Smartphones with best battery life in 2020

The feature that most often matters about smartphones today is their battery life . All have improved in power, screen quality and other functionalities, but many new phones have batteries  that need to be recharged every day. But amongst all the new mobiles on the market, a few stand out in terms of battery life. These are the ones we will outline in this article.

The models that you will see below have been selected based on their battery life , but they are not limited to a specific range or price. You will be able to see cheap mobiles, a little more than a hundred bucks, but also others that reach a thousand dollars. Some achieve long battery lifes thanks to limiting the power of the processor or screen resolution and others by having very efficient energy consuming screens and processors, but they all have in common high-capacity batteries.

Tips for maximum battery life

There are a good number of factors that determine the battery life of a mobile and the most important is not exactly the maximum capacity of the battery. Although having a 5000 mAh battery is better than having a 2000 mAh battery, when you start to move through the mid-high and high range there are other factors that would need to be accounted for.

Screens

The main source of consumption of a mobile phone is the screen and therefore a higher quality screen is generally related to a longer battery life of the devices. There are several factors that affect the consumption of the screen:

  • Type: Although the most widespread are IPS panels, the ones with the lowest consumption are OLEDs. This is because an IPS screen has a backlight layer for its entire surface, while OLED screens’ pixels have their own lighting. Therefore, if a pixel has to show a dark or black color, the necessary lighting will be low or can even be turned off completely to eliminate its consumption.
  • Screen resolution: this determines the consumption of the pixels themselves, beyond that of the backlight itself. The more pixels a screen has, the more power it consumes it and therefore the screens with fewer pixels consume less.
  • Screen size: certainly a 6.5-inch diagonal panel will consume more than a 5-inch panel, especially if it is IPS, due to the backlight layer.
  • Refresh rate: normal screens have a frequency of 60 Hz today, but more and more mobiles are coming out with a frequency of 90 Hz or 120 Hz. Since this is a measure of how many times the information displayed on the screen changes, the power consumption will follow suit accordingly.
    A 120Hz screen can reduce the battery life of the device by around 20%, although it will depend on the type of panel and its quality.

To help reduce power consumption, both Android and iOS provide integrated dark theme features. This means that instead of displaying bright colors such as the background of the applications, black is used instead.

In OLED panels, it means that the pixels of the black background will be turned off, and therefore their consumption will be greatly reduced. In IPS panels, it will also provide a decrease in consumption since the pixels will not emit color, but it is a smaller reduction due to the backlight panel.

Processors

In general, modern processors that are made with the best lithographic processes will have lower power consumption than those that are made with older lithographic processes. Everything will later depend on the internal design of the processor’s architecture and other energy-saving mechanisms implemented by the manufacturer. Therefore, a processor from a couple of years ago manufactured at 14 nm can have 40-50% more consumption than a processor manufactured with a 7 nm lithography process.

Read:How to extend your laptop battery lifespan on Linux Ubuntu/Debian

Also keep in mind that having more RAM or storage means more power available to the device. If you are not going to need 256GB of storage and 12 GB of RAM on your mobile, you would probably do well with a 6 + 64 GB model, for example.

Fast charging systems

With the increase in battery size, it has also been necessary to increase the re-charging speed. While processor manufacturers like Samsung, Qualcomm, and MediaTek have developed their own technologies to ensure their products recharge quickly and safely, other companies like OPPO or Motorola also have their own.

Keep in mind that fast charging will overheat the back side of the mobile, although more advanced systems will allow them to recharge without significantly changing the temperature. Companies like OPPO have invested a lot of money in making sure it does, and it can be a differentiating feature: Charging a 4000 mAh battery in half an hour is not the same as charging it in two hours.

In the specification of the smartphones below, you will find the fast charging type of each device, if the compatible charger is included to achieve the highest possible recharge speed and other data that may be of interest such as compatibility with other chargers. The disadvantage of these fast charging systems is that they will have to be carried and are more expensive than normal chargers.

Read: Phone overheating, how to avoid and fix

Keep in mind that the chargers that supply more amperage, due to the operation of the batteries, will allow them to be recharged faster. This is true as long as the mobile battery allows it. It should also be borne in mind that the batteries, upon reaching a certain level of charge, reduce the current they receive to keep the voltage stable and thus continue to charge in a controlled manner, making fast charges more effective when batteries are empty.

In the case of mobiles with USB type C, it is important to use USB chargers and cables of adequate quality and to stay away from the cheapest ones. Take a good look at the product reviews, especially if it is a charger or cable that seems excessively cheap. A bad charger that does not properly follow the USB Type-C specification can damage the device it connects to.

Motorola Moto G7 Power

The Moto G7 Power follows Motorola’s aesthetic line, with a product well compensated in terms of features. Its 15.7 cm (6.2-inch) IPS-type screen with a resolution of 1570 × 720 pixels plays in favor of its battery life, since it includes a 5000 mAh battery . It also has a Snapdragon 632 processor manufactured at 12 nm as an efficient model. Since the cores are also limited to 1.8 GHz, they will perform well but do not consume excessively.

The camera of this mobile is a single 12 Mpx sensor with ƒ / 2.0 aperture, so it will not stand out in the photographic section, although it benefits from a good HDR mode. The photos you take have a good level of detail and exposure, with colors that vary reasonably but are generally true to the scene. Night shots are reasonably good, but with aggressive fading so details are lost and the photos look washed out. Records video at 4K and 30 f / s reasonably well.

Specs at a glance:

The battery recharges with up to 15W, and a suitable TurboPower charger (QuickCharge 3.0) is provided to take advantage of it.

ASUS Zenfone 6

The ZenFone 6 stands out for being an all-screen mobile, without a notch or bullets, and the rear camera also works as a front camera thanks to a built-in motor. The overall look is great. it has a wide 16.2 cm (6.4-inch) IPS-type screen with a resolution of 2340 × 1080 pixels, protected by Gorilla Glass 6, although it only reaches 450 nits of maximum brightness.

Specs at a glance:

Its processor is a powerful Snapdragon 855, with up to 8 GB of RAM and up to 256 GB of storage, with a micro-SD card reader. The battery of this mobile is 5000 mAh , and is recharged with up to 18 W through a USB Type-C port, with the possibility of reverse charging by providing up to 10 W to another device. It has a battery life of about fifteen hours of video playback or Internet browsing, to take advantage of the large screen it has, since it also encompasses stereo speakers .

The main and unique camera has a main sensor of 48 Mpx and ƒ / 1.79 aperture and a secondary wide angle of 13 Mpx and 125º, being able to record videos at 4K and 60 f / s. It will not be the best camera on a phone on the market, but it behaves quite well for the corresponding price range.

Read:How sleeping with your phone increases the risk of cancer and infertility

The battery recharges with up to 18W, and a suitable QuickCharge 4.0 charger is provided to take advantage of it. Ot is compatible with the USB Type C Power Delivery specification.

Huawei P30 Pro

The Huawei P30 Pro has a good battery life thanks to its OLED screen and its 4200 mAh battery that is charged by a USB Type-C with up to 40 W , or 15 W with wireless Qi charging. The screen is 16.4 cm (6.47 inches) with a resolution of 1080 × 2340 pixels, which reproduces the DCI-P3 range, and which integrates a fingerprint reader on the screen itself. It is designed to be waterproof, IP67 certified , with a glass back.

The processor used in both is the Kirin 980 with 6 or 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage, with the P30 Pro you have options of 256 GB and 512 GB of storage. They have Wi-Fi 802.11ac connectivity, Bluetooth 5.0, NFC, and they have Android 9 pre-installed, upgradeable to Android 10.

Specs at a glance:

It includes a rear camera with four sensors: one RGB of 40 Mpx and aperture ƒ / 1.8 which is a Sony IMX600 with RYYB color filter; another 16 Mpx and ƒ / 2.2 aperture of super wide angle; a third 8 Mpx and ƒ / 2.4 aperture for telephoto lenses with a 5x optical zoom and optical image stabilizer. It also has a fourth time-of-flight (ToF) type depth sensor, more accurate than conventional depth sensors. The front camera is 32 Mpx and ƒ / 2.0 aperture.

The battery recharges with up to 40 W —15 W wirelessly and a suitable Huawei SuperCharge charger is provided to take advantage of it.

Nubia Red Magic 3

The Red Magic 3 is a mobile that is made to play rather than for everyday use, but its 5000 mAh battery and OLED screen make it stand out when it comes to battery life. The screen is 16.9 cm (6.65 inches) with a resolution of 2340 × 1080 pixels with the possibility of operating at 90 Hz —it can not be disabled— and maximum brightness of 450 nits, with touch sampling at 240 Hz. Still, it has a battery life of about fourteen hours of screen use.
The processor is a Snapdragon 855, with up to 12GB of RAM and up to 256GB of storage. To improve the cooling, it includes some heat pipes and a small fan to get the most out of the processor.

Specs at a glance:

The rear camera is a single lens, and uses the Sony IMX586 sensor . It has 48 Mpx with ƒ / 1.7 aperture, allowing 8K video recording, but also in slow motion of 1920 f / s at an unspecified resolution. The front camera remains at 16 Mpx with ƒ / 2.0 aperture.
The battery recharges with up to 18W, and a suitable Quick Charge 3.0 charger is provided to take advantage of it.

Live Nex 3

The NEX 3 from Vivo is a mobile phone with a huge 17.5 cm (6.89 inch) screen that has a resolution of 1080 × 2256 pixels . It has practically no frames while its sides are rounded – waterfall type . It is a great OLED screen that draws powerfully attention, with maximum brightness of 600 nits and good DCI-P3 color reproduction.

The 4500 mAh battery together with the AMOLED screen allows to play video for more than twenty hours or surf the internet for about fifteen hours. The battery life is a great advantage of this mobile. It has a powerful Snapdragon 855+ processor, with up to 12 GB of RAM and 256 GB of UFS 3.0 type storage, making it a very fast and powerful mobile .

Specs at a glance:

The rear camera has a 64-megapixel main sensor with tetra-Bayer filter to take 16-megapixel snapshots with higher quality. It also has a 13 Mpx sensor for two-magnification optical zoom and another 13 Mpx ƒ / 2.2 wide-angle. The quality of the images is quite good in broad daylight with photos full of details. This is the case also in low light conditions with a night mode to take snapshots, with good dynamic range and saturation.. Its camera app allows you to manage the usual parameters, such as speed or ISO.A 44W FlashCharge charger is provided with the mobile to recharge it.

Samsung Galaxy M30s

The Samsung Galaxy M30S is one of the best candidates in terms of battery life within the mid-range mobiles with its 6.4 inches and 1080 × 2340 pixels Super-AMOLED screen and its 6000 mAh battery. Although it recharges with 15 W fast charger, it can take up to three hours to fully recharge. A suitable Samsung Adaptive Fast charger is provided. In return however, you get up to 20 hours of video playback or more than fifteen hours of browsing. It is the best of the best in terms of battery life.

Specs at a glance :

The screen is of good quality and reaches 650 nits of maximum brightness. The processor is a good Exynos 9611 model, which will give it fluidity since it has 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of UFS 2.1 storage, with a micro-SD card reader, Wi-Fi 802.11ac and Bluetooth 5.0.

The camera is more modest, but serves its purpose. It has a good 48 Mpx main sensor, a secondary 8 Mpx wide angle, and a tertiary 5 Mpx for depth.

iPhone 11 Pro / iPhone 11 Pro Max

The iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max are the most phones that Apple has ever produced in terms of battery life. They combine 3200 mAh and 4000 mAh batteries respectively with a great low-power OLED screen, which gives them 15-20 hours of video play-back. In various comparisons, the iPhone 11 Pro Max beats other OLED mobiles by a large margin.

Specs at a glance:

They come with the most powerful processor in the market today, with enough RAM and ultra-fast storage for maximum fluidity. The triple camera system is also the best on the market (early 2020), with very good image stabilization, color capture and detail, and it has a night mode that can take pictures with a high dynamic range.

The battery recharges with up to 18 W. It also has standard 7.5W Qi wireless charging.

Redmi 8/ Redmi 8A

The Redmi 8 and Redmi 8A are very similar models, but one has a fingerprint reader and the other does not. The 5000 mAh battery can be recharged with up to 18 W although only a 10 W charger is included with them (5 V and 2 A). Fortunately they use a USB Type-C connector for fast charging, so there won’t be much of a problem using a USB Type-C charger that provides 18W or more.

Specs at a glance:

Battery life wise and taking into account the screen resolution of 720 × 1520 pixels, allows to play 15 hours of video-playback.

Samsung Galaxy M20

The Galaxy M20 is a well-finished mid-range mobile phone. It has a 16 cm (6.3-inch) IPS-type screen with a resolution of 1080 × 2340 pixels. It has the advantage of having a large 5000 mAh battery, along with 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage, and it has a micro-SD card reader. It has a battery life of 12 or 13 hours of video playback.

Specs at a glance:

The rear camera has two sensors, one 13 Mpx and ƒ / 1.9 and one secondary wide-angle sensor of 5 Mpx and ƒ / 2.2. It has enough quality to take good photos in broad daylight, with good detail and focus. In low light or at night, its quality makes it obvious that it is a mid-range mobile but it performs well though.

The battery recharges with up to 15 W, and a suitable QuickCharge 2.0 charger is provided to take advantage of it.

ASUS ROG Phone II

The ASUS ROG Phone II is a big phone (170.99 × 77.6 × 9.48 mm) that has a large 6000 mAh battery . It is a device designed primarily for gaming, and therefore the AMOLED screen which has a 120 Hz refresh rate with touch detection at 240 Hz, are configurable to consume less. It also comes with a powerful and efficient Snapdragon 855 processor, with 12 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage.

Specs at a glance:

The battery is recharged through a USB port 3.0 type C with rapid charge of 30 W. It lasts for more than 20 hours of video playback at 60 Hz -some 15-16 hours at 120 Hz- , so it can be an ideal companion for long trips. In addition, it includes quality stereo front speakers, with a DAC for 24-bit and 192 KHz sound, DTS Headphone: X 7.1.

The front camera is 25 Mpx, while the rear is triple, with a main sensor of 48 Mpx, a secondary of 13 Mpx with a wide angle of 125º, and a tertiary of 24 Mpx.


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Nikolaus Oosterhof

Nikolaus holds a degree in software development and has a strong passion for all things tech-related, especially gadgets with screens. Though he is nostalgic for older phone models, he's a retired gamer and continues to enjoy programming in open-source environments. Additionally, Nikolaus enjoys writing about Linux, macOS and Windows and has experience designing web pages.

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