Which phone has the best battery life? Let’s find out

Aiming to make our lives easier, smartphones offer a wide variety of functions that help to simplify daily life while helping us stay connected to each other. These daily connections and simplifications have become so essential to our everyday lives that smartphones have become crucial to our very existence. Because of this, we bank on these devices to be dependable above all else, and a huge part of that dependability is reliant on battery life.

Well aware that battery life is a major selling point for any device, smartphone manufacturers now often tout how long a battery could feasibly last given its technical specifications. Despite this type of specificity, how do we know for sure that a phone’s battery will last as long as the manufacture says?

Wanting to answer this question and determine which smartphone has the best battery life, we did a not-so-scientific test that pitted seven different phones against one another. We tested devices that are already known for their battery life — the LG V30, iPhone X, Essential Phone, etc. — and are fairly commonplace in today’s market.  We removed the SIM card from each, connected them to the same gigabit Wi-Fi network, and played a YouTube video on loop until each phone died.

Here’s the results of the test (organized by best battery life to worst):

Again, this isn’t the most scientific of tests, but it does give you an idea in regards to how long each of these phones will last in real-world circumstances. Battery life, however, shouldn’t be the be-all and end-all when deciding which smartphone to purchase. That’s not to say that battery life isn’t important, but, as this test shows, the difference in longevity for most of today’s top smartphones is relatively small.

David Cogen — a regular contributor here at Digital Trends — runs TheUnlockr, a popular tech blog that focuses on tech news, tips and tricks, and the latest tech. You can also find him on Twitter discussing the latest tech trends.