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Samsung Galaxy S4 battery problem hitting users

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One issue that can affect many smartphone owners at some point or another is battery life, as devices get more advanced development into battery technology has seemingly not kept pace with everything else, and now a Samsung Galaxy S4 battery problem has been hitting some users.

With any mobile device after a period of time the battery can lose its ability to hold a charge for as long as it used to, which is fine if you own a device with a removable battery but it seems as if the Galaxy S4 is having problems after only six months.

Sources are claiming that as many as 30 percent of Galaxy S4 units that have been sold are experiencing batteries that won’t hold a charge, and in some cases even swelling. The issue seems to be affecting owners in Germany and at the time of writing it isn’t known if the problem is more widespread.

Over the years we have seen many companies that have had issues with a faulty batch of batteries that have even led to product recalls, but it seems some owners are just ordering a replacement via the likes of Amazon instead of returning the device to where they got it from.

Luckily with the Galaxy S4 it only takes seconds to fit a new battery and it will be interesting to see how widespread this problem becomes, and if Samsung makes some sort of official announcement on the matter.

Have you had issues with your Galaxy S4 battery?

Source: Mobiflip (translated).

Comments

68 thoughts on “Samsung Galaxy S4 battery problem hitting users”

  1. aakash says:

    i am from india. I bought my galaxy s4 Gt-I9500 5 months back.since last 15 days its battery is draining so fast,i cant explain. i have to charge my s4 twice a day.Similar problem is arising in my frndz who also bought s4 4-5 months back.

  2. Dizz says:

    Working in a phone shop I have noticed/seen it’s a common problem with a lot of Samsungs not just the s4, losing charge also bubbling in the middle to the point that you can’t put the back case on.

  3. Si Webb says:

    we are from the UK My girlfriends s4 battery has swelled so much the battery is bent now , it won’t hold it’s charge fir more than a few hours , it’s only 3 months old & Vodafone tried telling me it was because it’s been overcharged …… Now here’s the thing we use a timer plug so that it’s only on for 3 hours , not happy as the phone was sent off for repair & took 4 days but she has now been waiting 9 days for a replacement battery as Vodafone say they are out of stock …… What does that tell u ?? This is more than just a few battery problems !

  4. Rayner Aindey says:

    I am from malaysia sabah. I was enjoying with battery life with custom rom, but custom rom freezing lag. I Installed back stock rom on my s4 , I can see the difference
    stock rom draining battery. Im not sure if it problem with OS stock rom or problem with battery I bought my s4 5 months. I think battery life on s3 better than s4

  5. Richard mascia says:

    It’s been about 6 months with my galaxy s 4 and it definitely doesn’t hold a charge as well as it used to. It’s not terrible but still a little annoying. I noticed it happening after I started playing Jurassic Park on the phone. That is probably one of the contributing factors. My own fault I guess…. lol… still love the phone!

    1. Scottie says:

      Buy S4 its an amazing phone even with the aweful battery life which they will fix….my s4 has just startrd losin charge samsung are not crap 🙂

  6. galaxy trend says:

    I don’t have a galaxy s4, i have a samsung galaxy trend, and it’s battery life is aweful. When 3g is on, and only facebook is open, it only takes about 4 hours for the battery to go down from 100% to about 10% . it’s annooooyingg

  7. Ali says:

    I’m from Iran.I bought my sgs4 I9500 two month ago.It’s battery is a piece of shit.I see battery draining.I should charge it 3-4time a day for normal daily use.

  8. Jeff Coar says:

    I live in the United States and I own a Samsung GS4, I already had to return my phone in once because it wouldn’t boot up when turned on. I have my replacement phone and now the same issue is happening. I don’t know if it is the battery or not but when I read this article I thought I would add my 2 cents worth. I have to pull my battery sometimes 3 or 4 times before the phone will finally boot up and I can use the phone. Does anyone have or had the same issue.

    1. Mark Stein says:

      Love my GS4! Battery life is still excellent after 6 months. I’m a moderate – to – heavy user, never had less than 45% remaining when I plug it in and put it on the nightstand at bedtime. I have my Bluetooth, WIFI and GPS powered on full-time, which I was never able to do with previous phones.

      Hard for me to believe the griping…

      1. Carlos Menendez says:

        Wait how?! I’ve had mine for about 2 months, I use mine just as much as you with the same settings (judging by what your saying), and I’m at 16% around 3pm.

  9. Rick Nucci says:

    Yes, everyday. As I write this (6:30pm) my gs4 is at 10%, and that is with light usage (15 min talking) and gps turned off. It is really ridiculous. I noticed it about 6 months in. At this point i have to carry a second battery and swap it every evening.

  10. cosmmoguy says:

    I’ve had the phone for about 5 months now. I also purchased the extra battery and charger, as I have the capability to swap it out. I keep everything turned on. My battery gets me through the day. Neither battery is bloated and are working fine. In the event I forget to charge it or a day on the golf course using it as a golf GPS, the extra battery comes in handy.

  11. Michael Nas Moody says:

    Ironic how I’m reading this article and I’m having the same issue with my phone. Just today alone, I went to sleep and left my phone charged overnight. When I woke, the phone was still charging. I called my service provider and ordered a new phone thinking that was the issue. Now I’m thinking it’s the battery. We’ll see.

    1. Mike Ly says:

      mine actually discharges when its off, I had 31% turned it off then went to turn it on and it wouldnt boot up until I put it on charge. Got rid of the rubbish and got an HTC

  12. Mohaymen says:

    Here goes the exact problem details (Copied from my previous post): I bought Samsung Galaxy S4 (GT-I9500, Made in Vietnam) from Kogan Australia in August then I left Australia and going to live overseas for a while. For last 4 days I am experiencing really strange battery draining issue. My phones battery drains down to 0% (mentioning battery critically low) and turns off by itself. This happened almost everyday for last few days even when my phone battery had over 85% or 60% or 40% charge left. After took the battery out of the phone and then re-inserted and re-booted, it still shows battery critically low. Then I did a factory reset on my device and I am still experiencing the same problem. It is also important to note that, yesterday after the phone turned off by itself by showing battery critically low (in reality it had over 85% charge left), I left it off for a while without plugging it in for charge. Then I turned it on again after a while, and the the phone rebooted fine and was working fine with almost 70% charge.

    Now the most Dangerous part! After around 2/3 months usage the Battery will experience Swelling all of a sudden and in the process will bend your Handset Screen outwards (Uneven screen raised outwards from the handset). This happens because the battery swells and looks like a flat pillow and can not fit inside and as a result bends your expensive handset. Samsung should start a product recall immediately and replace all the handsets!!!!

  13. davidzeus says:

    Verizon customer/end user support keeps getting worse. The update, you would think would be going to the so called flag ship smartphone a.s.a.p. and bloat ware is almost useless to most people and usually never wanted by customers to begin with.

  14. Pranav Sethi says:

    Very true. … my battery would go from 70% to 0% in 15 minutes…. showed at the service centre thinking it to be phone issue. .. forced me to buy a new battery. .. . It was swollen and they refused to cover it under warranty despite being 3 months of purchase. … won’t recommend s4 either for service or for quality. …had used nokias and iphone….. never faced such harassment.

    1. Chris Postings says:

      Exactly same problem, swollen battery and wouldnt hold charge after 2 months of a 24 month contract! Rang EE and they refused a replacement, said i should go to the EE store and see how much they are. Disgraceful, will never have another contract with them or recommend them to anybody.

  15. gematrix says:

    Be glad that your Samsung is the only brand of phone that has a removable battery now it seems and the rest of the brands have moved on to the non-removable battery. Just imagine if the battery is non removable and it swell inside and you don’t even know and damage your phone, or worst causes your phone to explode. Though even my S2 phone drains off my battery just after 6mths of use, glad the battery is easily able to replace and not having my phone send for service just to replace the battery and that will cost me a boom. Maybe a removable battery phone drains battery faster than a non removable one, guess they have their pro and cons.

  16. goran says:

    Im from Macedonia and my galaxy S4 GT I9505 is from T Mobile MACEDONIAN CARAIER my battery is empty after three months use. I used the phone while the battery was hot especially on 3g. then I noticed that the battery is like a balloon and I bought a new. I spoke with people who also have GALAXY S4 and the people in service phones Samsung told me that I use my phone while I charg

  17. Damara says:

    My gs4 started shutting down last week by itself even if I had 40 percent left… Today I noticed the battery was swollen… I am from Norway 🙂

  18. Dojjatron Singh says:

    just got my phone back from the menders, they said they had never heard of a battery swelling up but sorted it out with a 3 day turn around
    my battery was fine at first, lasting as long as 14 hours with children use in some cases but over the past few weeks it would charge up within 30 minutes, and then discharge very rapidly too, sometimes only lasting 2 hours before it was dead
    the it starting shutting down as the battery would get very very hot
    and finally it would shut down showing 40-50% battery and then, a few hours later when it was turned on again it would be showing 60-70%
    the battery was visibly swollen as if the actual battery had melted internally and then slide to one side and reformed again
    btw, i’m from london uk so nowhere near germany

  19. andersos says:

    I have the same problem. Phone is 3 months old. Just ordinary, regular use. Two weeks ago the phone suddenly shuts down with around 30-40% battery power left. Power dropped instantly to zero. Impossible to restart the phone without charging the battery. Now the phone sometimes shut down with as high as 90% battery power left. Sometimes it then shows zero power and sometimes it doesn’t show any drop in battery power at all, still you can’t restart the phone without recharge the battery.
    Clearly Samsung has shipped phones with low quality batteries.

  20. james says:

    I have now experienced issues with my galaxy s4. At the beginning of the week i noticed how my battery took longer to charge and has died quicker, now a week later i am plugging in the charger and it wont even charge! i

  21. Zaidam says:

    I bought my S4 back on May, 1. No battery issues for the first month of usage and then suddenly I had battery draining and heating issues that were so severe that my full charged phone loses 90% of battery life overnight without even touching the phone. I tried all suggestions over the internet including battery saving applications, removing un-necessary applications, black background for home and lock screens. All were useless. I changed the external memory unit (32 GB) with a new one (16 GB) and all was back to normal. No heating issues and normal phone usage keeps the phone charged for 2 days. Problem solved.

  22. Scottie says:

    My S4 has just started doin this losin charge this weekend I put it on charge within 20min its down to 60% wtf…is goin on Ahhh!!! :*( I let my mod drain what was left on the battery, awoke this morning mod was off & put it on full charge now its fine….try it drain your mob’s battery then charge it up full…full charge at 9am 100% life to at 16:53pm 79% life

  23. Mary says:

    I just got my s4 a month ago and now it shuts down regardless the battery percentage. It became worse when I started removing and putting the battery back in. I even noticed that it is already bloated/swollen. Very disappointing.

  24. Samsung Geek says:

    My S4 is rapidly losing charge. Just started a week or so ago. Also displaying sent text messages as unsent, friends trying to call and phone not registering incoming call, and receiving and sending duplicate text messages and emails. Is anyone else having these issues?

  25. halpeno says:

    Phone began to drain battery super fast just since early this week. I have wondered if it was concomitant with the Verizon OTA upgrade this week, but I think it started a day or so before that upgrade. I am getting battery low alert (showing 15% or less remaining) not even half way through the day, with no difference in my usage. Very disappointing.

  26. thehotairman says:

    My battery was also draining fast and upon removing from phone, discovered it was selling or bloating already. Went to the local Samsung service centre (Singapore) and got it exchanged. Zero cost.

  27. Frontslash says:

    My girlfriends battery has been giving problems for the past week. When fully charged, battery dies within 2 hours of normal use. Cape Town, South Africa

  28. Tony Johnson says:

    I have had the same problem after 4 months phone can show 80+% but drains the minute you open any app. Very annoying even more annoying was the response I got from my phone provider T-Mobile (EE)

  29. NinZa says:

    I had same issue.. at about 50% battery life, phone shuts down. Battery was also swollen. I took my phone to Samsung store and they gave me new battery for free. They said that there was some bad batch of batteries from germany that my phone most likely had too.

  30. Robert Jones says:

    This problem is affecting hundreds of owners of Galaxy S4s, The symptoms with mine were repeated attempts to reboot. Yes, it looks like there’s a batch of defective batteries in German S4s. I called Samsung yesterday and they are sending a replacement for the swollen accumulator. Nice of them, but it would be better if Samsung made this matter public to save the affected customers from all the hassel and worry!

    1. SickVanDyke says:

      I would like to know how you got samsung to mail you a replacement. After numerous phone calls and emails I have to either take it to a service centrecentre which is 18 miles away, of course this will be at my expense which is a joke, or mail it off to them so they can scrutinise every little dink on it and try to void my warranty before they replace it. All this even though it’s a widespread and we’ll k own problem, and my battery is nearly doubled in size!!!

  31. Carlos Souza says:

    I’ve got he same problem, and the mobile started to turn off when I was flicking through apps. However, al least nothing happens if I leave it in stand by or even during calls. So I decided to leave it turned on for a day, without connecting the adaptor until all the battery drained. Then I gave full charge and, after repeating this procedure for a couple of times, THE PROBLEM SENSIVELY DIMINISHED. Therefore, one thing you should really consider is to NEVER connect the adaptor when you have more than 30% of charge. It may sound weird for a Li-ion battery, but it seems it gets “addicted” to the charging regime. By the way, I bought my S4 Active in Germany.

  32. Katie Mitchell says:

    i called Samsung and they were no help at all, in fact the guy was like a robot and then sat on the phone silent as he could not answer why the battery has swollen up for a second time, it also heated up to a point where it had to be dropped.. has anyone else had this problem

  33. Selina Wharton says:

    Only had my phone 3 months & 4 days!!!!!
    It started for me 12 days ago with the last 3 days being unable to use the phone at all! Won’t even stay on for 1 minute!! Started with just screen freezing & re-booting itself, screen shutting off (black) with the top bar where time is shown just flickering crazily. Then escalated to shutting down before I could even put password in & continuous loop of trying to re-boot itself! Yes the battery has swelled (by 3mm) & does not sit flat once inserted! Not good! I am getting a replacement from my network tomorrow, we’ll see how that goes! ….I have also heard there was a problem with the batteries (or some) that were Made in China & that the Korean are better!
    (UK, Orange)

  34. Madaleine Baker says:

    I’ve had my Samsung S4 for 12 months and it started to completely shut down when i have 25% battery life without warning. I now have to take a power bank battery charger with me everywhere i go. I still have 12 months left on my contract which is annoying as never had problems with my other samsungs in the past. Ive checked whats running and all seems fine so i think its a faulty battery.

  35. Amanda says:

    I’m in Michigan, and I’ve been having the same problem. It’s getting worse each day and turning off with more battery life each time. Now after it turns off it attempts to turn back on over and over until I plug it into a charger. It will not turn back on unless it’s plugged in and I cannot use the internet or any apps (no matter how much battery life it says I have) for more than about 5 minutes without the phone turning off when it’s not plugged in to charge.

  36. Kylena clevenger says:

    My battery turns off at like 44%. Then when I plug it in the charger it says it’s only at 1%. and sometimes it’ll shut off at like 66% and I’ll plug it in and again it’ll say it’s only at 1% and then like not even five minutes later. It’ll magically go back up to 66%. I’ve tried downloading a few battery fixing apps none of which have helped. I really don’t wanna spend money on a new battery but I may have too.

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