So here's my problem. I get subpar battery life out of Samsung phones specifically,
and it's something that has been an ongoing issue for me for years. Sometimes it happens right away,
but other times it takes a while. So in my Galaxy S6 video, for example, I talk about how it has
better battery life than its predecessor. With the S6 Active, I was impressed that it had enough to
get me through the day when other people are reporting the damn thing gets them through two
days. With the S7, I did end up with 30% battery at the end of each day, which is about right
given my use, except that I started having the issue after I recorded my review to the point
where looking back over the last three years, I realized it's not Android phones. That's what I
thought it was. It's Samsung specifically where I run into the problem. I don't know if it's
these issues. And I even talked about it at a video back at CES this year that went up on
Unbox Therapy. Which smartphone is in your pocket and why? So I'm on the Pixel 2 XL. My Galaxy S8,
something I have installed on it is making the battery drain really fast. I haven't had the time
to deal with it. You sound like the most reluctant Pixel user I've ever heard in my life.
So Samsung actually reached out after having seen that video on Unbox Therapy. For whatever reason,
they didn't notice any of the things that I've said.
On this channel, the S8 had middling battery life from the get-go. Battery life on the phone that
can do it all is just not that impressive. And asked to help. But even though it's been over
six months since then, we still haven't come any closer to answering the question of why is it
that every time I pull this thing out of my pocket, it's hot. So we came up with an idea
for how we can find it.
And we'll tell you about it after this message from our sponsor, CableMod. CableMod's configurator
now lets you select your own customizable RGB backplates for your SSDs and GPUs to help
enhance the look of your system. Check out the link below to learn more. So we devised a test.
I didn't want to give up my daily driver S9 Plus because even with my issues, it was still getting
me through the day the vast majority of the time. So we reached out to our buds over at Dbrand to
send us a couple of skinned phones.
One of them is a brand new Galaxy S9 Plus, camo skin, of course, because Dbrand. And the other one is a brand new Pixel 2 XL.
I picked these two phones specifically because of their very similar specs and feature set, even down to little things like the fact that they both
have always-on displays.
Also, I had been using the Pixel 2 XL before working on my S9 review and had not had any battery drain
issues with it, even with the same app loadout.
So,
let's walk through what we did to these phones.
I actually handed my daily driver S9 Plus over to James and he loaded both of them up with as
close as we could get, at least just kind of looking at them and comparing, to what I use on my daily driver.
So all the same apps, logged into the same accounts, always-on display, on
wake screen when you receive notifications,
same screen timeouts, even similar
wallpapers to make sure that if there's a difference in power consumption between one
color or another on their OLED displays, that's not going to affect our data.
The only problem is that when we ran our test the first time in our controlled environment,
we got a result that didn't really add up with my experience.
So our Pixel died
when our S9 Plus still had double digit battery life left.
So we thought, okay, why don't we go back to the drawing board?
Maybe we were a little bit lazy here,
because we had actually left both of the phones in Wi-Fi only mode.
Neither of them actually had a SIM installed, and when I did hear from Samsung about my issues,
that was one of the first things they asked about. What kind of data connection do you have?
So we were like, okay, well, why don't we just run to the corner store and get a couple of SIMs and pop them in here?
So it was like 30 bucks and
we got exactly nothing for our effort, because once again,
the Samsung phone beat the Pixel 2 XL.
Finally, we went, okay, I guess let's bite the bullet and run out and get more expensive SIMs with data,
which actually adds some inconvenience to this whole thing.
Like we've actually been working on this video for almost two months now.
First, we had to spend more money.
Then we had to wait for the phone's billing cycle to refresh so that the data would come online.
The point is, after all that, the results were still the same.
So finally I gave in and I said, okay James,
here's my daily driver S9+,
why don't you compare it to yours?
When we did that,
my phone died while the other ones still had 80% battery.
So,
it's not in my imagination then.
Because the only other explanation here would be that my S9+,
which, and this is really interesting, when you actually
actually use it heavily,
doesn't seem to drain any faster than any other phone,
but my S9 Plus, when it idles,
either has like a craptastic battery
with basically no real world capacity,
or there is something about my specific way of using it
that triggers this behavior.
And unfortunately, we're at the point now
where we kind of have to just go to you the public with this
and see if we can get some kind of action from them,
because I can tell you guys,
I haven't actually heard back from Samsung
in over two months,
even though they were corresponding with me before
and asking me questions that seemed like they might care,
like, oh, well, how are you connected to data?
And can you send a screenshot of your battery usage?
Because that's the most frustrating thing
about this entire experience,
the fact that we can't pull any useful data
off of the phone.
When we look at the battery usage,
sometimes we might get a hint,
like here's a screenshot that shows Facebook pages manager
using about 1.something percent battery per hour,
but that still doesn't account for the difference
and the whole thing still doesn't add up to 100%.
Plus, I also have screenshots
that I have also provided to Samsung
that do not have any kind of indication
of what's consuming it.
So the TLDR is this
over the years I've thought that there were either issues with
Android battery life management or
Samsung's battery life management, but every person that I've talked to is having a perfectly good experience
Samsung doesn't seem to have any helpful information to provide on the subject and so
Without rooting because that shouldn't be necessary
I'd love to know from you guys or if Samsung can finally take a serious interest in helping me solve this problem
How we can fix this because otherwise
Both the s9 plus and the galaxy note 9 depending on whether you want a stylus and a bigger battery
Which of course is a big deal for me because this issue persists for me with the note 9
This one's sitting at 53% even though I charged it last night
I've hardly touched it today
And I don't even know if it's working or not
I don't even have my SIM in it
So like honestly, I feel like I'm rambling a little bit now because I'm just I'm just frustrated
You know, we were really hoping to come to you guys with like aha
Here's the one app that kills your battery
I mean who wouldn't click on that video right or like here's the perfect storm of apps that kills your battery life
But without endless trial and error, we just can't seem to get there like I just got nothing else. I'm just sad
I just want to use this phone and have it work properly speaking of working properly. You know what works properly?
Dbrand skins, I mean, they're just a piece of high-quality 3m vinyl. How can they not work properly you go on their configurator?
We'll have that linked in the video description you pick which device and they've got all kinds of stuff
They support phones game consoles game controllers laptop computers all kinds of great stuff
You select which colors and textures you want you order them
They've got worldwide shipping and it's affordable and then you apply it to your device with one of their very helpful
Instructional videos and now all of a sudden boom
you look cooler and your device is protected from incidental scrapes and
Scratches actually it's been great for my Nintendo switch, which I often slide in and out of my bag and would otherwise totally get dinged up
Oh, yeah, they support the Nintendo switch now
Which you would know if you watch scrapyard wars and got annoyed by all the Dbrand product placements
But anyway, that's neither here nor there. What's here is a link to Dbrand. We're gonna have that down below
So thanks for watching guys. If you just liked this video, you can hit that button
I see you Samsung employees if you liked it
Hit like get subscribed or maybe consider checking out where to buy the stuff
We featured at the link in the video description also down
There's our merch store which has cool shirts like this one and our community forum
Which you should totally join to be very clear. I still love the s9 plus. I still love the note 9
I still use the note 9 now as my daily driver, but the s9 plus quite frankly is not far behind it
I just I just want them to be even better
For me because everyone else seems to be fine with it