Screen brightness and battery life - OPPO Find X5 Pro General

I loved my X3 Pro but I am with EE and under the contract I found I could upgrade to the X5 Pro for zero cost, and in fact my monthly payment would go DOWN by £4. So it seemed like a no brainer.
Overall I am loving the X5 just like the X3. For me though, it's barely any different. Marginally better in some ways, worse in others.
Something that does disappoint, and which surprised me greatly, is that the screen not as bright as on the X3 Pro. for any given brightness level.
It's not just about the Auto brightness level (which is much darker) sadly. In fact the screen is just plain darker. I maxed out the brightness on both phones and measured to output with my i1 Display Pro colorimeter, and it confirmed what my eyes tell me, it's about 5% to 10% darker at maximum brightness.
Whether this is down to the screen itself or a design choice by Oppo to improve battery life, who knows. But it's disappointing.
And on the subject of battery life, something remarkable about the X5 is the overnight battery drain. The other night, I went to bed with my new phone charged to 100%. I woke in the morning and was interested to see how much battery it had used overnight. To my astonishment, it was still on 100%, and that's after sleeping for 7 hours!
Really no idea how it manages that but I did think it was amazing.

Related

Interesting Battery results

So, I had a situation where the first G4 i received was defective and I had another shipped, so for the weekend I had 2 G4's.
Considering all the back and forth I've read about the inconsistencies among phones, I decided to see if I could find any. The most glaring difference was between the screens on both. One had a cooler bias, while the other had a noticeable yellow tint. I much prefer the cooler bias screen. Second, I tested both phones for lag, stutter, missed touches, etc and couldn't find any difference between the two - both were basically flawless. Last was the most interesting though - battery run down. I ran 4 battery rundowns, switching the batteries back and forth so no consecutive test was run with the same battery. Both phones were charged with the stock charger (which BTW is definitely faster than a standard charger)
Tests were run in airplane mode, wifi ON, auto sync off, with a 1 hour YouTube Video on loop...
Rather than bore you with details, I'll leave you with a general summary...
-1 of the batteries continually got to 85% while the other was at 89% - this happened all 4 times.
-The battery which got to 85% first, took longer to 50% - enough so that it moved past the other battery which was between 47-49% at this point, and both batteries basically drained at the same rate for the rest of the time, and the battery with the faster initial discharge rate outlasted the other by approx 20 minutes each time.
-Each battery was tested at Auto, 50%, 25% and (using Lux) -10%, and here is what I found most interesting.... None of the brightness levels seemed to have any effect on battery life. That is, each phone, with each battery, drained at the same rate whether it was at 50% brightness, or at -10% brightness. The longest SOT I achieved was 7hrs 58min; again that's with all but WiFi off, looping the same 1hr YouTube video.
I'm guessing that's what LG means when they say the processor/GPU combo is "optimized" for this phone?? Now, I don't know if the same will hold true for 100% brightness levels, but the real world situation for 100% brightness is not really practical. I tested it on brightness levels I feel my phone would be at most of the time, then added the -10% as an experiment to see how much time it would add.

LG G6 vs OP5 Battery. Updated with normal usage tests.

Update: Just wanted to provide an update to this. I ran some very basic tests on both phones at the same time such as browsing, checking emails, a little gaming, etc. And what I noticed was that the G6 actually performed slightly better than the OP5 for normal use, and of course this is more important than a constant video playback test. And based on what others posted below it makes complete sense now why the OP5 seemed to be better in this. (Assuming the numbers were even accurate). But in normal day to day use I am seeing the G6 having excellent battery life. Anyway just wanted to update this so it doesnt cause someone to think I am saying the G6's battery is bad. Original post below.
Hello XDA. I just got a T-Mobile LG G6 and LOVE IT, except for one issue. Battery life. AOD is off, and always has been. My other phone Ive been using before this is a Oneplus 5. Ive been trying to decide which phone is going to be my permanent phone and love the G6 over the OP5 in almost every way except for battery life. I ran some basic tests just to get an idea of how they compare. Now I know that the G6 has a 2K LCD display and the OP5 has a 1080p Amoled. But I didnt think there would be that much of a difference since a lot of people said that the difference as far as battery life wouldnt be that much.
So I went into the tests expecting the OP5 to a bit better. But I didnt expect the results I got. The short result is that the OP5 had 20% more battery after running the below Netflix test for 2 hours. I ran the test again the next day, this time for 5 hours and the OP5 had 55% more battery left than the G6. The average percentage loss for the G6 running Netflix was 10% every 30 minutes, while the OP5 only loss an average of 3.25% every 30 minutes. When checking the battery usage to see what is draining the battery the most it is definitely the screen. On the G6 it accounted for 34% of the total loss, and on the OP5 it was only 13% of the loss. So maybe the 2K vs 1080p screen is the culprit after all. Like I said I expected it to be a factor, just not a 21% difference in the total usage between the G6 and OP5.
I also know that my OP5 is running 7.1.1 and the G6 7.0, but as far as I know the main difference between the 2 versions is Doze, and I have Doze off on the OP5 due to a Gmail sync issue. And I also know that a simple Netflix test doesnt really represent what kind of battery life I can expect from normal day to day use. Anyway basically what I want to know is does this seem normal, and when the G6 gets 7.1, or 7.1.1 will that improve the battery life enough to hopefully be better than this?
Like I said I REALLY like the G6 in every way, except the battery life. And Im not giving up on it. So if there is some hope that the battery life will improve that will definitely make me lean more towards keeping the G6 over the OP5. Anyway thanks for any input. Below is some more details on the test results I got. And Ive attached a screenshot of the battery usage with it at 11%, down 8% since the Netflix test ended.
LG G6 vs Oneplus 5 (2nd Netflix drain test)
Netflix Streaming Test at 100% Brightness, no other apps running. No Sim card in either. Both had same settings toggles on also:
LG G6:
Started at 100%
After 30 mins 92% Lost 8
After 60 mins 83% Lost 17
After 90 mins 72% Lost 28
After 2 Hours 61% Lost 39
After 2:30 mins 52% Lost 48
After 4 Hours at 40% Lost 60%
After 5 Hours at 19% Lost 81% (55% more drain than OP5)
Average of 10% loss every 30 minutes (About 6% more loss per minute)
Oneplus 5:
Started at 100%
After 30 mins 97% Lost 3
After 60 mins 94% Lost 6
After 90 mins 90% Lost 10
After 2 Hours 87% Lost 13
After 2:30 mins 84% Lost 16
After 4 Hours at 80% Lost 20%
After 5 Hours at 74% Lost 26% (55% less drain than G6)
Average of 3.25% Lost every 30 minutes (About 6% less loss per minute)
Just wanted to add an update. I decided since the main drain from the G6 was the screen that I would try the test again, but this time adjust the screen brightness on both devices so they look as close as possible. When I had both set to 100% before the OP5 was quite a bit brighter. So this time I had them looking as much the same as I could. The test results were much different.
Oneplus 5 after 4 hours of Netflix had 65% left.
LG G6 after 4 hours had 46% left.
Although its still 19% less than before, its a lot better than the 40% difference from the previous test. So Im hoping by leaving the G6 at a lower brightness will help improve the battery life. And of course hoping that 7.1 also helps. Anyway just wanted to update this. Thanks
Anyway, i think that is not a fair comparisson... OP5 has 1920x1080 screen and G6 1440 x 2880, at least for me, 5 hours of screen is totally awesome, but if LG do something to extend the battery efficience would be great
The OP5 has an AMOLED display. The pixels in these displays actually create their own light. They consume no power when they are black, low power when dim, and quite a bit of power when displaying bright or white content.
LCD displays like the G6 use a backlight with a panel in front that blocks the light from getting to your eyes, creating an image. They have consistent power consumption that is completely determined by the backlight level, the image itself is irrelevant.
TV shows and movies tend to have pretty low white level, so AMOLED displays use very little power most of the time. Switch test to browsing where there are tons of white backgrounds and you would probably see the LG catch up or take the lead.
Edit: Also have to mention that the OP5 is using a pentile subpixel layout. This means that instead of each pixel being made of red green blue sub-pixels like the G6, it only displaying either a red green or a blue green for each pixel. So not only is the OP5 displaying less than half the pixels that the G6 is, it's only showing 2/3 of each pixel.
Gam3r 4 Life said:
Just wanted to add an update. I decided since the main drain from the G6 was the screen that I would try the test again, but this time adjust the screen brightness on both devices so they look as close as possible. When I had both set to 100% before the OP5 was quite a bit brighter. So this time I had them looking as much the same as I could. The test results were much different.
Oneplus 5 after 4 hours of Netflix had 65% left.
LG G6 after 4 hours had 46% left.
Although its still 19% less than before, its a lot better than the 40% difference from the previous test. So Im hoping by leaving the G6 at a lower brightness will help improve the battery life. And of course hoping that 7.1 also helps. Anyway just wanted to update this. Thanks
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I'm not sure how you achieved these numbers, but i suppose it's not accurate, specially those on #1 post.
Assuming OP5 has 3,25% drain every 30 min is like saying it has a screen-on time of 15+ hours. No phone could ever get this with actual tech.
Great battery phones, with heavily modded kernels and roms, helped by wakelock limiting apps, could achieve about 8-9 hours max with screen turned on.
So, my guess is that it could be some kind of battery trick on OP5 side (not showing accurate percentage, for example).
Your second test is more feasible, but i really think it's still too much for both phones (about 7,4h SOT for G6 and 11,4h for OP5).
Please don't take it as a criticism on your tests. I'm just saying here that your battery is lasting as expected for today standards.
G6 does poorly/average in these constant playback tests but overall in normal use it manages to do well. Whatever case, in my kind of use, it does really well
Does the G6 have wifi scanning turned on?
OFFTOP: How OP5 and LG G6 screen compare? OP5's AMOLED is PenTile so not really fullHD. Is the G6 much sharper when displaying small text etc? I dunno which one to consider buying
About differences in battery -> remember G6 has older, more power hungry SOC. And it has to much more work thanks to bigger resolution. I would say difference is actually quite small having that in mind and LG did great job of optimising its software.
forfivo said:
I'm not sure how you achieved these numbers, but i suppose it's not accurate, specially those on #1 post.
Assuming OP5 has 3,25% drain every 30 min is like saying it has a screen-on time of 15+ hours. No phone could ever get this with actual tech.
Great battery phones, with heavily modded kernels and roms, helped by wakelock limiting apps, could achieve about 8-9 hours max with screen turned on.
So, my guess is that it could be some kind of battery trick on OP5 side (not showing accurate percentage, for example).
Your second test is more feasible, but i really think it's still too much for both phones (about 7,4h SOT for G6 and 11,4h for OP5).
Please don't take it as a criticism on your tests. I'm just saying here that your battery is lasting as expected for today standards.
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Click to collapse
Im not sure how I got those numbers either. I just wrote down and noted what I saw. The fact that they looked to good to be true, and that there was such a discrepancy between the 2 was why I ran the test again. And it wouldnt surprise me if Oneplus had done something to inflate the numbers. I dont know if you read about it, but they were caught again "cheating" benchmarks by forcing the phones to run at maximum when they detected a benchmark app running.
dkimmortal said:
G6 does poorly/average in these constant playback tests but overall in normal use it manages to do well. Whatever case, in my kind of use, it does really well
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Click to collapse
I decided to do another basic test and just started playing around in apps, games, browsing, etc. at the same time on both phones. And the G6 not only kept up with the OP5 but beat it slightly, and the G6 had my Sim card in at the time, and the OP5 didnt. So what I am noticing is that in normal use the G6 has been great, and even slightly better than the OP5.
FunkyRasta said:
OFFTOP: How OP5 and LG G6 screen compare? OP5's AMOLED is PenTile so not really fullHD. Is the G6 much sharper when displaying small text etc? I dunno which one to consider buying
About differences in battery -> remember G6 has older, more power hungry SOC. And it has to much more work thanks to bigger resolution. I would say difference is actually quite small having that in mind and LG did great job of optimising its software.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Another thing I noticed is that overnight when both phones werent being used that the G6 had just slightly more battery in the morning. So Ill update my post above so people dont think Im just trashing the G6. After more testing, and normal use it seems to have excellent battery. So Im not sure why there was such a difference in the video playback tests. Anyway thanks for all the responses!
hecksagon said:
The OP5 has an AMOLED display. The pixels in these displays actually create their own light. They consume no power when they are black, low power when dim, and quite a bit of power when displaying bright or white content.
LCD displays like the G6 use a backlight with a panel in front that blocks the light from getting to your eyes, creating an image. They have consistent power consumption that is completely determined by the backlight level, the image itself is irrelevant.
TV shows and movies tend to have pretty low white level, so AMOLED displays use very little power most of the time. Switch test to browsing where there are tons of white backgrounds and you would probably see the LG catch up or take the lead.
Edit: Also have to mention that the OP5 is using a pentile subpixel layout. This means that instead of each pixel being made of red green blue sub-pixels like the G6, it only displaying either a red green or a blue green for each pixel. So not only is the OP5 displaying less than half the pixels that the G6 is, it's only showing 2/3 of each pixel.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This makes complete sense. Especially after my recent tests where I turned the brightness down on the G6 to match the OP5, and when I ran normal tests that I explained in my other posts. The G6 actually performed slightly better in normal use such as browsing, checking emails, etc.
Abnormally high screen on times are not uncommon in video playback tests while on WIFI. This is due to the lower brightness required (low average white level), lower processor utilization (due to hardware decoding), and no interaction with the screen (due to the processor not jumping to max frequency on screen touch).

Screen on time

It's amazing how much we actually use our phones in a given day, especially when we watch "videos"! Rate this thread to express how many hours of screen-on time you can get on the Razer Phone before depleting the battery.
Then, drop a comment if you have anything to add!
1hr 30 mins of sot left with 64% battery
48mins of gaming
Battery saver on the whole time+720+60hz, on wifi+cell, web browsing+streaming, music, vids, txting, few games, 9+ hours SOT.
GF's phone, ton of gaming/txting/fb/web, battery saver only turned on after <10%, 7+ hours SOT.
SOT is good not great but that is at 120 1440. I easily make it through the day so why change it.
This phone has amazing SOT! I'm sitting here 13hrs in, 37% battery remaining with 6hrs screen on so far.. Lots of browsing, some Lineage 2, and an hour or two of music streaming so far.. That's with bt/wifi/lte, auto brightness, max resolution and refresh rate. Just using stock without any battery saving stuff.. Alot nicer then my 6p for sure!
Its amazing i was watching episodes on netflix after 5 hours screen on time 62% of battery left.
Sent from my Phone using Tapatalk
mikeandjaimie said:
This phone has amazing SOT! I'm sitting here 13hrs in, 37% battery remaining with 6hrs screen on so far.. Lots of browsing, some Lineage 2, and an hour or two of music streaming so far.. That's with bt/wifi/lte, auto brightness, max resolution and refresh rate. Just using stock without any battery saving stuff.. Alot nicer then my 6p for sure!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi! I have a 6P and I'm on the fence about this phone. I absolutely love that it has a higher refresh rate screen, massive battery and lots of RAM. I love my 6P but the battery life could be better and the Ram management is terrible( my biggest grip). The lackluster camera on the Razer doesn't reeeeaally bother me as I don't take many pictures but how does the max screen brightness compare between the phones? If they are relatively similar that's great because I'm happy with the brightness on my 6P. Thanks for your help.
BoostRoid said:
Hi! I have a 6P and I'm on the fence about this phone. I absolutely love that it has a higher refresh rate screen, massive battery and lots of RAM. I love my 6P but the battery life could be better and the Ram management is terrible( my biggest grip). The lackluster camera on the Razer doesn't reeeeaally bother me as I don't take many pictures but how does the max screen brightness compare between the phones? If they are relatively similar that's great because I'm happy with the brightness on my 6P. Thanks for your help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's more than enough.. Especially if you turn off auto-brightness it gets very bright! I run my phone dimmer cause I like it, but it gets very bright, not sure what all the criticism was about.
The camera is lacking features and the quality is still average at best, but if you use one of the google/pixel camera ports it helps with the quality.. I really don't find the quality that bad myself, but the missing features definitely compared to the opengapps one.
Best so far I've had.
Average around 6hrs. In my opinion best battery life I've ever had on a phone.
Resolution @ 1440p
Refresh @ 120hz
That is amazing specially if flagship devices cant even do half of that in most cases.
Sent from my Razer Phone using Tapatalk
eXplosion17 said:
That is amazing specially if flagship devices cant even do half of that in most cases.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OMG, don't get me started on the s8.. lol
Resolution 1440p
Refresh 120Hz
Brightness ~35%
Ambient Display Off
Adaptive Brightness Off
Night light Off
Build number .853
SOT ~8hours (2hours of which was Maps in the car.)
~10min voice call
~2hour WhatsApp call
Quite unprecedented since my many years since day dot with Android.
As good as the SOT is, I'm more appreciating how the device deep sleeps - I like that flat line on the graph.
No need to fight with Android ecosystem or any quirky issues preventing deep sleep: the Razer sleeps like a baby (no greenify, battery improvement nor brevent nor lspeed nor sdmaid equivalent apps) :good:
Well done Razer.
Now sort the tiny quirks and smack this out of the park
dillalade said:
Resolution 1440p
Refresh 120Hz
Brightness ~35%
Ambient Display Off
Adaptive Brightness Off
SOT ~8hours (2hours of which was Maps in the car.)
Quite unprecedented since my many years since day dot with Android.
As good as the SOT is, I'm more appreciating how the device deep sleeps - I like that flat line on the graph.
No need to fight with Android ecosystem or any quirky issues preventing deep sleep: the Razer sleeps like a baby :good:
Well done Razer.
Now sort the tiny quirks and smack this out of the park
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice!!
I am still impressed with the battery management.
Almost 6 hours (last time I checked). So very impressive.
Easily over 4 hours with heavy gaming and app downloading. ... and music playing over Bluetooth all day.
4 hours to 4.30 hours with 1+ gaming (guns of boom) medium settings (1440p 90Hz). good standby drain
Anyone mind posting battery degraded sot results after owning it for a while? Ty

Standby drain

When you sleep, does your phone sleep, or does it stay up all night and crunch 1s and 0s? Rate this thread to express how you deem the speed at which the Google Pixel 3 XL's battery drains under standby conditions. A higher rating indicates that when the phone is not in use, the battery drains minimally.
Then, drop a comment if you have anything to add!
I have been with google phones for the last 5 years.
With the pixel line, I have never been so happy with my battery, specially pixel 2 xl. Battery would last 1.5 to 2 days...
However, with the 3, at the end of the day I had 39%, on a day I did not use the phone except for 10 sms, quick stocks check, 2 emails, no phone calls, 15 minutes of music with bt headphones in the metro.
Last night, I put it in safe mode, charged it. Took away from the charger at 6am, checked emails. At 8am, I had 90%.
Removed from safe mode at 8. Checked some messages, spoke for 10 minutes over the phone, checked emails and stocks. It is now 9:20am and my battery is at 80%
Not good. I am really disappointed.
If you have yours, please let me know how you feel about it.
I did see one youtuber complaining about his battery, I am afraid mine is defective. If not, I want to go back to the pixel 2 xl.
The battery is supposed to be adaptive, so it learns your usage. Most have said it needs a few days/a week before you get the full optimised life for it
Pixel 3 XL Battery Size: 3450 mAh
Pixel 2 XL Battery Size: 3,520 mAh
The Pixel 3 XL Battery is smaller no way around it
I have the XL and I charged it on the first day and let it drain to 1%. It lasted 27 hours and 5 hours and 40 minutes of screen time. I'll take it.
Battery life has been overall excellent. I havent been watching it like a hawk but it lasts all day with heavy usage. A- overall
y2grae said:
The battery is supposed to be adaptive, so it learns your usage. Most have said it needs a few days/a week before you get the full optimised life for it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is really a misunderstanding about Adaptive Battery mode. All it really does is make sure that poorly written apps can't drain battery in the background if you rarely use them. If you don't have any apps like that Adaptive Battery doesn't really do anything. In my case I have no apps like that so Adaptive Battery on my Pixel 2 XL has made no difference.
PARADOX-SEV said:
I have the XL and I charged it on the first day and let it drain to 1%. It lasted 27 hours and 5 hours and 40 minutes of screen time. I'll take it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm curious what kind of use got you that kind of battery life.
If you were using mobile data, had the screen really bright, played games, used navigation, etc that's pretty good.
If you were on wifi most of the time, lower screen brightness and doing non battery intensive tasks that's pretty disappointing.
I would say half and half wifi and mobile data. Screen was at 75%. Lots of web surfing, Netflix and YouTube. 45 minutes of navigation. Light email, texts, calls and photos. No games
synplex said:
Pixel 3 XL Battery Size: 3450 mAh
Pixel 2 XL Battery Size: 3,520 mAh
The Pixel 3 XL Battery is smaller no way around it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree with you on that, but...
4 hours and 30 minutes off the charger, 6 days of using the phone:
2 XL: 96%
3 XL: 73%
The percentage here is MUCH larger than the battery size...
I am so disappointed and waiting for my replacement phone. If this continues... welcome 2 XL again...
what %/h (percent per hour) screen on?
i have 11%/h and 2.1%/h for screen on and off, combined 2.9%/h. over night it went from 23 to 17 i think. i charged to 80% this morning and at 39% from 9A to 10P.
The top of the screenshot is the battery life I'm getting at that moment, and the bottom is the average. This is mainly on wifi, with screen about 75% bright, using a VPN(idk if that drains it but seems like it). Anyway, I'm really happy with the battry life of this phone.
jimv1983 said:
There is really a misunderstanding about Adaptive Battery mode. All it really does is make sure that poorly written apps can't drain battery in the background if you rarely use them. If you don't have any apps like that Adaptive Battery doesn't really do anything. In my case I have no apps like that so Adaptive Battery on my Pixel 2 XL has made no difference.
I'm curious what kind of use got you that kind of battery life.
If you were using mobile data, had the screen really bright, played games, used navigation, etc that's pretty good.
If you were on wifi most of the time, lower screen brightness and doing non battery intensive tasks that's pretty disappointing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This really isn't the case at all. The naughty list of apps is really only one function of the adaptive battery management. Do you really think Google would be bragging about a task killer?
https://venturebeat.com/2018/08/28/how-android-pies-adaptive-battery-and-adaptive-brightness-work/
d j a said:
This really isn't the case at all. The naughty list of apps is really only one function of the adaptive battery management. Do you really think Google would be bragging about a task killer?
https://venturebeat.com/2018/08/28/how-android-pies-adaptive-battery-and-adaptive-brightness-work/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's really just a long detailed explanation of what I said.
jimv1983 said:
That's really just a long detailed explanation of what I said.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What you said was that it only helps with poorly written apps. That is totally, completely wrong- and I don't believe you bothered to read the article- you would know that.
https://venturebeat.com/2018/08/28/how-android-pies-adaptive-battery-and-adaptive-brightness-work/
See the section labeled "Adaptive Battery: 5 percent reduction in overall CPU". There is a noticable difference with the battery management on the Pixel 2 &3. It takes 2-3 weeks from my experience & it DOES in fact learn and adjust to a users usage. That's why they are calling it AI. You can't just look at one of those battery apps and judge the phone over a 24 hour period, nothing quantitative there. Use the phone as you normally would for a period of time and then and ONLY then can you fairly judge it.
This ties into Google's position on the camera as well, "bigger/more" isn't ALWAYS better. Machine learning can do a lot, and you need look no further than the performance of the camera to see that.
That being said- could the battery be bigger? Sure. It's actually 100ma less than the 2XL this year. But why? If you can get the same performance with "less"- it would be pointless to spend more money on "bigger."
d j a said:
What you said was that it only helps with poorly written apps. That is totally, completely wrong- and I don't believe you bothered to read the article- you would know that.
https://venturebeat.com/2018/08/28/how-android-pies-adaptive-battery-and-adaptive-brightness-work/
See the section labeled "Adaptive Battery: 5 percent reduction in overall CPU". There is a noticable difference with the battery management on the Pixel 2 &3. It takes 2-3 weeks from my experience & it DOES in fact learn and adjust to a users usage. That's why they are calling it AI. You can't just look at one of those battery apps and judge the phone over a 24 hour period, nothing quantitative there. Use the phone as you normally would for a period of time and then and ONLY then can you fairly judge it.
This ties into Google's position on the camera as well, "bigger/more" isn't ALWAYS better. Machine learning can do a lot, and you need look no further than the performance of the camera to see that.
That being said- could the battery be bigger? Sure. It's actually 100ma less than the 2XL this year. But why? If you can get the same performance with "less"- it would be pointless to spend more money on "bigger."
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Noticable battery improvement on the Pixel 2 XL? If you had poorly behaving apps then yes. I don't have any apps that hog battery in the background when they shouldn't. My battery life on my Pixel 2 XL running Pie is no different than it was on Oreo. I actually had a huge battery life decrease after I updated to Pie but a factory reset got me back to Oreo battery life.
And a 5% reduction of CPU means nothing. That's so tiny it isn't noticable. It's not the CPU or software that has the biggest impact on battery life. It's the screen and the size of the battery. Software optimizations help a little bit but not enough to even be worth mentioning.
The Pixel 3 XL doesn't get the same battery as the Pixel 2 XL. Not even close. I can do anything with my Pixel 2 XL other than GPS navigation and games and get 7-7.5 hours screen on time over 24 hours off the charger. That's down from 9 hours screen on time over 40 hours when it was new. The Pixel 3 XL isn't getting close to that. A combination of a bigger screen, higher resolution and smaller battery is the reason.
I don't know why people keep making a thing about the XL 3 battery being smaller than the XL 2 battery as though there has been some major downgrade, It is 2% smaller.
That isn't going to make any significant or noticeable difference. If you take a 6 hour SOT that would make 7 minutes difference! If there is a significant difference in the battery life of the XL 3 v XL 2 then it is nothing to do with the difference in battery size.
I too would have preferred a significantly bigger battery but most phone manufacturers continue to ignore this. I know some phones do have larger batteries, like any phone choice, you balance all the features offered and make your choice.
I'm getting 2.5% drain per hour regardless of whether the ambient display is on or not. It also doesn't change if I turn adaptive battery on or off.
I don't get it..
synplex said:
Pixel 3 XL Battery Size: 3450 mAh
Pixel 2 XL Battery Size: 3,520 mAh
The Pixel 3 XL Battery is smaller no way around it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, this is one decision that Google made that I truly don't understand. Why would you downgrade the battery when you're adding more horsepower to the device?! I can maybe see doing this for the Pixel 3 but absolutely not for the Pixel 3 XL! My only complaint is the battery life, that being said, I know it's supposed to be adaptive, so it may improve over time. I'm hoping that proves to be the case!
UPDATE: I tend to agree with the point another person made that it's a 7% difference, though, I for sure would have preferred it was a 7% gain vs. a loss.
-E
EricSB said:
Yeah, this is one decision that Google made that I truly don't understand. Why would you downgrade the battery when you're adding more horsepower to the device?! I can maybe see doing this for the Pixel 3 but absolutely not for the Pixel 3 XL! My only complaint is the battery life, that being said, I know it's supposed to be adaptive, so it may improve over time. I'm hoping that proves to be the case!
UPDATE: I tend to agree with the point another person made that it's a 7% difference, though, I for sure would have preferred it was a 7% gain vs. a loss.
-E
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The problem all comes down to wireless charging: the wireless charging coil steals a couple mm of space....that's the only reason why the battery is smaller.
What I don't really get instead is why everyone is so freaking happy about wireless charging...I mean, for a marginal gain in charging behavior, we loose in battery capacity!
The pixel 3 xl drains much faster than the pixel 2 xl. It might be the new screen from Samsung consumes more energy but I'm not entirely sure.

Pixel 3a battery: almost 9hrs SOT

I'm beyond impressed with this phone in the 48hrs I've had it. Coming from a Pixel 3 and S10e, upon first powering on it felt noticebly jankier than my other phones and understandably so. But after initial setup and allowing it to settle, it's actually pretty snappy. For my use case at least- web browsing, Twitter, Reddit, etc. PUBG is playable, but I'll leave that to my 3xl.
But what is blowing me away is the way this 670 sips on battery. It took me way longer to drain this thing than I thought it would, but between yesterday and today I managed almost 9hrs sot. This was just here at the house, 100% wifi, adaptive brightness on, and aod on. I'm curious what it would do with aod off, but at this point I'm sufficiently hooked on that feature. This is far and away the best battery I've ever had on a phone and it's truly plenty snappy. A step behind the 3 of course, but I'm good with this and the gains in battery are more than worth it. I honestly don't know who buys a Pixel 3 at this point.
Caveat: digital wellbeing was turned off before this test.
Bought unlocked at Best Buy. $399 with a $100 bb gift card; effectively $299. Crazy good value. It feels like Google just decimated the mid-range market.
BTW, the clickiest buttons I've ever had on a phone. The buttons seem oddly high quality for a phone this cheap.
I'm getting about half that with the XL but it's expected, I'm cruel to my batteries. I do agree about the value statement. When day one deals have the phone widely available for 100 (or more) less than MSRP you can figure that's your real buy in price and at 300 and 380 these things are screaming deals. You've got a top notch camera, a good software experience, best update path available,etc. Not an easy combo to beat and I'm very curious about where the sales numbers are going to come in at on these things. Personally, I'm hoping their good and we'll see more of the same.
krabman said:
I'm very curious about where the sales numbers are going to come in at on these things.
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I think this phone will be very popular. I don't see any reason it wouldn't have a strong development scene as well.
Yeah, I've been over optimistic about some phones that didn't do as well as I expected so I'm a little more guarded now about taking guesses but that aside I see this one as a winner. It's a very compelling package in it's price point.
I gotta give it a pretty good on the battery too. My 3a (small version) arrived on thursday.
It's clear it's gonna be able to consistently do 2 days for me.
Couple hours of PowerAmp via BT, which is a fairly power hungry use, plus 2:45 hours SOT (barely any overlap between the music and the screen use, by the way), over 12 hours with 57% left, good enough as far as I'm concerned..
Quite satisfied with the phone, happy to be back on a "Nexus" (the 3a feels so much like the spiritual successor to the Nexus 5X I knew it'd be the phone for me. I was right).
If next year they make a 4a with small bezels and the same or just slightly bigger screen size (so a slightly smaller overall size), I'll be all over it, almost guaranteed to stay with me for years.
Pixel 3a XL user. I'm not a heavy user but unless something changes I charge the phone every other day. I am on day 2 about to call in quits for today with 34% charge remaining and SOT of 6 hours and 30 minutes. Will put on the charger tonight. I really don't want to start charging the phone when it has over 60-70% charge remaining. I may start charging the the phone to only about 80%. I do that for my laptop because it is supposed to improve battery life. I hope that the excellent battery life continues.
Anyone know if ambient display affects the battery life noticeably? I heard some Pixel 3 owners are complaining about 1-2%/hour idle drain when its on, I hope it's fixed on the 3a.
I'm coming home with 80% battery left where it use to be 20% on my LG....This phone is awesome.
OuHiroshi said:
Anyone know if ambient display affects the battery life noticeably? I heard some Pixel 3 owners are complaining about 1-2%/hour idle drain when its on, I hope it's fixed on the 3a.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes aod is very battery hungry.
I lost 12% over night (8h) .
For me aod is a deal breaker so I turned it off for more battery life.
Overall the battery life is extremely good on my previous oneplus 3 I barely had 4 - 4,5h sot (with all tweaks).
Now I get 8-9h sot so I'm pretty impressed.
With root, substratum and blackedout apps I'm sure the battery life will get some significant boost.
Oh and the idle drain is also very nice, no deep sleep issues. Now with aod off I loose over night 0% yes zero
yabadabadooo said:
Oh and the idle drain is also very nice, no deep sleep issues. Now with aod off I loose over night 0% yes zero
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I'm assuming that's using airplane mode or something no?
I'm liking sofar but I got spoiled by my last phone's battery (Mate 9) At least I'll be getting updates though! I have ambient display off and I have a watch connected and a bluetooth earpiece on about half the day. I haven't not kept on charge when I knew I was going to be away from the home for sometime but it does seem like it will get about 20-22 hours on the battery at my usage level. I'm happy with that.
I have been pleasantly surprised by my battery life with my 3a. Best battery life I've ever had on an Android phone, at least in recent memory.
Molitro said:
I'm assuming that's using airplane mode or something no?
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Click to collapse
Just dnd and wifi. Idk
I don't know what's going on but my battery drain is horrendous. Screen on drain is slower than screen off. I don't have any rouge apps or anything according to BBS. Adaptive battery is on. Ambient display off. Not sure wtf is going on here.
AutomaticFailure27 said:
I don't know what's going on but my battery drain is horrendous. Screen on drain is slower than screen off. I don't have any rouge apps or anything according to BBS. Adaptive battery is on. Ambient display off. Not sure wtf is going on here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try a battery monitor. I use betterbatterystats.
alphahere said:
Try a battery monitor. I use betterbatterystats.
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Click to collapse
I am, there is nothing
AutomaticFailure27 said:
I am, there is nothing
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Click to collapse
I see BBS in your previous post. Sorry missed that.
Really hope that someone can give you some help.
AutomaticFailure27 said:
I don't know what's going on but my battery drain is horrendous. Screen on drain is slower than screen off. I don't have any rouge apps or anything according to BBS. Adaptive battery is on. Ambient display off. Not sure wtf is going on here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try to deactivate wellbeing
I'm not shure if this could be your drain issue but on the Pixel 3 it does the trick
yabadabadooo said:
Try to deactivate wellbeing
I'm not shure if this could be your drain issue but on the Pixel 3 it does the trick
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That was one of the first things I've done. Pretty much all these 'fun and useful' features I've turned off as my phone is 90% of the time in my pocket. I reinstalled Naptime and Greenify, to get it to doze faster.
I just flashed ElementalX Kernel, so we'll see if that helps any.
I don't know why you can used for 9hrs SOT, but I think the average SOT might be 6-7hrs in wifi condition, although it is common, but concerned about its 3000 battery, that's fine. Anyway, how is your setting for that

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