I’ll be honest: I had hopes for One UI 8.5. The S24 Ultra’s battery life has always been a weak spot, and I figured Samsung might finally address it with a software update. They didn’t fix it. But what they did do is somehow make it dramatically worse, and I’m not alone. I rely on my phone for transit. That means pulling up the bus and train apps to board, running GPS the whole trip, and killing time on Wikipedia or Retro Bowl while I ride. Normal stuff. Before One UI 8.5, a two-hour trip like that would cost me around 30% battery. Annoying, but manageable.
After the update? I’m watching it drain from 100% down to 56 or 57% on trips. similar That’s nearly double the drain for the same usage. And I’m running in Power Saving mode the entire time. There’s something else going on too, possibly a glitch, but my phone is now charging at under four watts. Four watts. On a device that’s supposed to handle fast charging, that’s nearly useless essential stagnant at charging when in use. To make matters worse, the battery percentage is hardcoded into the status bar in this new update. You can’t hide it. So every time I glance at my screen, I’m watching the number tick down, sometimes a full percentage point every two to three minutes during active use. I hit up r/S24Ultra to see if others were experiencing the same thing, and sure enough and MANY others agreeing.
Aromatic_Welder7645 noted as much Same. I was getting 9 hours SOT earlier, it fell down to 4 hours SOT. Did factory reset yesterday and setup from base without any backup restore. it’s still not as good as before but slightly better at 5 hours SOT.
To be fair to Samsung he clarified he keeps his phone on WiFi most of the time but the commens were relentless for Samsung. People called them out saying the battery life has been ‘horrible’ noting “Did an update yesterday. Phone battery draining like crazy. Before yesterday everything was working as normal. Then with no new apps, no new system adjustments, nothing change except the new update, to which my phone has been draining like crazy. Left it on the table at 100%. Came back 5 hrs later 25%…”
Samsung, What’s Going On?
There’s been no official acknowledgment from Samsung as of this writing. No patch notes, no forum response, nothing. I’ll be watching for any update and will report back when there’s something concrete to share. Hopefully Samsung releases a fix. God bless and Tech Talk To You Later!!!
