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 talked
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 its Samsung
specifically where I run into these
issues and 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 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
out
and we'll tell you about it after this
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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 itby brand to send us a couple of
skinned phones one of them is a brand
new Galaxy S 9 plus camo skin of course
because D brand and the other one is a
brand new pixel to excel 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 to excel before
working on my S 9 review and had not had
any battery drain issues with it even
with the same app load out so let's walk
through what we did to these phones I
actually handed my daily driver rest 9 +
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 s
9 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 simin stalled and when I did here
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 to excel finally we
went okay I guess let's bite the bullet
and run out and get more expensive sins
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 phones 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 Plus why don't you
compare it to yours when we did that my
phone died while the other one still had
80% battery so it's not in my
imagination then because the only other
explanation here would be that my s9
plus which this is really interesting
when you 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 you know questions that seemed like
they might care like oh well you know
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 man
using about one point 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 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 have
my sim in it so like honestly I'm 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 D brand 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 what otherwise totally get
dinged up oh yeah they support the
Nintendo switch now which you would know
if you've watched scrapyard Boris and
got annoyed by all the D brand product
placements but anyway that's neither
here nor there what's here is a link to
D brand we're gonna have that down below
so thanks for watching guys we disliked
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
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