Question S22 or S21

[Nil96]

Hi,
I am quite aware that S22 has the new chipset and a beast, but my only worry is battery.
S21 has 4000mAh and S22 has 3700 mAh. Confused as to which serves the best when it comes to usage. Did search a lot for drain test between these two and never found one.
Any suggestions please.
Cheers and Regards

 

[xjust]

if battery is the only concern. s21. or better yet. another brand

 

[Turbine1991]

Hi,
I am quite aware that S22 has the new chipset and a beast, but my only worry is battery.
S21 has 4000mAh and S22 has 3700 mAh. Confused as to which serves the best when it comes to usage. Did search a lot for drain test between these two and never found one.
Any suggestions please.
Cheers and Regards

I've not been into Samsung for years, as I don't like their software and often find their hardware substandard for the price. MIUI/Xiaomi offers a choice between modern status bar/notifications, modern app recents and improves upon stock Android without bloating it up.

Three hottest phones right now

Xiaomi Poco F3
Realme GT Neo 3
Xiaomi Redmi K50/K50 Pro (2k display)

I'm usually a snapdragon fan, but this snapdragon gen 1 has overheating and high power consumption issues.

 

[ac2002]

had s21 and it had better battery life

 

[dragos281993]

I've got the 8 Gen 1 S22 and it's sufficient to say it's a terrible phone. It overheats, it gets stuttery most of the time probably because it's getting throttled, and the battery is bad. From 100 to 50% it's bad and from 50% and below it's terrible because it drains faster. And it's even worse when the phone runs hot, which is pretty much gonna be the norm in a hot summer environment. Then there's the last 5% which is non-existent because it's basically like a countdown in seconds from 5 to 0%. In other words, if your phone hit 5% it's gonna turn off in a matter of seconds if you don't plug it in ASAP.
So the math is kind of like this and note that I'm gonna talk about a period of 24h of use, both active and idle:
- you've got a battery of 3590mAh, the real capacity. I'm gonna cut that 5% right now because that simply doesn't exist. That means 180mA, which leaves you with just 3410mAh.
- 25-30% is the idle drain, and it's gonna stay in this range no matter what you're gonna try to do. Believe me, I tried EVRYTHING, even turning off cores and so on. The damn thing finds a way to drain battery with the screen off somehow.
- you're now left with only 65% of actually battery for SOT. That translates into ~2216mAh. That is all you have from a full charge.
- now the active drain is gonna be ~20%/h no matter what any battery monitor app tells you. That is 682mA/h.
*** This is all with normal use, which includes more than just watching videos, scenario in which the lack of touch events + the screen on will count towards that SOT recording and of course that's gonna increase the SOT. But that's kind of like fake SOT. When you start swiping up and down within apps, switching between them, browsing the web, which all means that you're getting the CPU to go from a range of frequencies, is when the actual real usage happens, so that's the true SOT of a phone.***
So, to get back to the math part, you're gonna get 3h15m. You're gonna watch some videos, I don't doubt that and that's gonna reduce that 20%/h to something lower, as long as there are no touch events. That's gonna get you over 3h30m. If you're watching a lot of YouTube and such, you can hit 4h SOT. But the average SOT for this phone is 3.5h.
That is terrible battery life for a phone in 2022. Samsung's node for the 8 Gen 1 was a complete fail and that is why Qualcomm went back to TSMC for the 8 Gen 1 Plus, and the efficiency gains for just a refresh of the same CPU, are insane. We're talking about 30% more efficiency. Insane! The 8 Gen 1 is pathetic and it's rarely gonna run the way it was meant to because it can't due to the heat it constantly produces. Paired with the small S22, there's not enough phone to dissipate that heat more efficiently, and therefore you're left with a choked out "beast". I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure that if I choke out The Rock and make him run with me on his back, he's not gonna perform very well, no matter how buff he is.
The bigger brother though, the S22+ is not gonna have the same issues. There's more material to dissipate the heat more efficiently and there's also a considerably larger battery inside. Not a lot bigger but big enough. You've got the same screen so the power consumption is gonna be different. Now all those percentages I mentioned above are gonna be based on the bigger battery. The idle drain is gonna stay the same but instead of 30%, that value would be ~24%. If that 5% issue is the same, you're left with ~3100mAh for SOT. The active drain would then be 16%/h. If my math is correct, with some room for error, you'd be able to get 4h40m with the same usage I initially mentioned for the smaller phone. With those reduced touch event during the videos, you'd be able to get over 5h out of it on a 24h charge. And if that 5% issue is not present, you've got ~200 more mA which would give roughly 20 more minutes over 5h, for SOT. Not that bad.
That's why I regret getting the small phone. Not as much as getting rid of the 13Pro I used before it, which offered me the best battery life I've ever had in a phone, but I still regret it.

In conclusion, you either go big in the Android world, or suffer. Or you can get the S21 and have better battery life than the S22. Your choice.

 

[S8_guy]

did you get latest June updates installed on it? I have already returned my galaxy s22 but another person who i know who was using his s22 on power save mode turned off after the latest update. He said it helped a lot?

 

[dragos281993]

did you get latest June updates installed on it? I have already returned my galaxy s22 but another person who i know who was using his s22 on power save mode turned off after the latest update. He said it helped a lot?

Don't be fooled by any claims. The battery is simply too small to have noticeable gains. One moment you think it's doing great and suddenly the table turns. For instance you'd think 2h50m SOT at the 50% mark is great and you'll get at least another 2.5h out of it considering how much battery you still have, but then later that day you see that you just hit 3.5h SOT and the battery is now at 15%. So the stats are very tweaked to mislead you and not show the real SOT. It's kind of what Apple does with the percentage that's over 90% where the battery drops very slowly but then it starts to get faster.
With Power Saver mode at all times, Google's services freak out a lot more frequent because they can't send and receive data at any time without interruptions. That results in even higher idle drain. You virtually gain no additional battery life, or something small that you can barely call gains.
So you gotta use the phone as is, without any interventions this way allowing it to perform anything it needs to do in the background. After getting mine to stock, I've been getting that 3.5, 4h SOT which is pretty consistent right now. I don't look at the drain or how much per hour gets wasted, etc. I just use it as a regular folk who doesn't know about these more in depth stats. This way I only got used to charging it a certain way and not caring about the rest. If by any chance I notice a higher drain than usual, again, I don't investigate because I know it'll only get me depressed or something. I just reboot the phone and thing settle for a while.
It's the best way to use this terrible phone. You were very inspired when you decided to return it. Literally ANYTHING on the market is better than this thing.

 

[S8_guy]

Don't be fooled by any claims. The battery is simply too small to have noticeable gains. One moment you think it's doing great and suddenly the table turns. For instance you'd think 2h50m SOT at the 50% mark is great and you'll get at least another 2.5h out of it considering how much battery you still have, but then later that day you see that you just hit 3.5h SOT and the battery is now at 15%. So the stats are very tweaked to mislead you and not show the real SOT. It's kind of what Apple does with the percentage that's over 90% where the battery drops very slowly but then it starts to get faster.
With Power Saver mode at all times, Google's services freak out a lot more frequent because they can't send and receive data at any time without interruptions. That results in even higher idle drain. You virtually gain no additional battery life, or something small that you can barely call gains.
So you gotta use the phone as is, without any interventions this way allowing it to perform anything it needs to do in the background. After getting mine to stock, I've been getting that 3.5, 4h SOT which is pretty consistent right now. I don't look at the drain or how much per hour gets wasted, etc. I just use it as a regular folk who doesn't know about these more in depth stats. This way I only got used to charging it a certain way and not caring about the rest. If by any chance I notice a higher drain than usual, again, I don't investigate because I know it'll only get me depressed or something. I just reboot the phone and thing settle for a while.
It's the best way to use this terrible phone. You were very inspired when you decided to return it. Literally ANYTHING on the market is better than this thing.

I am thinking about switching over to iphone. My existing galaxy s8 is old. I really like to iphone 13 mini, but not sure about its battery life. I guess it has a 14 day return period as well.

If that doesn't do it, then i might go for the regular iphone 13.

 

[dragos281993]

I am thinking about switching over to iphone. My existing galaxy s8 is old. I really like to iphone 13 mini, but not sure about its battery life. I guess it has a 14 day return period as well.

If that doesn't do it, then i might go for the regular iphone 13.

This is how it goes. Small Android devices will NEVER give you great battery life, and I'm talking about the likes of S22 and such in terms of size and also with the title of flagship device. You just can't have both. I learn it the hard way, which is wasting money on devices for the past 3 years to reach this conclusion.
So if you want a powerful Android device with more than good battery life, you gotta go big. No way around it. If someone claims that they're getting great SOT on their small Android phone, that's because they're very light users, mostly watching videos. That means no touch events and that translates into very few frequency rampups and that in its turn means lower CPU usage that gives you longer SOT, but that's not representative of the regular usage which involves a lot more than that.
Only Apple offers great battery life in a smaller form factor and that's mainly because it's a hell of a lot easier job to optimize the software for a handful of devices which have the most important pieces of hardware inside built inhouse. It's just the absolute best situation for them.
However, going for the smallest phone would be a mistake. You'd get decent battery life for that size but it's still bad. The regular 13 is the best choice if you still want a small phone. I'd personally get the 13 Pro which has even better battery life than the regular variant plus the 120Hz screen. And let me tell you, the level of smoothness you get from 120Hz iOS is on a whole another level than on 120Hz Android. iOS has a lot less frequent frame drops, and by that I mean they're almost non existent. On Android, framedrops are everywhere and anywhere, no matter how "buttery smooth" people claim it is. It's not. The frame dips, the so called stutters, are noticeable and they occur most of the time no matter the app, when you scroll up and down. It's always been there.
But yeah, get an iPhone and you'll see what I'm talking about. After selling my 13 Pro to go back on Android because I got bored of iOS, I regretted it when I saw the battery life on my S22, not to mention overheating and overall poor performance because of that.
Something else to consider is how much better iPhones hold their value compared to Android phones. I can get a brand new S22 for $570 from the trading market in my country. I paid $1040 for my current crap of a phone. It's nearly half the price now. At the same time, I can buy a brand new 13 Pro from the same place for $1025, the cheapest one. I paid $1250 for mine when I got it last year in October. That's just $225 value lost in 8 months. The S22's price dropped to nearly half in just 3 months. It's just insane.
So get a 13 or 13 Pro, or if you can wait a little longer, get a 14. I'm getting the 14 Pro Max, without thinking twice. It's a brick but I don't want to have to worry about battery life ever again, to force close apps and services and constantly check on the background activity so I can try to save some juice.
My POV though. Android has always been letting me down

 

[S8_guy]

My galaxy s8 used to last two full days when i got it new. Nowadays, it last me a full day with regular use, keep in mind that i put a new battery in it and did not update to the latest firmware. It has only two year of update and it killed the battery by one day.

Those updates age the phone, doesn't matter which OS it is ( android or ios). I am going to do a trial on the 13 mini, and if that doesn't work i am going to go for the iphone 14 pro ( not the max). the pro models will ditch the notch as well. It would be one hell of an upgrade from my s8.

Not sure, why you didn't return your galaxy s22 during the trial period?

 

[dragos281993]

My galaxy s8 used to last two full days when i got it new. Nowadays, it last me a full day with regular use, keep in mind that i put a new battery in it and did not update to the latest firmware. It has only two year of update and it killed the battery by one day.

Those updates age the phone, doesn't matter which OS it is ( android or ios). I am going to do a trial on the 13 mini, and if that doesn't work i am going to go for the iphone 14 pro ( not the max). the pro models will ditch the notch as well. It would be one hell of an upgrade from my s8.

Not sure, why you didn't return your galaxy s22 during the trial period?

When I ordered this thing, I also put in the cart a white Samsung bumper case too. When I received the package, I unboxed the phone and the case, put the phone in it then booted up the device. It was a pretty tight fit. After 4 days I decided that nope, I'm not keeping this pathetic thing. So I already had a few tabs open with some guys selling their Pixel 5 phones. I just needed to choose one.
So I take out the S22 out of the case and surprise! Micro scratches all around the frame from when I inserted the phone in the case. Because the damn case is made of a hard material and the plastic inside wasn't completely smooth at the edge, all the tiny imperfections left a mark on the supposedly military grade aluminium the frame is made of, when I inserted it in it. Marketing at its finest. I then emailed the store I ordered the phone from and they asked the department in charge how it would go from there if I returned the phone in that condition. They tagged it as "non-returnable" because it's not in the same condition and cannot be sold as new anymore. OR they could deduce a tax that consists of replacing the frame with a new original one. That also includes the display and the whole restoration of the device would mean -400 euros from the initial price. Just from those micro scratches around the frame.
So that's why I'm now stuck with this thing. I even took it out of the case, removed the screen protector and I'm using it naked. It's all scuffed and scratched from just using it like that, without dropping it or anything. The durability of this thing is absolutely pathetic, a complete joke.

 

[S8_guy]

When I ordered this thing, I also put in the cart a white Samsung bumper case too. When I received the package, I unboxed the phone and the case, put the phone in it then booted up the device. It was a pretty tight fit. After 4 days I decided that nope, I'm not keeping this pathetic thing. So I already had a few tabs open with some guys selling their Pixel 5 phones. I just needed to choose one.
So I take out the S22 out of the case and surprise! Micro scratches all around the frame from when I inserted the phone in the case. Because the damn case is made of a hard material and the plastic inside wasn't completely smooth at the edge, all the tiny imperfections left a mark on the supposedly military grade aluminium the frame is made of, when I inserted it in it. Marketing at its finest. I then emailed the store I ordered the phone from and they asked the department in charge how it would go from there if I returned the phone in that condition. They tagged it as "non-returnable" because it's not in the same condition and cannot be sold as new anymore. OR they could deduce a tax that consists of replacing the frame with a new original one. That also includes the display and the whole restoration of the device would mean -400 euros from the initial price. Just from those micro scratches around the frame.
So that's why I'm now stuck with this thing. I even took it out of the case, removed the screen protector and I'm using it naked. It's all scuffed and scratched from just using it like that, without dropping it or anything. The durability of this thing is absolutely pathetic, a complete joke.

Absolute tragedy! Sounds like your just stuck with this phone for sometime or your other choice is to sell for a loss in the used market.

On a side note, I ordered a case and screen protector online for the galaxy s22. It arrived a month after i returned the phone. I lost about $15 on it. I was too cheap to order it from samsung directly.

The regular iphone 13 looks like the phone to get for me, I guess i will wait for iphone 14 to launch and buy the iphone 13 on a discount.

 

[dragos281993]

Absolute tragedy! Sounds like your just stuck with this phone for sometime or your other choice is to sell for a loss in the used market.

The regular iphone 13 looks like the phone to get for me, I guess i will wait for iphone 14 to launch and buy the iphone 13 on a discount.

Good idea. The regular 14 I believe the rumours say will look identical to the 13 too.

 

[S8_guy]

Good idea. The regular 14 I believe the rumours say will look identical to the 13 too.

lol...also has the same processor. Not sure, what would the upgrade really be.

 

[AdamWest1212]

Hi,
I am quite aware that S22 has the new chipset and a beast, but my only worry is battery.
S21 has 4000mAh and S22 has 3700 mAh. Confused as to which serves the best when it comes to usage. Did search a lot for drain test between these two and never found one.
Any suggestions please.
Cheers and Regards

I don't think the the battery will be that much of an issue for S22 because the phone itself is more efficient then the S21. So technically you should get more out of the smaller battery.

 

[Crow820]

S20 or S20 Ultra will be a better option then S22.
I bought the S22 only because my old phone died and the S22 was on sale and in stock.
Other wise I would have bought the S20.

 

[seancannery88]

The S22 series are new with a lot more great specs so you can get any S22 series model!