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The Galaxy S4 and Galaxy S5 are the last two flagships from South-Korean Samsung and both have been launched to mixed reviews, to say the least. The Galaxy S4 is slowly becoming more appreciated than its more recent counterpart, the Galaxy S5, because the S5 turned out to be a flop when it came to design and UI. When shopping for a smartphone nowadays, people tend to research battery life the most because most devices out there don’t have much to offer in this respect. Let’s see how the Galaxy S4 does compared to the Galaxy S5 when it comes to battery life.
Battery life is one of the most important aspects of a smartphone, and even though we’re already in 2015, we haven’t made much headway in this area. Phones don’t tend to outlast the two day mark with regular use, except if they are older models which are not considered to be smart. Smartphones that have touchscreens have disappointing battery lives because the large screen real estate consumes a lot of power and eats up the battery like crazy. Since the Galaxy S4 and Galaxy S5 are pretty much the same when it comes to display, let’s see how they size up next to each other.
The Galaxy S4 battery life wasn’t all that great upon its launch, but it was above average compared to devices like the HTC One M7 and iPhone 5S. The handset comes with a 5.0 inch display at a 1080*1920 resolution adding up to 441 ppi pixel density. The Super AMOLED touchscreen on the device isn’t known for its great power saving properties, but it doesn’t stand out for consuming too much either, so we can place it right at the middle. The Galaxy S5’s lifespan might be a bit influenced by the slightly larger 5.1 inch display with a 1080*1920 resolution adding up to 432 ppi pixel density. While the difference is negligible, the Galaxy S5 battery life could be more impacted by the extra features the handset has, including the fingerprint scanner and heart rate monitor.
Galaxy S4 power management is also influenced by how the processor and OS handle power management. Consequently, the Snapdragon 600 CPU with four cores clocked at 1.9 GHz and backed by the Adreno 320 GPU and 2 GB RAM should be less power-efficient than what the Galaxy S5 has on offer. The latter comes with an upgraded Snapdragon 801 CPU with four cores clocked at 2.5 GHz and backed by a slightly superior Adreno 330 GPU and the same 2 GB RAM. Another factor that may impact battery life on both is OS. While both Android 4.4.4 KitKat and Android 5.0 Lollipop are reliable and pretty good when it comes to power management, Lollipop does a better job.
Specs aside, battery life is mostly reliant on mAh count in the battery unit. The Galaxy S4 comes with a 2600 mAh battery while the Galaxy S5 comes with a slightly upgraded 2800 mAh. Since the difference in mAh count is pretty small, most of the power management in these phones will rely on hardware, software and user interaction. As you may know, battery life on any device depends very much on how the user interacts with their phone. In consequence, if you are a heavy user who plays games a lot and has a lot of on-screen time, your battery life will be drastically lower than that of a user that just uses their phone on a regular basis for calls, browsing, social media and the occasional game.
In real life tests, the Galaxy S4 battery life managed to eek out a full day’s mixed use, but charging time is several hours with the device, which might be a drawback for most of you. Users have reported massive battery drainage in some Galaxy S4 units, but that can usually be resolved with a factory reset (if no other method works beforehand). Even so, Galaxy S4 battery life seems to be satisfactory and has been improved since the handset received the Android 4.4.4 KitKat update. You can easily get two days out of it if you don’t spend too much on-screen time. The Galaxy S5, on the other hand, can hold out for longerr thanks to the extra power saving modes Samsung built into it.
The Galaxy S5 battery life will hold out just a few hours more than on the Galaxy S4, which may be crucial at some point. You will get about a day and a half of mixed use out of the Galaxy S5, which is just fine and above average. If you activate Power Saving or Ultra Power Saving mode, then you might even get a week’s use or even 10 days out of it. That’s with a lot of stand-by time, a monochrome screen and restricted access though, but in times of need, the Galaxy S5 can become a life-saver.
Overall, Galaxy S5 battery life is significantly better than the Galaxy S4 battery life, thanks to the upgraded processor, better power management, Android 5.0 Lollipop and the power saving modes which you can use. The Galaxy S4’s endurance isn’t disappointing, but if you want to choose between these two flagships and on-time is your differentiating criteria, the Galaxy S5 takes the throne.
