Galaxy S4 battery

XTheLancerX · Sep 8, 2014

I pretty much got a Galaxy S4 last November and then got an iPad mini with Retina a few months later in January. Previously, I had an iPod touch 5th generation since it first came out. I loved it. And I love my iPad. But I dislike my Galaxy S4. (Switching to iPhone 6 presumably, but we'll see)

Let's not get into arguments here, first of all. My opinion is my opinion, and that's that.

Anyway. Since I barely use my Galaxy S4 and greatly prefer my Retina Mini over it, the Galaxy S4 gets barely any use. That being said, the battery life and charging cycles have gotten screwed up horrendously. From 7:30 this morning to 3:30, it dropped 40%. In my pocket. I didn't use it at all, except I emailed myself a photo I needed to get on my iPad. (one reason I will most likely be switching, transferring files between the two is a pain. iCloud fixes this.)

Over the same amount of time my iPad dropped to 93% with moderate usage from time to time during the day. Anyway, I so desperately want to switch away from my Galaxy S4, that a family member agreed to let me use their upgrade, but we will just switch the lines so I get the iPhone and they get my old Galaxy S4. They will be upgrading from the droid bionic, and have shown a lot of interest in Samsung Galaxy phones, so this is still a pretty big upgrade for them.

Agh, well finally, to the point. I need to get a new battery. Any suggestions? I really don't want to spend 50$ for one straight from Samsung, but if that's the only option, then I can settle for it. I'm wary of getting one elsewhere because I don't want to somehow get a fake one that potentially could ruin my phone. If you guys know of any other good options, it will be greatly appreciated.

LIVEFRMNYC · Sep 8, 2014

Have you tried any battery saving techniques?

First thing you should do is go to the settings then application manager and disable apps or services you will never use.

Also go to settings then data usage. Scroll down to see the apps. Tap on the apps that you don't want to use background data and check the "Restrict background data" box. This stops unnecessary apps from polling servers, which eats battery. I was shocked how much this improved my battery life, and it's rarely talked about.

You should also turn auto brightness off and manually set your brightness accordingly. Auto brightness uses more brightness than you need.

Obviously turn Wifi off when your not using it. Same with NFC and Bluetooth.

For email, push is better than pull for battery saving.

This is basically all I do on my S4, as I'm not into using those battery saving apps. My battery life is pretty good. Only setting the brightness seems to improve usage time, but standby life is amazing once you do these tips.

bkends35 · Sep 8, 2014

Every android I've owned has had disgusting battery drain while in standby. 25% drain overnight would be considered good and that's with all my apps closed. And the drain was never consistent, I ALWAYS closed everything, disabled crap that I didn't need and still it was horrible.

XTheLancerX · Sep 8, 2014

All I know is that my battery used to be fine but ever since I started to use my phone less and less, causing extremely abnormal charging cycles etc, the battery has deteriorated. A lot. I have auto brightness off, with the brightness set at just over half. Also, I close all my apps that are in background. I will try messing with these settings and I will try to get back to you.

[Edit] Alright I changed the settings, we will see if it helps. Screen, then Android System, then Android OS are always in the top of my list for battery usage, just putting that out there I guess.

viskon · Sep 9, 2014

The Galaxy S4 is my daily driver. I consistently get 3 hours of screen time on it, which is usually more than enough to last me through the day. However, occasionally, I do have the issue with the battery dropping off very quickly. My unscientific observation is that it usually happens when Google updates something on the Google Play Store. On such days, I see Android system at the top of the list on the battery usage screen.

If battery drain is a regular occurrence for you, then I would suggest a factory reset. If that doesn't work, then try replacing the battery.

XTheLancerX · Sep 9, 2014

viskon said:
The Galaxy S4 is my daily driver. I consistently get 3 hours of screen time on it, which is usually more than enough to last me through the day. However, occasionally, I do have the issue with the battery dropping off very quickly. My unscientific observation is that it usually happens when Google updates something on the Google Play Store. On such days, I see Android system at the top of the list on the battery usage screen.

If battery drain is a regular occurrence for you, then I would suggest a factory reset. If that doesn't work, then try replacing the battery.

Wow, 3 hours of screen on time is pretty sad. Is that the best I am going to get? I disabled many apps notifications, limited background usage for data on many apps, enabled power saving, disabled auto updates for apps, lowered screen brightness a bit, and will disable WiFi while I am away. Let's see how it goes.

viskon · Sep 9, 2014

XTheLancerX said:
Wow, 3 hours of screen on time is pretty sad. Is that the best I am going to get? I disabled many apps notifications, limited background usage for data on many apps, enabled power saving, disabled auto updates for apps, lowered screen brightness a bit, and will disable WiFi while I am away. Let's see how it goes.

The 3 hours screen time is on 14 hours of total usage with everything turned on. Of course, nowhere near as good as a G3 or a Note, but adequate for my purposes.

bkends35 · Sep 9, 2014

3 hours of screen on time isn't great at all. My 5s gets at least 5:30 of screen on time. Here's how I figure it, I usually charge my phone at night then unplug it before I go to bed. I won't touch it and pretty much every time I wake up I'll check the usage stats. It'll be at about 30 minutes of usage pretty much every time and about 8 hours of standby. So, over a course of a day (24 hours) it'll have around 1:30 of usage time with the screen off. At the end of the day if I ever kill my phone (rarely) I'll have about 7:30 of usage time. Now if this is over a 24 hour span that'll be about 6 hours of screen on time. Now usage time when the screen time off it dependent of many factors hence why I said at least 5:30 of screen on time on a full charge and IMO that's pretty dang good.

gotluck · Sep 9, 2014

but you dont really know your actual ios screen time because ios doesnt track it. its all guestimation

viskon · Sep 9, 2014

Does this need to turn into an Android vs iOS debate again ? I don't believe that is the purpose of this thread.

bkends35 · Sep 9, 2014

gotluck said:
but you dont really know your actual ios screen time because ios doesnt track it. its all guestimation

Of course, hence why I even rounded down. However, seeing as though my usage time with the screen off is extremely consistent at about 3.75min/hour it's not hard to figure it out within probably 10%.

XTheLancerX · Sep 9, 2014

Okay, I went through a lot of my settings and did all that you guys recommended, went from 98% this morning at 7:30 to 41% at 3:30, never used the phone once. I just need suggestions on where to purchase a new battery, and what I should get. Thanks.

viskon · Sep 10, 2014

XTheLancerX said:
Okay, I went through a lot of my settings and did all that you guys recommended, went from 98% this morning at 7:30 to 41% at 3:30, never used the phone once. I just need suggestions on where to purchase a new battery, and what I should get. Thanks.

Did you check in the battery stats to see what was using your battery? Did you factory reset?

One other thing you can do is run the phone phone in the "safe mode". In the safe mode, all the apps that that you installed will be disabled and only the ones that came with the phone will be enabled. You can run the phone in safe mode to determine if it is a hardware or software issue. How to enable safe mode is in the link below.

http://www.technipages.com/samsung-galaxy-s4-turn-safe-mode

XTheLancerX · Sep 10, 2014

viskon said:
Did you check in the battery stats to see what was using your battery? Did you factory reset?

One other thing you can do is run the phone phone in the "safe mode". In the safe mode, all the apps that that you installed will be disabled and only the ones that came with the phone will be enabled. You can run the phone in safe mode to determine if it is a hardware or software issue. How to enable safe mode is in the link below.

http://www.technipages.com/samsung-galaxy-s4-turn-safe-mode

Screen, Android OS, and Android System are usually the top battery users on the list.

Today my battery actually did pretty well, and I changed no settings or anything, didn't really even do anything different throughout the day. Dropped from 100% to 84% from 7:30 to 8:30, even used my phone some during lunch break where I usually don't.

Shanghaichica · Sep 11, 2014

bkends35 said:
3 hours of screen on time isn't great at all. My 5s gets at least 5:30 of screen on time. Here's how I figure it, I usually charge my phone at night then unplug it before I go to bed. I won't touch it and pretty much every time I wake up I'll check the usage stats. It'll be at about 30 minutes of usage pretty much every time and about 8 hours of standby. So, over a course of a day (24 hours) it'll have around 1:30 of usage time with the screen off. At the end of the day if I ever kill my phone (rarely) I'll have about 7:30 of usage time. Now if this is over a 24 hour span that'll be about 6 hours of screen on time. Now usage time when the screen time off it dependent of many factors hence why I said at least 5:30 of screen on time on a full charge and IMO that's pretty dang good.

I never got anywhere near 5 hours screen time with my 5 S. 2 hours is more like it. It never lasted me a whole day either. If I took out off the charger at 6 I'd need to charge it again by 4pm with moderate usage.

On my note 3 /S4/S5 I can take it off the charger at 6am and it will still be going at 10pm with moderate usage. Best of all I can always carry around a spare battery in case I need it. Battery cases and power packs are just a PITA.

The only area the iPhone wins is in standby time. Over night there is little to no drain.

bkends35 · Sep 11, 2014

Shanghaichica said:
I never got anywhere near 5 hours screen time with my 5 S. 2 hours is more like it. It never lasted me a whole day either. If I took out off the charger at 6 I'd need to charge it again by 4pm with moderate usage.

On my note 3 /S4/S5 I can take it off the charger at 6am and it will still be going at 10pm with moderate usage. Best of all I can always carry around a spare battery in case I need it. Battery cases and power packs are just a PITA.

The only area the iPhone wins is in standby time. Over night there is little to no drain.

That's horrendous. I can easily get through a full day with moderate to heavy use. 7am-11pm is what I consider a full day. Usually 7-8hours usage and 16 hours standby. The only area the 5s can't keep up with the big androids is talk time just because the battery is so small. In web browsing and video playback, it beats almost all of the flagship androids including the Note 3 in web browsing.

LIVEFRMNYC · Sep 11, 2014

From full charge, I can play a game for 3 hours or stream a 2-3 hour movie and my battery will be anywhere from 40% to 55%. The most power hungry games I've played for that long was Dead Trigger 2 and NFS Most Wanted.

Breaking Good · Sep 13, 2014

I use a Zerolemon battery in my Galaxy S4. I think they are Bettery than the Samsung factory battery and they cost less.

They make an extended battery with a case and a standard battery which is the same size as the factory original. I think a two-pack with charger is $30.

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Galaxy S4 battery

XTheLancerX

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LIVEFRMNYC

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bkends35

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XTheLancerX

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viskon

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bkends35

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gotluck

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XTheLancerX

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viskon

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XTheLancerX

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Shanghaichica

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bkends35

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LIVEFRMNYC

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Breaking Good

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