S21 Ultra batter life not as good as YouTube and comparison reviwes

[sailord]

I had my Ultra for 7 days now. I was hoping the battery life getting better after the learning usage pattern completed. but I didn't see improvements after all. SOT is around 4-5 hours and you can see the dropping percentage in front of your eyes. My old 3 year Huawei will stay in 100% for a while after unplugged from the charger. But this one will see the dropping very quickly to 95% or something. Using camera is another big concern as 4-5% percent drop with few minutes use. I had test one yesterday as below table. Anyone can tell me this is 'fair' or I need to exchange a new one.

Usage Type	start time	end time	duration	battery usage %	eod percentage	percentage per minute
	10:59				100
YouTube			30	3	97	0.1
YouTube			41	3	93	0.073170732
Idle		28	0	1	92
gaming			22	5	87	0.227272727
browsing			19	4	83	0.210526316
camera			32	10	73	0.3125
camera			30	7	65	0.233333333
idle		50	0	1	64
tiktok			25	4	60	0.16
IG			10	2	58	0.2

SOT is 3 hours 30 minutes for the above test until 58% so I would say 7 hours until 0%?

the camera test was just using the hyper time lapse so it may be already the best scenario for camera usage.

[JamesAnderson]

Have you tried turning off 5G?

My S20 was awful until I turned that and a few other things off.

[GusB]

Agree that you shouldn't really have too...but there are lots of options in order to eek out as much battery as possible...you can decide where the line is drawn with regards to compromise.

Some ideas:
Turning off 5g
Reviewing location services (in permissions)
Brightness
Adaptive battery
Putting apps to sleep and deep sleep
Always on display
Number of accounts syncing
Turning off NFC
Automatic WiFi / adaptive
Screen timeout

I mean there are so many things to try....but I draw the line at switching off features that made me buy the phone in the first place.

Another option is to use Bixby routines to have different 'power' settings / options depending on if you're near a charger or out and about...

Customisation and options is both a positive and negative of android...!

[sailord]

thank you for your reply. I have tried almost everything except accounts synch... and I agree we need to draw a line for those things made we bought this beast.

[GusB]

The other thing worth mentioning is that it has only been a week....

[sailord]

you mean it will get better or? ...

[GusB]

Well yeah possibly

[GoanGeek]

I get 7- 9 hours SOT depending how I use it. As gaming drains the battery quicker.

Mine is set to 120hz adaptive with wqhd and adaptive brightnes.
Location in apps is mostly set to 'only when app is open' except for few apps like Google etc.

5g is off as I don't have 5g sim.

Bluetooth is on.

I always make sure apps from both galaxy store and play store are updated.

TBH one would only have more than 5 hours SOT if you are at home on WiFi all day not doing anything .

While at work coming home my battery is at around 70% and then I run it down to 50%- 30% just gaming in the evening and social apps.

[Joeeye]

I have very few compromises set on my S21 Ultra, to name them I have dark mode, fixed brightness of 15%, nearby device scanning off, s pen off and location off. I pretty much run everything on max, WQHD+ 120Hz, NFC, Bluetooth, 5G all on. My typical SoT is around 9 to 11 hours depending on usage but it's typically listening to music whilst browsing, gaming and streaming videos. I've had it since release date and the battery has always given me very long SoT times, best of any phone I've ever had given its settings.

[GusB]

That's great SoT. I've actually never really tested it from 100% down to 0%.... Working from home I constantly keep it between 50% to 80%