finally some good news for us Samsung victims/owners.
That data is independently researched or Samsung gave that to the EU and it’s published as-is?
The new law does not mandate third-party review. It’s the innkeeper claiming that the wine is good.
I can anecdotally attest to this. I’ve been using the same Samsung phone since basically 2020 with original battery and the runtime is still damn good for what I need.
cool. since whatever i had after the pixel 1, I’ve had to replace my phone every 1 or 2 years. i like the os but they’re not made as well anymore
Sorry, no way I am going back to Samsung. I had the A71 and it was a TERRIBLE smart phone. I switched to the Pixel 6 and it was night and day.
I just need to get off my ass and install Graphene.
You’re comparing apples and oranges. The A71 isn’t supposed to be comparable with a pixel 9.
You’re comparing the three-door Nissan to a Lamborghini
From a budget phone to a flagship?
Yeah, i can see how the difference would be night and day…
Regardless pixel is a great series of phone if the OS works for you then stick with google phones.
Personally i like samsung. Even if they have gotten pretty shady. Since i owned the s2 years back i have always found myself liking samsung.
Tried nexus 6, tried the OG pixel which i liked but ruined when i dropped it in a barrel filled with potatos and water. (No k wont elaborate, its more fun to leave you guessing)
Tried huawei and enjoyed my p20 pro and p30 pro but once the fold 3 came out i was back with samsung. Got a fold 6 now and am very happy.
If i recall, since the advent of smart phones, i went: Sony xperia x10, Galaxy S2, Galaxy S4 mini, Google Nexus 6, Google Pixel, Huawei P20 pro, Huawei P30 pro, Galaxy Fold 3, Galaxy Fold 6,
I used the A71 early 2020 till about a month or two ago, and it was a fantastic phone. Only reason I moved was it’s out of support, so no more security updates.
The battery was still rated at >90%. And I’d believe it, I never had to worry about it lasting a whole day. My only complaint about the phone was even during its support period the security patches were infrequent.
I contemplated Samsung again but chose a Pixel 9a due to the monthly security updates for 7 years. And in doing so I’ve given up dual sim, headphone jack and sd card slot (but few phones have all those features now).
I’m curious what made your experience with the A71 so terrible?
It was constantly giving out mistaken SOS messages. It would lock up and I’d have to constantly reset.
The final straw was when I was travelling to a work site I had never been to before. It locked up with a static screen and refused to reset. I had to stop at a gas station, at 4am, actually talk to another person and buy a map.
It was slow, buggy, constantly trying to get me to use their Samsung store, .etc…
When I moved to Pixel, it gave me the iPhone experience where shit just worked. And it integrated more things for me, which was convenient at the time. (But now I know it is scraping the fuck out of everything I do/see/hear.)
Had endlesss issues with 2x Nexus phones, eschewed google, gave them another chance with a Pixel 6Pro, sold it after a month it was so shitty and grabbed a Samsung S22u that i still use. I use the pen so often its shitty not having one and goodlock does along looottts of customisation. I also mostly prefer their apps to googles, alas googles cant be deleted :(
I am glad you have had a better experience than me. I am pretty happy with Pixel now but I am going to try the Graphene route this weekend.
I appreciate your response.
it’s well worth it and quite easy with the WebUSB installer
I just upgraded to the 9 and assume it’s scraping every bit of data it can from me. I will do it this weekend.
Funny enough, I had the complete opposite experience. I didn’t necessarily use Samsung then either, but I would get the phone that was normally rated the best or highly reviewed. I think i came from an LG to the first pixel phone. Pixel was the first phone to ever give me issues. Felt it vibrate one day in my pocket and I looked at it a few min later and it was in permanent boot loop. Tried a lot of things, but my one regret was forgetting to turn on developer options with the usb so essentially the phone was bricked. I couldn’t access it or do anything, everytbing was lost and support was no help and told me they couldn’t replace it. Last time I used them. I also wasn’t a fan of how hard they tried copying an iPhone at the time. Since them I’ve mostly used a Samsung either the Note and now the higher end galaxies and love them. Only thing I dislike is their own line of apps for everything that I disable immediately.
I find that I wear out the charging port before the battery. I don’t even plug it in that much either.
Try cleaning out the USB-C port. Lint gets compacted in there and it can prevent the plug from seating correctly. Most charging problems I’ve had were resolved by scraping the lint out of the port, with a plastic floss pick thing or an unbent staple. Careful not to damage the contacts though.
try a magnetic charger. it may look a bit off leaving the usb-c part plugged into the phone, but there’s way less wear or lint
Magnetic USB cables are usually dogshit though. They are not defined in the USB spec, so it’s the wild west out there.
Or wireless, I’ve used both for years
Before anyone rushes to replace their phones my Pixel 5 is nearly 5 years old, still on original battery (would be on at least 1200 cycles) and is presently sitting at 92% and claiming 1 day 11hrs remaining. Off the charger since 9:45 this morning and used for streaming music to my car while I was driving earlier. It still easily holds over 24 hours charge in my usage, so if I forget to charge it at night it’s usually around 40% in the morning and I can plug it in sometime in the morning to top up. Perfectly useable after almost 5 years, and this is pretty normal for Pixels in my experience.
Love the new EU measurement standards but per other people’s comments above they do not seem to mandate strict third-party testing, but rather rely on manufacturers submitting their results and adhering to the set test standards. This has not worked out well in the past, it should be mandatory third-party.
Cannot wait to see the return of user-replaceable batteries (thank you again, EU).
That’s strange, considering they all use the same battery suppliers.
It makes sense once you consider that these numbers are the manufacturers self reporting. That means they aren’t comparable, so drawing conclusions like ”manufacturer X has better batteries than manufacturer Y” from these numbers is silly.
Samsung encourages battery provisioning in it by the user. So most people using a samsung only charge to eighty percent.
How so? With heavy usage all my Samsung phones barely made it through a full day. I’ve never considered throttling the battery for the sake of longevity or been encouraged to by my phones.
It’s all up to where you live and how you use the phone.
One day heavy usage is the goal. I charge my S24 to 80% but only lightly call, and moderate chatting. I can make it from 6am to 8pm and still have well over 25% when I get home. Little to no gaming or social networks though.
It helps that I live and work in an urban area with good antenna coverage. So the phone doesn’t use too much power talking to the network. People who live out in suburbs and rural areas have worse phone battery life because the phone has to struggle talking with antennas further away. Battery life is complex and it goes beyond what personal anecdotes can show.
When you do the initial setup it asks if you’d like to optimize for battery health and most people say yes. Most recently it wouldn’t even tell you that it was only charging to 80%.It would still charge to a hundred but that would actually be eighty percent. Around a year ago they changed it so now it says eighty percent when you’re at full charge if you have the battery health turned on.
If you turn on the battery over provisioning you would see the same battery life at about a year and a half and then after that the provision battery will last longer. After the exploding phone they also provisioned five percent of all batteries.
Doesn’t mean they use the same chemistry. There’s a lot of different lithium batteries.
Samsung isn’t even using the latest\greatest tech in cell phone batteries. The Redmagic 10 pro uses a silicon-carbon anode based battery in a dual cell form. It means fast charging is split between 2 batteries so there’s less battery damage on a recharge, and the chemistry is more energy dense.
Also, it seems the cell phone companies self assess the tests and report them to the EU, so take the whole thing with a grain of salt.
Anecdotally it seems to be the case for me. I switched from the A series to the Pixel and I’m pretty disappointed in how quickly my battery life has degraded.
It’s got to be a lie
I’m at 943 cycles on my Pixel 6 Pro and it’s still going strong. I slow charge it every night and try to avoid fully draining the battery to slow down the deterioration, which seems to have worked pretty well. Thankfully a battery replacement is only $50 so it won’t cost much when I do have to replace it.
Yeah I’ve got a P7 Pro and the battery is still fine. Adaptive charging enabled to help batter life.
Handed my P6 down to my daughter and it’s still fine for her too
Where can you see charge cycles?
Settings -> About phone -> Battery information
I’m on pixel 6a. There is no battery info there
I don’t see that menu option. I do see Settings -> Battery but it does not count cycles.
Pixel 4a Android 14
Doesn’t show charge cycles for me, sadly. Samsung A52
Hmm, might be a Pixel / GrapheneOS thing.
I had the same phone, and the only reason I replaced it was because the USB C port was finicky. It must have been damaged at some point and when plugged in, the cable had to be just right. Wireless charging works great, but I wanted the stability of being able to plug in and know it would discharge over night when I didn’t have a wireless charger. Otherwise, I had no issues with the battery, and I got the phone when it was pretty new to the market. I swapped it out just a few months back, and it’s going to be my test phone for grapheneOS and may end up being a communal remote.
1,000 charge cycles: OnePlus 13
Hmm. This one has newer silicone-carbon lithium-ion batteries, which should actually increase charge cycles, so what’s happening here?
Isn’t one plus one of the brands that has their own fast charging tech, that’s extra fast?
Makes total sense if they traded in longevity for speed.
Isn’t one plus one of the brands that has their own fast charging tech, that’s extra fast?
Yes, but…
OnePlus offloads heat to the charger, so the phone actually doesn’t get hot while charging. This fact alone would IMPROVE charge cycles, even at fast speeds.
But OnePlus also uses quite a few “tricks” to preserve battery health. Did the test include those features or did they turn them off. And if they turned them off, did they do the same with the Samsung phones (which have similar battery-health preserving options)?
I’ve had my OP13 since the day it came out (around 5-6 months) and keep it charged to 80% (built-in feature) and only charge it to 100% when I’ll be out for the day and need to use GPS with max screen brightness. Battery health is still 100%.
I’ve owned a lot of Samsung phones before that, and the battery health was the only reason I’ve needed to replace them. So, I’m glad to see that the EU is taking charge cycles into account.
One piece of the puzzle that the numbers don’t mention, is that the smaller battery of the Samsung phones means you’ll be charging more often (i.e. more charge cycles) vs. something like a OP13 with a larger battery and excellent battery life (i.e. fewer charge cycles for the same use). Maybe that balances things out, but I’m still shocked that Sammy can get 1000 more charge cycles, which is YEARS more battery health than the other brands.
edit: clarity
OnePlus offloads heat to the charger
Some of it. They omit some circuitry that would have generated additional heat in the phone, and have it in the charger instead, but that doesn’t magically mean the battery itself wont generate the inevitable heat caused by being charged faster. The battery itself only accepts one voltage, so the only way to charge it faster is amps.
And my feeling is that they aren’t using the gains from this to make the batteries last, as SUPERVOOC is faster than pretty much every other standard. That makes me think they turned in any and all gains in battery health, for speed.
Most chargers send the additional energy via the cable in the form of extra voltage, because that doesn’t require a special cable. Turning that voltage into amps in the phone produces a little bit of extra heat, but that doesn’t mean that by eliminating that step, you get none from the battery itself as it charges. You can technically charge with a higher voltage, if you set up a phone such that it has more than one lithium cell. Some phones do this, but this doesn’t require the OnePlus approach of using a special charger that provides a higher current, since any fast charger that can do the usual higher voltage method of providing extra power will work.
Like you say. I’m curious how they test this. Even if one battery gets more cycles, it’ll degrade with time, as well. iPhones fast charge, too, but not with the chargers that used to come with the phones. You have to get one specifically for fast charging to get faster-than-normal charging.
Also, a tip. You may want to use something like AccuBattery to actually measure the state of the battery. Batteries, being chemical devices, have different capacities straight off the production line simply by virtue of not being chemically identically down to every molecule. (My Xperia 1 V unfortunately came with 93% design capacity, still within manufacturing tolerance, but the lowest I’ve seen on a new battery, it can be a bit of a lottery)
The built-in battery health monitor will just say “all good” until it isn’t. AccuBattery has allowed me to monitor every percentage of degradation over the lives of my last few phones.
And my feeling is that they aren’t using the gains from this to make the batteries last, as SUPERVOOC is faster than pretty much every other standard. That makes me think they turned in any and all gains in battery health, for speed.
There is a setting to explicitly benefit from using an official charger and cable, but I don’t know if it’s on by default (it’s disabled on my phone).
That said, the heat while charging is about the same as the heat from holding the phone in my hand (around 38C), and doesn’t get much hotter than that while gaming thanks to pass-through charging.
My Samsung was definitely hotter, and would overheat if charging while doing anything like GPS navigation. But my last Samsung was a Note 10+, and so things may have very well changed since then.
You may want to use something like AccuBattery
Already do, and have for years.
But AccuBattery doesn’t seem to play nice with the OP13, with many users reporting lower battery health from the start (80-90%), and inaccurate capacity (<1000 mAh less than the designed capacity).
Coupled with the fact that it’s only accurate if you are constantly charging from below 15% to 100%, these are ranges that I rarely get my phone into.
Even though battery longevity is important to me, since I no longer replace my phones “every year”, it really would be best if these damn things had user-replaceable batteries that were readily available. 😫
around 38C
I was shocked when my new realme, which uses the same tech, didn’t even break 30°C while charging at 8+ Amps (should be around 80W). This was in a relatively warm room (25°C) and using the case that came with it, which surely doesn’t improve thermals. It gets warmer when charging from other sources with only 2-3A, like USB-PD or QuickCharge.
Coupled with the fact that it’s only accurate if you are constantly charging from below 15% to 100%, these are ranges that I rarely get my phone into.
AccuBattery needs a session to have 60% charged, so <20% to 80% works. Doesn’t need to be every single one. I actually asked support about it and they said this was the lowest percentage they were comfortable with. I was requesting to make it adjustable.
Accuracy of the measurement isn’t the entire point. I see the same issue, but since it helps track relative degradation over time it can still add value by giving more information when you suspect the capacity is getting worse.
I was shocked when my new realme, which uses the same tech, didn’t even break 30°C while charging at 8+ Amps (should be around 80W). This was in a relatively warm room (25°C) and using the case that came with it
That’s impressive. I’m looking at my phone now, not charging, but the screen is on, and it’s at 33C. LOL
AccuBattery needs a session to have 60% charged, so <20% to 80% works. Doesn’t need to be every single one.
It’s rare for me to get that low, even while charging to 80%. 😵
But yeah, every so often I’ll let it drain, then do a 100% charge to see what’s up. I don’t like doing that, because even Accubattery says that takes up more of a charge cycle than charging conservatively.
I do like the trend chart, although, the battery health on that actually went UP 5% between March and May 😱
Xiaomi has faast charge, and it (33watt) has worked both fast and reliable on my 4-5 year old note 9 pro phone. I just changed to a 13tp with 120 watt, let’s see how that pans out 🔥😋
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But… Samsung also needs twice as many charges because for whatever reason, their batteries simply don’t last as long. Timewise, you get the same lifetime, from both. What good does a larger charging count bring, if you need to charge it twice as much? Misleading spec.
idk my 6 year old Samsung only charges once a day to 85% and is good
I had a Fold 3, and while I loved the form factor, the battery was shit.
The screen got broken, and I decided to upgrade to a Fold 6 so far I’m very impressed. I took it off the charger in my car at 100% on Wednesday night around 10pm, and put it back on the charger at 11:30pm Friday with 15% left.
48 hours with moderate usage (including some gaming and YouTube) is pretty good.
So if you charge nightly, basically like 3 years for a pixel? That’s not really terrible, especially if using the a-series which is a decent value.
I’d like my phone to last 5 years minimum.
That seems to be the new standard for continued software support too. If the phone only lasts for half of that, what’s the point?
Replacing the battery on a 9a is a invasive 64-step process(ifixit guide). The kit they sell is surprisingly cheap at $40, but has a list of other tools you need. Its definitely not a project most people will undertake.
the person above is also assuming 0-100% charge every day. most people won’t go through a whole battery charge every day, at least for the first couple years.
you’re also assuming 0-100% charge every night which most people won’t do. so very likely much more than 3 years.
I’m one of the outliers in that I do 80 to ~10 before the day is over, then I’ll charge and keep going, or I keep it topped up on the wireless charger throughout the day. But overall I’m charging at least a full cycle daily. I use my phone heavily. 1.5y in and I started using the 80% cutoff for lifespan, but I haven’t noticed a decline, it’s preventative and not reactive.
Family member has my previous phone, 2.5y old, and has not complained to me about the battery. When it was in my possession it was the same use case/scenario. Their use case is lighter duty, but they leave the screen on for like 10 minutes after idle, never turning it off manually. Pain.
My previous previous phone was given to a sibling, 3.5y old, again when it was mine it got the same heavy use. They use a battery bank some days, but they can be an even heavier user than I am sometimes - discord voice and video chatting, games, even doing one while also on a desktop. 100 to 20 or less most days, I often see it in the evening in battery saving mode around 10% when they are reaching for the bank. But that’s still with a few hours SoT and heavy use with socializing and games and stuff.
All 3 are pixel pros, 8/7/6. shrug
I’d prefer my phone to last longer than that for the price I paid (oh, wait. It’s a Samsung, and it’s already lived longer than that, lol)
