WEBVTT

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So here's my problem. I get subpar battery life out of Samsung phones specifically,

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and it's something that has been an ongoing issue for me for years. Sometimes it happens right away,

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but other times it takes a while. So in my Galaxy S6 video, for example, I talk about how it has

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better battery life than its predecessor. With the S6 Active, I was impressed that it had enough to

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get me through the day when other people are reporting the damn thing gets them through two

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days. With the S7, I did end up with 30% battery at the end of each day, which is about right

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given my use, except that I started having the issue after I recorded my review to the point

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where looking back over the last three years, I realized it's not Android phones. That's what I

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thought it was. It's Samsung specifically where I run into the problem. I don't know if it's

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these issues. And I even talked about it at a video back at CES this year that went up on

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Unbox Therapy. Which smartphone is in your pocket and why? So I'm on the Pixel 2 XL. My Galaxy S8,

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something I have installed on it is making the battery drain really fast. I haven't had the time

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to deal with it. You sound like the most reluctant Pixel user I've ever heard in my life.

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So Samsung actually reached out after having seen that video on Unbox Therapy. For whatever reason,

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they didn't notice any of the things that I've said.

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On this channel, the S8 had middling battery life from the get-go. Battery life on the phone that

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can do it all is just not that impressive. And asked to help. But even though it's been over

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six months since then, we still haven't come any closer to answering the question of why is it

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that every time I pull this thing out of my pocket, it's hot. So we came up with an idea

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for how we can find it.

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And we'll tell you about it after this message from our sponsor, CableMod. CableMod's configurator

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now lets you select your own customizable RGB backplates for your SSDs and GPUs to help

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enhance the look of your system. Check out the link below to learn more. So we devised a test.

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I didn't want to give up my daily driver S9 Plus because even with my issues, it was still getting

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me through the day the vast majority of the time. So we reached out to our buds over at Dbrand to

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send us a couple of skinned phones.

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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.

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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

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have always-on displays.

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Also, I had been using the Pixel 2 XL before working on my S9 review and had not had any battery drain

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issues with it, even with the same app loadout.

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So,

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let's walk through what we did to these phones.

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I actually handed my daily driver S9 Plus over to James and he loaded both of them up with as

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close as we could get, at least just kind of looking at them and comparing, to what I use on my daily driver.

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So all the same apps, logged into the same accounts, always-on display, on

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wake screen when you receive notifications,

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same screen timeouts, even similar

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wallpapers to make sure that if there's a difference in power consumption between one

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color or another on their OLED displays, that's not going to affect our data.

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The only problem is that when we ran our test the first time in our controlled environment,

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we got a result that didn't really add up with my experience.

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So our Pixel died

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when our S9 Plus still had double digit battery life left.

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So we thought, okay, why don't we go back to the drawing board?

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Maybe we were a little bit lazy here,

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because we had actually left both of the phones in Wi-Fi only mode.

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Neither of them actually had a SIM installed, and when I did hear from Samsung about my issues,

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that was one of the first things they asked about. What kind of data connection do you have?

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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?

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So it was like 30 bucks and

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we got exactly nothing for our effort, because once again,

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the Samsung phone beat the Pixel 2 XL.

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Finally, we went, okay, I guess let's bite the bullet and run out and get more expensive SIMs with data,

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which actually adds some inconvenience to this whole thing.

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Like we've actually been working on this video for almost two months now.

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First, we had to spend more money.

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Then we had to wait for the phone's billing cycle to refresh so that the data would come online.

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The point is, after all that, the results were still the same.

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So finally I gave in and I said, okay James,

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here's my daily driver S9+,

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why don't you compare it to yours?

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When we did that,

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my phone died while the other ones still had 80% battery.

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So,

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it's not in my imagination then.

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Because the only other explanation here would be that my S9+,

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which, and this is really interesting, when you actually

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actually use it heavily,

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doesn't seem to drain any faster than any other phone,

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but my S9 Plus, when it idles,

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either has like a craptastic battery

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with basically no real world capacity,

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or there is something about my specific way of using it

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that triggers this behavior.

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And unfortunately, we're at the point now

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where we kind of have to just go to you the public with this

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and see if we can get some kind of action from them,

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because I can tell you guys,

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I haven't actually heard back from Samsung

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in over two months,

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even though they were corresponding with me before

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and asking me questions that seemed like they might care,

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like, oh, well, how are you connected to data?

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And can you send a screenshot of your battery usage?

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Because that's the most frustrating thing

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about this entire experience,

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the fact that we can't pull any useful data

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off of the phone.

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When we look at the battery usage,

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sometimes we might get a hint,

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like here's a screenshot that shows Facebook pages manager

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using about 1.something percent battery per hour,

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but that still doesn't account for the difference

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and the whole thing still doesn't add up to 100%.

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Plus, I also have screenshots

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that I have also provided to Samsung

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that do not have any kind of indication

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of what's consuming it.

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So the TLDR is this

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over the years I've thought that there were either issues with

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Android battery life management or

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Samsung's battery life management, but every person that I've talked to is having a perfectly good experience

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Samsung doesn't seem to have any helpful information to provide on the subject and so

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Without rooting because that shouldn't be necessary

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I'd love to know from you guys or if Samsung can finally take a serious interest in helping me solve this problem

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How we can fix this because otherwise

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Both the s9 plus and the galaxy note 9 depending on whether you want a stylus and a bigger battery

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Which of course is a big deal for me because this issue persists for me with the note 9

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This one's sitting at 53% even though I charged it last night

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I've hardly touched it today

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And I don't even know if it's working or not

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I don't even have my SIM in it

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So like honestly, I feel like I'm rambling a little bit now because I'm just I'm just frustrated

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You know, we were really hoping to come to you guys with like aha

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Here's the one app that kills your battery

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I mean who wouldn't click on that video right or like here's the perfect storm of apps that kills your battery life

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But without endless trial and error, we just can't seem to get there like I just got nothing else. I'm just sad

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I just want to use this phone and have it work properly speaking of working properly. You know what works properly?

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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?

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We'll have that linked in the video description you pick which device and they've got all kinds of stuff

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They support phones game consoles game controllers laptop computers all kinds of great stuff

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You select which colors and textures you want you order them

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They've got worldwide shipping and it's affordable and then you apply it to your device with one of their very helpful

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Instructional videos and now all of a sudden boom

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you look cooler and your device is protected from incidental scrapes and

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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

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Oh, yeah, they support the Nintendo switch now

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Which you would know if you watch scrapyard wars and got annoyed by all the Dbrand product placements

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But anyway, that's neither here nor there. What's here is a link to Dbrand. We're gonna have that down below

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So thanks for watching guys. If you just liked this video, you can hit that button

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I see you Samsung employees if you liked it

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Hit like get subscribed or maybe consider checking out where to buy the stuff

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We featured at the link in the video description also down

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There's our merch store which has cool shirts like this one and our community forum

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Which you should totally join to be very clear. I still love the s9 plus. I still love the note 9

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I still use the note 9 now as my daily driver, but the s9 plus quite frankly is not far behind it

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I just I just want them to be even better

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For me because everyone else seems to be fine with it