Long battery life hasn't always been a common feature among flagship phones. Oh sure, a few premium handsets may have lasted a long time on a charge a few years ago, but phone makers seemed to primarily focus on things like cameras, design and overall performance. Battery life was more of a selling point for gaming phones, budget handsets looking to stand out from their low-cost rivals or super-durable devices aimed at niche audiences.
Something's changed in the past year or so, though, as premium phones now routinely land on our best phone battery life list. Whether it's mobile silicon getting more power efficient, bigger phone designs leaving more room for larger batteries or some combination of the two, premium devices are lasting longer than ever before.
We know which flagships among the best phones last the longest. The iPhone 16 Pro Max posts the best time of any flagship on the Tom's Guide battery test, beating out the OnePlus 12. (Of course, that's with the OnePlus 12's display set to its default refresh rate; fiddle with that setting, and the OnePlus 12 beats the iPhone's time by half-an-hour.) But which family of flagship devices turns in the consistently best performance when it comes to battery life?
To put it another way, we'd expect the super-sized premium device from a top phone maker to last the longest, given that there's usually enough room inside the handset to house a large battery. But what happens when you take the entire flagship lineup into account? Which phones last the longest from the most compact entry-level model to the biggest premium device?
Since we put every phone we review through several runs of our battery test, we're in a unique position to compare the average times for the iPhone 16, Galaxy S24 and Pixel 9 lineups. Here's which phone maker consistently delivers the best battery life, regardless of which flagship model you buy.
How we test battery life
We're basing our results on the Tom's Guide battery test that we run on every phone we review. In this test, we set the phone's display to 150 nits of brightness so that we can get comparable results from device to device. We then set each phone to surf the web over a cellular network, timing how long it takes for the battery to run down.
We run this test at different display settings to see what impact refresh rates can have on battery life. For the purposes of this exercise, we're going to use the test results from the default screen settings of each phone, though we will note instances where adjusting the refresh rate can lead to a significantly different result.
We're going to compare the latest flagships from Apple (the iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max), Samsung (Galaxy S24, Galaxy S24 Plus and Galaxy S24 Ultra) and Google (Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel 9 Pro XL). We're excluding foldable phones from this exercise, as those devices tend to have shorter battery lives, and including them might skew the average. (Apple doesn't make a foldable phone, for example, while Samsung makes two, so you'd expect the Galaxy Z Flip 6 and Galaxy Z Fold 6 to have an outsized impact on Samsung's total result.) We'll mention OnePlus as well, though that phone maker only offers one flagship — the OnePlus 12 — so there's no other devices contributing to its average result on our battery test.
Flagship battery life compared: Apple vs. Samsung vs. Google
Let's start with Apple's four iPhone 16 models, which now come in four different sizes resulting in a wide range of battery test results. Not surprisingly, the two largest phones — the iPhone 16 Plus and the iPhone 16 Pro Max — turn in the best times on our test, thanks in large part to their big batteries.
However, the A18 silicon that powers the new iPhones has some influence over battery life, too. The iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro may be more compact, but they still outlast the average smartphone we test by more than 2.5 and 4 hours, respectively.
As with Apple, Samsung sees the best battery performance from its largest phone, with the Galaxy S24 Ultra lasting the longest on a charge. But the Galaxy S24 Plus, which also is among the larger phones in this challenge, finishes just 47 minutes behind the Ultra in our testing. Even the compact Galaxy S24 posts an impressive time, just short of the 13.5-hour mark.
We tested the Galaxy S24 models with their adaptive refresh rates turned on — that's the default setting, after all — but turning off that setting can impact battery life. The S24 lasted longer than 14 hours with its adaptive refresh rate disabled, while the Galaxy S24 Plus result improved by an hour.
Google may find itself at a disadvantage, with a pair of 6.3-inch phones in the form of the Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro. But the Pixel 9 Pro turns in the best time of all of Google's flagships, even the much larger Pixel 9 Pro XL. It's also worth noting that the entire Pixel 9 lineup performed the best of any Google phone we've ever tested.
The Pixel 9 phones have a Smooth Display setting turned on by default, but disabling it does lead to some battery life improvement. The biggest gain was enjoyed by the Pixel 9 Pro XL, which saw its battery life climb just past 14 hours when we turned off the Smooth Display feature.
So what do these numbers mean when we compare product lineups? Samsung winds up with best average battery test result, with the Galaxy S24 family turning in a time of 15 hours and 23 minutes. That's 10 minutes longer than the average result for the iPhone 16 lineup.
Google brings up the rear among this trio, not surprising since its longest lasting phone tops out at 13.5 hours on our test. But to reiterate, this is the best battery performance we've ever seen from the Pixel lineup.
What about the OnePlus 12? With no other phones in the lineup to bring down its average, the OnePlus 12 posts a time of 17 hours and 5 minutes on our test when we keep the display refresh rate at its default setting. Considering that the OnePlus 12 is also one of the fastest charging phones we've tested, devices from OnePlus should be at the top of your list if you're considering phones solely on the battery life and charging performance.
Flagship battery life: Who saw the biggest improvement?
We also have battery test results for flagship phones from previous years, which gives us some insight into which way the different product lines are trending. All of the phone makers included in the report saw the average battery test results for their flagship phones improve over what the 2023 models produced.
The Pixel 9 family posted the biggest percentage gain of all, with an average time that's 42% better than what we recorded with the two Pixel 8 flagships. That's a reflection of how Google has struggled with battery life in the past while making great strides with this year's phones.
The Galaxy S24 lineup also improved its performance on our battery test by 35%, helped out by the fact that all three new models lasted at least 3 hours longer than their Galaxy S23 equivalents. The OnePlus 12 lasted 29% longer than the OnePlus 11, while the iPhone 16 lineup posted a 21% gain over the iPhone 15 lineup's results.
Flagship battery life: Conclusion
Any one of the current flagship phones from Apple, Samsung or Google will give you all day battery life. But for the most consistent battery performance, Apple and Samsung have the best track record with their current flagships averaging more than 15 hours of battery life in our testing. Google made great strides with the Pixel 9 phones released this year, and OnePlus continues to impress with both the battery life and charging speed of its lone premium device.
