Battery testing with the Pixel 4 - 6+ hours screen on time: but at what cost? By phonejerome

Chickadee check yourself before you rigid wreck yourself, because the last time I checked shotgun. Bullets are bad for your health. So if there is one gripe, one gripe that I have with the pixel for its battery life, which, if you're a tech enthusiast a phone enthusiast, this shouldn't be anything new. The battery life on the pixel 4 has been subpar Lee by 7 or 8 p. m. I'm.

Looking to charge this thing, or I run out of battery, especially when I use this in maps for navigation. This thing eats battery like crazy, but I've, seen a lot of other reviewers lately talking about how the battery life on the pixel 4 has gotten better just through software updates. So what I want to do is I want to take a couple of days. I haven't figured out how many yet to see if the battery has gotten better. Now how this is gonna work is my iPhone 11 Pro has been my daily driver for 4 months.

Now, it's its the phone that I always have in my left pocket. This is my daily driver pocket. My love pocket. My secondary phone pocket is my pixel 4 anyway. This pixel 4 is now going in my love pocket.

What I'm going to do is section out day by day my experience with the pixel for what I've used it for mostly cellular coverage versus Wi-Fi and kind of see if it's gotten better, ok, so I'm looking at this screenshot and so the first day, I started. This was yesterday Thursday February, 13th 10:47 am 100% battery, and then I hit 1% battery. Today, Friday, February 14th Valentine's Day at 10:53 a. m. so just a little over a full day of battery life.

I wasn't as heavy on this phone on day, one as I. Typically am, so I'm. Looking at my screen usage here, and it shows 3 hours. I think I use this for a little over an hour for navigation, so I had maps open using Navy you're using navigation. Why am I saying Navy using navigation and that's usually one of the biggest battery drains when I use? This phone is connecting this to my car and using maps or using the map app Google Maps and using navigation, so I had about an hour's worth of that, and I used Spotify I used Spotify for a long time.

Yesterday, I would say at least three or four hours worth of Spotify I forgot to look at the breakdown. That's what I should have done is I should have taken a screenshot of the breakdown of everything I used, but Spotify I think I used for about three or four hours, and this morning when I went to the gym, I actually connected my air pods doing have my it's like I, have to show a visual I connected my air pods to my pixel for the first time, and it actually worked pretty great, but I had like a. Think I was at the gym for 40 minutes and I used the air pods for 40 minutes as well on the pixel for when it was I. Think I only had like seven or eight percent battery life, and it got me through my whole workout, which is also fascinating, because when the pixel for drained down to 1% battery it stays there for a while, typically when it hits one percent like the phone dies right away. I can't give you an exact timeframe, but I've noticed in the past when it's at a very low percentage under 5%.

That thing is just draining like a like, but today at 1% it is hung there for a while yeah 20 minutes and 25 seconds. So I was on a 20-minute phone call. That was also connected to my car yesterday. You know obviously Chrome Twitter here and there oh yeah and then YouTube I watched a good amount of YouTube videos. The way my usages is, if I go past, 20 hours, I think that's a good day.

If I can go through the phone for over 20 hours without having to kind of like push back on it, you know not use it as much because I don't want to waste the battery, then that's a good day. I will say ? on my pixel for I, don't oops I will say: I'm, mother, okay, so today is day 2 of testing my battery with the pixel. For don't mind, my mic I was actually able to kind of Jerry rigged it up. So you know good audio. That's important cares about how this looks anyway for day two I charge this phone until it hit a hundred percent at 12:54 p.

m. and it only lasted me until 457 a. m. the next day, so just right around 16 hours now the biggest thing that I did differently here was I actually left the ninety Hertz option on. That's not something I typically leave on, but I did notice that I left it on the whole time.

So it is what it is. I did not use navigation, so there wasn't maps that I was using that usually drains my battery, but the 90 Hertz definitely took its toll on the battery life. For my phone I did take the battery usage stats, and it shows here that I use YouTube for an hour and 53 minutes, because I watch a lot of YouTube videos, but still not even two hours or just around two hours of YouTube, and it was such a huge drainage. So it's 23% chrome used for 39 minutes telegram for 45 minutes or 44 minutes Instagram for 18 minutes. So it wasn't a lot of usage but to go 16 hours.

You know that's a disappointment, so what I'm going to do for day 3, which is something that I'm already in the middle of day 3 is I turned off 90 Hertz, always on display turned off. You know just the typical things that I turn off to use my phone, and hopefully it'll stretch the time-out for day 3, oh also screen usage. So it shows here that screen usage, since full charge was 3 hours and 48 minutes, so not even 4 hours of screen on time with 90 Hertz. On and again there was nothing really different that I used about it, except I, didn't use navigation yesterday did use. You know I connected my car with Spotify and again mostly YouTube chrome, but there was nothing out of the ordinary I.

Don't game I wasn't doing anything really intensive. Just the only difference here was 90 Hertz was on, so I'm going to turn that off again for day three and hopefully, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to get better results, but 490 Hertz on that's already disappointing, because, yes, this is now the newest update battery supposedly better, but ninety Hertz on no I mean I can tell you already don't turn it on if you're trying to go for more than four hours of screen on time or trying to go a full day without having to worry about your battery without having to pull back on using your phone to its full or to your 100% full potential. Okay. So today is day three again don't mind my rigged up microphone here as long as it works. That's all that matters.

For a day three on my pixel four I have a screenshot here. I'll show it with you guys, or I'll share it with you guys.7:55 am 100%, and I got down to 1% today, 739 a. m. so it didn't even make 24 hours, which is your know what I really thought that the battery was gonna, be better after day one I felt like that's the day it did the best, but maybe not because I just didn't use the screen. I might have used it for Spotify and had the speaker on the entire time, and it worked great then, but as soon as the speaker or as soon as the screen, the display shows that's just when it eats battery 90 Hertz just makes it worse so for day three.

It shows here that I use Chrome for 55 minutes Spotify for two and a half hours and I did use Spotify for you know in my car, so I had it connected for that telegram for an hour YouTube for 51 minutes, and it shows here that the screen usage was for three hours and 37 minutes. So again, not even four hours now I'm, not sure what I need to do to get four hours of screen on time. I will say four Wi-Fi on this. It was about maybe 75% LTE 25% Wi-Fi. Do I just need to put the phone on Wi-Fi the entire time? I! Don't live my life that way, most of the time I'm out, and I'm doing things, and I'm not connected to Wi-Fi.

So I was really thinking of doing a day. Four for battery 4 pixel 4 for the pixel 4, but I might just leave it as is, and for anyone, that's wondering if you're, not a heavy user of a phone, and these days that I use these three days, I was pretty light. I really didn't use it as long as I thought I. Would you know the first couple days, I just wasn't on my phone as much and then same as last night or yesterday. I wasn't on as much, but for people who need to go all day without having to charge the pixel for is not for you not even with the new update I, don't know if there was a noticeable difference, not enough of a difference to say yes, the battery is now amazing because you just cannot replace a physical battery.

Yes, you can make improvements on software, but Google still isn't there. Yet, if you need, if you want a clean Android experience, you're still better off getting the pixel for Excel and then just skipping, the pixel for I can't tell you. I can't share with you how much better the battery is there. You do get a bigger battery, though it should last you longer. That's really it just keeps it there.

I wanted to I was really hoping. I was going to make this video, and I was gonna. Use it an entire week and be like this battery is so much more amazing than it used to be. But in my experience I mean maybe it's different for other people, but for me, it just didn't work as well. With that being said, I got a stick with my iPhone 11 Pro.

Hey kid I said with that being said: I used your line, yeah you're a Fed active line anyway. That should be it. Okay, so disregard everything. I said yesterday, I mean don't disregard everything, but I ended up doing a day. Four test, I think could stay for so when I charged the phone yesterday I hit 100% at 9:36 a.

m. and then I hit 1% at 5:10 a. m. today, so not 24 hours was that 20 hours or so, but I got six hours. Seven minutes screen on time, which is first, I, didn't think that the pixel four could even get anywhere near that now.

I got six hours because I left YouTube on and I actually fell asleep watching something on YouTube, and it just kept playing throughout the night, not all of it. But you know a good chunk of it was YouTube I, don't know if I, oh I did get better usage, so YouTube used for you, too, was used for five hours and thirty minutes at that time. Telegram 14 minutes Instagram. Eight minutes I had a busy day yesterday, so I wasn't on my phone much, but when I got home I just you two I just used YouTube most of the time, so a big chunk of that was from YouTube, but that really knocked better usage out of the part or screen on time out of the park. For over six hours, the only difference I did here was YouTube again, but it was also I think I used LTE, maybe 20% of the time.

So 20% of the time was cell data. Eighty percent of time was Wi-Fi and then actually today, because I'm probably just going to end this video with the conclusion that a lot of this could be inconsistent but to see that the phone can do a screen on time of six hours with YouTube. I know that it was just on. Wi-Fi is still pretty impressive. I just don't know if that's going to be your everyday use, which is why I like I can't continue this because I'm not just sitting at home all day watching YouTube.

If that's your case, then you know you should have a power source because that's not how I live my life, and I'm, assuming most of you don't either, but today the battery is still pretty good. I'm at 53%, so I met half battery right now and let me just look at my battery settings here or battery stats, so 53% with screen usage of 2 hours and 45 minutes, so almost 3 hours, which is kind of indicative of another, maybe 5 hour plus screen on time again, everyone's results are going to vary I still, don't think that the battery life has improved dramatically, but I don't know. Maybe this is an outlier. This specific one, III guess I could continue the test for another week or so, but I really don't think it's going to be consistent thing, but why don't you tell me your results? Let me know how well your battery life's been doing with the pixel 4. Okay, so I know I, keep saying that I'm done testing the battery but day 5 I got over I.

Don't have any screenshots to show you guys, because I actually fell asleep last night when my battery died when my phone died, but I got over 5 and a half hours of screen on time. Yesterday, on this yesterday or the day before, it was 6 hours and then 5 and a half okay to be fair on both of those days when it got over five hours, five and a half hours six hours. Wi-Fi was probably an 80 to 20 split Wi-Fi, 80% LTE, cellular 20%, but that's still huge. Those are huge numbers for a small battery on a pixel. For again, those are numbers that I am not used to seeing.

Those are numbers that I would never expect from a phone with this battery size completely unexpected and I. Just don't know if that's something that got updated because of a software push right if they did something to make the phone more efficient. I have to point out that on the pixel for the way I use it, I have night mode on I do not have always on display or always on display is off and 90 Hertz I. Don't use that I. Keep it at 60 Hertz, because from what was that day, two or day three, it just ate the battery like crazy.

So it's really weird because the first few days the battery was pretty awful, but I did use LTE a lot more and then these last two days when I was getting over five hours of screen on time, it was more of a Wi-Fi use. It's hard to recommend the pixel for because I just don't know how good the battery is going to be. It is very nice to see the screen on time be as high as it is again completely unexpected, but you have to know what you're you're buying right. If you're going to be somebody, that's going to be going around, and you're not going to have a power source with you throughout the day like, for example, if you're not working a desk job, and you just can't plug in, and you're a heavy user, then it probably is just not the right phone for you as encouraging as it is to see all of these, like the last couple of days, the great battery results. It's still something that's hard for me to recommend.

If you are a power user, a heavy user, the one thing- that's a redeeming feature is I, don't know if you guys have seen this deal but Costco right now, you can get a pixel for from T-Mobile for $2.99, which is an absurd deal like I, didn't even know that it was going for that cheap I thought when that deal came out. I thought it was 399 and $4.99 respectively for the pixel for Excel, which are already great deals, but this is $2.99 for a pixel for brand-new and in 399 for a pixel for Excel brand-new. If you are a heavy user who enjoys clean, Android, vanilla, Android, quick updates, well also a great performance and a great camera, then the pixel for Excel at 399 is probably one of the best deals. You're going to find for 2020 I mean I actually talked about this on a stream I head earlier today, but forget about 5 g 5g is too early. It's not it's not polished, and don't worry about all of that like marketing that you're hearing about how 5g is so great, and it's the next like upcoming thing it.

It might be in the future, but we're not there, yet I mean a lot of phones are still offering 4G at faster speeds than what 5g can give you today. So conclusion is the battery for the pixel for I've been kind of impressed, but I have to turn a lot of those other things off. I have to turn 90 Hertz off I have to use Wi-Fi more often than not to get the results that you might want to see. But realistically, when you're out and about those numbers are probably not what you're going to see.

Source : phonejerome