A month after installing One UI 6.1, some Galaxy smartphone users suffer from battery life decline

For the most part, Samsung Galaxy owners really love One UI 6.1 because of the useful AI-powered features that the update brings. Live Translate allows you to have a seamless conversation on the phone with someone who speaks a different language than you. Thanks to AI-based real-time translation and settings that allow you to hear only what the other party says translated into the language you speak, a true back-and-forth conversation can be held.

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With Circle to Search, you can trace a circle around an item in a picture and a Google Search result will appear on your screen. Browsing assist summarizes and translates articles on a webpage while Transcript assist creates summaries of meetings and translations. Other AI-backed features on One UI 6.1 are designed to help users make it through the day without having to work too hard in order to get certain tasks done.

But there is a dark side to the One UI 6.1 update that originally got attention from Reddit users about a month ago. Some Galaxy Z Flip 5, Galaxy Z Fold 5, and Galaxy S23 series users complained that since installing the update, they experienced a decline of 20% to 30% in their daily battery life. 

One Reddit user with the screen name of "Embarrassed-Degree45" wrote a month ago, "Yes it's significantly worse for me, doing nothing different than before. It's using 30% or so more battery than previously. Really disappointed, I was extremely impressed with the battery on this phone with 6.0, it was so efficient. Now its sucking the battery dry for seemingly no reason." 

Interestingly, others said that their battery life improved after downloading One UI 6.1 and at least one Redditor said that his battery life remained the same. It's possible that those Samsung customers own the Galaxy S23 Ultra. According to SamMobile, that is the only 2023 flagship Galaxy handset unaffected by the One UI 6.1 battery drain.

But here we are one month later and there are still users of the Galaxy Z Flip 5, Galaxy Z Fold 5, and Galaxy S23 series (not including the S23 Ultra) who continue to suffer from a drop off in battery life. Will Samsung issue a fix for this frustrating and disappointing issue? At this point, the company hasn't even acknowledged that there is an issue to be fixed. And while the Galaxy S23 line has just received its monthly security patch update for May, it is very unlikely that it will contain a fix for the battery drain.

Galaxy users still experiencing a battery drain after they installed One UI 6.1 need to get in touch with Samsung. In the U.S., you can give them a call at 1-800-SAMSUNG. Or, you can go online to get in touch with customer support at Samsung.com (you can simply tap this link) or via Twitter.