Samsung s8 Oreo - any issues (battery etc)?

[gazzawazza]

Hi all

With the O2 Oreo build finally out, how are people finding it?

There have been a lot of reported problems with the Samsung Oreo update (just Google it). In particular, horrible battery life. Some people have improved matters by disabling Bixby where possible, so I'm not clear whether it's a Samsung app issue or something underlying with their build of android Oreo.

Anyway, hope people can post any experiences here - good and bad.



Thanks,

Gary

[thedude56]

Hi Gary

I found after updating to XEU on my S8, my battery was ok however it drained rapidly in airport mode (15-20%) overnight. This was reported on the German Samsung forum and apparently they are working on a fix. Not sure if this is affecting the O2U version?

The temp workaround is to switch it to 2G / 3G only before switching on airport mode. Odd but it works!

[gazzawazza]

hi dude

thanks very much for the reply.

I'm not sure what XEU is?

Also, could you confirm which firmware your phone is reporting (as per here: http://doc.samsungmobile.com/SM-G950F/000058170702/eng.html)?


Thanks,

Gary

[thedude56]

Hi Gary

I'm on CRB7 so will hopefully get an update soon. XEU is released on sim free phones (not direct from Samsung)

Cheers

[gazzawazza]

great & thanks.

When did you update your phone?

Just wondering if crb7 is what's been released in last couple of days.

[gazzawazza]

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@thedude56wrote:
Hi Gary

I'm on CRB7 so will hopefully get an update soon. XEU is released on sim free phones (not direct from Samsung)

Cheers

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took the plunge (too bored and gagging for some tech fiddling) - OTA update for me is CRC7

Hopefully you may get this soon.

Cheers,

Gaz

[thedude56]

Worth updating and always good to have the latest security updates

Yeah hopefully get the update for mine too!

Cheers

[gazzawazza]

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@thedude56wrote:
Worth updating and always good to have the latest security updates

Yeah hopefully get the update for mine too!

Cheers

---

totally agreed regarding OS security patches.

However, I'm generally a little more cautious now with updates (both on Windows and other platforms) - I'd like to think I'd have a little patience, to try and sidestep an update causing bluescreens or other device issues.

Was very bothered about the battery problems related by samsung owners with Oreo, hence my posts here.

[gazzawazza]

initial thoughts on Oreo:

annoying notifications!

Can't help thinking it's bad design when there's a kernel of a good idea there (warning about permissions / behaviour) but just generates annoyance in the user. Will lead to user just ignoring messages, when they're actually relevant (rather like UAC implementation in Windows).

To explain/expand, it's the first obvious, new thing that greeted me with Oreo and I had to immediately google how to disable it

Example:

I've an app (micro CPU monitor) that shows CPU usage in real-time. It's an overlay. This app now generates two separate notification nags (app permissions monitor and android system). Both flagging the same overlay behaviour. No message about how to accept/disable the notification - only how to stop the behaviour of the app.

Fix:
android system message - settings/apps/3 dots/show system apps/find & tap "android system"/notifications/choose app you need to adjust & flick the toggle switch

app permissions message - settings/lock screen and security/tap "app permission monitor" (not the toggle switch)/choose app & flick the toggle switch
NOTE: this will disable all permissions warnings for said app
NOTE1: you can jump to app permission monitor app list directly from the notification

Hope this helps

app sound notifications

just discovered that notification sounds have been made more granular (i guess in some apps e.g. twitter is a pain but whatsapp is still in-app). Sounds like a good thing? Not if you have 6 conditions/events and have to configure all of them separately with the same sound.

example:
The official twitter client. I was scratching my head because i swore that sounds were set under push notifications in the twitter client. The sound option / picker has just disappeared. You have to go to android's settings/apps then drill into the twitter app and set the per-event sound notifications (or rather, change the sound if you need to, assuming it was programmed previously). Flexible or tedious?

battery usage

Not clear at this time. Feel like it's been going down fast but i've been fiddling a lot (as you can tell from this post) and the screen's been on all the time, etc.

Note that I had already tuned my Nougat install for more economy (no always on screen, no edge, all bixby disabled, black wallpaper, power saving mode on all the time (for throttled CPU usage))

analogue clockfaces

i used to have a Sony z3 compact. i liked the analogue clock for the lockscreen. Wasn't available (to my knowledge) on Samsung Nougat. Both the always on screen and the lockscreen now have multiple analogue clock options. Ok, this is just something cosmetic but thought I'd put in something positive, to balance all my moaning

Cheers,

Gary

[thedude56]

After a couple of charges the battery isn't too bad. Probably similar to what I was getting on 7 with my s8.