Battery showdown: Galaxy S8+ vs. iPhone 7 Plus

Samsung’s top-of-the-line Galaxy handsets are typically outfitted with some of the best-performing batteries. That said, you could imagine our surprise when we learned that the battery in Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S8+ performed worse than the cell powering Apple’s iPhone 7 Plus, as per a new test carried out by review website PhoneArena.

Samsung’s device beat flagship Android phones in battery-life tests and bested Apple’s regular-sized 4.7-inch iPhone 7. PhoneArena discovered that the 3,500 mAh battery inside Galaxy S8+ lets it run for exactly eight hours before needing recharging.

Samsung’s phone has a massive display measuring 6.2 inches diagonally that uses AMOLED display technology which requires a fraction of the power consumed by traditional LCD screens because it doesn’t need a power-hungry backlight.

Galaxy S8+ also comes outfitted Samsung’s powerful in-house designed Exynos 8895 chip (some versions come with Qualcomm’s processor), but it, too, uses less power than its predecessor as the chip is fabbed on a smaller ten-nanometer process technology.

iPhone 7 comes with a 1,960 mAh battery rated for a capacity of 7.45 watt-hours, which is a notable increase from the 6.55 watt-hour battery in last year’s model.

iPhone 7 Plus has a bigger 2,900 mAh battery for a total of 11.1 watt-hours, representing a slight upgrade over the 10.45 watt-hour battery in iPhone 6s Plus and on par with the 2,915 mAh, 11.1 watt-hour cell found inside iPhone 6 Plus.

Here are the test results:

  • iPhone 7 Plus—9 hours and 15 minutes
  • Samsung Galaxy S8+—8 hours exactly
  • iPhone 7—7 hours and 46 minutes
  • Huawei PT—7 hours and 42 minutes
  • Google Pixel XL—7 hours and 19 minutes
  • Galaxy S7 Edge—7 hours and 18 minutes
  • OnePlus 3T—5 hours and 41 minutes

Many Galaxy devices feature Samsung’s praised Fast Adaptive Charging technology.

Galaxy S8+ is no exception: as per PhoneArena, charging the device from 0 percent to 100 percent takes about one hour and forty seconds. “This is not the fastest we have seen, but it is not too far off,” reads the article.

Although Galaxy S8+ also supports fast wireless charging, charging times are way longer when using a wireless charger. PhoneArena’s standard battery tests compare all devices on equal grounds by using common settings, including setting the screen brightness at 200 nits, which is comfortable for indoor use.

Source: PhoneArena