Battery Life

[SimonWilding]

I'm sure the answer wil lbe "it's old!" but the battery life on my 20month old S4 has, over the last month or so, cecome shocking.

From a full charge I can, by merely web browsing, using the Twitter app and playing Cancy Crush, reduce my battery to 5% in around two hours.

Watching a half hour TV programme on Sky Go or the iPlayer will use about 25-30% of the charge.

I've not got the screen up too high, there is no app that is using excessive amounts of power (the screen is always the highest user) so I'm assuming that the battery is near the end of it's useful life unless anyone has any suggestions?

[BandOfBrothers]

Hi

It's true a battery has a certain amount of charge cycles.

You could get it replaced by another Samsung original battery.

[hrym]

At least Samsung batteries are user-replaceable, so it's an easy process.

You can tell if a battery is getting near the end of its life by whether it's swollen.   Take it out and lay it on a hard flat surface.   If you can rock it, it's definitely dead or dying.   Even if you can't, it may well be.  Lithium-based batteries have a charge-cycle life of 1000-2000 times.   That's pro-rata so, if you routinely top up at 50%, you'll get twice as many.  Allowing the battery to go flat will shorten its life considerably, though.   There's no memory effect,so no need to exercise it.

Replacement batteries are easy to get, but it's hard to tell whether you're getting a genuine one - and Samsung buy them in from 3rd parties anyway.   The best thing is not to pay too low a price and use a UK-based seller with good feedback.   Somewhere around the £12 mark is probably about right.  I've used an outfit called MDS Battery in the past and they have their own website.