Motorola's premium phones beat Pixel, iPhone for long-term battery health
Motorola's use of silicon-carbon batteries for its premium phones helps keep its handset cells healthy.
Some Motorola phones top iPhone and Pixel models in charging cycle ratings | Image by Motorola
Motorola is equipping some of its new phones this year with silicon-carbon batteries allowing it to increase the battery capacities of these handsets. But as many of you know, when it comes to battery life, the capacity is only half the battle. Besides dealing with the daily battery life of your device, every phone battery has a limited number of charging cycles.
Motorola's premium phones top new iPhone and Pixel charging cycle ratings
Degradation, or the irreversible decline in a battery's storage capacity over time, is more of an issue with the current Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries used on the Apple iPhone and Google Pixel models. Those models will drop to an effective capacity of 80%. A charging cycle occurs when you use and recharge 100% of your phone's battery capacity.
This does not have to take place in one day. For example, if you use 60% of your battery today, charge it fully during the night, and then use 40% tomorrow, that would equal one full charging cycle. Because Motorola is using silicon-carbon batteries on models like the Edge 70 series and the Motorola Razr line (it still uses lithium-polymer batteries on models like the Moto G series), the cells used on its high-end models will degrade at a lower rate than your typical iPhone or Pixel model.
EPREL's ratings for Motorola's higher-end handsets
According to the European Commission's (EC) European Product Registry for Energy Labelling (EPREL) website, the following Motorola 2026 models will degrade to an effective capacity of 80% after the listed number of charging cycles:
- Edge 70: 1,000 charging cycles
- Edge 70 Fusion: 1,000 charging cycles (XT2605-2) / 1,200 charging cycles (XT2605-1)
- Edge 70 Pro: 1,200 charging cycles
- Razr 70: 1,200 charging cycles
- Razr 70 Plus: 1,200 charging cycles
- Razr 70 Ultra: 1,200 charging cycles
- Razr Fold: 1,200 charging cycles
- Signature: 1,200 charging cycles
Motorola does comprehensive battery testing on all devices, including cycle tests, and continues to make improvements with each generation. Currently, Motorola’s silicon batteries average between 1,000-1,200 cycles before dropping to 80% capacity.
Motorola spokesperson
How Samsung models are able to deliver 2,000 charging cycles
If you want to know how this compares with rivals, on average, Samsung handsets can go through 2,000 charging cycles before the batteries are degraded to 80%. One way Samsung is able to do this is by using software that shows the phone's battery at 100% when the true figure is a little less than that.
Motorola phones are rated for charging cycles by EPREL. | Image by EPREL
You see, lithium-ion batteries suffer the most stress when forced to hold a 100% charge. When you see your Samsung phone showing 100% battery life, the true remaining battery life is a little less. This, plus Samsung's advanced heat dissipation, allows the batteries on its phones to go through additional charging cycles before the cells are degraded to 80%.
When it comes to other phone manufacturers using silicon-carbon batteries, Motorola's numbers aren't as impressive. For example, the OnePlus 15R (1,300 cycles), the HONOR Magic 8 Pro (1,600 cycles), and the Nothing Phone 3 (1,400 cycles) are rated for higher charging cycles.
Keep in mind that the silicon-carbon battery technology is new to Motorola, and we would imagine that it will only improve with more experience. And, as we already noted, the batteries powering the company's flagship lines will hit about 1,200 charging cycles before they get degraded to 80%.
Charging cycles are not a heavily advertised phone spec
No, this is not one of those specs that will make a potential iPhone or Pixel buyer change their mind and switch to a Motorola phone. Charging cycles are not usually seen in advertisements or mentioned in specs. Remember, this is a spec that deals with the future performance of a smartphone, which is why you don't hear about it too often.
Turning to capacity, the Motorola Edge 70 sports a 4,800mAh battery, while the Edge 70 Pro is powered by a 6,500mAh battery. The Razr 70 will feature a 4,800mAh cell while the Razr 70 Ultra is equipped with a 5,000mAh battery.
The era of larger battery capacities is here, but much of the improvement in models sold in the US relies on improvements in the manufacturing of chips. For example, the Tensor G6 and the Apple A20 Pro processors will both be manufactured using TSMC's 2nm process node and the increased transistor density and the use of the Gate-All-Around transistor architecture should reduce energy consumption and increase efficiency.
While the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max are supposed to get hikes in battery capacity, the Pixel 11 Pro and Pixel 11 Pro XL are supposedly going to be equipped with batteries sporting a slightly reduced capacity compared with the Pixel 10 Pro and Pixel 10 Pro XL. Google is counting on the Tensor G6's advanced 2nm process node to more than make up the dfference in battery life.
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