A shiny brand-new phone might not have a longer battery life than your old phone.
The phones that CNET tested in 2026 had, on average, the same battery life as models we tested in 2025 and in 2024. That doesn’t mean that we didn’t have standouts. Apple’s iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max top our testing results, along with foldable phones like the Motorola Razr (2026) and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8, each of which has a silicon-carbon battery and offers increased capacity without requiring a larger physical battery. The most recently released device we tested, the iPhone Duo, tied for the top spot in one of our tests.
Late-2025 models like the iPhone 17 and OnePlus 15 (RIP OnePlus) are among the best values for getting the most time between charges.
Having your phone run out of battery is extremely frustrating, especially when it happens at an inconvenient time. No one wants to be seated on the floor of an airport terminal with their phone plugged into an outlet.
Battery life is affected by several factors. If your phone is 2-3 years old, the battery capacity is likely less than when it was fresh out of the box. How much you use your phone affects how long you have between charges. Are you a Light Lift Lisa and rarely on your handset? Or are you an Obsessively Online Oliver and your phone never leaves your hand?
While it seems that companies add larger batteries to new smartphones, those same phones come with new power-hungry features like brighter screens, more powerful processors and AI tools that gobble up that “extra” battery life. And CNET’s phone battery testing shows just this.
Key Takeaways
- The iPhone 18 Pro Max has the longest battery life of any phone CNET tested.
- Phones with silicon-carbon batteries, like Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 8, are still a rarity but offer a lot of use off a single charge.
- The iPhone 17, iPhone 17E, Motorola Razr (2026), OnePlus 15 and Motorola Moto G Stylus (2026) are some of the best values in terms of battery life.
What phone has the best battery life?
CNET tested the battery life of 28 phones in 2026 so far, and our results continue to show that a higher capacity (typically measured in milliamp-hours or mAh) doesn’t always mean the longest-lasting battery throughout the day. These devices, along with four handsets that didn’t get updates this year, are included in our results. Each phone was put through a 3-hour streaming video test and a 45-minute anecdotal stress test, both with the battery at 100%. The results show the remaining battery percentage – the higher, the better. We averaged the results to determine our rankings. 32 phones were each tested for 3 hours and 45 minutes, meaning CNET has spent 120 hours testing smartphone battery life over the past year.
The iPhone 18 Pro Max is our overall winner for having the longest battery life. Apple gave the 18 Pro Max a larger battery compared to the equally impressive 2025 iPhone 17 Pro Max. That increased capacity which along with iOS 27 optimizations and the efficient Apple A20 Pro chip, gave the 18 Pro Max an edge over last year’s model and every phone that we’ve tested in 2026.
Most phones sold in 2026 were hit with a price increase due to US tariffs and higher RAM and component costs driven by demand from AI data centers. That doesn’t mean you can’t find an affordable phone with great battery life. Notably, the $500 Motorola Moto G Stylus (2026) and the $600 Motorola Edge (2026) both rank in our top 10. Interestingly, while Motorola incorporated silicon-carbon batteries into its Razr phone line, these two budget handsets lack them. It’s like that the screens and processors on the Stylus and Edge don’t consume as much power as a $1,000 flagship phone with all the bells and whistles.
If you’re looking for an affordable iOS phone, you might need to adjust your definition. The cheapest phone Apple sells is the $699 iPhone 17E, which I’d argue isn’t what’s considered a budget device. However, the 17E lasted a long time in our tests and its performance tied with phones that are nearly twice and three times its $700 price: the $1,400 Motorola Razr Ultra (2026) and the $1,999 Apple iPhone Duo – both foldable phones.
Phone Battery testing results
We tested a variety of phones from brands you know well, like Samsung, Google and Apple, to handsets you likely never heard of, like Xiaomi’s wonderful photography-centric Leica Leitzphone, or the controversial “gold” T1 Phone from Trump Mobile (a rebranded 2024 HTC U24 Pro nicknamed the “Trump Phone”) that scored toward the bottom of our ranking.
We run two battery-life tests on all the phones we review at CNET: one that stresses the phone and the other for video streaming. In our 45-minute stress test, during which we stream videos, make a video call, play games and scroll social media, and with the battery starting at 100%, the iPhone 18 Pro Max and iPhone Duo took the top spots, only dropping 1%. Google’s Pixel 11 Pro XL deserves a shoutout for tying for third, losing only 3%. Compare that with the 2025 Pixel 10 Pro XL, which dropped by 7% in the same test.
In the 3-hour video battery test, where a video is streamed over Wi-Fi for 3 hours with the screen at full brightness and the battery starting at 100%, the smaller iPhone 18 Pro took the top spot, losing only 6%. The iPhone 17 deserves your attention, as it scored among the top results for both tests, as did the Motorola Razr (2026) and (more expensive) Razr Ultra (2026) flip phones.
CNET’s buying advice
If you’re wondering how to remember all these model names and qualifiers like Pro, Ultra, XL and Max, we also looked at how all the models from a specific brand did by averaging the results. We only did this for companies where we tested more than one model. So if you’re looking for the brand that sells phones with the best battery life, go with Apple.
This is the second year in a row that the iPhone lineup has performed better in our battery life tests than other brands. OnePlus, a subsidiary of the Chinese brand Oppo, came in second but sadly announced that it will stop releasing phones in the US after the OnePlus 15 series. So if you see a great deal on the OnePlus 15 or budget OnePlus 15R, they are both excellent options for amazing battery life.
This year we saw Motorola and Samsung begin adopting silicon-carbon batteries in some models, mostly foldable phones. But I imagine in 2027 and beyond that we’ll see more companies using that type of power cell.
Lastly, if you’re happy with your current phone and your only complaint is that it doesn’t hold a charge like when you first got it, don’t buy a new phone. Instead, replace the battery, either yourself or have a service do it for you. If you’re an iPhone owner, the Apple Store will do this for $80-$100, depending on the model and how much your battery has degraded. Replacing the battery will save you hundreds of dollars and add a few more years to your phone’s life-span.
Of course, there are always power banks to help keep your phone’s battery topped off, too.
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