Phone battery life tested — these are the longest-lasting phones of 2023

We've never come across a phone that went longer on a lone charge than the Asus ROG Phone 7 Ultimate. The gaming phone held out for 18.5 hours in our testing — nearly 3 hours longer than the closest competitor.It's easily the longest-lasting phone we tested during 2023.

In fact, the past year has seen some big gains in battery life. To land on our best phone battery life list, devices used to have to last 11.5 hours on our very demanding battery test. These days, you need to approach the 12-hour mark to have a chance.

Among the major phone makers, Apple clearly had the best year in terms of longevity, landing both the iPhone 15 Plus and iPhone 15 Pro Max in the top 5 of the longest-lasting phones we've tested. All three Samsung Galaxy S23 models lasted longer than their predecessors, but only the Galaxy S23 Ultra challenged for a spot on the list of longest-lasting phones for 2023 — and it finished 1.5 hours behind the iPhone 15 Pro Max in our test.

Instead, the Motorola Edge Plus (2023) grabbed the runner-up spot with an impressive time of 15 hours and 47 minutes on our test. Another gaming phone, the Red Magic 8 Pro, rounds out our top 5 by tying the iPhone 15 Plus' time of 14 hours and 14 minutes.

Still, no phone we tested in 2023 came close to the 18 hour and 32 minute result posted by the ROG Phone 7. To put that result in context, the ROG Phone's predecessor took the longest-lasting phone title in 2022 — and the ROG Phone 7 whipped that device by more than 3 hours.

Top 5 longest-lasting phones of 2023

Tom’s Guide battery test: How we test phones  

Every smartphone we review goes through an array of tests, as we measure everything from screen brightness to how quickly each phone can transcode a video. If you're interested in phone longevity, our most important tests involve the phone's battery life and its charging speed. You can read more about how we test out phones in our guide on how Tom’s Guide tests and reviews smartphones.

To measure battery lfie, we use a custom proprietary test. Before we run the test, we set the screen up to 150 nits of brightness and make sure the phone is fully charged. We then run an automated script that makes the phone surf the web over a cellular connection — these days we test over 5G — until the device runs out of power. The time that it takes to go from 100% to drained makes up the result of our testing.

The average smartphone lasts a little less than 10 hours on the test. Any phone that lasts longer than 11.5 hours offers excellent battery life.

These days, many phones ship with displays that offer variable refresh rates. Since that feature can impact battery life, we run multiple tests, using our battery test at the default refresh rate setting in addition to testing the phone at its maximum and minimum refresh rates. We'll make note if the faster refresh rate has any negative impact on a phone's battery life in our full review of the device.

Our best phone battery life rankings shows the 15 longest-lasting phones we’ve tested in the last 18 months since many phones remain on the market that long. However, we do a special list focused on the top five of a single year that impressed us with their longevity.

2023's longest lasting phone: Asus Rog Phone 7 Ulitmate

The gamers that make up the core audience of the ROG Phone 7 Ultimate will never have to worry about a drained battery interrupting one of their gaming sessions. For the second consecutive year, the premium gaming phone from Asus blew away the competition when it came to lasting a long time on a charge.

We should mention that the ROG Phone 7's result came when running our test with the phone's refresh rate on its automatic default setting, which allows the refresh rate to spike as high as 165Hz. Most phones with high-refresh rates top out at 120Hz, and 60Hz remains the default setting for handsets.

A higher refresh rate can drain power quickly, taxing even the outstanding power management capabilities of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. Indeed, when we locked the ROG Phone 7's refresh rate at 165Hz, its battery test time fell to 13 hours and 23 minutes. That still would have landed it in the top 10 of our battery test results.

 Best of the rest: Motorola Edge+ 2023 

While the Asus ROG 7 has the longest-lasting battery we have seen in a long time, let's not overlook other top-performers on our battery test. The Motorola Edge Plus (2023) proved to be the best flagship phone Motorola's ever built, and battery life was a big reason why. 

It's especially impressive that Motorola managed to bolster battery life from the disappointing Motorola Edge Plus (2022), which finished well below the result for the average smartphone when we tested that model. Credit the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 powering the latest Motorola phone, not to mention the 5,100 mAh battery powering the phone.

The iPhone 15 Plus comes in third among long-lasting phones we tested in 2023, with the longest-lasting battery life of any iPhone currently available. To be fair, the iPhone 15 Pro Max was just 12 minutes behind, so either big-screen Apple phone will last all day long on a charge.

Matching the iPhone 15 Plus' time was another one of the best gaming phones of the year, the RedMagic 8 Pro. We wouldn't turn to this phone if we needed a standout camera, but when it comes to gaming features, RedMagic's handset is tough to beat. And who wouldn't want a gaming phone that's capable of going 14 hours on one charge?

One interesting note about this year's battery champs — they're not exactly cheap. At $649, the RedMagic 8 Pro is the least expensive of the bunch, followed by the Motorola Edge Plus at $799.  The iPhone 15 Plus costs $100 more while the $999 Asus ROG Phone 7 Ultimate flirts with the $1,000 mark. The iPhone 15 Pro Max, which saw a $100 increase over its predecessor, is the most expensive in the top 5 at $1,199.

Battery life is generally not one of those areas where you get what you pay for. Several cheaper models make our best phone battery life list, but for whatever reason, the more expensive phones dominated the list in 2023.

Looking ahead — smartphone battery life in 2024

We should find out early what kind of battery life to expect in 2024. Qualcomm has already shown off the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, which promises a 20% to CPU power efficiency. The GPU is supposed to see a 10% improvement in power savings. 

We already know that the OnePlus 12 will feature this new chipset, and the Galaxy S24 lineup is expected to as well. With both those phones likely to appear in January, we should see pretty quickly how long the best Android phones will last in 2024.

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