It’s things like this that make it challenging to recommend the pixels over iPhones. I know there is a large price difference, but this just seems like they can’t get the basics right.
No knock on graphene as this appears to all be hardware related, but between the battery life, warm phone and absolutely atrocious unusable fingerprint reader, the pixel 7 is one of the worst phones I’ve had in the last decade.
TBH, I hated my P6P much more. It used to slow down after 5mins of just browsing because it got so damn hot. The reason wasn't even the CPU, but the stupid modem.
The P7P fixed almost all my issues from the P6P, even the fingerprint is totally fine now, but the battery life got worse. Honestly though, if battery life is the only problem now, that's fine for me.
Yeah, it’s the inconsistency that I’m referring to that is so frustrating. You only got hit with one issue while I seem to have won the pixel lottery and got a triple whammy lemon..
I'm having simply fantastic battery usage on P7P - simply outstanding. Could go 2 days without charging and still have some left.
For those experiencing high battery drain related to mobile network - could it be your location or distance to the nearest cell tower? Recent changes on that tower or around it? Construction? Maybe try switching to LTE only if 5G in your area is weak or inconsistent.
applesbana
True. The Pixel lottery is indeed real..
No, I'm living in a swiss city with full LTE (or even 5G connection if I wanted).
I don’t know the distance to my cell tower. However, I can say that with other phones I haven’t experienced the same battery drain (and fingerprint reader and warm/hot phone) problem despite living in the same place so I’d imagine it has something to do with the pixel 7.
spl4tt No
No as in there was no changes on the cell towers? No construction? Or no, I dont whant switch to LTE only? Or no, LTE is consistent?
My point is - you dont know answers to those questions and any of them could affect the signal, quality, and consistency which could possibly be reflected in your phone battery performance. We also dont know what you have installed on your phone or what other configuration changes were made to it.
What I'm trying to say is that if majority users are ok but some experiencing an anomaly, the troubleshooting should start NOT with the OS, but examining use cases of those experiencing the issue. Do a factory reset and run for a few days to establish a base line, then go from there adding variables.
Best of luck
I have 5g disabled, but I'm not on 4g only. You think that would help? 4g is indeed really consistent here. and even if some antennas would change, that wouldn't wreck my battery life for multiple months, right? :P
I also don't think it's a fault of the OS, but a modem issue as with last gen Pixels. The P6P just got warm and had bad connection, while the P7P now has worse battery life, eh. I don't think we can do much
spl4tt You think that would help?
If I were in your shoes, I would definitely start there and if no help sigh factory reset
spl4tt The P6P just got warm and had bad connection, while the P7P now has worse battery life, eh. I don't think we can do much
Yeah, 6 was an abomination in many regards, but 7, 7P in particular, for me is great in everything, including signal, VPN, and battery life.
I also have pixel 7 and I don't have that issue at all. The phone is using 5G all the time, it's now 7PM where I am and I have 55% since morning when I unplugged it having full capacity.
This phone easily goes almost 2 days without charging and what I use it for is mainly internet browsing, using apps like codecademy and learning JS on it, GitHub and in general more other programming related apps and Signal for messaging.
Unfortunately all of these anecdotal experiences are pretty arbitrary. Your phone habits are likely unique to you and result in a different battery usage than that of others.
A slightly more meaningful comparison is how the phone performs when compared to similar phones when used by the same person with the same overall workflow.
In my own case, my previous P20 Pro and P30 Pro phones were slightly smaller in battery capacity but similar in overall CPU and memory performance. The displays were quite different however (OLED vs AMOLED, and 60Hz vs 90Hz), and were generally much brighter on the older phones. Neither models supported 5G. The older phones were Android 10 as well, and Huawei is known for its aggressive power management, often killing apps shortly after losing focus.
My current workflow is more minimalist than ever before, yet battery consumption has been quite a bit higher with the Pixel 7, regardless of whether it's stock Android or GOS (with and without Play Services).
I would typically go to bed with 60%+ battery remaining (and this with two and three year old phones), but I am now consistently ending the day with around 35-50%.
I can only surmise it is due to the differences in OEM Android optimizations, the display panel, and/or the modem, but obviously I can't make any meaningful comparisons due to the variation of hardware.
Thankfully, I'm not needing to reach for a charge cable before the end of the day or anything. I could probably recoup some of the increased battery loss by simply disabling the 90Hz refresh rate. Setting the preferred network type hasn't had a noticeable effect though, but that may be due to using a carrier which only supports 3G/LTE anyway.
My Pixel 7 Pro with GrapheneOS can last for more than 2 days on 4G and WiFi connectivity with "always on" VPN. With a very heavy usage of NewPipe (YouTube private client), mixed use of MS Teams and Signal video calls the battery will still last a full day. I hope you can resolve your issue in full soon.
mythodical I could probably recoup some of the increased battery loss by simply disabling the 90Hz refresh rate.
Just following up on my own post to say that disabling the 90Hz refresh rate has absolutely made a difference in battery consumption. I'm back to ending the day around 60-70%, similar to my Huawei P20/P30 Pro phones. Yes, 60Hz isn't as smooth, but I don't even miss it after a day of use. Just something to keep in mind if battery life is a priority.
Settings > Display > Smooth displaymythodical this worked for my P7.
mythodical Well, here's my personal comparison: comparing my pixel 7 to my Samsung s20, I am getting better battery life on the pixel, s20 was a charge every day phone, pixel is sometimes good for 2.
Very interesting how many differing experiences there are in this thread
LeaveMeAlone I've had a similar experience with Samsung phones. The S20 has a slightly smaller battery (3880mAh) and a higher refresh rate (if enabled), but I've generally found them to have poor battery performance regardless.
Reducing the refresh rate seems to be the single most significant factor for me. I went to sleep last night with 79% capacity remaining, which was a first!
Hey, I just found this thread and I am facing a similar issue. Coming from LOS on OnePlus 8 (easily 2d+), the battery life on P7 GOS is just crap. I did some adjustments (60hz, seperate some apps to work profile, airplane etc) and now i get about a day and a half. Nevertheless, it feels like a massive downgrade batterywise...
After 50+ installation of custom ROM-s in my life every single one of them had shit battery life first few days, every time! Same like every big update wrecks battery life for a few hours after installation.
I just bought Pixel 6a after using iPhone for many years and I put GrapheneOS within few hours. First few it drained battery super quick, even quicker than I thought it would. I thought that something was wrong. Now I'm on fifth day and battery life is great, just as good as iPhone 13 I own.
Use it a few days and then judge.
I would start with a clean install, and absolutely nothing added.
Use this for a few days, and see if it eats the battery
