Galaxy Note 8 Battery Life

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TheNeighbor101

Senior Member
Jan 25, 2013
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After 2 weeks of using the 3G version of the Note 8 (GT-N5100), I could say a full battery charge gives me at least 7 hours of actual screen time for a 16-hour stretch for the day, using it for light to medium apps and social network sites. I also do drawing using Adobe Photoshop Touch, Autodesk Sketchbook Ink and Sketchbook Pro.

This is my first tablet as I think its compact size and weight is more ideal than the heavier Note 10.1. I simply love digital drawing with the Note 8. I'm coming from a Note II and the bigger screen just gives me more area for line strokes.

7 hours of actual screen time isn't a wow for me as I do my torrent downloads with my Note II with also the same screen time and be able to change to a fresh battery usually in 12 hours. I just find plugging in the Note 8 in the late afternoon to be confident that it really doesn't die on me for an evening in a cafe.

Some 80% of the charge goes to maintaning the TFT screen! Is this normal for TFT screens to guzzle up that much power? I set my brightness to 30% and even set it to power saving mode. Still the screen is the main battery drainer.

Anyway, I set up this thread in the hopes that people can share how to best optimize the battery with proven sound practices.

Sent from my GT-N5100 using XDA Premium HD app
 

ExploreMN

Senior Member
Jun 23, 2007
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Screens are always the main power drain on these type of devices...even your Note II.

Sent from my GT-N5110 using Tapatalk 2
 

duyminhphan

Member
Jun 14, 2011
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2
I have N5100 too. But I just have 5h onscreen and 20h stanby. Wifi and 3G allway on. Set auto brighness. Do you think my battery have problem???
 

ranzassel

Senior Member
Dec 30, 2008
66
14
What I noticed... the time shown in battery statistics seems to be wrong.

I was also getting approx. 5 hours on battery according to battery statistics. But this felt wrong for me. So I fully charged my Note 8 -> Usage statistic showed 0 hours. Then I was playing and reading for 2 hours (display always on, no reboots). But statistics where showing something around 1 hour and a few minutes. So don't trust your device. :D
 
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janjannsen99

Senior Member
Jan 6, 2013
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I got my note 8 about two days ago and the battery life was truly horrible but after a couple of charging cycles it seems to be getting better now I get about five to six hours of screen on time

Sent from my GT-N5110 using Tapatalk 2
 
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sputnik767

Senior Member
Dec 28, 2010
593
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I got my note 8 about two days ago and the battery life was truly horrible but after a couple of charging cycles it seems to be getting better now I get about five to six hours of screen on time

Sent from my GT-N5110 using Tapatalk 2

Screen on time tells only part of the story. Its what you're doing with the screen that matters. Browsing and videos will drain the battery faster than reading a book.
 

TechBSwift

Senior Member
Jul 14, 2010
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It also depends on what apps have sync/auto update features turned on. I used my Note 8 on Mothers day to watch movies and I was able to watch 3 full movies and still had 30% left. Beanstown will be posting a rom soon and battery life we only improve.
 
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TheNeighbor101

Senior Member
Jan 25, 2013
258
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janeilarlegui.deviantart.com
I have N5100 too. But I just have 5h onscreen and 20h stanby. Wifi and 3G allway on. Set auto brighness. Do you think my battery have problem???

That's normal. I sometimes get 6 hours+ screen on, other times with 7 hours screen on time. I have yetto serif this baby can make it over 9 hours screenon. I'm trying out Greenify app as it hibernates apps from wake-ups to sync. I'll let everyone how it's working out in a few days.

Still, the majority of the power would still go to the screen. Having a dark theme wouldn't help as the ambient lighting would still take the same amount of power. It's there a way to turn off half the LED lights? I really wished the screen is really Super AMOLED for energy efficiency.

I still find the Note 8 handy as a sketching device.

Sent from my GT-N5100 using XDA Premium HD app
 

sputnik767

Senior Member
Dec 28, 2010
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Thanks?

Sent from my GT-N5110 using Tapatalk 2

Point being that if you get 6 hours of screen time and I get 9 hours of screen time, doesn't mean that my battery life is better than yours. I was at 8 hours screen time at 25% battery last night, but I'm not going to say that this is average for me. Depending on my specific usage, I can get anywhere from 6 to 10 hours of screen time. This is why user reported battery life must be taken with a huge grain of salt.
 
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TheNeighbor101

Senior Member
Jan 25, 2013
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janeilarlegui.deviantart.com
I dozed off and forgot to charge my Note 8 last night. My stats below show a 24-hour unplugged use with phone, wifi and bluetooth on. I had used my Note 8 with 4 hours of screen on time with just Chrome browsing, a few minutes of S Note, and 5 22-minute tv episodes.

uploadfromtaptalk1369776480849.jpg
uploadfromtaptalk1369776506140.jpg
uploadfromtaptalk1369776536945.jpg

I still had 35% of battery left. I use Greenify to have my wakeups off when screen is off. It also hibernates apps if you don't activate them, like my Facebook doesn't update unless I check.

The screen still is the highest consumer of battery reserves at nearing 80%. I usually have auto brightness or keep it at 30% bright. Is there a way to reduce the power consumption further other than tune the brightness down?

Sent from my GT-N5100 using XDA Premium HD app
 

roustabout

Senior Member
Feb 12, 2011
825
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Also, take a look at Civato's kernel in the dev forum. To install it you need to first install Clockwork (I used Odin for that), then boot into your new custom recovery and flash the zip file.

The kernel supports underclocking (down to 100 mhz at cpu idle) and undervolting as well as a ~20% overclock and some other very nice features.

It's been stable for me using a 75 mvolt underclock, and I use some governor tweaks to avoid spinning the CPUs too hard when they're working on "nice" processes.

My battery life is often in the 9-10 hour range.
 

TheNeighbor101

Senior Member
Jan 25, 2013
258
172
janeilarlegui.deviantart.com
Also, take a look at Civato's kernel in the dev forum. To install it you need to first install Clockwork (I used Odin for that), then boot into your new custom recovery and flash the zip file.

The kernel supports underclocking (down to 100 mhz at cpu idle) and undervolting as well as a ~20% overclock and some other very nice features.

It's been stable for me using a 75 mvolt underclock, and I use some governor tweaks to avoid spinning the CPUs too hard when they're working on "nice" processes.

My battery life is often in the 9-10 hour range.

I have One Power Guard to lower the CPU with its governor tweaks.

Is it 9-10 hour range of screen on time or just the device use per charge?

Sent from my GT-N7100 using XDA Premium HD app
 

roustabout

Senior Member
Feb 12, 2011
825
212
9-10 screen on. And my impression this weekend was that if I leave wifi off, longer than that.

Most of my use is evening, so minimal screen brightness. And probably 70% reading, rather than primarily videos.
 
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TheNeighbor101

Senior Member
Jan 25, 2013
258
172
janeilarlegui.deviantart.com
9-10 screen on. And my impression this weekend was that if I leave wifi off, longer than that.

Most of my use is evening, so minimal screen brightness. And probably 70% reading, rather than primarily videos.

Good. I carry my Note 8 as a secondary device with my Note II as my primary device for communications and downloading torrents on the go. When I do need a bigger screen, I transfer media via wifi-direct. The 8 pretty much is my drawing tablet and productive tool for thinking through sketching architectural ideas. I still switch to paper for permanent recording on my sketchbooks.

8 hours isn't that good for me. I wish the screen consumption shouldn't reach to 80%.

rooted stock Galaxy Note 8 GT-N5100
 

hertsjoatmon

Senior Member
Dec 10, 2012
300
67
Hertfordshire (Herts)
I've found the battery life to be much better than anticipated. but since i've mostly been using away from home, I've had all the connections turned off and when I am at home I have auto airoplane mode activated that turns off the connections when the screen is turned off.

I also have been using the power saving mode at all times other than when playing graphics intensive games as I have no need for intensive CPU usage when browsing, drawing or taking notes etc...

Im hoping that when I root and add some custom profiles my batterylife will improve further.
 

TheNeighbor101

Senior Member
Jan 25, 2013
258
172
janeilarlegui.deviantart.com
I had the time to test out the Note 8's battery life on a continuous usage with mainly browsing, note and sketching with the S Note for 3 hours, about an hour's with of video watching, wifi and bluetooth connected. I've had 7 hours of actual screen on over an 8 hour period, from 8 am to 4 pm with 5% of battery left. I didn't want to fully drain it to avoid ruining the battery charging capability.

uploadfromtaptalk1370432455916.jpg
uploadfromtaptalk1370432517634.jpg
uploadfromtaptalk1370432607676.jpg

I had the screen at only 20% brightness with phone function on. The battery could be easily be drained in about 4 hours if with a brighter screen and heavier processor based tasks like games. The screen still ate away 80% of the battery charge despite being toned down to a 20% screen brightness.

rooted stock Galaxy Note 8 GT-N5100
 

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  • 6
    I noticed my battery charging funny. Power level dropped from 60% to 40% in a second, and charge goes 100% when it reaches 92%. Lithium ion has some charging memory issues unlike it was thought before.

    I had a friend who told me he ruined his battery's ability to hold a charge from the constant charging at work and at home, even with the indicator saying it's fully charged.

    And so, I've started strictly implementing plug charging at 20% and pulling out the plug at 80% charged, 3 weeks ago for this 4-month old Note 8.

    Have a watch here why this is a better way to manage your charges so you get more life with your device:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOi1NF7Ipek&feature=youtube_gdata_player

    AndroidGuy explains the whys.

    Sent from my GT-N7100 using XDA Premium HD app
    4
    Here are some pics of the back cover removal and the battery disconnection.
    3
    What you need to do is root your device and install the Xposed platform (Google for it; lots of instructions out there on how to root the Note 8 as well as to install Xposed in general). Then install either the Samsung DVFS Disabler module, or the Wanam Xposed module. Both have options to disable DVFS (it's the Dynamic Voltage Frequency Switching over time that confuses the battery fuel chip into thinking it has 40-50%+ less capacity than it actually has and once the fuel chip becomes miscalibrated, the only way to fix it is to force it to reset itself and the only way to do that right now is to cut power to the chip (theoretically, there should be a way to do it in software and someone here found the data sheet for the chip, but the instructions didn't work; either the data sheet was wrong, it was the wrong sheet (i.e. the Note 8 is not using the fuel chip we thought it was), or we weren't doing it right). A battery pull will do it, but also running down the battery to 0%-ish will do it. Problem is, the reason why it dies so fast is that the chip thinks it's at 0% when really, there's 40% or more of charge left (this is why it only lasts for 1.5-3 hours once you have the problem, rather than the 7-10+ hours it should last), so the only way to run it down is by leaving the device on in recovery mode until it turns itself off (which could take hours), but that's risky since if the voltage gets too low, you may not be able to charge it up again (that's why devices have auto-power off when the battery is almost empty; to prevent it from running down too much to the point where you can no longer charge it up again) so a battery pull is safer but more inconvenient). Once you reset the fuel chip, everything is fine again, but if DVFS is left on, the problem will return eventually.

    Using the Wanam module to disable DVFS is better than the standalone module, because there are some other fixes included in it (but like the DVFS Disabler, you have to activate them). You can activate the SDcard permission fix which makes writing to the external SD card behave like it used to pre-KitKat, as well as the SystemServer Crash fix (if you've ever noticed your Samsung KitKat ROM randomly reboots for no reason, this option may help). You can find all of these options under the Advanced menu of the Wanam Xposed module. Or there are separate Xposed modules that can do those too. The choice is yours.

    Edit: However, be aware that you'll trigger the Knox flag if you root the device so if you're still under warranty and care about that, or if you actually use the Knox container for work stuff or whatnot, then you may need to consider how you want to proceed. Mine is out of warranty and I don't use Knox, so rooting wasn't an issue for me.

    Sent from my SGH-T859 using Tapatalk
    3
    How do you disconnect the battery? You opened the tablet?

    On my tablet, the battery discharges quickly 100% -> 80% at 1 h 20 min (low use)
    Deep sleep is working properly, if the tablet is not used (the battery still 100%).

    Yup. The back cover can be popped of just like the back of most phones, with a safe removal tool (or a guitar pick or possibly some other slender object) it is pretty simple if you work your way around the cover slowly and don't force anything. I think there was even a link to a video showing how to do this posted earlier in the thread. After the cover is off you simply need to unplug the connector for the battery (it's fairly obvious which connector. The battery is the big white thing that takes up most of the space, and if you follow the wires coming out of the battery you'll see the connector) to undo the connector you need to pry the middle part of it straight up. Sorry if that isn't quite clear, I'll pop the back off and see if I can take a couple pics when I get home.
    I left mine disconnected for about an hour, then put it back together and charged it fully and it was a night and day difference. Before I'd be VERY lucky to get 3 hours of screen on time with light use. Now I've got 3 and a half hours and still have 65% left. It also seems to have fixed the weird jumps to 100% when charging.

    Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
    2
    I wanna share my trial of battery calibration that really make a significant different at least till now .. I used to make calibration by discharge / charge cycles, but this time i add an official instruction of Apple:
    - discharge the battery by ur normal usage till 1% then let the device play an HD movie till it shut down (that may take some time as it for me takes 4 hours!!) then turn it on to make sure the battery read 0% (my previous calibration the battery always shut down at 1% and I never see that 0% as I was discharging it vigorously) after making sure it is 0% it will turn off by itself anyway.
    - now leave ur device turned off for extended time (about 5 hours or more is better according to apple "u could let it while u r sleeping")
    - after that turn the device on and plug it in as it is on
    - left it charges as it likes (for my trial it takes 7 hours and didn't say charged!! but I had to unplug it as I had to leave the work!)

    till now my battery is really significantly improved, hoping to continue like that and I will keep u updated
    Hope that helps :good: