DOES NOT require u to cycle the battery. In fact, doing so will harm your battery. To avoid damage to your battery always charge ur phone when u r at <15% battery level. Trust me I thought the same until I did the research. I will post more info when I get on my PC later.
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**EDIT**
More information:
http://www.goodandevo.net/2010/06/does-the-htc-evo-4g-battery-need-to-be-primedconditioned.html
http://batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-36.htm

I just bought a Galaxy S 4G on wednesday. First android device coming from iphone 3G. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to preserve the battery life.
I took it off the charger at 6:30am and the battery was at about 2% at 8:30pm.
I haven't rooted the phone yet to remove some of the bloatware that comes pre-installed.
I've got email accounts synching, brightness set at about 10% w/ a static wallpaper. Played about an hour of angrybirds throughout the day and didn't really do any web browsing with a few phones calls. I mean 14 hours is decent but from what I've read there are plenty of people getting a full day of use and still have 50% battery left.
I guess once the battery fully charges I'll put inception on, turn off syncing and try a few other things.
So I guess I said all that to say this, my battery life isn't great but it's not downright horrible either. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
And yes I'll continue browsing all the forums to see what else I can find.
Edit:
Played through half of Inception in airplane mode, brightness at minimum. I dropped from 93% to 80% in an hour and a half. Not too shabby.
Also created a shortcut to toggle between 4G modes and Edge. I know 4G is going to be a pretty big drain so I'll see how much that helps.
I'll keep tweaking it.

this is completely true and if you read the manual on page 13- h t t p:// downloadcenter . samsung . com/content/UM/201102/20110224044646930/T959_Galaxy_S_4G_English_User_Manual.pdf it says that
"• Do not wait until your battery is completely depleted before charging
your device. Repeating this process of a complete discharge and
recharge can over time reduce the storage capacity of any battery."
right now my phone is at 23% battery level with up time of 46:46:40 hrs/mins/secs. with skype calling (around 10 minutes), text messaging, browsing the net (for around 5 minutes about 6 times a day), and talking on the phone (around 15 minutes)
the settings i did:
1. took a picture with my finger blocking the camera to get pitch black picture and set that as my background and deleted all the shortcut icons (i short, i only have a blank screen with the only 4 icons down below)
2. changed the brightness settings to 2 clicks to the right from 0% brightness (or you can lower your brightness all the way down during the night, and 2 clicks away during the day, this will save you more)
3. disabled haptic feedbacks and audible touchtones, selections, and screen lock sounds
4. disabled animations
5. disabled background data and syncing when not in use
6. disabled packet data (3g), wifi, and gps when not in use
the last two are the biggest settings that made my battery last longer.
7. i only charge my phone when it gets to 20% and the manual recommends not to use the phone while charging
i hope this helps.
and yes it is recommended to charge your battery to 100% before you turn on your phone for the first time and this is also stated on the manual.
one more thing, don't forget to set your browser's brightness setting as well
Toshinobu said:
The batteries that our phone uses DOES NOT require u to cycle the battery. In fact, doing so will harm your battery. To avoid damage to your battery always charge ur phone when u r at <15% battery level. Trust me I thought the same until I did the research. I will post more info when I get on my PC later.
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA App
**EDIT**
More information:
http://www.goodandevo.net/2010/06/does-the-htc-evo-4g-battery-need-to-be-primedconditioned.html
http://batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-36.htm
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Horrible battery life Verizon model

After 7 hours, I'm at 14%. Screen was on for 2 hours and I haven't been doing anything intensive (3d games or movies etc) just some web browsing. On automatic brightness. Are other people getting battery life this bad?

what about gps, nfc, app update intervals, there can be a lot going on in the background.

What is the top battery consumer under your battery usage?
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ptaros said:
What is the top battery consumer under your battery usage?
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Screen is, with 48%
Wifi is on, Bluetooth, NFC, and gps are off.

to be fair, my gf's verizon GS3 is ridiculously efficient. granted she was on wifi most of the day and doesn't use internet as much, but she was at 53% with 13 hours and 2 hours 14 min of screen time.
my att on the other hand, wifi off and on LTE, was at 53% with 6 hours and 2 hours of screen time.

dLo GSR said:
to be fair, my gf's verizon GS3 is ridiculously efficient. granted she was on wifi most of the day and doesn't use internet as much, but she was at 53% with 13 hours and 2 hours 14 min of screen time.
my att on the other hand, wifi off and on LTE, was at 53% with 6 hours and 2 hours of screen time.
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But both of those are higher than 15% after 7 hours with 2 hours of screen time

OlympusGod said:
Screen is, with 48%
Wifi is on, Bluetooth, NFC, and gps are off.
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How is the LTE signal in your area, if its not strong and swapping back and forth from 3g to LTE all day it can take a huge toll on your battery.

Try it without wifi and 4g. ONLY use 3g. I have a theory...
Sent from my Galaxy S3

Forgetfull said:
Try it without wifi and 4g. ONLY use 3g. I have a theory...
Sent from my Galaxy S3
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I'll do that tomorrow and get back to you

Mine seems to be doing great. The signal isn't that great in my house either. This is more real time use as I was asleep for a while. But when I woke up at 10am this morning it was at 92. I've been using it moderately ever since. I get about 8 hours with ridiculous use(4+hr screen on time).
Never on wifi.
Edit: I realize its kind of a bad example since it was in standby more than awake. But I'm getting great battery.

Screenshots
Screenshots for those of you wondering

I had the same problem as you did. What made a significant change for me was changing amount of apps to keep running at 4 instead of default. Also I found the xda app runs in the background, continues to drain the battery. I have to manually kill the xda app every time I exit it. For today I'm at 12 hour running, and screen on 1.5hrs and 59 percent battery life.
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OlympusGod said:
But both of those are higher than 15% after 7 hours with 2 hours of screen time
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right, and im saying my gf's VERIZON model spanked mine.

Give the battery sometime.

I've been getting worse battery on wifi than 4g for some reason. I also noticed my idle power usage is around 115mA, where on my thunderbolt it was around 20mA

arkard1 said:
I had the same problem as you did. What made a significant change for me was changing amount of apps to keep running at 4 instead of default. Also I found the xda app runs in the background, continues to drain the battery. I have to manually kill the xda app every time I exit it. For today I'm at 12 hour running, and screen on 1.5hrs and 59 percent battery life.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app
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Ditto on the xda app, it was burning up cpu cycles while in the background, enough to make my phone warm. So I just close it every time I'm done using it.
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I have gps, wifi, data, and sync on still netting 27-30hrs battery life. The key is rooting and debloating....

d1ez3 said:
I've been getting worse battery on wifi than 4g for some reason. I also noticed my idle power usage is around 115mA, where on my thunderbolt it was around 20mA
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Woh how are you getting your current draw? The apps that I've tried won't support the s3.
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I have the Verizon model of the S3 as well. I have had it for over a week now because I was an early pre-order so I got it really early. For the first few days I was getting really bad battery life. I would maybe only get 8 - 9 hours with moderate usage, that being about 2 hours of screen time. I would play no games, and just browse the web and text. I am a big texter though, but on my DINC as long as I had mobile data switched off I could get plenty of life out of my phone. With this phone for some reason after about 70 percent, mine will start to drain much faster regardless of what I am using it for, even if the screen is is off. Just to test it I left all the radios on while the phone was at 100 percent over night, and the next morning it was at 96. The next day I tried the same test when my phone was at 50 percent battery, and when I woke up it was at 10 . I don't really understand what is going on here either. I keep seeing all of the reviews for the device even the Verizon version to point towards great battery life, but I am just not seeing it. Maybe rooting and a re-flashing the stock rom plus removing bloatware will help. I also got another battery just to see if that was the problem, but it doesn't seem to be. I'm hoping this is just a software issue, because I don't know why some can get such great battery and some can't. I would also hate to have to get a replacement phone.

im getting around 10 hours with Heavy use ... 6 hours of pandora, youtube, email, facebook, twitter, web
On day 6 with the phone

Is it time for a new battery?

Ive been contemplating the fact that my terrible battery life is my battery... Ive been playing with kernels and roms and i found a setup i like..... Battery life is still crap... I know this device doesnt have excellent battery but i can hardly squeeze 4 hours on moderate use....
Sent from my Nexus S 4G using xda premium

Yeah - unless you are streaming video, audio, in a no-service zone and have your brightness set to max... that's a horrible battery life. Get a new one.

Change your battery. I also playied on my ex phone with roms and kernels, but after charging battery after 20 mins of charging always went 20% lower and handeled 3h of moderate use.

Yea i wasnt sure because i got the battery less than a year ago. Thank
Sent from my Nexus S 4G using xda premium

The first graph shows nearly 100% awake and 100% screen on. Were you playing a game? 2 hours of intense gaming will bring nearly any battery to its knees...

polobunny said:
The first graph shows nearly 100% awake and 100% screen on. Were you playing a game? 2 hours of intense gaming will bring nearly any battery to its knees...
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No i watched like 4 5 min youtube videos and was texting and picture messaging the rest of the time.... But besides that nothing heavy like gaming....
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mcluvin1065 said:
No i watched like 4 5 min youtube videos and was texting and picture messaging the rest of the time.... But besides that nothing heavy like gaming....
Sent from my Nexus S 4G using xda premium
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Have you tried just basic stock kernal and ROM? Also set the brightness to auto so it saves you battery life if you're going to be using it for texting a lot and YouTube. Another thing would be let the phone die it all the way to 0% and then fully charge it til it's 100% or until it says Charged. If you keep charging it form 25% for example and then take it out at 78% and start using it again, the battery life will slowly decrease. It ruins the battery that way.
Regards,
Bomboholic

My battery is close to 2 years old as well, it will only last 2 hours if I on the screen and data.

Get yourself an Anker battery.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

Does gsm really make that much of a difference in battery life?

I have been looking at this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1725921 and see all these people with att gs3's getting all this awesome screen time of over 5hours. Some go into the 7s!!! I can barely get 4 my record is 4:52 and I have never been able to duplicate it. I have sync turned off, power save, debloated, you name it. I know CDMA eats more battery but to give them a 25% better battery is normal?
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I get 5-7 hours all the time so no I don't think it makes that much of a difference. Then again I am connected to WiFi quite often.
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I think lte is the major battery killer if you have it in your area.
I got what was probably my best battery life so far yesterday I had 30% left with 4:15 screen time including time spent watching streaming videos, listening to a couple podcasts, and playing like fifteen minutes worth of games. This was using Wi-Fi with Bluetooth and GPS turned off.
Also I think the auto brightness kills battery life too. I have the brightness slider in the notification bar and tweak it to match current lighting conditions. In dark rooms the auto setting seems too bright.
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Last charge cycle I went 26hrs w/4hrs 52min screen on...LTE was on the entire time. I agree leaving the device on wifi might gain another hour of sot, especially those in fringe coverage areas.

cell128 said:
I have been looking at this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1725921 and see all these people with att gs3's getting all this awesome screen time of over 5hours. Some go into the 7s!!! I can barely get 4 my record is 4:52 and I have never been able to duplicate it. I have sync turned off, power save, debloated, you name it. I know CDMA eats more battery but to give them a 25% better battery is normal?
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I don't know. There might be something to it. I have the Galaxy S3 on T-Mobile and I am amazed at the battery life. In fact that ability was one of the things I told my sister who got the Galaxy S3 on Verizon and her battery life sucks compared to mine. I checked her power settings and they are the same as mine. I am by far the more "POWER USER" type. Mine is stock - got the Jelly Bean update two weeks ago and have noticed no difference in the battery life with the OS update.
The only difference is when I am home, it live off of WiFi. I have good WiFi in my house. She doesnt have WiFi but VZ's cell network as we all know is much bigger. She has more bars then me.
She thinks it might be a bad battery and is planning on taking it to the VZW store and getting it swapped out. I doubt that is the issue. I was with VXZ before had the Original Droid and HTC and Samsung phones. Last was the EVO 4G and with that puppy it was....
Wake up (phone plugged into AC adapter) go to the car and right away plug it into the car charger for the drive to work once in the office plug the USB into the office PC. And do the reverse going home. If I was in a situation like in a Doc's office or at the Mall or restarunt.....I would be @ or below 50% within an hour.
My Galaxy S3 lasts all day with ease even on days where I am out and about and not @ my home's WiFi

droidstyle said:
Last charge cycle I went 26hrs w/4hrs 52min screen on...LTE was on the entire time. I agree leaving the device on wifi might gain another hour of sot, especially those in fringe coverage areas.
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I usually get 5-6screen time
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I usually get an average of 4/5 hours of screen time.
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Battery Life Thread

Just going to start this by putting up these screen shots. After the first charge to%100. Watching Star Trek TNG on Amazon video. Listening through headphones, over WiFi. Sync on half the time.
Got the phone yesterday afternoon and am loving it!
Honorable mention:
Even after updates my G4 often had weird screen issues while typing. Especially while swyping. None here

Not the greatest battery I have seen android do. Given its lg and 3000 I will forgive it lol. With 1hr music 1.5hr Skype call and mild gaming. For some reason having an sd card again is making me download music and listen to them [emoji23]
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mgbotoe said:
Not the greatest battery I have seen android do. Given its lg and 3000 I will forgive it lol. With 1hr music 1.5hr Skype call and mild gaming. For some reason having an ad card again is making me download music and listen to them [emoji23]
Sent from my LG-H901 using Tapatalk
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Tell me about it. Add to that the extra battery promotion and that 200gb sd card and my forgiveness seems to grow a bit more! Lol
Not too shabby, though, methinks.
SideNote :
I wonder why it's so much smoother than the G4. I mean days ahead. That extra gig of ram make the difference? Who knows

I had gps running four 5 plus hours. Out in an area that had very little internet. Phone was trying to connect for several hours. And still got 5 hours screen on. This is doing almost a good a my note 2 with the mugen extended battery. Not quite. But close enough

psycho1 said:
I had gps running four 5 plus hours. Out in an area that had very little internet. Phone was trying to connect for several hours. And still got 5 hours screen on. This is doing almost a good a my note 2 with the mugen extended battery. Not quite. But close enough
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Click to collapse
Damn, whats your setting? Did you charge in between? o.o

Awesome so far... My G3 is not there and it's tempermental. I would hope that one battery is enough to last a whole day, but with the promotion AT&T is doing, it won't be long until the second battery is in my hands and it won't matter at all. I do love that! So far the shots look great, and as most people get their devices settled in it will really show it's true colors... For the second day that's pretty good in my book. SoT over 4 is aces these days with all these screens coming in at over 5...

On second charge.

psycho1 said:
I had gps running four 5 plus hours. Out in an area that had very little internet. Phone was trying to connect for several hours. And still got 5 hours screen on. This is doing almost a good a my note 2 with the mugen extended battery. Not quite. But close enough
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Ya! That's some sweet battery life.... I am really appreciating this v10.
CoNsPiRiSiZe said:
Awesome so far... My G3 is not there and it's tempermental. I would hope that one battery is enough to last a whole day, but with the promotion AT&T is doing, it won't be long until the second battery is in my hands and it won't matter at all. I do love that! So far the shots look great, and as most people get their devices settled in it will really show it's true colors... For the second day that's pretty good in my book. SoT over 4 is aces these days with all these screens coming in at over 5...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The promotion is what made me not care. $175 worth of kit?! Yes please! But now having it and getting over 4 hours SOT, I'm very satisfied. Also, you hit the nail on the head. TWO screens, six inches of it, and over 4 HOURS SOT.... I'll take it!

If you look at the notes five forums you will see that to begin with everyone was complaining about battery life, however after short time everybody calmed down after the battery settled down. Has been the same with every device I have ever owned. Battery life takes a few days to reach efficiency.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using XDA Free mobile app

Only seeing really is screen see to auto brightness . other than that I'm just using the phone. Nothing special.

I'm getting about 4 hours with Waze, screen at around 20-30 brightness, sync and data on. Standby time is awesome. On my first charge for example, I got 4 hours minimal use from 8%!! That was on wifi though and since it was first charge, it's not very objective info.

My phone is not going into deep sleep worth a damn. It almost seems like it is Bluetooth related (I leave BT on 24/7 - haven't had a problem in previous devices). Once I shut off BT, it seems to be sleeping, but I need to test it more. The phone isn't connected to anything. I just leave BT idling for when I get into my car basically... don't like having to turn it on/off, just like WiFi. Battery stats are showing that Android System is what is staying awake though, and not BT. Anyone else having a problem like this?

I get just ok battery life. Seems better than my G4(which I only had for 5 days. Still my Nexus 6 and old Note 5 seemed to be a lot better

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Battery life is horrible.
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ekerbuddyeker said:
If you look at the notes five forums you will see that to begin with everyone was complaining about battery life, however after short time everybody calmed down after the battery settled down. Has been the same with every device I have ever owned. Battery life takes a few days to reach efficiency.
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Click to collapse
This was because of a couple of updates that settled things down a bit...
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alhadee12 said:
Battery life is horrible.
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Click to collapse
Yesterday ended pretty decent.
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bkeaver said:
Yesterday ended pretty decent. View attachment 3527794View attachment 3527795
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Thanks, I'll see how it goes the next few days. What updates did you receive?
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I haven't received any on my v10, I was comment8by about what he said about the note 5 forum.
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Here is my results