Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra battery life

Since Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra has launched back in February 2022, there were a lot of concerns regarding the battery life. A lot of reviewers and bloggers have claimed that the Ultra smartphone has just average battery life. So, is the battery life so bad? Let’s find out in this post. I have been using the S22U for close to 2 months now, and I have recorded battery performance with a lot of different settings.

How I am using my phone currently?

The smartphone was switched to 4G only mode since we do not have 5G. Also, I was using a single SIM, which was used for calling and data. The mobile data usage was low, about 20-30 minutes maximum, shooting up on rare occasions. I have highlighted that in the details below. The smartphone was mostly connected to dual-band Wi-Fi throughout the day, with signal reception being more than 80% given at any time. One more thing to note though, I prefer to use my smartphone with dark mode ON.

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra battery life with WQHD+ and 120 Hz adaptive Refresh rate.

Right out of the box, the device was set to FHD+ resolution which I am not sure why. I had manually set it to WQHD and charged it to 100%. The device performed okay in this mode. I won’t say it was too bad. The device was able to get an average screen on time of ~5.3 hours, which is good enough given that it has a beefy display. I had used the device mostly on Wi-Fi, with slight usage on mobile data (around 20-30 minutes). Auto-brightness was ON and display brightness was around 20-30% indoors. Outdoor usage was limited to a maximum of 30 minutes. During this time, the display brightness shot up to 80-90% in most cases. So, overall, I found the battery backup okay on this device, but not that great.

S22U battery life with FHD+ and 120 Hz adaptive refresh rate

Honestly, I didn’t notice much visual difference between FHD+ and the WQHD resolution, so I thought of trying out FHD+ resolution. For the initial few days, the battery life was decent, lasting close to a day with ~5.5 hours of usage. This was again with the same usage as the above scenario, with mixed Wi-Fi and mobile data usage. The overnight idle battery drain was in the range of 0.5%/ hour, which is slightly higher. Even the OnePlus 6T did better with 2-3% overnight discharge for ~8 hours. The phone was used in an area with good network reception, not in weak signal areas.

Here are some usage screenshots after a few days. Also do not that battery protection is enabled on my phone, so the charge is limited to just 85%. You might see better battery backup if you charge up to 100%. So, you can safely add an extra 1-1.5 hours SOT for a 100% charge on these stats.

Some more screenshots with FHD+ and charge protection enabled.

S22U battery life with suspended execution for cached apps enabled

I came across this setting through Reddit, where one of the users claimed to have massive improvements in battery life after enabling it. You can checkout the original reddit post over here. I was curious to try it out, so I did enable that option and tried it for a couple of days. I didn’t find many improvements with that setting enabled, however you might find improvements. Some users got good results, while some of them saw bad results as well, so wouldn’t hurt to give it a try. If it doesn’t work for you, you can simply turn it off from the Developer options.

I didn’t got any dramatic increase

In my case, I couldn’t find any difference but the overnight battery drain reduced a bit, so I have it enabled. There were no issues with notifications or IM-related apps after enabling that setting, so nothing to worry about. I was just worried that some background applications might get killed and there could be a delay in notifications, but that wasn’t the case. Everything was working fine. I received my WhatsApp and Gmail notifications instantly without any delays.

You can check a few of my screenshots with this setting enabled. Please note that I have charged my battery to 85% since battery protection is enabled. You will notice that in some cases, I was able to get more than 6+ hours of SOT with 15-20% to spare. This was the case if I used the phone for just casual browsing and speaking over the phone. While playing games, the battery used to drain a lot faster. You can see that in one of the screenshots where I had played Genshin impact for an hour, I was able to get meager 4 hours SOT. This can be problematic if you are out and end up playing games.

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra charging times

I am currently using the official 25-Watt charger from Samsung. It takes about ~45 minutes to go from 15% to 85%. It will be slightly faster if you turn on Aeroplane mode or turn off the device. You can even use a 45-Watt charger, but it is slightly faster and reduces the charging time by ~7 minutes. It can be useful if you prefer multiple small charges since the 45-Watt charger is quite fast when you start charging.

There is a nice comparison by PhoneArena where they have recorded the battery percentage at different intervals and even used a wattage meter to find out how much power it pulls. You can check the output in nice graphical format, checkout the original post over here. Also, please do note that there is a new 45-Watt charger launched this year, that goes by model number EP-T4510. More details about the old vs new charger can be found here.

Heat affects charging times

I have noticed that once the battery temperature approaches 40 degrees Celsius, the charging speeds slow down considerably. The charging current initially is within the range of 4-5 Amperes, whereas once the heat starts kicking in, it drops to 1-1.5A. Now, these are not the fastest speeds if you compare with Oppo and OnePlus but are decent. The smartphone gets slightly warm during charging, not too hot like other devices.

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra battery life: Conclusion

As you can see from all the screenshots above, I can get ~5 hours of SOT with mixed usage and with battery protection enabled. In most cases, I hook up a charger once it reaches close to 15%. So, with approximately 75% of the charge, I can get 5 hours of SOT and the phone can last almost a day. When I am going outdoors, I usually charge to 100 percent, so that I am sure it will last for an entire day. One more thing you can try is, using the 60Hz mode. That will surely improve the battery life to certain extent.

Overall, I would say that the battery life is decent. It is not the best out of the lot, but good enough if you do not practically hook up on the phone. It could have been better, but let’s see if it improves with future updates.

Are you happy with your S22U battery life? What measures did you take to improve? Let us know in the comments below!