It is not an easy task to choose the right smartphone. It is not easy to choose the right smartphone. We all want a phone that has top-notch performance and can take great photos for Instagram. But, a smartphone’s ability to last for a long time is critical. It doesn’t matter how great your new phone is, if it has to be charged constantly, it may not be worthwhile.
It’s a good idea to consider the battery size, measured in mAh. This will give you an indication of how long-lasting your phone should last. Other factors like display size, resolution and power efficiency also play an essential role. We’ve covered the top phones with the longest battery life.
Every phone that passes our doors is subject to our battery-life test. We know which phones to look at if battery life is a priority. Below is a list of the 20 best phones for battery life in 2021, including expensive flagships and budget options.
Best phone battery life 2021: How we test
To see how your phone compares to its competitors, we have combined all of the battery scores from the numerous smartphone tests we do every year into a straightforward graph.
We run a continuous video-playback testing to determine a smartphone’s battery capacity. This video file contains a few scenes from Spider-Man 2, encoded in H.264, and looped for 20 hours. We use either the Apple App Store or Google Play’s VLC video player app to play the file. We also record the time spent on reboot. We set the phone to aeroplane mode and turned off all automatic brightness and sleep settings. Finally, we set the screen brightness at a standardised 170cd/m2.
Aeroplane mode turns off all wireless features on the phone, naturally extending battery life. This means our tests are repeatable. Wireless is prone to signal loss, so the phone must adjust its power consumption constantly, which can lead to inconsistent results.
Best phone battery life 2021: Results
Smartphone battery life has improved, even though it has slowed down in recent years. The 20 smartphones in our hierarchy exceeded 22 hours in our battery benchmark before they needed to be recharged. A significant portion of the latest headsets, which make up a large part of the list, also outperformed their predecessors, including the Samsung Galaxy M31, which knocked the Lenovo P2 from the top spot.
The Galaxy M31 lasted more than 30 hours under our battery test. It beat the Lenovo P2 by more than 90 minutes in the same conditions and makes it the first phone that we recommend with a two-day battery.
This is the benchmark to which all future smartphones should strive. The Sony Xperia 10 III is in second place. It beat its predecessor’s endurance by clocking in at just 29 minutes. Next on the list is the Moto G9 Power, with a massive 6,000mAh battery. It scored a score of 28 hours 50 minutes.
The iPhone results for best phone battery life in 2021
As I said earlier, not one iPhone makes it into our overall battery life chart. I decided to create a separate section to allow Apple fans to see which iPhone is at the top.
Although no iPhone has ever been able to compete with Android in the past, things have improved dramatically since the iPhone 11. The chart below shows that the iPhone 11 Pro Max last year, our top-end handset, is the longest-lasting. It took us 20 hours 7 minutes to test it. This is a great result and, while it may not be as impressive as our overall top 20, it is encouraging news for iPhone’s future, even though the iPhone SE (2020) scored poorly and the new iPhone 12 range doesn’t quite reach that level of stamina.
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