Home
News
You are here

Poll results: How often do you usually have to charge your phone?

By Daniel P.

Published: Nov 06, 2015, 4:05 AM

29comments

Motorola Samsung LG HTC Apple Sony Polls

Poll results: How often do you usually have to charge your phone?

Oh, the horror! Yesterday we asked you how often do you usually have to charge your phone, and it turns out that the vast majority of our 2572 respondents have to charge every day, or more than once a day even. Only 14% charge every other day, presumably those with very light usage or those with (nudge, wink) Sony Xperias. Less than 4% said they charge on the third day or longer, which hints at a market potential for those phones with gigantic 4000+ mAh batteries that last a few days on a charge in exchange for some added thickness.

While last year marked a vast improvement in phones' battery lives, this year we seemed to have reached a plateau of sorts, just as it happened with screen sizes, which seem to no longer be growing. Most flagships or midrangers announced this year don't log massively better battery endurance compared to their predecessors, and the 2015 emphasis on thinner, more premium builds didn't help with battery capacities either.

The Galaxy S6, for instance, eked out a slightly shorter endurance than the Galaxy S5 on our battery benchmark test, while the S5 scored 50% longer time than the Galaxy S4 before it. The LG G4 also lasted slightly less than the G3, the One M9 scores worse than the One M8, the Droid Turbo 2 does worse than the original Turbo, and so on. Even the battery life champ among the brand-name phone makers, Sony, regressed a bit with the new Z5 trio, compared to its Z3 predecessors, though it still boasts with the "two-day battery" tag.

Only the Note 5 managed to beat Note 4 by a tad, and Apple eked out longer battery lives from its new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, compared to their predecessors, which is not a high bar to beat to begin with. In any case, it seems that the vast majority of smartphones still manage to just survive the day with heavier usage, before they have to be plugged in, while only a handful can take you through a weekend away from the charger, and just those chubbies with humongous 4000+ mAh batteries can brag to last three days on a charge.

Battery life(hours)Higher is better	Samsung Galaxy S57h 38 min(Average) Motorola DROID Turbo 28h 1 min(Average) Motorola DROID Turbo10h 42 min(Excellent) HTC One M96h 25 min(Poor) HTC One(M8)7h 12 min(Average) LG G46h 6 min(Poor) LG G36h 14 min(Poor) Samsung Galaxy S67h 14 min(Average) Apple iPhone 65h 22 min(Poor) Apple iPhone 6s8h 15 min(Average)
Full Charge(hours)Lower is better	Samsung Galaxy S52h 2 min Motorola DROID Turbo 21h 22 min Motorola DROID Turbo2h 6 min HTC One M91h 46 min HTC One(M8)3h 27 min LG G42h 7 min LG G32h Samsung Galaxy S61h 18 min Apple iPhone 62h 27 min Apple iPhone 6s2h 30 min