General Horrible battery life fix

[Alekos]

Tell me why I would not want to disable Wi-Fi calling. I have been using it by default but I'm not sure if I'm benefiting it from it at all. So if it's draining my battery I would love to disable it. At the moment my battery is not stellar, but it could be much better since it's such a large battery.

so my office and room are in a basement so I spend 70% of the day "underground". If I have wifi calling disabled, I don't get calls about 40-60% of the time. texts always work because it uses wifi using RCS (I mostly use Signal so it's all good there). so it's just calls. If I had a stable mobile connection (even 1 or 2 bars, but 100% stable) then I would turn it off.

Just depends on your situation. Materials, cell towers, carrier, the moon etc all play a role in how stable your mobile connection is. many think 1 or 2 bars is bad but it isn't 2011 anymore. you can have a stable connection at lower bars, but also unstable too. most just don't know what to look for. (Excellent app is Network Cell Info Lite on playstore)

 

[lemonspeakerz]

so my office and room are in a basement so I spend 70% of the day "underground". If I have wifi calling disabled, I don't get calls about 40-60% of the time. texts always work because it uses wifi using RCS (I mostly use Signal so it's all good there). so it's just calls. If I had a stable mobile connection (even 1 or 2 bars, but 100% stable) then I would turn it off.

Just depends on your situation. Materials, cell towers, carrier, the moon etc all play a role in how stable your mobile connection is. many think 1 or 2 bars is bad but it isn't 2011 anymore. you can have a stable connection at lower bars, but also unstable too. most just don't know what to look for. (Excellent app is Network Cell Info Lite on playstore)

Thank you for this information. To expand on my question with this new information, I actually haven't used any other WIFI (for the last two years) aside from my home's WIFI. But at home, I get a decent cell signal.

Would you say it would be safe to then disable wifi calling? I wonder how much better battery i'd get.

 

[Alekos]

Thank you for this information. To expand on my question with this new information, I actually haven't used any other WIFI (for the last two years) aside from my home's WIFI. But at home, I get a decent cell signal.

Would you say it would be safe to then disable wifi calling? I wonder how much better battery i'd get.

I have 2 wifi AP's saved in my phone. if I do have to use another wifi.... scratch that I never do. I'll use a different phone with no information if I have to.

it's hard to say. charge your phone to 100% one night before bed. turn wifi calling off and see how it goes. if you lose 3% but lose 18% when it's on, then you know it's a big deal. it might only be 3% or 4%, in that case I would keep it on. easy to test it.

but it's such a good feature. it makes calling so stable and clear. I have faith they'll fix it. but who knows, for me it was only 2 days of testing. going to try this trick for a few days:

ProxyController wakelock draining battery - Google Pixel Community

 

[jimv1983]

To everyone that's been having horrible battery life on this phone and people didn't believe it, I've found the problem. Not sure what cheap parts they used but the 5g is the problem. I disabled my 5g and I was able to to go from 6 hours 100% -30% to 10 hours 100% - 30% with the same use. If you want to save more battery, just leave battery saver on. Disable the extreme battery saver though.
I've found that I'm able to use the phone for the whole day with little loss to function this way. Good luck to you all.

That isn't surprising at all. Even with 5G off it's bad but not as bad. The Exynos 5123 modem is the problem. It's total garbage. It's so inefficient that Samsung should be ashamed of releasing that modem at all

 

[selayan]

Let's see if the January update manages to improve that modem with some software updates. Buut you really can't fix bad hardware with software. Lots of the reviewers also mentioned they had no issues with battery drain which is pretty much a lie at this point.

 

[roirraW "edor" ehT]

Let's see if the January update manages to improve that modem with some software updates. Buut you really can't fix bad hardware with software. Lots of the reviewers also mentioned they had no issues with battery drain which is pretty much a lie at this point.

Excuse me. Please do not accuse others who have no problem with battery drain of lying. I do not claim that anyone who is having a problem doesn't, and you shouldn't be claiming that those who aren't having a problem actually are.

 

[selayan]

Excuse me. Please do not accuse others who have no problem with battery drain of lying. I do not claim that anyone who is having a problem doesn't, and you shouldn't be claiming that those who aren't having a problem actually are.

I honestly don't know how you concluded I am accusing you specifically or anyone else of that from my post? This is my observation from watching several Youtube reviews on the phone, MKBHD was the only one that mentioned the battery was bad but also did not mention the inefficient modem. Also includes my observation after going through the Google Pixel Support Forums and the subreddit as well.

I am not claiming anything other than my own experience with the phone. Not sure why you got so upset over that statement, as personally if someone else had said that I would think nothing more of it.

 

[roirraW "edor" ehT]

I honestly don't know how you concluded I am accusing you specifically or anyone else of that from my post? This is my observation from watching several Youtube reviews on the phone, MKBHD was the only one that mentioned the battery was bad but also did not mention the inefficient modem. Also includes my observation after going through the Google Pixel Support Forums and the subreddit as well.

I am not claiming anything other than my own experience with the phone. Not sure why you got so upset over that statement, as personally if someone else had said that I would think nothing more of it.

I'm not upset. You said that reviewers are lying. I think it's rude for you to claim that others are lying. That does not match your newer statement that (you are) "not claiming anything other than my own experience".

Likewise, I didn't claim that you called me a liar. It was a demonstration.

 

[Morgrain]

Lots of the reviewers also mentioned they had no issues with battery drain which is pretty much a lie at this point.

Quite unlikely. Ergo: No. That just mean that these people had no problems. Since a phone has more than 10000 factors playing a role for battery life, like

- 4g or 5g?
- lots of wifi or mobile network?
- how many apps are running in the background?
- how much nits does a person need to be satisfied? I know people that like a dark display, then there are people that need full screen brightness ramped up, those two people will have night vs day experiences with a phone (5h SoT vs 10h SoT)
- what's your climate? Does your phone need to cool down often?
- What kinds of apps do you use? 3 hours Youtube will amount to the same amount of battery usage like 1 hour of gaming
- How many services are running in the background? Hello Google? Accessibility stuff? Now playing? AoD? ALL of that is putting a drain.
- How many apps are doing updates or backups in the background? Some need to be configured to do it at night. Both account to deepsleep being a distant dream, meaning the idle % usage will be higher than need be.

Et cetera.

The problem is: Battery life differs. Then on top of that will come A12 as being buggy and that battery usage might differ in two matching pairs of phones, meaning if they both get used side by side, with the same usage, they might have a different battery life (especially since the battery capacity can differ massively - there are people with 5200 mAh running around, whilst others have shown their 4700-4800 mAh capacity - that's easily 10% difference out of the box, and there is nothing that you can do about that).

 

[selayan]

I'm not upset. You said that reviewers are lying. I think it's rude for you to claim that others are lying. That does not match your newer statement that (you are) "not claiming anything other than my own experience".

Likewise, I didn't claim that you called me a liar. It was a demonstration.

Reviewers should be more critical but that isn't the case all the time it seems because no one wants to lose sponsorship/ perks of course.

Its just weird to see the varying user reports, obviously people with issues are more likely to complain, but I also find it hard to believe that every reviewer got a perfect handpicked phone to test. I felt like after I watched so many reviews and then used the phone myself, read other people's experiences, talked to friends that also have the phones too; sometimes I wonder, how or why did they miss or not talk about this at all?

It is actually the reviewers/influencers overall that could drive changes for future of these phones and I would want that to have a positive effect on the next Google Flagship.

 

[Morgrain]

Reviewers should be more critical but that isn't the case all the time it seems because no one wants to lose sponsorship/ perks of course.

NEVER, EVER fully trust a reviewer that gets free products. They will get cherrypicked, top-notch products that do not represent what you get on the shelf. Even IF they are legit/honest, they will still get the best performing products that are usually not the ones you get as a customer when walking into a store, since ESPECIALLY most tech devices come down to a chip lottery. Most of the "big" tech reviewers cannot be trusted, even though I'd lay a portion of my hand in the fire for Anthony from linus.

There are some legit reviewers out there, that ONLY buy products of the shelf like you and me - those you can trust without greater problem.

 

[selayan]

Quite unlikely. Ergo: No. That just mean that these people had no problems. Since a phone has more than 10000 factors playing a role for battery life, like

- 4g or 5g?
- lots of wifi or mobile network?
- how many apps are running in the background?
- how much nits does a person need to be satisfied? I know people that like a dark display, then there are people that need full screen brightness ramped up, those two people will have night vs day experiences with a phone (5h SoT vs 10h SoT)
- what's your climate? Does your phone need to cool down often?
- What kinds of apps do you use? 3 hours Youtube will amount to the same amount of battery usage like 1 hour of gaming
- How many services are running in the background? Hello Google? Accessibility stuff? Now playing? AoD? ALL of that is putting a drain.
- How many apps are doing updates or backups in the background? Some need to be configured to do it at night. Both account to deepsleep being a distant dream, meaning the idle % usage will be higher than need be.

Et cetera.

The problem is: Battery life differs. Then on top of that will come A12 as being buggy and that battery usage might differ in two matching pairs of phones, meaning if they both get used side by side, with the same usage, they might have a different battery life (especially since the battery capacity can differ massively - there are people with 5200 mAh running around, whilst others have shown their 4700-4800 mAh capacity - that's easily 10% difference out of the box, and there is nothing that you can do about that).

This is true, there are several factors. I feel like most people use the phones as they get them out the box with all features default enabled by Google. I wish some of the reviews would have broken down their usage patterns and settings so at least there is some baseline. Some people do this, but its hard to get a good feel of that baseline.

Reminds me of Digital Foundry and how they break down performance for certain video games on PC vs Console or Gamer's nexus where they get into details of comparisons but who am I kidding, no one will do that for phones!

 

[Morgrain]

This is true, there are several factors. I feel like most people use the phones as they get them out the box with all features default enabled by Google. I wish some of the reviews would have broken down their usage patterns and settings so at least there is some baseline. Some people do this, but its hard to get a good feel of that baseline.

Reminds me of Digital Foundry and how they break down performance for certain video games on PC vs Console or Gamer's nexus where they get into details of comparisons but who am I kidding, no one will do that for phones!

That's actually one of the greatest problems that tech reviewers quite can't handle. All those GPU tests and CPU tests on barebone testbenches with perfect airflow and cherrypicked chips... worthless. We need tests that showcase real world usage, meaning I want a benchmark where in the background

a) Steam is doing an update
b) Discord is running with a videocall
c) Displayfusion, XBOX, Nvidia Broadcast, Onedrive, GHub for Microfone etc. (just examples) are running in the background
d) ofc you also have a browser with 60 tabs on a second monitor
e) the products were bought off shelf, meaning no cherrypicking
f) put the darn PC in a box/"case" BELOW the table, right in between some other stuff, partially suffocating and gasping for fresh air
e) et cetera, get creative

And THEN benchmark Battlefield, or Cyberpunk, or whatever. 'Cuz that will be the FPS that people can get real-world. Not those cherry picked test-bench scenarios.