So many things wrong with my S21U - I'm trying a replacement - Page 3

spitshaw · ‎09-03-2021

So I've had my S21U for 3 and a half weeks and I've been totally unable to get it to act like a supposedly 'best ever Android' £1200 flagship phone.

These are the issues I've encountered:

- It's overheated on me four times, once while using the camera and the other three times during skype calls. I don't understand how regular useage can cause it to overheat so easily. I've never had a phone overheat on me in my life before

- I've not been able to get more than 5.5 to 6.5 hours max screen on time. And this is with dark mode enabled, wifi only, brightness under 20%, all apps in sleep or deep sleep mode. I even removed Facebook and Chrome as they were hogging a lot of battery and still no improvement. I have no idea how so many others are getting 9-10 hours SOT. I've only been using it for light useage such as browsing reddit, reading a couple of messageboards with the odd 30minute skype call or a couple of youtube videos thrown in.

- There was three times when I accidentally let the battery drain and each time I couldn't get the phone to charge or turn back on/show anything on screen. I'd wake up in the morning after putting it on charge to find it still dead with no signs of life. It then wouldn't register as charging. I had to faff around for like 15 minutes, changing outlets/chargers a few times and repeatedly trying to turn it on/force restart it to get it working. Just all round odd behaviour.

- Also the colour calibration on vivid mode seems to be really weird. Skin tones are pale, yellow and washed out. There's also a weird software thing happening when vivid mode is turned on. For example, an image in reddit looks totally different in colours/saturation than the exact same image opened in Chrome or Facebook. The colours would also visibly change when apps are fullscreened from being in splitscreen mode or from the recent apps tray.

My 4.5 year old Huawei P20 Pro has been through the wars, yet was still in a much better working condition (it was still getting 9 hours SOT!). I'm kinda annoyed I traded that in now. I'm hoping this s21u was just a defective unit and a new one will be better. I've definitely been incredibly disappointed so far.

Any one else had a similar experience?

spitshaw · ‎09-03-2021

I have to keep taking the charger out and plugging it into different outlets and trying to turn the device back on. It usually powers on the fifth or sixth time. Such a weird issue

tinglish · ‎09-03-2021

yeah send it back and get a replacement that's not right

tinglish · ‎09-03-2021

this is my battery at the minute,1h 40m SOT with only 10% battery used,you should be getting somewhere close to this

spitshaw · ‎09-03-2021

My first 10% is gone within 25mins SOT for me

tinglish · ‎10-03-2021

yeah go ahead and get a replacement or refund whichever you prefer.
I would say give it another chance and get a replacement because it truly is a wonderful phone.

SneezyDing · ‎10-03-2021

yep

Members_OAzQBl9 · ‎11-03-2021

I am having exactly the same problem! My S21 Ultra battery wise is performing worse than my A21 (2019) or S7..., like twice as bad and those are already old devices...

4h SOT (Screen on Time) this is what I am getting each day! Like WTF...

I have tried probably every single battery optimization trick in the book, except turning off the WQHD and 120HZ as those are the features I bought this beast of a phone for. And I am heavily disappointed.

What I have tried:

Nearby Wifi Scanning off
Nearby Bluetooth Scanning off
Device Scanning off
All possible battery optimization/Adaptive features on
Almost all the APPS put to deep sleep
Phone fully debloated from all unused app including Samsung Smarthings.
Dark Mode ON
Adaptive Brightness Off so it does not peak to high values wasting battery - with Slider permanently set below 40%
Pretty much all the setting like NFC, Bluetooth etc OFF whenever not used. Data or Wifi ON depending on location
No enhanced processing,
5G Off
Second SIM OFF (For now at least) so it does not have to do the heavy lifting of connecting to two networks.
I am actively monitoring my battery with Samsung tools and AccuBattery

At this is what I get... see below:

Screenshoot #1 - This is pretty much my daily experience... bearly 4h SOT and my S21 Ultra is Dead... worse than all 3 phones I had previously.

Screenshot #2 - Almost dead less than 4h SOT

Screenshoot #3 - This one is from today, I am about to charge it for the third time and it is only 3pm... No games, nothing... The high number of SOT due to me charging a few times during the day

I am so frustrated at this point, I am not sure if I should go return it to Samsung, do I have a defective unit?

Also on a side note, it tends to run hot even when I do a simple thing like scrolling a website for longer period of time....

Is this is what the most expensive smartphone on the market experience should be? Turning off almost everything to function? I never had to do it to this degree in the past...

spitshaw · ‎11-03-2021

yeah I did all the exact same things you did. My last day before I sent it off I finally reached 7 hours SOT 🙌

how long have you had yours? mine was hot all the time too for the first 3 weeks, and it finally started to stop being so hot in the final 4th week, although it was still kind of warm sometimes

Members_OAzQBl9 · ‎11-03-2021

Two weeks since I have it. I am giving it time until Monday to get at least a little better. If it doesn't i think I may visit my mobile carrier to ask to send it back for a replacement...