iPhone 16 and 16 Pro vs Android battery life tests: Which phones last the longest?

Battery life — we can never have enough of it, and it’s arguably the single biggest metric that can make or break the best smartphones. While running for the charger by mid-afternoon is thankfully mostly a thing of the past, picking out a phone that is guaranteed to last a full day or more is still no simple task.

When it comes to the US big three — iPhone, Galaxy, and Pixel — battery life quibbles are a familiar battleground. So which is the best? To find out, we’ve grabbed Apple’s iPhone 16 and its closest direct rivals in the Android sphere; Google’s Pixel 9 series and Samsung’s Galaxy S24 range.

iPhone vs Android, which has the best battery life?

Let’s start with the littlest iPhone 16, which sports a rather compact 3,560mAh battery that’s considerably smaller than the Galaxy S24’s 4,000mAh cell and the Pixel 9’s 4,700mAh battery. But battery capacity isn’t everything; display specs and processor efficiency are huge contributors, too.

As such, the iPhone 16 scores a few wins. The iPhone 16 outlasts our other models when it comes to camera capture time and is right in the mix with 4K video playback and Zoom call results. The combination of a cutting-edge 3nm Apple A18 processor and a comparatively more basic 60Hz display makes the baseline iPhone 16 fairly frugal in its battery consumption.

Still, the Pixel 9’s much bigger battery seems to give it a solid advantage in our Zoom and 4K video recording tests, even though its Tensor G4 chip isn’t as cutting edge. By comparison, Samsung’s Exynos chip is by far the most frugal at the all-important web browsing, whereas the iPhone 16 comes in last here.

There’s no outright winner here; each model has its own strengths and weaknesses. But if we average our five tests, the Exynos Galaxy S24 comes out on top with 10 hours of battery life, followed by the Pixel 9 with 9.3 hours, the iPhone 16 with 8.9, and the Snapdragon Galaxy S24 with 8.7 hours.

Is the iPhone 16 Pro better or worse?

We also grabbed Apple’s flagship iPhone 16 Pro to compare against similarly priced Android rivals. Again, it has a rather tiny 3,580 mAh battery, much smaller than the similarly sized Pixel 9 Pro’s 4,700 mAh battery. The larger Pixel 9 Pro and Galaxy S24 Ultra clock in with 5,060 mAh and 5,000 mAh cells, respectively. So keep that in mind.

Unlike the smaller iPhone 16, the iPhone 16 Pro can’t make up the battery capacity deficit. While it performs admirably in our 4K playback test, it scores well behind all the other phones in our other tests. The web browsing result is particularly disappointing, pointing to just five hours of screen-on time. That’s 40% less than the Pixel 9 Pro despite only having a 24% smaller battery.

Anecdotally, we’ve felt the phone’s Apple A18 Pro chipset heat up a lot during general use. This suggests higher chipset power consumption than the regular A18, despite not offering much more in the way of additional performance when we benchmarked the chip.

We don’t have an iPhone 16 Pro Max on hand, but its larger 4,685mAh cell (which is 26% larger than the Pro) isn’t going to be enough to overtake Android’s battery behemoths. A 26% boost would still leave the Pro Max behind all our Android models in video capture, web browsing, and meeting tests. It would, however, close the gap on the S24 Ultra in video playback, zoom, and camera capture tests.

It’s much easier to rank these larger flagship phones. The Galaxy S24 Ultra is a clear winner for all-important video playback and web browsing. Meanwhile, Google’s Pixel series is the winner in terms of content capture times.

Should I buy an iPhone or Android for the best battery life?

When it comes to battery life, the iPhone 16 series is a tale of two halves. Despite leading in only one category, the regular iPhone 16 is as solid as any Android rival when it comes to lasting through a full day of common tasks. The iPhone 16 Pro, on the other hand, is notably behind its Android rivals and actually scores worse than the regular iPhone 16 in many of our tests, likely owing to a more demanding hardware setup on a small battery.

If you’re looking for powerhouse hardware and a battery that lasts, the compact Google Pixel 9 Pro sets a solid benchmark, and the bigger battery in the 9 Pro XL can take you even further. If you want to guarantee you’ll power through probably two days of use browsing social and the web, pick the larger Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra.

If you’re still sold on Apple’s ecosystem, despite the concerning results, the regular iPhone 16 is fine enough for a smaller phone. Avoid the Pro unless you want to deal with battery anxiety, and opt for the larger iPhone 16 Plus and Pro Max that have much bigger cells. That said, you’ll have to contend with their bulkier frames and the added heft in your pocket.