Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra battery life tested — here's how it stacks up to iPhone 17 Pro Max and more

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Better than the S25 Ultra but still behind Apple

Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra
(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

The Galaxy S26 Ultra may have the same battery capacity as its predecessor, but it lasts longer on a charge based on our testing. Just not as long as the iPhone 17 Pro Max.

We run every phone we review through the Tom's Guide Battery Test, which involves continuous web surfing over 5G at 150 nits of screen brightness. The longest-lasting handsets make it to our best phone battery life list. So how did the the S26 Ultra do? Here's the results.

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Battery capacity

Battery life (hrs:mins)

Galaxy S26 Ultra

5,000 mAh

16:10

iPhone 17 Pro Max

5,088 mAh

17:54

OnePlus 15

7,300 mAh

25:13

Galaxy S25 Ultra

5,000 mAh

14:27

Google Pixel 10 Pro XL

5,200 mAh

14:20

The Galaxy S26 Ultra endured for an average of 16 hours and 10 minutes. That's more than two hours longer than the Galaxy S25 Ultra using the new version of our test. It's worth noting that we ran the S25 Ultra on the new version after several months of use, so it may have performed better fresh out of the box.

The endurance gain could also be caused by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 Elite for Galaxy chip, which promises 35% higher CPU efficiency as well as 16% better overall power management. The S26 Ultra also benefits from a larger vapor chamber, and a cooler phone could help with battery life because it's under less stress.

Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

In addition, the Galaxy S26 Ultra lasted nearly two hours longer than the Google Pixel 10 Pro XL, which packs an even bigger 5,200 mAh battery.

However, the Galaxy S26 Ultra's endurance falls behind the iPhone 17 Pro Max. Apple's flagship lasted for nearly 18 hours in our testing, giving it close to a 2-hour advantage over Samsung.

All of these flagship phones get blown away by the OnePlus 15, which benefits from a whopping 7,300 mAh silicon carbon battery. This technology allows phone makers to offer higher capacity batteries in a similar size chassis, though there are some trade-offs. Silicon carbon batteries tend to expand over time, and they may not offer as many charging cycles overall.

Regardless, the OnePlus 15's amazing 25 hours and 13 minutes of battery life is a good 9 hours longer than the Galaxy S26 Ultra.

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Mark Spoonauer
Mark Spoonauer

Mark Spoonauer is the global editor in chief of Tom's Guide and has covered technology for over 20 years. In addition to overseeing the direction of Tom's Guide, Mark specializes in covering all things mobile, having reviewed dozens of smartphones and other gadgets. He has spoken at key industry events and appears regularly on TV to discuss the latest trends, including Cheddar, Fox Business and other outlets. Mark was previously editor in chief of Laptop Mag, and his work has appeared in Wired, Popular Science and Inc. Follow him on Twitter at @mspoonauer.

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