Another clue that the Galaxy S6 will feature a 2,600-mAh battery

Images that surfaced on Weibo suggest the upcoming Galaxy S6 will feature a 2,600-mAh non-removable battery.

Earlier this week, a report out of Korea claimed Samsung’s upcoming flagship would come with a built-in battery of 2,600-mAh, a step down from the 2,800-mAh unit on the Galaxy S5 and generally lower than the current “gold standard” for a high-end smartphone, which is around 3,000-mAh. Because the source of the report was rather obscure, and the automated translation of Korean sources always leaves room for interpretation, we decided to skip it.

But now we have another clue that the Galaxy S6 will indeed pack a 2,600-mAh battery, in the form of shots uploaded by a user of China’s Weibo social network. One of the albums uploaded by said user shows photos that appear to be taken inside a battery manufacture facility, and one of the images is tagged “Samsung Galaxy S6 battery.”

As Phone Arena points out, the code on the battery resembles codes of original Galaxy S5 replacement batteries, while the “925” bit could be a reference to the SM-925X code attached to the Galaxy S6 Edge.

Furthermore, other images uploaded by the same user show the logo of Samsung SDI (Samsung’s component-making unit), as well as that of ITM, a Korean supplier of batteries and related circuitry.

Why would Samsung reduce the battery size of the Galaxy S6? The answer may lie in the phone’s sealed construction and 6.9-millimeter profile. These design constraints probably forced Samsung to shave off the size, and implicitly the capacity, of the battery inside the S6.

A smaller battery does necessarily result in shorter battery life, as factors like screen technology, processor, software optimization, and the battery technology itself can greatly affect it. In theory, the 14nm Exynos processor expected to power the Galaxy S6 should consume less power than previous generations, partially offsetting the decreased battery capacity. Then again, the reverse applies for the Quad HD screen, because higher resolutions translate into higher consumption. So we’ll have to evaluate the entire package before we can issue a judgment on the Galaxy S6’s battery life. And that will only be possible after March 1, when Samsung will lift the veil of the S6 and S6 Edge at its MWC event.

Thoughts?