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Help galaxy s4 battery life.

Irony: Yesterday I had my first battery drain. Google Services consumed 60% my battery before I caught it at 30% battery level. I restarted, but it's doing it again today. I have no option to stop it or report. The only thing I can do is turn off the location reporting, which hasn't been a problem in the last month. I have always left my GPS on. A friend of mine said yesterday that Google Services has also used an obscene amount of data on his phone.
 
For those who are having battery life issues, you may want to download "Battery Guru", free in the Play Store. The app is written by Qualcomm, and is specifically designed to optimize battery life on devices with Snapdragon processors. I have experienced a 20% increase in battery life using it.
 
Here's the latest drain. I tried to use it more and keep the screen on often. (auto brightness)

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joesixpack said:
I can't believe nobody has told you this, but the biggest reason your iPhone 4 had better battery life is because it is a 3G phone. Since your S4 is 4G, it will use more battery due to radio switching and the sheer power demands of the 4G environment! That is the nature of the beast. That extra inch of screen size will have a big effect as well.

I'm a light to moderate user and usually have at least 60% left by day's end! So, as was stated before, buy yourself a spare battery and swap out if/when you run low (can't do that, Apple!).

Fire up that S4 and don't look back!
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On that note, I wonder if anyone has experience with a pre-iPhone 5 and iPhone 5 in terms of battery life. I know asking in an Android forum isn't the ideal place, but just wondering. iP5 vs. iP4S or lower would have similar issues, namely larger screen size and 4G vs. 3G.

I just activated my SGS4 and haven't transferred my apps and data from my Droid 3 yet. So I'm just using the SGS4 mainly to text and surf. I haven't even made a phone call yet. (Who uses a phone for making call these days? :p) I also noticed that every few min. of surfing would decrement the battery by 1% that the thread starter mentioned. If I extrapolate that and assume linear battery consumption, that would give 5 hours of surf time (screen is auto-brightness). Seems reasonable.

My battery was already about half charged when I got it and I wall-charged it to full before using it. I fully drained it by yesterday morning and it took over 7 hours to charge it by USB. That's way longer than it took my D3. That said, since the S4's battery is about twice the capacity of the D3, I guess it'd take twice as long since USB can only push out so much power.

One day, I'll use my Kill-A-Watt to see how many watts it takes to wall-charge my phone. My D3 took a few W, pretty much negligible.
 
Colchicine said:
Irony: Yesterday I had my first battery drain. Google Services consumed 60% my battery before I caught it at 30% battery level...
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As a point of clarification, Google Services had used 60% of charge that had been used, not 60% of the total battery charge. In this instance it used 60% of the 70% that had been used, or 42% of the total battery charge.
Which is not to say that GS hadn't been running amok, it had.
I'm just trying to help folks understand what that screen is trying to tell them (which is not to say that YOU don't already understand. :) )
 
When I first got the S4 the battery life was dismal. (Some of that was my continual playing with it granted) I am talking about 3-4 hours before a recharge. After several recharging cycles, and normal use (normal for me is several voice calls a day, heavy navigation usage, pandora streaming and constant email/facebook/text) resuming it now lasts me from 7am until about 9pm. My biggest problem was (and still is at times) poor signal coverage at work. That has settled down a bit, but when the signal is poor I lose about 20% an hour. I even have some of the gestures turned on because I like playing with them. It is my opinion that signal strength is the big variable that affects battery usage.
 
is it OK to drain your battery? at least once or twice? been using my s4 for less than 3 weeks. maximum battery lifetime is about MORE THAN a day but less than 2 days. Been using it for sms/text messaging and wifi (for at least 5minutes every night) since i got it, haven't tried to drain my battery yet. btw, it is not rooted
 
I've seen this with a few other people! What the hell is the deal with Google services being at the top of battery usage all of a sudden in the last 24 to 48 hours????

Anyone have any ideas?
 
AdmSuvvuk said:
When I first got the S4 the battery life was dismal. (Some of that was my continual playing with it granted) I am talking about 3-4 hours before a recharge. After several recharging cycles, and normal use (normal for me is several voice calls a day, heavy navigation usage, pandora streaming and constant email/facebook/text) resuming it now lasts me from 7am until about 9pm. My biggest problem was (and still is at times) poor signal coverage at work. That has settled down a bit, but when the signal is poor I lose about 20% an hour. I even have some of the gestures turned on because I like playing with them. It is my opinion that signal strength is the big variable that affects battery usage.
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This is true.

You will also get better battery life while connected to wifi as opposed to using your carrier's mobile data. (Generally speaking, of course :) )
 
The best way to get maximum battery power to flash a custom ROM. I use Liquidsmooth on my S4 the battery is so much better then the stock ROM.
 
cybertec69 said:
Same here, no issues, and screen is set to max.
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Not to hijack the thread, but why would the two of you (you and astroboi82) both have the screen brightness set to max? I've found the automatic brightness setting on the S4 to be really good at making quick adjustments when necessary.
 
icedtea said:
how long do you charge your s4 on a 20% and BELOW battery stats??
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It takes me about 3 hours to fully charge my phone from empty using a charging cable I used w/ my old phone and if the phone is turned off. Some say it's faster using the white cable that came w/ the phone, but I haven't tried that yet.
 
beowulf7 said:
It takes me about 3 hours to fully charge my phone from empty using a charging cable I used w/ my old phone and if the phone is turned off.
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Yes with my s2 charger.. it takes close to 3hrs. .


Some say it's faster using the white cable that came w/ the phone, but I haven't tried that yet.
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using the package charger, almost 2 hours or approximately 2 hours
 
Apple battery life may have been good in the little i4, but it's not in the i5:
Samsung's Galaxy S4 scoops the iPhone 5 on battery life

I'd guess the i5s would be worse given the bigger processor and little or no change in the battery.

I use Juice Defender on my S4 and it increased battery life dramatically for the way I use my phone. Also strongly agree that signal strength makes a big difference.

The charger that came with the phone is the fastest charger I've ever used. Not sure if the cable is that important, though. Most likely it's the charger itself. I've heard it's 2 amp compared to 1 amp for most other chargers.
 
jejb said:
The charger that came with the phone is the fastest charger I've ever used. Not sure if the cable is that important, though.
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There's another thread here where I learned something new about voltage drop. I usually think of it in higher voltage, such as generator runs, but it turns out you can have significant voltage drop in 5 volt over just 3 feet if the gauge of the wire is not sufficient. As I recall, you should have 24 gauge wire, where many USB cables are 28 gauge.

Anyway, not terribly up on battery charging, but I would suspect a voltage drop would significantly impact charging times.
 
Goodspike said:
There's another thread here where I learned something new about voltage drop. I usually think of it in higher voltage, such as generator runs, but it turns out you can have significant voltage drop in 5 volt over just 3 feet if the gauge of the wire is not sufficient. As I recall, you should have 24 gauge wire, where many USB cables are 28 gauge.

Anyway, not terribly up on battery charging, but I would suspect a voltage drop would significantly impact charging times.
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You are correct on this. I've tried using old chargers, that are less then the 2.0 amp on the S4 stock charger. (They take like 3 hrs from about 20% battery left.) I can charge my phone from 10% battery left to 100%, in sleep mode, in just under 2 hrs. Considering how big the battery is, the stock charger charges really fast.
 
Obviously we're all gonna get different results, I'm a medium-to-heavy user and have yet to have it die before the day is out. With average use it usually makes it halfway into the next day

Screen brightness is your biggest issue, I have mine set at around a third. At first it's a little dark but you get used to it, and turning it back up is too bright

If it's a regular problem you might want to look into either a spare battery or a bigger one. A spare is better if you're only occasionally squeezing more juice out the phone, whereas an extended battery or case is better if it's a regualar thing
 
icedtea said:
Yes with my s2 charger.. it takes close to 3hrs. .




using the package charger, almost 2 hours or approximately 2 hours
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I see, so the OEM cable cuts down the recharge time by 1 hour from 3 to 2. I'll try that out myself on a night when I drain my battery fully to 0%.
 
beowulf7 said:
I see, so the OEM cable cuts down the recharge time by 1 hour from 3 to 2. I'll try that out myself on a night when I drain my battery fully to 0%.
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Its not a good idea to drain your battery to 0%. If you don't have access to a plu during the day, you might want to invest in an extra battery to swap out during the day. (It will save your battery in the long run.)
 
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