Galaxy S4

[2298754]

love my xperia Z.
although samsung galaxy s4 has a better software, you can never compare it's plasticy body with my xperia Z.

I have both. The Z is a mediocre device at best.

easily forgettable if it wasnt waterproof

 

[sentinelsx]

24 hours of battery life isn't impressive, especially when some people only have 5 hours of screen time aka actual use

Good luck passing 3 hours on a nexus on 3G, i would take 5 hours any day.

My tweaked iPhone 5 (jailbreak) gets roughly 5-5,5 hours of screen time too so i am happy to see the posted times for One and GS4.

 

[jrswizzle]

Good luck passing 3 hours on a nexus on 3G, i would take 5 hours any day.

My tweaked iPhone 5 (jailbreak) gets roughly 5-5,5 hours of screen time too so i am happy to see the posted times for One and GS4.

I've never had a problem making it through the day with my iPhone 5.....

That being said, my experience with the One blows the iPhone 5 out of the water battery life wise. Seriously shocked and pleasantly surprised.

Routinely make it through a day with 50% still left. HTC did a bang up job with Sense 5.....its elegant, understated and efficient. No stutters or lag and best of all no battery hogging.

My Nexus isn't all that bad either......after the 4.2.2 update and with JuiceDefender running I can get a good 6-7 hours on-screen time with 18+ total. Still doesn't hold a candle to the One though.

 

[The Game 161]

24 hours of battery life isn't impressive, especially when some people only have 5 hours of screen time aka actual use

I'm sorry but it is good...if your phone can last you a full day then you are doing well.

5 hours screen time depends where you use it..obviously you will get worse when on 3G

 

[beaniemyman]

great phone!

really confused between the samsung galaxy s4 and the Htc one. i will be reading more reviews to see if s4 suits me better.

 

[The Game 161]

What's everyone's battery life like these days?

What's your screen time like?

I get between 17-20 hours total and between 4-6 hours screen time...normally bout 5 hours in general. Lasts me all da which is the main thing

I have smart scroll,air view on..NFC,s beam,GPS and Bluetooth off..

Although this is why android is good...being able to carry around an extra battery just in case..

 

[sentinelsx]

I've never had a problem making it through the day with my iPhone 5.....

That being said, my experience with the One blows the iPhone 5 out of the water battery life wise. Seriously shocked and pleasantly surprised.

Routinely make it through a day with 50% still left. HTC did a bang up job with Sense 5.....its elegant, understated and efficient. No stutters or lag and best of all no battery hogging.

My Nexus isn't all that bad either......after the 4.2.2 update and with JuiceDefender running I can get a good 6-7 hours on-screen time with 18+ total. Still doesn't hold a candle to the One though.

Hmm yeah i still get all day battery life too, i was just saying that the 5 hours screen from One and S4 aren't bad, looks like enough to get through the day. I used to push my S3 to 6hrs routinely as well btw. I am sure with my usage i can squeeze 6-7 hrs from both flagships.

But right now on my i5 it is rigged with some jailbreak tweaks and some i uninstalled, which still linger in the file system, causing some headaches. Not to mention lockinfo drains battery crazy and probably that is why i am at 20% instead of 40% at night. I still don't complain though, as i usually tend to play FIFA 13 during commutes and that alone is enough to drain half of the battery in 2 hours (back and forth). I have a daily charge habit. No complaints.

Did you get that 6-7 hrs on your nexus with mostly 3G connected? Mine would drop 20% in 20 minutes of browsing with chrome at times (no root, stock), especially with not a perfect signal. The iPhone and other skinned android flagships are much more resilient even with bad signal though. If even 5.5 hrs is possible on the N4 with some sort of setup (root/kernel/ROM, i am open), i might just forget getting a S4 or One and pickup the nexus again. Because i would rather save the $250 if i can live with it another year with decent battery life.

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I'm sorry but it is good...if your phone can last you a full day then you are doing well.

5 hours screen time depends where you use it..obviously you will get worse when on 3G

I used to get 5 hours and more routinely on a non-rooted/stock touchwiz ICS 4.0.4 GS3 with 80% usage on 3G.

May be the pentile helped, but it was the first android phone i remember using where i did not bother shutting and managing anything, and it sill lasted all day with 20% remaining at the end.

I cannot imagine the S4 cannot give you upto 7 hrs if those S-features are disabled. Should be easy job for that extra 500mah battery.

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great phone!

really confused between the samsung galaxy s4 and the Htc one. i will be reading more reviews to see if s4 suits me better.

The only reason i am really interested in the S4 is possible compatibility with a bug free AOSP ROM because of google edition. If it is true, i can forget my dislike of AMOLED and deal with it in favor of stock android on great hardware (LTE, Cam, Storage, and possibly better battery life).

If a google edition HTC One was out, my choice would be much more easier

 

[The Game 161]

Hmm yeah i still get all day battery life too, i was just saying that the 5 hours screen from One and S4 aren't bad, looks like enough to get through the day. I used to push my S3 to 6hrs routinely as well btw. I am sure with my usage i can squeeze 6-7 hrs from both flagships.

But right now on my i5 it is rigged with some jailbreak tweaks and some i uninstalled, which still linger in the file system, causing some headaches. Not to mention lockinfo drains battery crazy and probably that is why i am at 20% instead of 40% at night. I still don't complain though, as i usually tend to play FIFA 13 during commutes and that alone is enough to drain half of the battery in 2 hours (back and forth). I have a daily charge habit. No complaints.

Did you get that 6-7 hrs on your nexus with mostly 3G connected? Mine would drop 20% in 20 minutes of browsing with chrome at times (no root, stock), especially with not a perfect signal. The iPhone and other skinned android flagships are much more resilient even with bad signal though. If even 5.5 hrs is possible on the N4 with some sort of setup (root/kernel/ROM, i am open), i might just forget getting a S4 or One and pickup the nexus again. Because i would rather save the $250 if i can live with it another year with decent battery life.

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I used to get 5 hours and more routinely on a non-rooted/stock touchwiz ICS 4.0.4 GS3 with 80% usage on 3G.

May be the pentile helped, but it was the first android phone i remember using where i did not bother shutting and managing anything, and it sill lasted all day with 20% remaining at the end.

I cannot imagine the S4 cannot give you upto 7 hrs if those S-features are disabled. Should be easy job for that extra 500mah battery.

The most i got which was when I was on wifi all day was 6 hours screen time...which to me I was happy with.obvously on my iphone 5 I was consistently getting 5-7 hours but the usage is different on the iphone.

Does everybody here keep power saving on all the time?

 

[3bs]

The most i got which was when I was on wifi all day was 6 hours screen time...which to me I was happy with.obvously on my iphone 5 I was consistently getting 5-7 hours but the usage is different on the iphone.

Does everybody here keep power saving on all the time?

If I was on a TouchWiz ROM I'd keep power saving on all the time and only have the lower CPU option checked. If I felt like I needed to I'd turn it off for games or stuff like that.

 

[sentinelsx]

The most i got which was when I was on wifi all day was 6 hours screen time...which to me I was happy with.obvously on my iphone 5 I was consistently getting 5-7 hours but the usage is different on the iphone.

Does everybody here keep power saving on all the time?

I had 5 hours on the GS3 every day easy with auto brightness and my usage being the same as on the iPhone 5, with 75%+ outside on HSPA (i disabled LTE, LTE on GS3 was more battery draining than LTE on iPhone 5).

The only difference was back then my iPhone 5 would end the day with 40% versus the S3 with 15-20%, but that did not matter as i charge every night.

However what i like was at times i would forget to charge and the S3 would still be alive in the morning with over 10% charge and able to take a few calls before dying.

So i expect the S4 to do better.

What remains to be seen is whether the AOSP ROM on google edition will be battery efficient too.

 

[3bs]

I had 5 hours on the GS3 every day easy with auto brightness and my usage being the same as on the iPhone 5, with 75%+ outside on HSPA (i disabled LTE, LTE on GS3 was more battery draining than LTE on iPhone 5).

The only difference was back then my iPhone 5 would end the day with 40% versus the S3 with 15-20%, but that did not matter as i charge every night.

However what i like was at times i would forget to charge and the S3 would still be alive in the morning with over 10% charge and able to take a few calls before dying.

So i expect the S4 to do better.

What remains to be seen is whether the AOSP ROM on google edition will be battery efficient too.

I don't have any numbers and I'm even running an unofficial build of CM on my S4 (i9505) but I'm getting what seems like pretty good battery life.

 

[The Game 161]

I had 5 hours on the GS3 every day easy with auto brightness and my usage being the same as on the iPhone 5, with 75%+ outside on HSPA (i disabled LTE, LTE on GS3 was more battery draining than LTE on iPhone 5).

The only difference was back then my iPhone 5 would end the day with 40% versus the S3 with 15-20%, but that did not matter as i charge every night.

However what i like was at times i would forget to charge and the S3 would still be alive in the morning with over 10% charge and able to take a few calls before dying.

So i expect the S4 to do better.

What remains to be seen is whether the AOSP ROM on google edition will be battery efficient too.

Guess it depends alot on signal..I know my signal at work is shocking which is why I always expect my phone to drop bad as its always searching for a connection.

I had only 3 hours, 30 minute screen time last night at work and 17 hours overall..

Right now I'm on 84% and already on 1 hour screen time and 4 hours overall

Luckily I'm always near a charger anyway..wether at home or at work

Also would say I guess it depends how many widgets you have

I have one yahoo sports widget with a scoreboard for my two favourite teams

A CBS sports widget that updates news every 4 hours and a notification lock screen widget..I get notifications from twitter where I get notifications from 8 people I follow,Facebook,sportscenter,team stream..so that play a factor.

 

[otismotive77]

I have both. The Z is a mediocre device at best.

easily forgettable if it wasnt waterproof

really?"easily forgettable"? although i agree that s4 has a lot more software features but xperia z is not an "easily forgettable" device, read the review and ask people if you dont believe me.

 

[Dreamliner330]

24 hours of battery life isn't impressive, especially when some people only have 5 hours of screen time aka actual use

Better than the iPhone.


Battery usage is soooooooo subjective. Some iPhone users claim 2 days. I can't make it to 5pm.

Why? I actually use my device heavily for calls and such. Not just to tweet and upload to Instagram.

The only phone I've ever used that lasts a full day of my usage is the RAZR MAXX HD.

 

[tjl3]

really?"easily forgettable"? although i agree that s4 has a lot more software features but xperia z is not an "easily forgettable" device, read the review and ask people if you dont believe me.

Only easily forgettable in that they haven't done a proper US launch

 

[Chodite]

Not sure what's up with Google Services on my S4. But Google Now has been disabled and I'm still getting killed here.

And pay no attention to that 17h on battery.. it's been on a car charger through most of the day.

 

[Peterg2]

Not sure what's up with Google Services on my S4. But Google Now has been disabled and I'm still getting killed here.

And pay no attention to that 17h on battery.. it's been on a car charger through most of the day.

I would really look into wakelocks and there are various apps which give you detail, including Betterbatterystats, Wakelock Detector and the latest Gsam which I use.

Here are a couple of articles/posts to look at:

http://www.xda-developers.com/android/defend-your-battery-with-wakelock-detector/

and here is a post from Xda-developers - one of many there dealing with wakelocks:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2262353

 

[LIVEFRMNYC]

And pay no attention to that 17h on battery.. it's been on a car charger through most of the day.

I have no problem with battery life on the S4, it's pretty good for me. But I've noticed that the battery status might not be accurate in some cases.

For example: The other day I had a two hour drive with Pandora playing non stop. Was never on the charger for the whole day. I checked the battery status and the Pandora app wasn't even listed. I've seen it listed before, so I know it's not listed under anything else.

Also I've notice: When the S4 is fully charged (100%) and still on the charger. The battery status counts it as if it's running off the battery itself. Every time I refresh, it adds "on battery" time. That's exactly why your screenshot shows that much time even though it was on a charger half the time. The S3 does not do this, no time will be added to "on battery time" while on the charger.

 

[Lindsford]

What's your screen time like?

I get between 17-20 hours total and between 4-6 hours screen time...normally bout 5 hours in general. Lasts me all da which is the main thing

I have smart scroll,air view on..NFC,s beam,GPS and Bluetooth off..

Although this is why android is good...being able to carry around an extra battery just in case..

Typically 4-5 hours, but i don't use auto brightness, If i had all notifications off and brightness all the way down i could stretch it out a bit more

 

[The Game 161]

Typically 4-5 hours, but i don't use auto brightness, If i had all notifications off and brightness all the way down i could stretch it out a bit more

Get the impression 4-5 screen time is the normal amount.

got my best overall battery stats today

4 hours, 20 minutes screen time
1 day, 30 minutes overall.

 

[Chodite]

I would really look into wakelocks and there are various apps which give you detail, including Betterbatterystats, Wakelock Detector and the latest Gsam which I use.

Here are a couple of articles/posts to look at:

http://www.xda-developers.com/android/defend-your-battery-with-wakelock-detector/

and here is a post from Xda-developers - one of many there dealing with wakelocks:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2262353

Ok thanks. Installed Wakelock Detector last night and I've been running on battery all day since unplugging from my charger at 7:30am EST. Some talk time, some screen time. Nothing out of the ordinary. Now, at 2pm EST, I just received the "Low Battery" warning. Unbelievable. And this is even after I've Force Stopped Google Maps, Google+ and more. I've even disabled Google Now a few days ago.

So my question is - now that I've got this Wakelock Detector installed and running, what's the next step?

Screenshot of my latest battery stats below:

 

[daveathall]

I haven't had a lot of screen time lately, just 1.5 hours since last charge, but standby is fine by me, over a day and still just over half left.

 

[jamezr]

Ok thanks. Installed Wakelock Detector last night and I've been running on battery all day since unplugging from my charger at 7:30am EST. Some talk time, some screen time. Nothing out of the ordinary. Now, at 2pm EST, I just received the "Low Battery" warning. Unbelievable. And this is even after I've Force Stopped Google Maps, Google+ and more. I've even disabled Google Now a few days ago.

So my question is - now that I've got this Wakelock Detector installed and running, what's the next step?

Screenshot of my latest battery stats below:

Image

so was your battery life better or worse after installing Wakelock?
something is not right....My S4 last about 16 hours of normal use (for me anyway) and still has 30% charge left at the end of the day.
You might try a full factory reset and start from scratch....if that does not work return it for another.

 

[The Game 161]

I haven't had a lot of screen time lately, just 1.5 hours since last charge, but standby is fine by me, over a day and still just over half left.

Image

Not using it much?

 

[daveathall]

Not using it much?

Had a day off so I use my MBP more. I love this phone.