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But as we’ve seen, even high-end flagships can have very different levels of power consumption. See the situation with Samsung’s Exynos and Snapdragon Galaxy S20 flagships. Manufacturers can also under or overclock chipsets, and even alter the CPU scheduler to hit their preferred performance and power points.
There are some good examples of extra hardware sucking down the battery juice too. The Google Pixel 4 and its Soli radar system is a prime example of a feature that drains much more battery than a handset without it. Including a time-of-flight camera focusing system, more powerful stereo speakers, or a 4K display all impact battery life too. Even something seemingly as small as charging up the S Pen on recent Galaxy Note phones adds up. These features make handsets unique, but they come with a price.
Manufacturers balance high performance and demanding hardware against all-day battery life, capacity, and costs.
The trend in faster refresh rate displays plays a big part as to why modern phones consume so much power. This appears to be the reason that the Samsung Galaxy S20 series phones stick to 60Hz out of the box, despite technically supporting 120Hz. The Pixel 4’s 90Hz mode is also linked to display brightness in an attempt to save battery life. The reason being that the faster display content refreshed, the more power the display and phone’s processor consume.
Want more examples? Did you know that the 4,300mAh OnePlus 8 with a 90Hz display gets better battery life than the 120Hz OnePlus 8 Pro with its larger 4,510mAh battery? The two phones have otherwise virtually identical specs, highlighting just how much of an effect displays and refresh rates have on battery life.
Battery life isn’t just a hardware consideration either. Smartphone software can also affect battery life by killing off background apps to reduce CPU usage and wake-ups. For example, Huawei’s EMUI is notoriously more aggressive in this regard than Samsung’s One UI.
5G is power intensive
Another recent trend complicating the matter of mAh vs battery life is the launch of 5G. 5G modems and radio components require more power than previous generation 4G equivalents, meaning that your battery won’t go as far if you’re on a 5G network. Complicating things further, different 5G modems and chipsets drain different levels of power.
Mid-range chipsets with integrated 5G modems, such as the Exynos 980 and Snapdragon 765G, should consume slightly less power than the premium tier external modems used in flagship smartphones. This may be partially why phones like the LG Velvet and reportedly even the Google Pixel 5 are set to ditch Qualcomm’s power-hungry flagship tier chipset, the Snapdragon 865. Again though, these SoCs have slower peak speeds, so it’s another power versus performance trade-off.
The move to 5G hardware has certainly increased the necessity for larger battery capacities. However, whether this is an important purchasing consideration depends on whether you’re actually on a 5G or 4G network. If you’re sticking with a 4G tariff for now, then power consumption from these components won’t be as high and battery life should be more in line with previous generations. Again though, this all depends on other hardware. According to Redmi general manager Lu Weibing, the move from 4G to 5G typically consumes at least 20% more power. So you’ll need a roughly 20% larger battery capacity to achieve the same battery life as an equivalent 4G phone.
Looking out for the best battery life
The key takeaway from all of this is that building a smartphone with all-day battery life isn’t as simple as picking the biggest battery possible. Manufacturers have to weigh up cost, space, and the hardware they intend to power. The more feature-rich a handset, the tricker the balancing act. Most manufacturers try to target a balance of hardware and battery capacity that will get you through a full day of typical use and sometimes that doesn’t require a huge cell.
Our stress test doesn’t identify a direct correlation between capacity and battery life because there isn’t one. Bigger batteries obviously provide more power to play with, but the underlying hardware choices made by manufacturers have just as big of an impact on actual battery life results.
There are far more pieces to the battery life puzzle than just pure capacity.
Mid-range smartphones with less energy-hungry technology, such as the Pixel 3a, tend to get away with smaller batteries while still providing all-day battery life. In the premium segment, manufacturers use larger batteries capacities (and the phones are bigger too) to power more demanding technologies, like 5G, high refresh rate displays, or extra gaming performance.
Of course, how you use your phone adds a whole other layer to the battery life debate. Casual Facebook browsers are bound to end up with much more battery left at the end of the day than mobile gamers.
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