Moto G Power battery test complete: Record breaker!

The Moto G8 series of phones is getting three new members: the Moto G8 Power, a phone that is all about that battery, a slightly cheaper Moto G8 with a smaller battery, but similar performance, and finally, a dirt-cheap big-battery phone, the Moto G8 Power Lite, that uses a slower MediaTek chip. 

All of these phones are affordable so don't expect greatness, but what you can definitely expect of the G8 series is an absolute stellar battery life. All three of these phones are made to last and you can use them for two or often even three days without charging them up. That's not something that you see often in the smartphone space. Naturally, we were curious to see whether Motorola's insane battery claims are true and how are the phones holding up in different battery tests.

But first, let's take a look at the specs.

Moto G8 series battery capacity:

As you can see, we're off to a promising start as these phones have giant battery cells inside.

To test the batteries, we start with our browsing test, the lightest in our arsenal.

The test simulates scrolling webpages and it is a good indication of how long the phone can last without heavy use.

The results are in and they are truly impressive: the Moto G8 Power breaks all records and with a score of nearly 16 hours, it's the longest-lasting phone we have tested so far in 2020. This phone is a battery beast.

Interestingly, the Moto G8 Power Lite with its less detailed 720p resolution, scored significantly lower on this test at 12 hours and a half. We can't pin-point the exact reason why, but a good guess would be that its MediaTek chip is just not as well optimized. But even though this score is lower than on the G8 Power, in and out of itself it's still at the very top of our battery rankings, so this phone would still last you a very long while.

Finally, the Moto G8 also scored extremely well at nearly 14 hours, it's another beast of a phone that you can use not just for hours, but for days on end.

Next up, we test YouTube video streaming. Watching videos on a phone is something that has replaced TV time for so many people these days, and we think it's important to measure it separately to see how various phones perform with such a task.

And interestingly, we're in for a surprise with the G8 series.

Yes, all of the phones last a long time, but the Moto G8 Power that dominated the browsing test, scores lowest of the three here at close to 9 hours. That's a strange thing to see: it seems that the YouTube app is draining the phone much quicker than anticipated.

The Moto G8 Power Lite, on the other hand, had the lowest score on the browsing test, but passes the YouTube test with flying colors and a result of the whopping 11 hours and 24 minutes, at the very top of our battery rankings.

Last, but not least, the Moto G8 scored just slightly above the G8 Power at 9 hours and 15 minutes. All of these scores are absolutely excellent compared to other smartphones, but we are seeing some interesting nuances within the G8 series. 

Next up we also test battery life with 3D gaming. These would be the graphically intensive games that tax the GPU: the likes of Asphalt, Call of Duty, PubG, Fortnite and the rest. Keep in mind that our test plays them at the lower graphics settings to ensure compatibility about so many devices, so in real life the battery drain while gaming would definitely be higher, but what we are looking to see here is how the phones compare.

And on this test, the Moto G8 Power regains its position at the top with a score of 11 hours and 34 minutes, the highest score evere recorded on our 3D gaming test. The G8 Power Lite scores about 10 hours, and finally, the Moto G8 scores way below these two at 7 hours and 4 minutes.

At the end of the day, the Moto G8 series are prove to be all phones with incredible battery life, but one of them stands out and that is the Moto G8 Power. It outlasts the others by quite a bit in most use cases, and unlike the very slow-performing Moto G8 Power Lite, the regular G8 Power has at least a decent amount of performance.

If you are looking for a budget phone with an incredible battery life and a great price, the Moto G8 Power seems to be the way to go.