A phone that loses 80% of its battery by midday while you’re barely touching it is not a phone — it’s a liability. That’s exactly what some Galaxy S25 Ultra and S24 Ultra owners are dealing with right now, and the culprit appears to be Samsung’s July security update.
As reported by NotebookCheck, a growing number of users on the Samsung Community forum started flagging problems shortly after installing the July security patch. The complaints are consistent and hard to dismiss as a coincidence. One Galaxy S25 Ultra owner said their battery dropped from around 85% at midnight to just 5% by midday, with only two hours of screen-on time to show for it. Idle drain is sitting at 5% to 7% per hour. That’s genuinely terrible for a phone that costs over a thousand dollars.
Galaxy S24 Ultra owners are in the same boat. Multiple users confirmed their phones, which previously lasted a full day on a single charge, have become noticeably worse since the update. And it’s not just the battery. Many users are also reporting that their devices are running much hotter than usual, and some have noticed that charging speeds have slowed down too. So you get a phone that drains faster, heats up more, and then takes longer to refill. A real triple threat, and not in a good way.
This matters beyond the personal frustration of affected users. Samsung positions the S25 Ultra and S24 Ultra as its most premium Android offerings. These are flagship phones with flagship price tags, and people buying them expect reliability as a baseline. A software update that breaks battery performance this badly chips away at the trust Samsung has spent years building. It also raises a broader question about how thoroughly these patches are tested before they go out to millions of devices.
So far, Samsung has said nothing publicly. No acknowledgment, no fix, no timeline. Affected users are essentially stuck waiting and hoping a follow-up update corrects whatever the July patch broke. That silence is not a great look for a company competing hard against Apple and Google for premium smartphone buyers who expect things to just work.
If your S25 Ultra or S24 Ultra has felt off lately, you’re not imagining it. And you’re definitely not alone.