Phones with best battery life (2016 edition)

Battery life: it's often the number one thing that people want to see improved in a modern smartphone.

After all, charging your phone every night is not much fun, and for those times when a workday flows into a night outing, you need your phone to be with you and last, and last.

Not every phone is capable of this, though, and that's why we are measuring battery life on every major flagship that arrives in our office to better figure out how they do in comparative terms. Now, with all important phones for 2016 already out, it's time to sum it all up and see which phone has the best battery life.

First, though, let's say a few words about our testing method: we put all devices on equal grounds by settings the display at 200 nits, a brightness level comfortable for indoor use. Then, we put all phones through a rigorous browser testing that simulates typical smartphone use. With no stand-by time for rest, we get scores that reflect screen-on use. Let's see how this year's best phones do in this test.

Battery life test results for 2016 mainstream phones

Battery life (hours) HIGHER IS BETTER

Apple iPhone 7 Plus9h 5 min (Excellent) Apple iPhone 77h 46 min (Good) Apple iPhone SE7h 41 min (Good) Samsung Galaxy S7 edge7h 18 min (Good) Samsung Galaxy S76h 37 min (Average) Google Pixel XL7h 19 min (Good) Google Pixel7h 45 min (Good) LG V206h 23 min (Average) LG G55h 51 min (Average) Motorola Moto Z Force Droid Edition7h 9 min (Good) Motorola Moto Z Droid Edition5h 52 min (Average) OnePlus 35h 53 min (Average) HTC 107h 10 min (Good) Sony Xperia XZ6h 41 min (Average) Huawei P96h 51 min (Average) Xiaomi Mi 57h 27 min (Good)