Which mobile phone lasts the longest?

Battery life — Battery life is never enough and is probably the single biggest metric that determines the best smartphone. Thankfully, running for a charger by mid-afternoon is mostly a thing of the past, but choosing a smartphone that’s guaranteed to last you more than a full day is still a challenge.

When it comes to America’s big three, iPhone, Galaxy, and Pixel, battery life disputes are a common battleground. So which one is best? To find out, we got our hands on Apple’s iPhone 16 and its closest direct rival in the Android space. Google’s Pixel 9 series and Samsung’s Galaxy S24 series.

Which has better battery life, iPhone or Android?

Let’s start with the smallest iPhone 16. It has a fairly compact 3,560mAh battery, which is much smaller than the Galaxy S24’s 4,000mAh cell or the Pixel 9’s 4,700mAh battery. But battery capacity isn’t everything. Display specifications and processor efficiency also play a big role.

In this way, the iPhone 16 has several victories. The iPhone 16 outperforms other models when it comes to camera capture times, and it also performs better in combination with 4K video playback and Zoom call results. The combination of a cutting-edge 3nm Apple A18 processor and a relatively basic 60Hz display means the baseline iPhone 16 saves a lot of battery power.

Still, the Pixel 9’s much larger battery seems to give it a solid advantage in Zoom and 4K video recording tests, even though the Tensor G4 chip isn’t quite as cutting-edge. By comparison, Samsung’s Exynos chip is by far the most frugal when it comes to all-important web browsing, but the iPhone 16 comes last here.

There are no outright winners here. Each model has its own advantages and disadvantages. However, when averaged across five tests, the Exynos Galaxy S24 came out on top with 10 hours of battery life, followed by the Pixel 9 at 9.3 hours, the iPhone 16 at 8.9 hours, and the Snapdragon Galaxy S24 at 8.7 hours.

Is the iPhone 16 Pro good or bad?

We also got our hands on Apple’s flagship iPhone 16 Pro to compare it to its similarly priced Android rivals. Again, it has a fairly small 3,580 mAh battery, which is much smaller than the similarly sized Pixel 9 Pro’s 4,700 mAh battery. The larger Pixel 9 Pro and Galaxy S24 Ultra come with 5,060 mAh and 5,000 mAh cells, respectively. So keep that in mind.

Unlike the smaller iPhone 16, the iPhone 16 Pro cannot compensate for the lack of battery capacity. It performed admirably in the 4K playback test, while scoring better than all other phones in other tests. Web browsing results were particularly disappointing, with only 5 hours of screen on time. That’s 40% less than the Pixel 9 Pro, despite having a 24% smaller battery.

Anecdotally, the phone’s Apple A18 Pro chipset seemed to get quite hot during general use. This suggests that the chipset consumes more power than the regular A18, even though it didn’t offer much additional performance when we benchmarked the chip.

We don’t have an iPhone 16 Pro Max on hand, but its massive 4,685mAh cell (26% larger than the Pro) isn’t enough to overtake Android’s massive battery. Even with the 26% improvement, the Pro Max still lags all Android models in video capture, web browsing, and conferencing tests. However, the gap with the S24 Ultra will narrow in video playback, zoom, and camera capture tests.

It’s much easier to rank these big flagship phones. The Galaxy S24 Ultra is the clear winner when it comes to all-important video playback and web browsing. Meanwhile, in terms of content capture time, Google’s Pixel series is the winner.

When it comes to battery life, the iPhone 16 series is a tale of two halves. Despite leading in just one category, the regular iPhone 16 is just as solid as its Android rivals when it comes to holding up through a day of common tasks. The iPhone 16 Pro, on the other hand, lags far behind its Android rivals and actually scores worse than the regular iPhone 16 in many tests. This is likely due to tighter hardware settings with smaller batteries.

If you’re looking for powerful hardware and a long-lasting battery, the compact Google Pixel 9 Pro sets a solid benchmark, and the 9 Pro XL’s larger battery makes it even better. If you want to guarantee that you’ll get maybe two days of social and web browsing, choose the larger Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra.

Despite the worrying results, if you’re still happy with Apple’s ecosystem, the regular iPhone 16 is fine for a small phone. If you don’t want to deal with battery anxiety, avoid the Pro and opt for the larger iPhone 16 Plus and Pro Max, which have larger cells. That said, you’ll have to deal with a larger frame and more weight in your pocket.