[Honor 8 Guides, News, & Discussion] trojjacker:
So I had Nougat ever since it came out and used it a lot, but went back to Marshmallow a couple of days ago because of:

...Battery life. No matter what apps, settings, versions (B360, B380, B381), recommendations etc. - Battery life is simply better and more reliable on Marshmallow. Yes, I know, I did factory resets, downgrade, upgrade via OTA, deactivated this and that, pretty much everything you read on the threads here and elsewhere, it still couldn't catch up to Marshmallow. Don't get me wrong, battery life on Nougat is not terrible - I even convinced myself over the months that it is pretty much the same or even better, but that's simply just wishful thinking. As soon as I downgraded I could notice a significant improvement.

What do I mean by improvement? For once it is more reliable meaning I know what I get. On Nougat I had days where I got 3 hours SOT, then 4 or 5 on others. I had 2 percent stanby drain per hour, then 5, then 1 - it was just more random. On Marshmallow I always get pretty much the same. Stanby drain of 1 percent or less per hour and SOT of 6 or more hours (I'm at 3:40 SOT at the moment with 18 hours and 45 minutes since the last charge and exactly 50 percent battery left). So not only is it more reliable, it also gives me more SOT and lower standby drain.

Regarding the standby drain: When installing apps like ForceDoze on Marshmallow, it lets the device enter Deep Doze the minute I turn off the phone (meaning I often have deep doze rates of above 98%) which leads to little to almost no standby drain without losing any benefits (notifications still come through when added to the whitelist). Deep sleeps rates are also above 90 percent. With Nougat deeps sleep rates are only around 80 percent (given the same apps, settings etc.) and doze rates are much worse. Yes, I know all about light and deep doze, but light doze doesn't start until 5 minutes after the device is turned off (even with apps like ForceDoze) and those 5 minutes add up, especially if you are checking your device often. Also, it doesn't enter deep doze which arguably consumes less power until much later (often hours) and there is also no way I could change that with ForceDoze or Greenify. What's more, the ForceDoze setting of "ignore device movement" actually works on Marshmallow but didn't reliably work on Nougat meaning the deivce enters and stays in deep doze the minute you turn off your phone even if you are moving or driving etc. This made the difference between Marshmallow and Nougat even greater for me when driving or walking around town.

One additional thing I noticed. is that Android System and Kernel (Android OS) usage was higher on Nougat than on Marshmallow, which also worsened battery life on Nougat for me. Again, this could be reliably replicated with the same apps, settings etc.

Granted, everything else is pretty much better on Nougat (speed, UI, notification bar, lock-screen, security updates, additional features etc.), but if you value battery life above everyhing else (which I do), I still think Marshmallow is the best on the Honor 8 and, frankly, I don't see the point of updating to a newer version of Android if it doesn't come with at least the same battery life, as it is one of the most central features of a phone. I don't know and don't really care whether it's Nougat itself or Honor, I just hope that eventually (maybe with B38X or B39X), battery life will fully match that of Marshmallow. What do you guys think? What's your experience?