The phone with best battery life: meet the surprising new champion

The search for longer lasting phones has pushed some niche manufacturers to offer phones with extremely large batteries, but those often end up being too thick and not so practical in daily use.

There is a new crop of phones, though, that don't compromise design, and are still able to offer a huge battery. Chinese phone maker Xiaomi for once has impressed with its dirt-cheap Redmi and Mi Max series that deliver outstanding battery life.

A dirt cheap phone floored all the expensive flagships in our battery life test

However, there is a new champion in town and it's a surprise. The LG X Power, a dirt-cheap 5.3" Android phone with a 4,100mAh battery that is coming to Cricket Wireless soon (none of the major carriers will carry it), has absolutely ravished our battery rankings and has topped them in one go.

With a battery score of 15 hours and 18 minutes, it has more than double the battery life of trendy phones like the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge. Heck, even the long lasting Apple iPhone 6s Plus and Galaxy Note 7 can't hold a candle to this cheapo gadget. Keep in mind that we test all phones on equal terms at 200 nits of brightness. At the same time, let's not forget that the iPhones and Galaxies we mention are high-end affairs with beautiful high-resolution displays, fast system chips and tons of other features and design flare that are not present on the LG X Power, which is just a cheap phone with large battery.