S21 Ultra Battery life really bad compared to all the youtube video review

[daribeiro]

So I bought the new S21 Ultra on the pre order the day it was announced. I was one of the lucky ones to get early so I could leave a review. 

Coming from a Note 10+ that I had for a year and a half, I was really excited for the S21 Ultra, but was really disappointed with the battery life. I've had the phone for 5 days now and since the very beginning I've not been able to use the phone for the whole day on a single charge. It's been giving me screen on times comparable to my Note 10+ (4/5 hours) which is a much older device, but I thought maybe this was the way all S21 ultra's were behaving, just not very good battery life.

BUT, yesterday all the youtubers started to publish they're videos comparing batteries with older S devices and Iphones and their S21s were doing amazing, giving them screen on times of up to 13 hours! 

I contacted support but they said this would be normal as my phone was still learning user patterns... but I'm not sure if that would affect it as bad as it is at the moment. 

What do you guys think? Should I send the phone back? I'm really concerned that I just spent all this money on a new phone for it to be so bad with battery. 

[Sanj3]

I've been using it with FHD+ with Adaptive Smoothness

5G/4G  on permanently as I have unlimited data plan

Not using gaming. Camera being used very minimally whilst using snapchat. Spotify/Youtube Vanced being used in the background for a few hours a day whilst at work. Bluetooth, GPS and Sync always on. Instagram and WhatsApp being used most of the day.

Does this seem about right? Do you recommend to let the battery to go down to near 0% and see what I get out of it?

[WelshPaul]

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@Giraffe93 wrote:

There's a reason that Huawei phones like the P/Mate 40 have insane standby times, they have an incredibly aggressive app management approach, so basically kill everything after the phone isn't being used for a while (including things like whatsapp which messes with notifications).

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My wife and son have no issues with notifications on their Huawei phones. Their Huawei phones have better signal strength as well battery life than any Samsung phone I have ever owned.

[Sanj3]

.

[Mtm1401]

sounds reasonable then, can you upload a picture of your usage?

[Sanj3]

 

[konarenz]

You need to be connected to a PC/Mac

[konarenz]

Have you guys tried checking the refresh rate in dev options? For some reason it only goes from 120hz down to 60hz -- and not all the way down to 10hz for something static like the AOD.  This should be addressed on the next software update.

Also, using WQHD+ really eats up battery life.

The camera also heats up a lot when doing videos which in turn drains the battery faster.

Currently using the Exynos version and I tried multiple factory resets but no luck. SOT is about 5 hours with 10% left (Adaptive Refresh rate and Full HD reso)

[Mtm1401]

That's the software overlay that only shows those two modes (60/120), the 10hz is a hardware capability and don't think it's possible to track it at the moment. See here Samsung's Note20 Ultra Variable Refresh Rate Display Explained (anandtech.com) 

Also at low brightness (<40lux) the screen defaults to 120hz, so will drain more in these conditions. Investigating The Galaxy S21 Ultra New OLED Emitter: Huge Efficiency Improvements (anandtech.com) You can counter this by using a bixby routine to switch to 60hz for apps like youtube, netflix etc. which have <60hz content to save battery.

If you are constantly factory resetting the phone, it won't learn your usage patterns, leave it for a week, sleep/deep sleep apps you don't use very often, see what battery is like in a week. Lots of reports of heating issues going away after a few days, not ideal, but wait it out.

[Malakabob]

Im having the same issue. Chrome seems to be draining the battery on a lot of Exynos versions.  I dont think its an issue on the snapdragon version. 

[Members_aErA2iL]

You all seem to be doing far better than myself so far. I have barely used my device as you can see in the screenshot and I'm only getting 3 hours of screen on time. Feel like throwing this phone out of the window. I've even turned off my esim to try and conserve battery. Close every app after use and have my screen set at FHD.