yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] Security555:
It's a matter of personal preference.

Also, if you're not sure about some packages whether you going to use some in the future or not,

you have the option to disable them pm disable-user --user 0(or for whatever user you need)

and re-enable it on your phone, you don't even need an ADB for that.

If you ask me, Samsung phones are not usable out of the box, at least for me.

If I wouldn't being ready to tinker, I would rather look elsewhere.

If you can live without GApps, using FOSS's F-Droid

Huawei would be a better choice right out of the box.

Also WiFi/microphone/GSM/LTE are so much better on Huawei,

also there're no issues with the microphone on the top it just works,

on S21U we've got two of them, they don't work at all, I can't figure out how to enable them for conference mode with Element and Telegram, so I'm forced to use my old Huawei with shattered glass.

Camera is the mix bag too.

Samsung phones still Samsung phones

Not bad, but not good either.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] nightoooo:
Well this is the main thing, i am too dependent on Google's services, if they are not official and proper i will not be able to run many Bank & Bank ID services, Samsung Pay will not work, also will not be able to run other kind of stuff that are related to many of the packages that i can't just disable. I wonder why you didn't root your phone, it would be even more logical because you will have a pure phone without bloats ..
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] Security555:
I always did, in the past,

the only way I customize my phone is by building my very own ROM from AOSP,

but it is so time consuming first to de-google AOSP, and then to tinker with the proprietary Samsung drivers, bootloader to make it work.

That's why you don't see AOSP ROMs for S21U.

All Samsung based ROMs make no sense to me, you'll get the same de-bloated experience you can get by just using ADB, but with tripped Knox, vulnerable bootloader, TWRP with no 2FA (maybe I'm not up to date then correct me) and malicious apps will get root access too.

I'd prefer to have a Sudo command.

From the security point of view it's a huge downgrade.

And again, no Bank app will work.

The only reason to "root" S21U is to being able to remove Game booster, but I'm not a gamer.

The only justifiable reason for me to root a modern phone would be Privacy, but not at the expense of Security, because in the end you going to lose both of them.

Update: here is an illustration what Knox actually does on the Kernel and Boot level.

If someone is interested in technical details, here is a link with a simple explanation:

Secured by Knox - Samsung Mobile Security Mechanisms - Prog.World

If you have a Samsung phone, you may have noticed the phrase “Secured by Knox” on the boot screen. What does that even mean? Under the cut – a description of the mobile security platform preloaded on most Samsung smartphones and tablets. This is the first Russian-language review of what...

prog.world
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] Security555:
I'm back again, and that's not good at all, I only left few services including Find my Mobile,

check it out.

com.samsung.android.fmm
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] mtm1401:
If you click on battery you'll see the 22% is actually all Android system drain, there will be a number of apps that show 22%, not just find my mobile
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] kconsoli95:
Hi Security555!

Would you be able to share us the name of the services and apps that you deleted with the "pm uninstall --user 0" command??

Thanks for your time! ☺️
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] Security555:
Nope, only Find my mobile, since I removed it no such issue anymore, the remaining apps are good,

wait a second, almost no Samsung's app is remained besides Camera/Gallery/Knox and Phone.

That's why no app drains my battery anymore, and yet I have a lot of apps, but all of them are FOSS.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] Security555:
I'm on a vacation trip at the moment, driving from place to place, have no option to put all the apps I removed on a list.

I removed almost every Samsung's app, and Google's system unrelated apps and telemetry, my approach is probably not for everyone.

I envision the future with no closed/proprietary corporate vulnerable crap-spy-software, especially free from Samsung's crapware,

thus I already use 99% of FOSS (F-droid) on my phone and 100℅ in my home lab.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] kconsoli95:
Thanks for your comment Security555, I will try to see what I am able to delete.

Have a nice trip! 😊
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] jimv1983:
That's actually not very good. That comes out to a stand by drain of about 0.72%/hr. It's especially bad considering it's a 5,000mAh battery. That's about 36mA/hr.

Just for comparison when I first got my Pixel 2 XL back in 2017 it had a stand by drain of about 0.333%/hr with a 3,520mAh battery or about 12mA/hr. So still at 96% after 12.5 hours of stand by with a battery that was 30% smaller.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] Goku1992:
Yes! The drain should be max 0,35% per hour. Everything else is to much...

My 7t pro mclaren makes 0,25-0,3% per hour and it has 1000mah less...
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] thorracing1:
Does %32 in about 5 hours seem like it's too much
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] Goku1992:
Way to much... The screen on time should usr about 20% the standby 1-2% so where is the other 10%?
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] thorracing1:
For sure when I get off work going to try to debloat some just got this phone last week no way should be draining so fast came from iphone but I've had android years ago
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] nixnixnixnix4:
What was your discharge rate across those ~9 hours?

Did it drop 5% or more?
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] ccezar2004:
S21 Ultra... I have made a complete debloat and left it fully charged, optimized, all apps closed, restarted on the night counter.... 7 hours untouched and 16% battery drain... WTF?????

😟
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] manager77:
for me battery drains only 1-2% over the night(6-7 h). l guess something is wrong with your phone, maybe some hungry app in background?!
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] ccezar2004:
Yeah... I'd say there's something draining... But not very clear for me.

Attached a screenshot from this morning...
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] manager77:
Here you are mine...
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] ccezar2004:
How the heck you guys get 3d of battery life it's out of my power of understanding

LE starting to think if debloating really helps. I think it really comes down to usage scenarios, aps needed, network coverage and personal phone behaviours 😬
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] Goku1992:
But im using full hd @60Hz! This is a big difference. Also debloated
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] manager77:
l used 120Hz display rate with power saving mode activated
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] Goku1992:
Yes this is a big difference in terms of sot, standby should be the same
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] ccezar2004:
120Hz WQHD here... No saving mode...

LE although still not explaining the 16% drain in standby with screen off on the night stand in 7 hours
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] ccezar2004:
Tested again last night... 2.4%/h same setup: nightstand, fully charged, not touched till morning.

Any suggestions? Besides hard reset and test an empty phone 😜
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] ccezar2004:
And again... BT off, AOD off, phone on 2G... 1.7% per hour... Still a lot...

What I realize is that i have tens of apps with at least 0.1% drain during this time... I'll try to put some of them to deep sleep to see if it makes a difference...
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] Goku1992:
Should be max 0,4% per hour with this. Dont know what Samsung is doing but its bad...
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] vanthatou:
Battery of My S21u (SM-G998B/DS) decreases about 5-6% the whole night (around 8 hours) with dual SIM standby in 2G mode, bluetooth, WiFi and mobile data off, and all apps closed and cleaned. Is this normal or is there something wrong with my battery? What should I do?

I am disappointed with this performance of S21u battery because my Redmi Note 9T drops only around 2% over night with the same features on and off.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] ione2380:
Don't "optimize", don't close apps, don't use battery saving settings from Samsung, only put to sleep apps that you see they are running to much in the background without been used. Don't use apps that clear ram or anti-malware apps. And what is a complete debloat? Maybe you disabled a service that was needed by other apps and now you have drain because of that. Or maybe you just have bad signal.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] ccezar2004:
Agree to that... Been thinking the same... I'll try to do a full hard reset and see how it behaves... Although on mine I'm pretty sure it's also about apps for work (outlook, intune, jabber etc)
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] aj7400:
You can always test the phone in safe mode just like you do with your windows.

However 3rd party apps will not work
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] ccezar2004:
that's just... not right... by the looks of it... only one SIM (not sure if 3, 4, 5 G) right?

i'm just wondering how are you guys using your phone that you get these numbers... it just blows my mind...

i think for this thread to make sense we should add with the screenshot the following... phone settings (display, netowrk, wifi, BT etc), number of apps installed (and maybe list), notification and background apps settings, AOD, screen timeout, coverage quality, number of SIMs etc etc etc... but then this would be to complicated LOL
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] M@nu1313:
After August update. FHD+ 120Hz 50% on 4g ,rest wifi. Location off. Debloated. Was getting around 8 hours with similar settings on previous update.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] ccezar2004:
6 hours over night, 2% per hour... In safe mode, 2G SIM 1, 4G SIM 2, BT ON with no active connection... It's true I have terrible network coverage but still... I'm thinking more and more that maybe I've debloated something that is causing this drain...
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] ccezar2004:
2.5% per hour last night... with almost all apps in deep sleep. Even the clock showed up in the consumption log...

Clearly it's time for a wipe. I had all the updates OTA style... I've heard that OTA could break things, is it true? I would do a factory reset but thinking maybe to go Odin way rather than from the phone. Any suggestions?

LE I forgot to ask... How many active apps you guys have? Like those with 2d+ of battery life... I have 10 major one that usually suck most of the battery, but also there roughly 30'ish that are just using .1 - .2 percent... Summed up it's a lot...

LE 2: Took the plunge and odin'ed it. Making all the system and app updates now and installed only critical apps... will revert back with updates
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] ccezar2004:
So here are first observations after full wipe of the phone...

Context: Odin flash with latest official ROM, all updates both Google play and samsung store, added Google account, installed WhatsApp and WhatsApp business, 2 bank apps, Google photos, Gboard and I guess only this... Phone fully charged and optimized... 4G Auto on both SIMs, BT on but not connected, mobila data ON, full location ON, AOD ON, system setting default including faptice battery which I've heard to many confusing opinions around it, no debloat.

Drain overnight approx 1.25% per hour, which is half what I had before but still way touch compared to others... One thing to me too is that my 4G signal in the bedroom is 1-2 out of 4 bars for both SIMs.

Really don't know what to try more except wipe it all, turn all off and just, airplane mode and so on... Anyway 0.2%-0.4% per hour as others are saying... I just can't get it... So I wonder if.its really feasible or it's just one of those things where you get the best millage in your car but the experience it's worse than riding a bike with a troller on your bike...

One last thing... After flash it seemed to charge faster while using the phone... Maybe also because I had 30-40+ less apps... Who knows... Or just placebo...
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] Goku1992:
Mate you are using always on display. So 1% drain per hour is okay...
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] ione2380:
@ccezar2004, 0.2% per hour, that's with aod, data and Bluetooth off. Who lied to you that you can get that with everything on? And why do you need all that on over night? Over night, I do a thing called sleeping. Ever heard of it?
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] Goku1992:
My phone is on airplane mode overnight🤣👌🏾
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] ccezar2004:
yet i can see a Huawei Mate20 Pro with AOD on and not having the same battery drain.... I'll try without...

I've set a routine to disable (almost) everything... and let's see afterwards... who knows...

and btw.... I'm not necessarily bothered by all the battery stuff... it just intrigues me to know more on how it works...
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] Goku1992:
I understand you. Im also looking forward to ways to improve efficency. I dont understand why Samsung is so bad in this...
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] ccezar2004:
oook... so I'm almost giving up... yesterday I've reinstalled all my apps and stuff.... deleted few apps like Facebook, Netflix etc... setup for the night as you can see in the screenshot... 1.3%/hour... all disabled...

WTH... the only things not disabled were data and network... clearly i should've waited for another test without all the apps...

what is even stranger is that I still see AOD as a power sucker.... WhatsApp found it backing up (on 2G), vanced have no idea why is so high, jabber, outlook and company portal definitely I have to quit LOL... but all these would've dropped me to roughly 9.2% overnight instead of 11%... so still a long way to go....
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] Goku1992:
Dont know what the difference is mate🤣
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] OldPulteney:
Where/how did you get this update? I got my S21 Ultra two days ago, and battery seems to go way faster than I expected.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] OldPulteney:
Can't seem to find it there. I have it in play store, but not updated since August 3rd.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] OldPulteney:
This can't be normal
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] Goku1992:
Wow mate this is Amazing🤣🤣🤣
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] ccezar2004:
Ok. I did it. 0.4%/hour. End of story. Happier now. Will switch back to having all ON and charging whenever needed. The good part is that I have a routine now that only leaves the phone on on 2g and saves battery at max and I can use it whenever needed.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] maxq1:
does starting from scratch and not using smart switch really make a big diff in batt life? did the former ever since i got my device and i'm only getting 4-5hrs when gaming and 6-8 if not (not rooted, max res, adaptive). also, i only game at HD+ as it doesn't strain my "aging" eyes compared to max 🤭. extra frame rates is a bonus too
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] ccezar2004:
TBH I guess SOT and battery life in general are very relative... everyone's usage differs... settings, gaming, media, social, work, camera, music, smart accessories etc etc... That's why I was curious about standby time in a basic configuration. And about coming from scratch I'm still not sure how big of a difference it makes...
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] maxq1:
i understand that. just asking 'coz ditching smart switch seems to get floated around whenever batt life is the topic. and also maybe someone else has seen improvements by doing so in their own use case. so i'm not asking relative to my use case
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] thanito:
Hi everyone,

I switched from P40 pro to S21 Ultra two weeks ago and I am really frustrated with battery life..the standby drain is nuts on my phone, to the point that I think something is wrong with my device.. I attach some photos of the battery usage, unfortunately better battery stats stopped refreshing, hence no data to show till tomorrow that I will make some screenshots.

OK, outlook seems the worst drainer of them all, but my previous device did not even show outlook at the top drain list and I have the same accounts loaded.

It is not the drain while using the phone, but the standby drain that gets me crazy.

Fyi, AOD is off, 2 SIMs online, wifi/bt always on, screen res FHD+ and adaptive refresh rate.

Another thing that I noticed is that if I unplug the phone from charger when it reaches 100%, then in the next 15minutes the battery will be at 94-95%, etc.

I even made a factory reset one time and did not restore via smart switch, but no dice, problem still there.

Any tips will be much appreciated,

BR,

Thanos
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] thanito:
OK, so these are today's stats, currently on 57% with 1h12m SOT.. A bit pathetic, right?

Any tips on what else to look for?

TIA,

Thanos
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] Goku1992:
Instagram and Outlook are Apps that are sucking your battery with wakelocks
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] thanito:
One of the screenshot shows 1% drain due to camera service worker, but its still minimal in total drain and drain even happens when phone is just lying on the table. I am now making another backup and will make another factory reset to see if this will change anything, although doubt it.

What should be the battery voltage on a fully charged new/healthy battery on this device? Any idea?

Yesterday I was comparing my stats with one friends S21u and I was abt to cry. A full charge on mine says the battery will last 14hrs, whereas on his it said 1 day and 12hrs. Honestly, I am getting less than 3.5hrs SOT, so it is not that I am really using the phone throughout the day😒
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] maxq1:
^ as someone else pointed out, Outlook seems to be juicing out a lot of your batt in the background. would putting it into deep sleep work for you, i.e., not getting notifs real time?
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] tarantulapg:
Try to change Outlook app with another one. This app kills your battery
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] thanito:
Sure does, but it did not kill my battery in my previous devices with same accounts loaded and same usage, so its really weird. This morning I put outlook to sleep, in order to see how is the battery drain this way.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] thanito:
As above, unfortunately this only happens on s21u, never happened on the previous phones; I put it in sleep for now, in order to test the phone's behaviour. I am getting so many emails throughout the day maybe 1000-1500emails,so real time won't make a difference because anyway I checking the list. The thing is that during office hours I don't care about emails on the phone, being in front of the computer, so the best thing would be to be able to set it asleep the office hours and fully awake after-office hours and weekends.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] agiosioannis:
my battery life is about 4 hours screen time max per charge until 20% . maybe is because of csc version ? i have also the sensors off toggle . anyone who has test it ? thanks
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] BaltazarIX:
I've got decent SOT in two charges in a row. Last change I've made was putting binance into deep sleep and samsung browser into light sleep.

Both screenshots taken at 18% battery.

99% WI-FI, 5g turned off, full HD 120Hz
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] thanito:
After one month of ownership of the S21U, battery life still seems sh*t. I have put many apps to deep sleep and even more to light sleep, still cannot get decent battery life though. It's the first phone after many years that I am afraid of running out of battery during the day with light to medium use.

Here are some screenshots, any tips/guidance will be highly appreciated.

Cheers

T
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] Limeybastard:
Because for nearly every single Google app / process Samsung have their own versions also, you're effectively having two leeches draining your battery and spying on you.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] Quazza:
You don't need to remove it. Just have it set so it's not running in the background at all. I have it, use it but and Ive currently got 40% battery left with 4hours OST and outlook ha used 1%
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] thanito:
Tried that, but the problem is that whenever I open it it takes time to load all the emails that I received, I receive more or less 1000-1500 emails/day. Even on weekends when the emails received drop to less than 100/day and even though outlook is barely draining the battery during wknds, yet again the battery life of the phone is pathetic 😭
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] MajorAly:
Let me jump in after a long time to the battery draining bandwagon.

I finally upgraded my S8+ which I got at launch back in 2017 to S21 Ultra Exynos (512GB/16GB RAM variant) 4 days ago.

The phone feels amazing compared to the 4 generations old S8+ and that's a given.

Since my S8+ had 4 years of data accumulated (64GB internal + 64GB SD card), I used Smart Switch to transfer each and everything to the new phone, because why not, it's convenient.

And now what's started to happen is the same woe that I had forgotten about battery issues of Android as iPhone had spoiled me way too much.

The new phone just seems to drain battery even with nothing going on. I have checked battery app usage, it is still learning patterns, put many apps to deep sleep, some to light sleep.

Google Play Services for both normal and secure folder

seem to run in the background, although their battery consumption is very less in the range of ~0.x.

Even though I live in a 5G supported area, I have switched the phone to 3G only as I do not use 5G or even mobile data on this phone as this is my secondary phone (iPhone 12PM is my main daily driver with 5G and all of that). But still, as soon as I will unplug the phone from the charger, within 5-10mins the battery will drop to 99% from 100%.

Now it could be because of the following things:

Background sync (disabled now)

Used to use Your Phone Companion with my Windows laptop (disabled it after it showed heavy background usage)

Always-On display

Location turned on always

Dolby Atmos

Live video wallpaper on the lockscreen

There was an app crashing daily (as per the Battery settings analysis, removed it now, app was ECOVACS home)

120Hz + WQHD+ enabled (frankly will never change this setting, what's the use of buying a top-notch phone and disable all the features?)

Could be some other things that I may not be remembering currently.

So...what are my options?

I'm not in the mood to do a factory reset and set up the phone completely as new without restoring the backup from the S8+.

I will also try a battery recalibration by letting it drain completely and then do a full charge to see if it works or not.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] enigmaamit:
Battery dropping from 100-99 in 5-10 mins after unplugging happens to me too. But over the rest of the day, I get mixed usage of around 16 hours awake, 4 hours SOT and I go to bed with around 30% battery left. This is with no debloating and using nearly everything Samsung has to offer on the phone (everything is on, including constant connection with my Tab S7 and Watch Active 2). I've come to accept this as reasonably good battery life "for my use case scenario". Others may have better or worse battery life, depending on their expectations.

What are your daily battery stats like? Standby, SOT etc (100%-99% drop doesn't really extrapolate well into average battery life). After how much use does the battery die if you don't top it off and continue to use normally? How does standby and screen on time compare with your iPhone for a similar use case? Figuring this out may give you some kind of baseline from where to scope your expectations.

Also, I'd wait for a few more days before doing anything drastic or changing too many settings on the phone. Any new phone gets hammered in its honeymoon period and takes a while to settle into a more routine day to day usage.

That's all I have to add right now. Belay your anxiety for a few more days and see how things pan out.
[Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra] saijayadeep:
Good battery backup.