Some people will let their phone run all the way down to zero before they plug it in to charge. Others will keep it charging pretty much anytime it’s not out and about. But one thing unites us all when it comes to a smartphone’s charge: we want it to last as long as possible before the dreaded ‘low battery’ notification pops up. Indeed, one survey found that seven in ten people are gripped by anxiety when their phone’s battery drops below 20%.
How long your phone runs before dying depends on a few factors. One is how much you use it and what apps you’re running; a smartphone sitting locked in your pocket all day on airplane mode is going to use a lot less juice than one running high-resolution movies all day. But perhaps the most important factor of all is your smartphone’s battery capacity, a component measured in milliamp-hours (or mAh).
Put simply, the higher the mAh, the longer your phone will generally last on a single charge. And unless your phone supports you switching out the battery for a new one, it’s not possible to change your phone’s mAh rating. To give you a sense of scale, a 2021 poll found that nearly a third of people’s Android phones sit between 4001 and 4500 mAh.
This got the team here at Electronics Hub thinking: based on a smartphone’s in-built mAh ratings, which models released over the last few years have the best and worst battery life straight out of the box?