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[HOW-TO][NEWBIE GUIDE] Optimize & proper set up your Galaxy S6 Edge (stock firmware)

[HOW-TO][NEWBIE GUIDE] Optimize & proper set up your Galaxy S6 Edge (stock firmware)
As I've read across this forum and on several specific threads related to usage, battery life and so on, as well as discussing with some of my friends having a S6 or S6 Edge, I realized that most of the people don't really know how to properly set up their phones or how to use them efficiently.
OK, I get it, this is a fancy phone, not every owner is a developer or tech guy so it might be that many choose it based on the looks and don't really know how to optimize it...then they start complaining about different things like lag or battery drain not knowing that most of the problems are caused by miss-usage or improper setup. Of course there are bugs too, nothing is perfect. Of course there are many firmwares available and some are market or carrier dependent so some features or settings might be missing from some of them or even work differently.
What I will try here is to provide some guidelines and tips for setting up various things on the phone in order to maximize it's battery life and for a better usage. I will also make some recommendations based on my experience, tests and usage that might not apply to everyone. Use common sense and logic to apply similar settings in your particular case. Don't come screaming that you made that or that and now something is not working.
And YES, I know there are similar guides like this posted over the Internet and I'll probably make similar recommendations here too but I couldn't find such a guide here on XDA that is particular to this phone (if there is a better one than you might as well ignore mine).
All these things I'll describe below are applicable to any STOCK, NON-ROOTED 5.1.1 firmware and won't break warranty or your phone.
Now that was a long (and maybe unneeded introduction) but I thought to write this for everyone...let's start.
Model No.: SM-G925F
Android: 5.1.1 r2 (LMY47X)
Baseband: G925FXXU2QOI7
Kernel: 3.10.61-5672012
Build date: Fri Sept 4 2015
Carrier: Orange RO
DISPLAY
First I would like to say some words about the display. We have a great display, high resolution and it is most likely the biggest battery drain factor. There are two major things about it that you should keep in mind and will help you to get a better battery:
1. It's AMOLED...that means that the black pixels on it will consume no power because are not lit. Studies showed that even if not completely black, AMOLED displays use less energy if the displayed picture is darker compared to a lighter one.
2. The brightness level. Most people use it on "auto" or high level settings and this will be a major drain factor.
You can drastically lower the battery drain caused by your screen by selecting as much as possible dark (black) backgrounds and/or themes. There are some nice ones available in the Theme Store (my favorite is the Dalkomm Coffee Theme), that make most screens and menus dark/black. Also choosing a dark wallpaper for lockscreen/homescreens will help.
Don't use screen brightness at maximum...never. You don't need that in 99% of the cases. Also you won't probably need the automatic setting either since most of the people are spending most of the time indoors (either at work or home). A low manual setting will be fine most of the time, I have it set up at about 20% and only need a brighter one when going out. At that time I just tap on "auto" and it'll increase based on ambient light level. So you don't even need to tweak it alot every time. Find a low manual setting that's fine for your eyes and just tap on "auto" when you go out in sunlight.
CONNECTIVITY
Another battery drain factor is your multiple connection/radios features. In most cases you use just several: Mobile Data, WiFi, GPS/location and BT (when applicable). That means you should turn off all the others you don't use...NFC or BT (when not connected to a headset or car-kit or not listening to music). I don't listen to music and don't have a BT headset so I mostly not using BT (just when I'm in my car) and almost never use NFC so I have both disabled and I enable them only when needed via the Quick Settings.
WiFi
WiFi should also be properly setup otherwise it'll have impact on battery. It was incorrectly assumed or considered that keeping WiFi on all the time will drain battery faster. That was proven in different tests that's not true and in fact keeping WiFi on all the time won't make a big difference and in some cases was even better than to turn it off/on. I think is something similar with the car engines that suck more fuel when started that when running at idle. The major power drain is not when WiFi is running while is not connected to any network, but when the WiFi radio is powered up. When is on and not connected, it's going into a lower power state so the battery consumption is negligible.
I had a case with one of my friends that had WiFi setup to turn off when display was off...wrong choice, he got about 30% battery drain overnight because instead of having it connected to his home WiFi, the phone was using his 4G/LTE connection to make all the background sync/updates. That was eating his battery and also his data plan. After setting WiFi to "always" his overnight drain lowered to as little as 2-3%.
In some regions/carriers there are 2 other settings that were proven to help battery life: WiFi calling and VoLTE. I don't have either of them but based on different articles and what people say, they surely help with that so don't forget to turn them off if you don't use these features.
You might also want to try turning off "Always allows scanning" and "Smart network switch". I have the second turned off but I keep on the first one. Basically the first option tell the Location service to use WiFi for locating the device even if WiFi is switched off (by the on/off switch) so that means the radio is active. Second option should make you switch faster from WiFi to mobile data in case the WiFi signal is not strong enough or fluctuating. In my country there are plenty of WiFi hot-spots and they have mostly good connections so I don't use this feature.
GPS
Well here the opinions are split but I am currently having it ON all the time and Location Service is set to "high accuracy". I personally haven't noticed such a major difference with or without it so I preferred to let it on as it is used by many apps or services. You can try to set Location to "wifi and cell only" but don't think that will bring you a major benefit.
RUNNING APPS/PROCESSES
Well this is an important one. I've initially started to turn off/disable/uninstall everything I don't need or use. This can be done mostly from the Settings - Applications - Application Manager or if you want to go further, you can install Package Disabler Pro from PlayStore, about which I'll detail later.
Now why we should do that? There are lots of apps, processes and background services running on our devices that take care about all the things we do on the device. The problem is that ALL are using resources: processor time, memory, space and so on. In the end these are translated for a user in LAG or battery drain. Of course we cannot kill everything and I learned long time ago that installing Task or memory managers on Android it's the worst thing you can do. Android it's smart enough to take care better about it's resources and processes (at least to a certain point) and keep killing a certain process won't give you more battery life but will eat more of it in the end,
What I wanted to say is you shouldn't start disabling, killing or blocking everything cause you might end up with an unstable or not properly working phone (case in which only a factory reset might help). First of all look at the ALL tab in Application Manager and try to identify what you don't need or use. For example I'm certainly not using some things like: music, books, news feeds, Samsung's keyboard (I use SwiftKey), the TouchWiz launcher (I use Nova), health services or whatever, S-Voice, S-Health, S-Finder, I don't have any smartwatches so I don't use any Gear processes, fancy device wake-up functions (like wave gestures) or animated wallpapers either.
So after all considerations above, you decided that you can safely disable some apps/processes. All good but you'll quickly learn that some of them cannot be disabled via Application Manager (the "disable" button is grayed out). Now what? Well here comes handy that Package Disabler Pro that I've told you about in the beginning. That app is able to disable ANY apps/processes on your phone, including those that are protected and cannot be disabled via the normal way (and yes it can do that without being rooted). The downside of it is that you must be careful what you choose to disable not to have something that is needed for the normal functionality or the apps you're currently using. The app has also a backup/restore function (via an xml file) for saving the list with apps you have disabled and easily import them back after a factory reset for ex. I've added to this thread my list of disabled apps as it is exported by the application (just unzip and copy the file on the root of your internal memory and it can then be imported in the Package Disabler app)
Another important thing is WHAT apps you're using. I know that socializing and social networking are some of today's most trendy things but keep in mind that some of the apps used for that are not so well made. An example could be the Facebook app/messenger which are reported to drain alot of battery. RSS feeds, news feeds, multiple weather apps or widgets, all contribute to battery drain and lag. Don't install several apps/widgets for the same purpose (like several calendar apps or weather apps). Each will take resources and won't have an added value. Want to use another weather app/widget than the one coming with the phone? Fine, install it...but don't forget to uninstall/disable the built in one or others that do the same thing. Same goes for keyboard for ex; I use SwiftKey for years and got used with it. For me it's better than any keyboard that Samsung might put on the device, therefore I've disabled the standard Samsung keyboard. I also don't like TouchWiz launcher and use Nova that offers me much more flexibility so...I've disabled both the "easy" and "regular" TouchWiz launchers. I went to the point that I've even disabled the different embedded font types, you have 5 of them and I doubt someone uses more than one at a time.
So as you all can see it's not only a matter of setup but also a matter of usage. When you have a device you have to use it properly otherwise it'll not perform as you expect. Imagine a car that has a manufacturer fuel consumption value of 5.5 liters/100 Km....that's under certain conditions not on ANY type of driving. Fly with 200+ km/hr on a highway and I'll guarantee you won't have 5.5 liters/100 km consumption. That doesn't mean the manufacturer has lied or mislead you. Same goes with a phone, if you don't know how to use it and optimize it, you'll have a bad experience.
I work in the IT industry for years and I mostly laugh when I hear someone advising somebody to reinstall the operating system to solve a problem. Same goes for "factory reset" for a phone. Yes, this method works some times but that won't solve the root cause of an issues if you're using it the same way. After several days it'll perform as bad as before and you'll just say that "factory reset" did nothing. Of course it didn't...YOU have to do something different, not the phone.
Now I apologize for the long post and I do hope that at least some will learn to better manage their devices and to understand what they're doing not just running certain commands or procedures blind. Both S6 and S6e are great devices but we should learn how to properly use them in order to benefit the most from them...otherwise we just come here asking for help or mumbling about what crap devices they are.

Thank you, I will check to see if I get an improvement on the standby battery drain.

Your part about not setting the screen to Auto is flawed. You mention that we are mostly indoors, and you don't need a brighter screen for that. Auto mode also knows that and sets the brightness lower. It already does automatically what you do manually.

Tnx. And yes....keeping screen at 20% brightness and just switching to auto when in outdoors works great for the battery life.

ArmedandDangerous said:
Your part about not setting the screen to Auto is flawed. You mention that we are mostly indoors, and you don't need a brighter screen for that. Auto mode also knows that and sets the brightness lower. It already does automatically what you do manually.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not quite, I've tested it. If you're on "auto" and use a lower setting on the slidebar, in a dark room the screen is too dark, you'll have to turn off "auto" and the manual brighteness set on the same level will be much higher than on auto.
Now if you have such good eyes and you're able to use "auto" in all cases with the slider at 20% that's good for you...unfortunately I am not so that's why I use it as I've described. The point is that "auto" mode consumes MORE battery regardless of how it's set, than a lower 'manual' mode. So I preffer to have it like this than to use auto all the time.

Thanks for the awesome guide. I'll start disabling some useless processes and see how my battery life is working. Anyway without much editing the battery of S6Edge is pretty good. I can use it a whole day and still 19% remaining. As a comparison I wasn't able to do it with my S3 having to recharge it 2 or even 3 times at day.
Again, thanks for the guide!
Enviado desde mi SGS6e mediante Tapatalk

Need Help Finding Root Cause of UI slowdown

Hey all,
So I've had my S8 since launch and I've enjoyed it but I have an issue that I've been trying to pinpoint the cause of for a few weeks now. At a high level, if I reboot the phone in the morning, I can use it all day as I wish and it works perfectly, no slowdown anywhere and good battery life. I plug the phone in at night when I go to sleep and when I wake up I start using it again. Either right after I wake up or over the course of a few hours the phone begins to slow down with things like notification shade/app switcher crawling until I either a) reboot or b) change display resolution. Doing either of these "fixes" it until the next night and then again when I wake up I have the same issues.
I've been trying to figure out what's causing this. I've tried disabling features, uninstalling apps, etc.
One thing I have found is that when I'm having this problem if I force close 'System UI' in App Manager (this is just restarting that process since you can't kill it really) the smoothness comes back but it doesn't last as long as when I either reboot or change resolution.
My theory is that something is conflicting with the Android UI and over time it's causing it to slow down. Rebooting or changing display resolution restarts the Android UI so essentially same thing.
My first question is has anyone seen this behavior where the notification shade/app switcher (native UI not apps) slow down? I know there's at least some people on Reddit with same issue. If you have this issue does FC'ing System UI 'fix' it for you temporarily?
I'm trying to figure out what is running on my phone while I'm sleeping at night which is obviously causing this. Any ideas would be helpful. Oh also when I wake up and I go into app switcher it only shows like 3 cards where before I go to bed it would be like 10+ so something is killing apps at night too. I turned off Google backup for today and will reboot before tonight to see if maybe that's it.
Appreciate your help.
Thanks.

I've had my S8+ since the launch weekend on ATT, always connected to my Gear S3, and connected to my Misfit Ray. I've not noticed any slowdown of the UI. My AOD clock is slow to show the hands if the screen is off when I use the numerical clock AOD, but nothing else observed.
I would guess you've installed (or haven't uninstalled/disabled) some apps that are using a lot of background processes. I removed/disabled the few ATT apps on the device except Call Protect, and I don't use Gmail (resource hog). I actually use very few Google apps, they're just not very well coded, it seems (maybe a "goof off" day every week isn't such a great policy?)
In settings, go to Device maintenance, click on battery, and see if anything strange is going on there under App power monitor.
I've NEVER liked Samsung phones, and I've NEVER been interested in owning one, but I saw the Galaxy Gear S3 and fell in love, and truthfully, I bought the phone as an accessory to the watch, so I'm not an apologist for any shortcomings.

Instead of restarting, go to settings/device maintenance, what's the percentage here? go to optimize, does it help? which apps use the battery most? How much RAM is available. If nothing shows up, you probably would need something like wakelock detector (it needs root) to trace apps usage, especially at night. Also you could try to force stop other apps and see which one is interfering? For example phone is slow, force stop first 10 apps, if not fixed force stop next 10, if fixed, next time force stop one at the time from that batch of tens.

Mines just started doing this the other day. I think I have an idea if the problem, I'm just trying to find proof at this point. I recently downloaded this all to let me see the upload/download speeds if my network in the notification bar. It lets you set the refresh rate, to which I set it to 2 seconds, which I knew regardless would tax my system, I just didn't expect my ui to slow to a crawl.

Delete any Bixby remapping app as well, known to cause many issues including unpredictable lag.

New Update Bugs

I saw the new Android 9.0 update has been released for a little while now. I have been confident in Google's software updates while owning this phone until they broke the multi-touch on 8.1 and did not provide a downgrade or alternative solution. I like to play Pubg a lot on my phone while on my bus rides around my city so performance, battery, multi-touch and the very small day to day things are very important to me.
I looked on the comments section of the Android update forum for 9.0 and it seems the only small reported bugs were related to the pixel launcher. I use Nova Launcher so I don't think this will be an issue. I wanted to hear back from pixel 2 users and see if any of the OLD features on the previous 8.x release were made unstable or broken in any way.
Also how's the camera and battery life? Those are the main selling points of the phone I believe (for me at least)..

See this thread:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/pixel-2/how-to/androids-windows-vista-moment-t3830480

aspen1135 said:
I saw the new Android 9.0 update has been released for a little while now. I have been confident in Google's software updates while owning this phone until they broke the multi-touch on 8.1 and did not provide a downgrade or alternative solution. I like to play Pubg a lot on my phone while on my bus rides around my city so performance, battery, multi-touch and the very small day to day things are very important to me.
I looked on the comments section of the Android update forum for 9.0 and it seems the only small reported bugs were related to the pixel launcher. I use Nova Launcher so I don't think this will be an issue. I wanted to hear back from pixel 2 users and see if any of the OLD features on the previous 8.x release were made unstable or broken in any way.
Also how's the camera and battery life? Those are the main selling points of the phone I believe (for me at least)..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Camera and battery are both fantastic.
I don't get the hatred by some here. It's a divided opinion for sure, though as with anything else the ones displeased make the most noise.
Long story short, I think it's an awesome upgrade and have not experienced any bugs.

Agree with crixley... there were some new things to learn, but once learned, I actually appreciate them quite a bit. Android 9 gestures are quicker and more natural, and the wasted space of recents has been reclaimed with helpful stuff like switch orientation. Battery life is better with the Adaptive Battery setting enabled, security has been upgraded. Although I understand that it "feels" like a big change for no reason... a lot of users are going to dislike change if the benefits are not easily apparent. I admit that there have been a few kinks I worked through.. such as having to re-pair bluetooth devices, resetup android auto, and a few other quirks.. but I am a happy Android P user in the end.

The Pie update on VZW broke Android Auto USB connection to my Pioneer AVH-2300NEX. No other issues to report, but it's enough for Verizon to send me a warranty replacement phone.
Yes, I did do all the necessary troubleshooting. Yes, it worked great up to the time of the OTA to Pie. Yes, I even tried different cables. Thanks for your concern lol.

Been running Android 9.0 since the developer previews never had any issues. Battery life is much better than before and camera works just as great as always. I also use Android Auto everyday and haven't had any issues with it that other have described. I used to run a custom roms and always used the the fling nav bar so I'm pretty used to swipe gestures and prefer them more than the standard nav bar.

Battery life has been much better than Oreo as long as you don't configure your phone's IP staticly versus using DHCP when connecting to a Wi-Fi connection. We've been able to replicate it with at least 4 users whom all use different router make and models. See this
https://forum.xda-developers.com/pixel-2/help/battery-life-considerably-worse-update-t3827066

No bugs here since update. Only been a few days though. Battery life is definitely better. Good update just need an unlocking route for Verizon and my life will be complete.

i very much miss the ability to mute/vibrate my ringer with hardware buttons. instead of being "smart" and adjusting ringer volume by default, media volume when using some kind of media, it now just adjusts media volume always, and requires extra work/screen touching to mute the ringer

xdaninja said:
i very much miss the ability to mute/vibrate my ringer with hardware buttons. instead of being "smart" and adjusting ringer volume by default, media volume when using some kind of media, it now just adjusts media volume always, and requires extra work/screen touching to mute the ringer
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's my only complaint as well. But the update other than that is nice.
Edit I dislike that turning location to battery saving/gps / off moved to one switch on or off.

My battery life went from 8hr average SOT on Oreo to about 5.5hr average on Pie. I'm going back once I find the correct OTA update to flash (so I don't lose any data). Battery Saver has been on since Day 1.

greenteg said:
My battery life went from 8hr average SOT on Oreo to about 5.5hr average on Pie. I'm going back once I find the correct OTA update to flash (so I don't lose any data). Battery Saver has been on since Day 1.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm getting 8+ on pie. You need to go into location /Google location accuracy and turn that off. It's like GPS on constantly. There is no longer battery saving mode on Pie. I've had mine off from the beginning and all is well. 2 days off charger and 7-9 hours screen on time. Hope this helps

mattie_49 said:
I'm getting 8+ on pie. You need to go into location /Google location accuracy and turn that off. It's like GPS on constantly. There is no longer battery saving mode on Pie. I've had mine off from the beginning and all is well. 2 days off charger and 7-9 hours screen on time. Hope this helps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
All of that was already off, but I'll go through the entire device today and see if there's something else I can find.
Is it just me or did the overall brightness decrease? I know the whole scaling is logarithmic now, but I'm talking about 100% brightness on Oreo vs. 100% brightness on Pie. Seems to never get as bright as it used to, even when maxed out.

xdaninja said:
i very much miss the ability to mute/vibrate my ringer with hardware buttons. instead of being "smart" and adjusting ringer volume by default, media volume when using some kind of media, it now just adjusts media volume always, and requires extra work/screen touching to mute the ringer
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can press the power button and volume up button at the same time to switch to vibrate/mute. That's a nifty feature. ??

The new colors in the newest update to Contacts, Dialer, and Messages apps are hideous.
I'm ok with white background but the pastel colors are horrible.

greenteg said:
All of that was already off, but I'll go through the entire device today and see if there's something else I can find.
Is it just me or did the overall brightness decrease? I know the whole scaling is logarithmic now, but I'm talking about 100% brightness on Oreo vs. 100% brightness on Pie. Seems to never get as bright as it used to, even when maxed out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am glad I am not the one. The brightness has gone to dim at 75%.

Battery life is resolved, which was the main thing. I just wish the maximum brightness was fixed, along with a better (full dark) theme for us on AMOLED screens. Anything to get 3 Day usage is always appreciated. I'm at 2.5 Days now, so that's pretty nifty

atlp99 said:
The new colors in the newest update to Contacts, Dialer, and Messages apps are hideous.
I'm ok with white background but the pastel colors are horrible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Any way to roll back to previous messages APK without losing all data?

Just wanted to share . Amazing stock results on Android Pie

mattie_49 said:
Just wanted to share . Amazing stock results on Android Pie
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
rooted?

Apps won't stay open in the task manager on S10+

Coming from a Note 9 on android Oreo I've notice none of my apps stays open in the task manager on my S10+. I will find all the apps I had open in the background gone after a few hours, even if I locked them in place from clearing all. This is super annoying! I don't know if its a Android Pie issue, new Samsung issue or just my phone alone.
I am currently set to high performance mode, adaptive battery is toggle off, sleeping apps is off, and auto optimization is also toggle off.

No issues here, multitasking works as it should.

Yes, this is an issue and it is an Android Pie issue. Even if you have sufficient memory, apps that are unused for a few hours will shut down completely. I see this on my Essential PH-1 as well, and have seen it on other devices too. It's extremely annoying and there is no way to turn off this behaviour. Shutting off all app optimizations and excluding from optimizations, sleep, etc. does not bypass it.

Those who updated to OOS Android 12 - Is it still bad?

See title. Thinking again about updating now that we have another update out in C11 (I believe this is the most recent).
Would you if you had to chance to stay on Android 11? Still very much on the fence.

I haven't had the time or energy to do a clean install, so maybe these issues wouldn't show up normally but here is my experience so far:
1. Forcing the hz to be always 120 is no longer as simple and must be reset every boot
2. Also custom dpi must be set every boot
3. Widgets sizes are all off, some too big and some too small.
4. Always on display is forced on, and almost always doesn't turn on for about 20 seconds when taken out of a pocket, forcing a press of the power button.
5. When always on display doesn't show the fingerprint icon (either configured or after a few seconds), fingerprint scanning won't activate
6. Aptx TWS+ simply doesn't work anymore. Defaults to notmal aptx or aptx hd
7. Reply in floating window doesn't function at all
8. Notifications that are unread but still in the drawer don't show up on the lockscreen
The new fingerprint animations are dope though

crDroid 8.4 is running really nice!

There a couple things I don't like. The new animations are good and a change of system sounds/ringtone is nice. The UI is mostly a sidegrade if not a downgrade in utility. I felt the same going from 10 to 11 and now 11 to 12. I guess I will just get used to it.
What I don't like is the horrendous navigation buttons. What idiot at OnePlus thought it would be a good idea to space out the nav buttons an inch apart? Makes reaching my thumb over (and I have big hands) a pain in the ass. It looks stupid as **** too. I had to switch to gesture navigation mode because of this. Also they added crap like shelf and the qualcomm voice thing/quick device connect which are annoying as I couldn't get rid of the notifications. I tried turning quick device connect off in settings and it wouldn't work. had to mute the notification.
Also in recents/multitasking when I hit close all apps it should close all apps but instead it goes back to the app I was using. This is annoying as I developed the habit of closing all apps and shutting of my phone in a clean slate.
I will do a follow up post of bugs as I encounter them

Thanks for the responses guys. It's shocking to me that widely released software has this many issues still. I may just stay on A11 then. I am eyeing the Pixel 7 in Sept/Oct and I'll leave OP behind at that point. It was a good run.