For all the users suffering battery life issues on S21u... please read on.

[smiley]

Of course there are lots of bugs floating around these new released Phones and this is just one of them. 

To explain my experiences... I have thankfully not had any significant heat issues... but I have experienced a few 'warming' episodes... and I have obviously been lucky compared to some users. 

Other than the odd camera image that needed retaking... and the battery life issue hasn't been that great... but I have been very happy overall with my ultra. 

However, until today, the best battery life I experienced ... was about 5 hours of screen on time... with the phone left at the end of the day with perhaps 15 to 20 percent. For the intensive usage days over the weekend, I had to charge again by the evening to give it a boost or it would not have lasted even a day. 

I received the new February update AUB3 on Monday... installed it... and it seemed my battery had got worse Tuesday I only have 3.5 hours screen time and had about 25% left. 

if this sounds familiar then please read on. This is where it gets interesting... 

So I did a bit of research and read an article online about the importance of the brand new phone being prepared correctly. It mentioned the possible incompatibilities between the new Android 11, OneUI3.1 and the new hardware. The advice it gave was to ensure the phone did NOT have a full phone sync to start... between an old and new phone. It mentioned that many apps have issues with Android 11 and contribute to battery problems as they do not work correctly with the new OS. 

After chatting with a few people here last night... I performed a factory reset back to the new phone status. Rather than using smartswitch to sync the previous contacts, messages, and applications from my S10+... I started from scratch... with a clean install. 

Before I factory reset, I wrote a list of apps that were essential to install... banking... music apps... TV apps... Office apps. I decided things like easyjet, Tui, TripAdvisor, old games and other low priority apps will not be re-installed. They can always be added back later...

It took me all evening. After the factory reset, from the first reboot and use... the phone behaved differently without syncing all my apps. It went through its setup in android 11 differently from my first attempt on 28th Jan when I synced everything. 

I installed many of the apps again, but this time directly from the store each time... and surprisingly many things like Netflix and other many apps were showing a slightly different version from previous... a newer user interface and looked better optimised for Android 11. 

Since my factory reset, the phone has been quicker to respond... no heat warming issues whatsoever... and the apps have installed without any problems. 

Today...day 1... the battery is learning again for a couple of days. However bearing in mind for 11 days previous, the maximum SOT I have had from this phone is about 5 hours total, this screenshot below is today's performance. 

It has been used today since about 7.30am... not heavily, but more than 5 hours SOT, plenty of things such as a Netflix show watched, NowTV... music playing for a couple hours... lots of Internet browsing etc. 

13hr46... more than 5 hours SOT...and my battery is still at 46%. It is going through its learning and I haven't changed any settings to back them off from WQHD+, 120Hz or changed anything. 

I am truly amazed. I would highly recommend that everyone with battery issues at least tries a very clean factory reset... literally start from scratch except for essential such as contacts and calendar which can be synced from Google. I know it is a pain. That was my biggest dilemma... and losing a load of stuff. 

But it has 110% been worth the effort. 

The worst that will happen... is that you spend the evening re-imaging the phone... have a spring clean of your apps ...and it doesn't do much in your case. 

However, the best that will happen is you will improve the performance considerably... you may get 8 to 10 hours SOT and that battery life that you expected from the start. 

I think it is worth 3 or 4 hours of anyone's time. !! Those that give this a try and see a significant improvement ... you can thank me later 😃

Kind regards

Smiley 😀

[virkhanna21]

So first of all, a big thank you. I did exactly as suggested by you. Now getting well over 8 hours of SOT. And that's so reassuring. What a phone, this beast. 

Thanks Smiley. Look at the stats after your suggestion. 

 

[smiley]

I am very happy to hear that... and it is nice to hear success stories. 👍😀

I am really happy that you have seen such good results... you are now getting better than me !!

lol. 😂😂

I am very happy with my phone now. I get between 6 and 7 SoT hours over a day and a half or so... between charges.

I don't charge it every night now... as I find my phone still has between 40 and 50 percent left over at bedtime.

I generally wait until the battery drops to around 20% which will be well into the afternoon in day 2... and then recharge.

Enjoy your phone, and very happy to have been some help.

I just wish everyone would heed this advice that says about their bad battery life. I think many are apprehensive about resetting everything and starting from scratch again.

Thanks
Smiley 😀

[Austineal]

Its been a month since i got and started using my s21ultra, what i can say is it has been a roller coaster ride of feelings and emotions. I guess for some people, they got the phone with great battery life to start with and for some of us who had to struggle and had to deal with the crazy battery drain and over heating issues. As for myself, i got a battery hungry device. A month after, i gotta say after all the constant software updates samsung has been dishing out, i finally finally finally got to experience the 5000mah battery this phone is packing. From barely reaching 5hrs sot a day with full charge to yesterday reaching 9hrs+ sot. It was a literal jaw dropping moment for me. For weeks now since the aub3 update, ive been using wqhd, 120hz, adaptive brightness, darkmode, bluetooth on, sync on, wifi on, bixby routines on, location on, 5g disabled and have settings pushing this phone to the max. Plus we have got to clear cache partition every after software update. Aub9 now, been getting 8hrs easily a day. But as what ive noticed after a new software update, battery kinda resets in a way and starts learning all over again, because after the aub9 update, i was experiencing 4hrs to 5hrs sot a day for days. I thought my device was faulty but decided to give it more time to "learn" again, as this is what happened to my phone when i last updated to aub3. Clearing partition after updates has a day and night difference. 

i hope posting this here wont jinx anything hahaha i hope this keeps improving as days go by. I hope everyone will have their jaw drops as i did. Hope for the best and thanks again @smiley  your advice before really helped. 

Im using Exynos version (Philippines)

[smiley]

Great news with your battery life.   Thanks for your update.

Smiley