yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] daribeiro:
So I bought the new S21 Ultra on the pre order the day it was announced. I was one of the lucky ones to get early so I could leave a review.

Coming from a Note 10+ that I had for a year and a half, I was really excited for the S21 Ultra, but was really disappointed with the battery life. I've had the phone for 5 days now and since the very beginning I've not been able to use the phone for the whole day on a single charge. It's been giving me screen on times comparable to my Note 10+ (4/5 hours) which is a much older device, but I thought maybe this was the way all S21 ultra's were behaving, just not very good battery life.

BUT, yesterday all the youtubers started to publish they're videos comparing batteries with older S devices and Iphones and their S21s were doing amazing, giving them screen on times of up to 13 hours!

I contacted support but they said this would be normal as my phone was still learning user patterns... but I'm not sure if that would affect it as bad as it is at the moment.

Also, I installed accubattery which is not 100% reliable but compared it to my note 10+ and it seems that battery health is even lower that my Note (95%)! Which I've had for a year and a half!!!

What do you guys think? Should I send the phone back? I'm really concerned that I just spent all this money on a new phone for it to be so bad with battery.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] blackhawk:
Try disabling all power management.

In Developer options>standby apps all buckets should show as active otherwise power management is running.

Google Play Services, Backup Transport and Framework are known hogs.

Disable all the bloatware, turn off auto sync for gmail, turn off all feedback.

You'll need to sort it out and optimize it. Took me months to get my 10+ sorted out. Fortunately it's running on Pie so I had more diagnostic options.

Returning is a thought as 5G may have been poorly implemented and another source of power drain. I think everything after the 10+ 4G both hardware and OS are train wrecks... I see very little incentive to "upgrade".
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] Sharpshooterrr:
Maybe post screenshots that aren't below 5 kilobytes. Lol. I'm guessing you have an Exynos variant?
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] nightoo:
It's too early to judge the battery life, also accu battery app is not good at all, it's not accurate as your own phone's batterymeter.

Also, you need a week or so to make sure the phone get optimised according to your usage.

Does your phone have Exynos 2100 or Snapdragon 888?
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] daribeiro:
Sorry about that ahaha changed it now
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] daribeiro:
Mine has the Exynos 2100. I was just going off from videos like Mrwhosetheboss. He got 8 hours of screen on time. And he probably tested it when he got the phone no? And I'm litteraly getting half of that... and not even pushing my phone to the limit like he did on his video. I mainly use social media apps and YouTube.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] Geekser:
I suggest doing a factory reset before you think about sending the phone back. Also, initially, be careful about what aps you install - try going with a minimal number of aps so you can get an idea of how the battery does when there are no aps that might pull from the battery - after a few days, add all of the aps you have been using (while avoiding any that might be a battery drain) and try for a few more days to see if you are seeing improved battery life. Good luck - hope it all works out for you.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] blackhawk:
Reloads -never- find the root cause and many times even if the problem is "fixed" it eventually returns.

Exceptions; old loads, software induced bootloops, viruses, and major firmware updates.

Expect issues with the 5G devices from poor hardware implementation. No fix for this.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] leoking3:
I am on the first charge, but the battery life is so far pathetic. Omg! And everyone on youtube praise it... Down to 85% in 2 and a half hours and 50 minutes of SOT. Shame...:(
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] blackhawk:
How much with screen off is it sucking down?

If more than 1% @ hr with AOD on it's probably Google and cloud crap running in the background.

You can optimize it to improve performance.

It's easier to do this with Pie though; Q and 11 take away critical tools and use scoped storage which wastes cpu cycles.

Get Karma Firewall and a package disabler like this one;

Package Disabler

The only NON-root solution that let’s you disable any unwanted packages that come pre-installed / installed with your phone / tablet.

www.packagedisabler.com

Regardless of the model or OS version most carrier phones will need to be optimized for good battery life and optimum performance.

My 10+ was a hot running bandwidth hungry hog until I toned it down. Today it's hard to believe it's that same machine.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] leoking3:
You are right, I agree with all you said. It is kinda sad though, as for instance, my ex Asus Zenfone 7 Pro had an absolutely mindblowing battery life, without any tweaks. I just used it. With all the hype around the S21 Ultra, I believed it again. The only Samsung I used with good battery life was S20 FE 5G.

Will give it a go with what you say though, thanks.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] nightoooo:
Well, i believe what you are saying about battery life, but what i have seen so far is promising, i mean when S21 Ultra with Exynos 2100 beats iphone 11 Pro Max and 12 Pro Max, i guess that's a good sign!! But for sure, we use our phones in different way than each others because maybe you use it with 4G/5G enabled almost all the time while these tests are just using Wifi and maybe without any SIM card which means the battery consumption will be minimum at this part.

I have S20 Ultra with Snapdragon 865, i get like an average of 6 hours SoT and if S21 Ultra Exynos gives me the same SoT, i'll be happy!!
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] leoking3:
SOT is not everything...we travel, we move, you cant accept a phone that gives you 12 hours of standby in total. This is bs and useless, you cant rely on such a phone.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] blackhawk:
My AT&T 10+ was not real bad (or good) the first few days. After enabling power management it went to hell.

Eventually I disabled all power management and one by one tracked down the hogs.

Because of dependencies simply disabling and/or turning off say Google Transport and Google Framework isn't enough, firewall blocking Google Play Services* then clearing data on all 3 periodically finally stopped this hog dead in its tracks. These will run in the background when the screen is off stealing power for nothing. Sometimes the Google apks are misreported as other Google apks presumably because of the interlinking dependencies.

Try using Galaxy Labs Battery Tracker.

Developer options>running apks/cache can also yield clues. With an unrooted phone there's some serious game playing to track this garbage down.

Anything app that's cloud or carrier is bad... lol.

Disable all feedback and syncing except for texting; manually sync gmail.

*needs to be unblocked occasionally for gmail to download and for Playstore (another apk you should disable/firewall block when not using).
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] mankvl:
Try disabling 5G if you are not using it, for some ppl SmartThings drain a lot of battery but you should see that app in log. Can't wait to get mine, also E2100 and coming from Note 8. Was rly looking to have a 2 day phone.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] blackhawk:
That's a thought that's worth a try.

From what I've read even disabling 5G doesn't completely stop it's parasitic battery drain.

Maybe the latest generation chipsets are better but early 5G was poorly implemented giving a marginal speed increase on most phones of 20% when available.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] eyeatoma:
Is this on the snapdragon or exynos variant?
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] Collin80:
So, 15% drain in 2.5 hours with nearly an hour of SOT. 15% is about 1/7 as a fraction. Now, 7 * 50 / 60 = 5.83 hours of SOT and 2.5 * 7 = 17.5 hours total. My Note 10+ (S20 Ultra on order!) doesn't do any better and NEVER did. If I use my phone for 6 hours a day (of SOT) it's pretty much done for.

I think people are being way too picky these days - just complaining to complain. If you really want I'm sure you can tune your phone so it gets 3 days on the battery. It'll suck and not do much of anything but, sure, you can do it. I've got a smartwatch and the same thing applies. I can tune it so it works for two weeks on the battery or I can actually use the thing and get 2-3 days. I choose 2-3 days and have stuff I want to use. I'd rather my phone be reactive and tell me when I've got emails, etc than to get super long battery life and basically have an inert brick in my pocket. I have a cellphone so I can use it for stuff. If that makes the battery not last long, oh well. If it can get 5-7 hours of screen time while also lasting through the day, great.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] blackhawk:
My 10+ draws roughly 1%@hr* with AOD on.

SOT draw varies between 9-12%@hr

Roughly 10%@hr watching vids on Samsung internet with surfing on Brave being the highest usage.

I consider it fairly optimized at this point.

*4300 mAh battery with little degradation.

No 5G running on Pie so not scoped storage either.

Figures are from a charge range of between roughly 40-65% as I rarely charged beyond 70% or discharge deeper than 30%.

Actual usage be more if I had started at 100% because of the power density difference through the power range ie 1% at 20 is far less watts than 1% at 100%.

A/V=watts. Less voltage means less overall mAh per % plus the additional losses due to voltage stepup power conversionas you dip towards 30% The closer to 100%, the higher the voltage with more available mAhs per battery% as well as less stepup voltage power converter losses.

A phone's wattage and V+'are constant so as the battery voltage decreases it draws more current ie mAhs.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] leoking3:
You are also right, but , when you used something that does both keeping you up to date, and having a brilliant battery life, then it becomes disappointing when you change it for one that doesnt.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] tfn:
I saw somewhere that 'smartthings' was a big battery drain accounting to almost 13% battery drain on standby, so try turning that off or something.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] mtm1401:
Agree with the others that smart things may be buggy and drawing power.

In regards to turning off sync, the best solution is a Bixby routine to turn on sync when charging & off when not charging.

Not sure where you're based, but in the UK we have 28 days to return, so maybe wait it out, see if any further updates come out etc.

Finally it's worth determining standby drain Vs screen on drain (accubattery can help with this). But charge before you go to bed and then unplug - if drain is above 1% an hour (without AOD) you may have an issue
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] daribeiro:
Yeah I'm in the UK. I'll give it a go and see if it gentes better
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] frnkly:
Its again shame that such a powerful phone with latest tech and we have to turn off BASIC features just to have some decent battery life.

We shouldnt have have to turn this and that off.

exynos 2100 is good but software and google apps are again showing there gremlins with the OS.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] leoking3:
Exactly, then whats the point of buying it!? I am not turning anything off, I better sell it.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] Maddmatt:
Battery life reports seem all over the place. GSMArena tested an Exynos version and the results were excellent.

Wonder how much 5G and network reception is impacting it.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] mankvl:
Battery life will get better with updates imo, E2100 is definitely not optimized at this point. Also it depends on your region and signal strength.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] Dayuser:
You have to charge phone more than 6 times to get correct numbers on that accubattery. 6 sessions is not enough.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] tim84us:
Guess you WERENT that lucky after all!!!

thats why is best to hold on getting it first - till they settle any issues - with SO updates

is not normal for the battery to last less than a device from 2 y ago

clearly something is not OK

in the past i noticed that if you use smart switch to copy settings from past devices onto new ones - it can REALLY **** up the phone as the settings are not really meant to be copied

something is not working right - id do a clean install
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] bANONYMOUS:
I got mine today, but they left it outside all morning before I realized the tracking said it was delivered, so it was frozen cause Canada. So I brought it in, and just left it for a few hours to thaw, put it in my pocket for a bit to get it up to temp once it wasn't completely frozen anymore and once it was a normal temperature, I plugged it in to charge to 100%, then finally, unplugged it at 100%, set the whole thing up, restored back ups, etc, and I'm at 50% battery usage exactly, at 2 hours and 12 minutes of use, most of that time it was just sitting with 26 minutes of screen on time.

I'm really hoping this is just because of how high the usage one during setup, as it was full wifi6 speed restoring the google drive backup, google photos backup, samsung/microsoft onedrive backup, as well as the signal app restoring messages, and all of my apps downloading from the playstore, even on gigabit internet it still took forever to download everything.

However, now that everything is done downloading and the phone is done, ready to be used, not hot anymore, I'm at 3 hours and 50 minutes the phone has been on, no additional screen on time aside from checking it right now, so like, 27 minutes of screen one time, maybe, the digital well being app didn't even update the screen on time cause it was literally a few seconds to check the battery usage just now, and it's at 35% battery life, so even not downloading anything, it went down from 50%, to 35%, a loss of 15% battery life with the screen off in about an hour and a half. Nothing running, my SIM isn't even activated yet so I'm not even getting texts.

I'm really hoping it just need a battery cycle, so once it gets so low it dies, I'm going to get it back up to 100% before turning it back on and see if maybe it's just not calibrated correctly because it was literally frozen on my steps but to me, it sounds like the battery is completely dead because Canada Post just left it, literally in the snow on my front porch and didn't knock cause I was in the kitchen all morning, I would have heard them cause the front door is just in the other room lol.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] daribeiro:
I would send it back to samsung and fille a complaint with the delivery company. Pretty sure freezing a phone will damage battery phone
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] dscline:
There's nothing wrong with a lithium battery being exposed to sub-0 temps, as long as it's brought back up to normal before charging.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] nightoooo:
I assume that you have the Snapdragon 888 because u live in Canada, right?
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] tribalfs:
Li-Ion specifically, which is used in S21 Ultra. It can operate on much lower temperature than Li-Polymer battery found in S20.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] dscline:
Both batteries are labeled as being Li-ion.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] tribalfs:
I was wrong. Both are using li polymer according to this site. Not sure if accurate though.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] dscline:
Based on the teardowns, they appear to be almost identical batteries.

S20:

S21:
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] tribalfs:
Yes, I see li-ion printed in both. Possibly because li-poly is also a lithium ion technology but uses polymer electrolytes instead of liquid electrolytes in traditional li-ion battery.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] tribalfs:
These wiki articles also indicate both S20 and S21 use li-po batteries.

Samsung Galaxy S21 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Samsung Galaxy S20 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] Suntaina:
I see from your screenshot you got two simcard right? I see the signal is really bad, that drains a lot of battery since the phone keep searching for signal and drains more if you got bad signal.

Try use the phone in flight mode for 1 day if you can, see if it makes any difference.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] mtm1401:
Any better since you last posted? Noticed that Chrome seems to be causing issues for people, as has Facebook messenger.

Could you share a screenshot of usage that includes app usage from settings and the accubattery % per hour stats after a day's use?
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] daribeiro:
I've actually disabled chrome today to test it. I've seen a bit of difference but too early too tell. Tomorrow I'll post those screenshots
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] mtm1401:
Nice, the other thing is doing a clean install rather than smartswitch, but that's a last resort. Just got my text so it's being delivered tomorrow, I'll let you know how I find it
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] atheros93:
same issue here ,the battery life its bad on exynos version in UK,today i charged the phone twice without using it too much ...
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] Devil_7:
Hi guys. I have the same problem.

4 hours sot, with 6% left and not hard use at all.

All of you with battery problem what network signal do you have?

I noticed in my both networks, signal in 4g is below -100db all time which is very weak.

Exynos version.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] nightoo:
Actually the implementation of 5G network is extremely poor, not the phones fault at all, it's still not wide spread, the 5G coverage is very limited in almost all countries, I advise you and others to disable 5G and only activate it when 4G network is heavy loaded and for sure there is 5G coverage.

Even if youe carrier or subscription doesn't supports 5G yet, disable the function so the phone does not search for 5G network all the time in the background.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] dscline:
Those of you with poor battery life, did you use Smart Switch? There's a post in the Samsung forums that suggests resetting and loading everything manually solved it. https://eu.community.samsung.com/t5...ll-the-youtube/td-p/2685561#.YBKcPx-yIag.link
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] pro4ever:
First screen on time shot . Not bad 7hrs and day and a half exynos version can only get better with learning usage patterns.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] blackhawk:
Don't be surprised if after a few days it gets worse, much worse... been there, done that.

Using power management causes erratic behavior and can increases battery usage presumably by causing conflicts.

Best to track down the battery hogs one by one and deal with them directly. Android will then manage it's self with no power management just fine.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] mtm1401:
So far not to bad, considering 2 hours of Spotify was with screen off. Did a little test overnight from full, with 0.6% hour drain without AOD which is pretty decent considering it was the first full charge, and it still being below 1% is very impressive compared to S10+.

Admittedly all indoors on WiFi but not much of a chance to test outdoors yet.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] blackhawk:
Sounds right. Congratulations👍
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] Nat.smith26:
I got my S21U for 2 days now, and so far I'm a bit disappointed.

The phone gets really hot from time to time, without doing anything particular, just browsing or reading a book.

Coming from a Note10+, that's much worse.

I'm gonna try disabling 5g, it's useless anyways in my neighborhood, I have a really bad coverage, my speedtest showed a gain of 2% compared to LTE.

The heat is on the back in the top right corner, so I'm guessing this is network related.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] mtm1401:
I've seen a few people mention heat in that area, there's a year down video somewhere that might give some idea of what's in they area
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] blackhawk:
Do Not charge past 80%; 65% is best.

High temperature/high cell voltage permanently degrades this Li fast.

Avoid full charges until you resolve this issue!!!

Disable all power management except screen/power mode setting (medium) and enable fast charging, nothing else. Close apps when done with them especially when phone is going to sleep. In Developer options>standby apps all buckets should show as active otherwise power management is controlling them.

Power management causes erratic behavior and excessive power drains the longer it runs. Android cam manage its self very well without it.

Google Backup Transport, Framework and Google Play Services are prime suspects.

Clear all data of the above three as needed, no harm will come from doing this.

Use Karma Firewall (freeware and uses almost no battery) to permanently block the first two and block GPS as needed (needed for gmail and Playstore, for Playstore a reboot is needed)

Firewall block Gmaps except when needed.

Disable locations except when needed.

Disable all cloud crap.

Disable all Google, Samsung and carrier feedback.

Disable wifi if not used.

Set Gmail to manual sync.

Bluetooth uses little battery at least on my 10+

Use factory load for all Google apks, add updates one at a time and observe for a week if you take a battery hit.

Use manual brightness control, avoid use in direct sunlight; try to keep it at around 50% or less.

Use dark mode and dark wallpapers.

Do a network reset. Use as needed.

Clear System Cache on boot menu.

Avoid doing a hard reset as the issue will most likely return. Find the root cause(s).

Do hard resets only for old loads, virus infections and after major firmware updates.

You can try a hard reboot but this seldom works.

Galaxy Labs Battery Tracker is a useful tool.

Data Counter Widget (without the widget) is useful too.

Seeing what's cached can help track down bad actors as can running apps in Developer options.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] tim84us:
lol

thats what people need to do to use a +1000$ phone these days?

freaking hell!!
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] blackhawk:
Yeah not so funny... glad to see you have a sense of humor whilst seeing red🤣

My 10+ was a hot running mess until I toned it down. It took a lot of effort and persistence.

Today it's a very stable, fast, cool running platform. It wasn't at first though...

Samsung's Device Care power management toggles where made in hell. At first they seem to work but that goes to hell in a few days as it "learns". It overrides Android's native power management and presumably creates conflicts that suck up cpu cycles and battery.

Has Samsung fixed it?

Prolly not... I know Sammy all too well.

If it's a carrier based phone disable all their junk too unless you use it for text, vid calling etc.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] mtm1401:
I mean the firewall fiddling and such like is a bit extreme and I can't get behind that (and don't get me wrong I like to fiddle).

But Samsung Vs android battery management is an interesting theory, especially as stock androids are typically understood to be more frugal on the battery at least when not in use.

Imagine their could be challenges around how android handles Samsung services (i.e. not knowing which ones can be limited), but a side by side comparison with Samsung power management Vs no Samsung power management on an galaxy device would be interesting. Sadly I don't have the time or the patience to do it 😅
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] blackhawk:
Karma Firewall is harmless. A lot of battery can be saved by limiting certain Google apks and it's the only easy way to tame them.

Unfortunately Androids wuv attention. A lot of diagnostic tools don't work on 10/11. Even on Pie it's an irritating issue and Pie isn't half as bad.

So a lot is trial and error as well as by observation and deduction.

Think of it as a game.

Rather addictive.

Androids are fun to play with and it's almost impossible to do any damage to the OS on a none rooted phone.

Learn by doing...

Lol, I crashed and burned about 50 XP loads playing in the registry... cloned OS copies are a beautiful thing🤣