Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra abnormal battery drain noticed by many users

Here’s the crux of the article in video form

New updates are being added at the bottom of this story…….

Original story (published on March 04, 2022) follows:

A few weeks ago, Samsung unveiled its latest flagship devices at the Galaxy Unpacked event. The S22 series consists of three phones, namely, the Samsung Galaxy S22, S22 Plus, and the S22 Ultra.

That being said, the Galaxy S22 Ultra is the largest and most expensive phone in the series. It has the highest battery capacity among all and also features an embedded S-Pen.

But like every other recently released smartphone, Galaxy S22 Ultra users have had their fair share of bugs and issues such as camera shutter and performance lags and crackling sound issues.

And now, Galaxy S22 Ultra users are complaining (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10) about abnormal battery drain. Device owners say the battery sometimes drops percentages extremely quickly.

A few reports suggest that the battery backup on the phone is worse than the Galaxy S21 Ultra. While the Exynos processor variant might not be as power-efficient as the Snapdragon variant, users say the problem persists on both versions.

You can see in the image below how quickly the battery drains for some.

Below are some reports from Galaxy S22 Ultra owners complaining about battery drain.

Tbh, really poor. I have to charge twice a day if I drain my battery all the way. If I don’t let it go below 30-40 percent (because it takes a while to charge and sometimes I want less consecutive time with it stuck on the charger) I would have to top up multiple times a day. I get about 3-4 hours sot going from 100 to 0, with relatively light or moderate usage. Still couldn’t eek out more than 4 with battery saving mode on, wifi all day, and 60hz. Everything else about the phone is great.. but the battery life is a bummer and once the battery degrades in a couple years it’ll probably be unusable tbh.
(Source)

My battery life sucks compared to my last phone which I used heavily for 2 years. I’ve only had the s22 ultra for 2 days and I have battery saver turned on, but it still depletes way faster than my last phone. Especially when the screen is turned off, there is no reason for the battery to be tanking so fast. Location, wifi, bluetooth, etc. are all turned off, but when I wake up in the morning it has lost 30% at least overnight. My old phone would lose maybe 5% at most.
(Source)

Since the phone is relatively new, it is still uncertain if the battery drain is related to the hardware or a software issue. We hope Samsung sheds some light on the matter and releases an update that fixes the problem.

Nevertheless, we will be keeping tabs on the matter and let you know once we come across new information so keep checking this space.

In the meantime, make sure you check out our Samsung Galaxy S22 series bug tracker to see similar issues affecting users.

05:55 pm (IST): According to some users (1, 2, 3), the latest May 2022 update on Galaxy S22 has improved the battery life of the device.

01:18 pm (IST): A Galaxy S22 owner running the August 2022 patch has managed to fix the battery drain issue by trying some workarounds. You can check them out below.

03:44 pm (IST): Some Galaxy S22 users are again reporting (1, 2) battery drainage issue after updating to December 2022 patch.

01:00 pm (IST): A recent report from a Samsung Galaxy S22 user indicates that the January update has significantly improved their phone’s battery life.

Installed the January patch, battery life improved by hours instantly and charging is back to normal! I hope to enjoy this phone now, love the camera and the speed, plus the screen is amazing
Source

01:00 pm (IST): Geekyranjit, a popular YouTuber, recently started a Twitter thread where some Samsung S22 Ultra users (1,2) shared their mostly positive thoughts on battery life especially after the recent couple of updates.

It appears that the battery-related issues started getting better after the second December patch and the January update.

05:27 pm (IST): One of the reasons for the low energy efficiency of the Galaxy S22 Ultra (and some other 2022 flagships) is related to the Samsung chipset factories.

The Galaxy S22 series uses Exynos 2200 or Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipsets (depending on territory). Both chips are made by Samsung on their 4nm process, which is unfortunately inefficient.

An inefficient process results in chipsets with poor battery and thermal management. Although both are affected by the issue, it seems to be more evident on the Exynos one.

In fact, Samsung teamed up with AMD to develop a powerful GPU (RDNA 2 architecture) with the aim of making the Exynos 2200 the mobile chipset with the most powerful GPU.

Unfortunately, the Exynos 2200 inefficiency plus the powerful GPU caused severe thermal throttling during internal testing. This forced the company to reduce the GPU clock speed (from 1.9GHz to 1.29GHz).

This is also the reason why the Galaxy S23 series will not use Exynos chipsets. It is also reported that the high-end Exynos chips will return in 2025, when their battery and heating problems have been resolved.

12:09 pm (IST): As mentioned in the previous update, the Exynos 2200 chipset is especially affected by both low power efficiency and heating issues.

Now we have Galaxy S22 Ultra users reporting both battery drain and heating, even during normal use (1, 2). In both cases, the device is powered by the Exynos 2200 chipset.

01:07 pm (IST): Some users have noticed that the battery on their Galaxy S22 Ultra drains faster during video calls (1, 2, 3).

06:00 pm (IST): Here is a list of tips from Samsung that will help you extend or improve battery life.

02:11 pm (IST): A user has managed to improve their phone’s battery by turning off background activity for the apps they don’t use more often and only keeping it on for the necessary ones.

Also, disabling RAM Plus feature seems to have helped some. So, you can try these potential workarounds and see if they work for you.

12:23 pm (IST): A Redditor has suggested that turning off the ‘Adaptive battery’ feature has helped them improve battery life on their Galaxy S22. Here’s how to do it:

Open Settings > Battery > Adaptive Preferences > Toggle off ‘Adaptive battery’

Note: We have more such stories in our dedicated Samsung Section so be sure to follow them as well.

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