[Updated] Samsung Galaxy S22 battery drain, heating and low power efficiency issues

In February 2022, Samsung introduced the Galaxy S22 series smartphones. These premium Galaxy devices feature Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 (widely) or Exynos 2200 (Europe) chipsets. In the software department, the lineup is running Android 13 (One UI 5.0), up from pre-installed Android 12 (One UI 4.1).

On February 1st, the company unveiled the Galaxy S23 series, which runs Android 13-based One UI 5.1 out of the box. Starting February 13, Samsung has begun to release the S23 lineup’s exclusive One UI 5.1 software with its older flagship devices including the S22 series.

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Features apart, the Galaxy S22, S22 Plus and S22 Ultra users are facing different kinds of issues (via PiunikaWeb) with their smartphones such as battery drain, heating and low power efficiency. Users believe that the situation was better before December 2022 patch, which got worse with January 2023 patch.

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Among consumers, there are discussions that the battery drain and heating issues are generated on models due to chipset maker differences as well as Samsung Foundry. The Exynos 2200 and Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processors are manufactured by Samsung Foundry.

Due to inefficient processes, the system on the chip gets affected by battery consumption issues due to thermal management. Since consumers in some countries such as India are quite satisfied with their Galaxy S22 phone’s battery, the issue is mainly reported spotted on Exynos models.

During Exynos 2200’s internal testing, Samsung faced critical thermal throttling due to the chipset’s inefficiency and additionally powerful GPU, which forced it to reduce clock speed by 0.61Ghz. To bring the world’s most powerful GPU, Samsung partnered with AMD and used Xclipse GPU in the Exynos 2200.

Due to Exynos’ heating and Foundry’s production efficiency issues, Samsung turned to Qualcomm and decided to ditch its self-developed SoC from the Galaxy S lineup. This year, the Galaxy S23 series uses Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset manufactured by TSMC, worldwide.

We hope Samsung will soon fix battery draining and heating issues on the Galaxy S22 devices through a firmware update. Since hardware issues can’t be fixed with even hundreds of firmware updates, they could be reduced or optimized with code changes.

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Updated on March 15

Due to bad battery life, some Galaxy S22 Ultra users are wondering to upgrade to the Galaxy S23 Ultra, which is setting new records in efficiency. Meanwhile, it’s bad to hear that the company has not yet completely fixed the battery draining issue on the S22 series.

Mar. 11

Samsung started rolling out March 2023 security update to the Galaxy S22 series. And we have noted different feedback from consumers, with some users having better battery efficiency, while some are still complaining about the drainage issue.

Mar. 4

Galaxy S22 Ultra (Exynos) users continue to report (1, 2) battery drain issues on their smartphones. Hopefully, the March 2023 security update will bring improvements to battery efficiency as part of fixing the issue.

Feb. 23

After upgrading to the One UI 5.1 software, some Galaxy S22 smartphone users are still facing battery draining and low power efficiency issues. Not only the screen on time, but the battery is also getting more consumed while the screen is off, or not in use.

Feb. 14

Reports suggest that the One UI 5.1 update has not fixed Galaxy S22’s battery-draining problems.

Feb. 13

Samsung pushed the major One UI 5.1 update for several Galaxy devices including the S22 series. It’s now expanding to both Exynos and Snapdragon models, worldwide. Hopefully, the One UI 5.1 update will resolve the battery draining and low power efficiency problems.

Feb. 7

Concerns like abnormal battery drain and low power efficiency continue to emerge (1, 2, 3, 4) on the Galaxy S22 series devices. The company has recently pushed the February patch for select Galaxy models, and we hope, it could fix the battery and heating problems.

I have had the Galaxy S22 (Exynos) for almost a year now and my experience has not been completely satisfactory The battery gives me between 2-3 hours of SOT, and the device’s performance has been quite poor. There are frequent lags, the phone gets very hot, and if l’m playing a game (not a heavy game, for example Brawl Stars) while listening to music with the Galaxy Buds Pro, the music cuts out and the experience ends up being very bad. Does anyone else have this problem? Do you think that if a go to the technical service they can give me a solution?

Feb. 5

Two more Galaxy S22 smartphone users reported having battery drain and overheating issues. According to the first affected user, their S22 heats up in general usage (such as WhatsApp, Twitter), however, the device is already delivering bad battery efficiency.

Second user said that they have fully charged the smartphone and the battery drained by 13% without any usage in the meantime. The user speculates that the Always on Display feature is eating battery heavily, however, there seems a software issue.

Jan. 31

A Galaxy S22 smartphone user said on Reddit that Samsung’s authorized service center can just factory reset the device and recommends waiting for a few days since the battery health is good. It looks like processor issues and buggy software is causing the battery drain and overheating issues.

Jan. 30

Samsung released the 2nd January 2023 firmware update Galaxy S22 series in certain regions but the battery drain and overheating issues continue to emerge. Meanwhile, there are different kinds of workarounds, which has the latest entry of turning off “Adaptive Battery” feature.

• Open System Settings >> Battery >> Adaptive preferences >> Turn on “Adaptive Battery”

Jan. 28

A Reddit user @lazykryptonian said that the Galaxy S22’s overheating issue is caused because of the chipset’s design and Samsung foundry problems. Further, they added that “Some are much better than others but there’s no control over getting a decent one vs bad.”

Jan. 27

A Galaxy S22 Ultra user claimed that after restricting background activities of unused apps, the battery consumption is greatly reduced. As per the user, the battery consumption before restricting activities was 10% per hour, which is now 2% per hour. You can also try it as a temporary fix.

Jan. 25

Samsung provides you with tips that will show you how to get the best out of your battery in everyday usage and how to look after your battery. The tips are as follows:

• > Reduce display brightness level
• > Close, disable, or uninstall unused Apps
• > Turn off Always On Display (AOD) or set a schedule
• > Toggle off WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS when not in use
• > Turn on Power saving mode
• > Check your device Signal bars

Jan. 24

Some users reported having overheating issues during video calls, as well as on WhatsApp video calls. And amid battery drain controversy, a Galaxy S22 Ultra user said that his phone’s brightness was fading day by day, which could be because of abnormal battery drain.

Jan. 23

Issues like abnormal battery drain and overheating continue to emerge on the Galaxy S22 series devices, with Exynos models being most affected. Consumers complained that the January patch destroyed battery performance and generated heating issues, even in normal usage.