I was full sure I would see battery improvements moving to pixel. Given its their platform and their chipset, I dont understand why it is worse than the midrange samsung I had.
Like way worse, I struggle to get to the end of the day on days I dont drive.
Can anyone explain or do I have an issue.
Pixels have been affected by higher battery drain since the March 2026 update. Google has acknowledged the issue. No fix has yet been made.
I have the 6a. It was getting hot quite often. Then I learned they could explode…! Im not getting injured because of my stupid phone. Had to get a new phone.
The pixel line sucks in my opinion.
Unfortunately, the performance of Pixel phones are on par with midrange alternatives worth ~€600-€650, but many folk just believe it’s worth the price Google puts on it. The last one (10 Pro) 16GB/512GB was sold at around 2x its relative performance value on release.
It consistently pains me to see such high sales numbers on such low value tech – GrapheneOS makes it almost worth.
Thats what I got, granted that is what I paid for it. And it was for gOS
My current pixel phone has a smaller battery then my previous phone. A samsung. It’s my understanding that pixel has always typically had smaller than the average battery. So even with the extra efficiency you are still charging roughly the same overall at best. The problem arises that efficiencies are only for certain tasks. When it comes to powering an OLED screen. That hasn’t gotten significantly more efficient. And so if you have a smaller battery but the screen is still your biggest overall draw. Your battery won’t last as long.
Is it OLED? That should be more efficient, especiallt given I use dark mode everywhere.
Only more efficient if your previous phone wasn’t oled. That’s the thing OLED for OLED if the resolutions/refresh rate weren’t wildly different etc. And OLED is an oled. And depending on your screen time that could account for a lot of battery burned. Of which the pixels often have less to start with.
Think of it like this, ignore everything but the battery. You have 2 identical screens. A large battery and a smaller battery. Displaying the same content, which screen will stay powered longer?
More efficient processors, memory, and radios are important. But the single biggest power draw on any mobile is the screen. So if you have heavy screen time it can effectively wipe out those other efficiencies.
Personally my last Samsung was an S20. It had an oled screen. Samsung flagships have since at least the S7. I have a Pixel 8 ATM also oled. I definitely have less overall runtime with the Pixel 8 even with the other efficiencies. I still like it though. Now that I don’t have Samsung constantly duplicating apps and trying to force them on me.
One of the same reasons Inleft Samsung!
Yeah, I totally get it. My previous was not an OLED. My refresh rate is standard. Its just a bad phone for battery and that is mind boggling.
Yeah going forward the next phone I get will either be a base model that I can tether other devices to or something running Linux natively.
With Google’s continuous vadering. Android is becoming less and less viable unfortunately. I’m not a fan of Apple for the same reason. It’s ridiculous how little you own the devices you buy these days oftentimes. All I want is something that is power efficient and completely mine to do with as I see fit. But they’ve turned one against the other.
I dont particularly care for apps or anything, just camera and nfc payments and some sort of projection for auto. Which is my remaining barrier.
That said I will move to linux next, I just dont care enough to be part of any of this any longer
You brought a pixel. They are known to suffer in this area. The A55 had superior battery because it has midrange performance so it cannot burn much anyway. You can turn off 5G, turn on battery saver. But, you cannot do much.
Pixels offer sub flagship performance and way worse battery. Get a different smartphone next time if you want good battery life.
No one can really answer those questions without more detail. Which pixel, which version of android, which Samsung is it being compared to, is it new or used, what is the battery health, what is a typical day of use like for you? You have to give people enough information to form a response.
Pixel10pro. Six months old. Samsung A55 one to two years old.
The typical day hasnt changed. I get what you are saying about context but the detail shouldnt matter because the question is why does the pixel fair worse compared to the midrange samsung when it is a dedicated google chipset, running their software on their hardware farm to fork. The implication is everything else remains the same.
Fair enough on the phone models I guess.
Which Pixel do you have? I know for a long time Pixel had bad modems which drained the battery very fast. If you live in a region with bad reception it can get even worse. It’s also related to Pixel’s heat issues.
The newest flagship 10pro. Pretty disappointed.
It’s an update from a few months ago that Google hasn’t bothered to fix. About an hour after unplugging your phone go into settings>battery>battery usage and force close whichever apps are using hella battery. I’ve also noticed far fewer issues if I’m connected to WiFi but I haven’t seen anyone else report that yet.
Pixel 6. Best battery saving I found was disabling 5G
It’s because they use shitty modems which is also related to Pixel’s heat problems.
What Pixel? What’s your battery usage?
