Samsung S21 ultra poor battery life

[jezza2]

I got a new S21 Ultra this week. I was disappointed with battery life initially, but have been letting it bed in and learn my usage. I'm still not happy - compares poorly to my old P30 Pro. 

The phone was bought from Samsung, a clean UK install, latest firmware, and I've attached a screenshot of the first battery report post calibration - limited 5G usage, but nothing major running apart from that huge screen and a bit of Spotify.

 

Is this what others have been experiencing? I am minded to return - my results are out of line with the reviewers. I'm not interested in tinkering with the screen or brightness - for this price my view is it should just work.

And - thinking out loud here - could phone companies be jiggering their review models' battery life to give better results, like VW did with the emissions scandal?

Thanks.

[Pugs1957]

The screenshot shows more than "just a bit of Spotify". Samsung Internet and WhatsApp have used almost 40% of your battery. It also shows your signal to be poor which will result in higher than normal battery drain. That usage doesn't look bad to me. Yes, the last update has resulted in reduced time between charges but overall I don't think you're doing too badly.

[jezza2]

Well to be fair I did put Spotify in the "major" category. 

[jezza2]

Lots of helpful perspectives here, thanks all.

[Joeeye]

Idle drain since May update has been the best I've had since getting my S21 Ultra back in January. I'd say my use time SoT has dropped by about 10 - 15%, however my usage patterns have too, so it's difficult to gauge really. I tend to watch YouTube, or stream less on my phone now (mostly do that on my new Tab S7 Plus), so more time is spent gaming which drains battery s lot more. Whatever the case, I still get 8h+ SoT in spite of this with all my settings the same, WQHD+, 120Hz, 5G, Bluetooth all on.

[tinglish]

Yeah like adamlee said the may update has effected battery drain.
Mine hasn't been as bad as others but I've lost about 2-3 hours sot.
Hopefully it will be fixed with next update 🤞

[GoanGeek]

Although my SOT seems to have dropped a bit with the may update, I still feel the battery lasts the same time before the update.
So not sure if it's a real time loss or if samsung changed the way it measures the SOT.

As long as my battery keeps lasting a whole day. I am still a happy bunny.

[M3st3ru]

Guys, I have Iphone 12pro max and when the phone is in standby it barely uses battery. It is mainly due to optimization of operating system.