Which phone has the best battery in 2016?

It’s no secret that the majority of us are spending a significant part of our lives on our cell phones, and why shouldn’t we? Along with calling and texting, our smartphones have all the social media apps we need to stay connected. We can take pictures, edit them and then upload them all in a matter of minutes, order food by a few taps here and there, prepare presentations and even buy and sell items whenever we want and wherever we happen to be, as long as we have out internet connection going. Since these little handheld devices are responsible for the smooth operation of so much of our daily activities, it is only natural that the batteries in our phones should be top notch.

What we need out of a battery is a battery life that will avoid having us tripping over people and things in the middle of meetings to find a charging port. We use our phones almost 24/7 and manufacturers are continuously working on increasing the capacity of these batteries. An average smartphone user has to charge their phone once in two days, depending on its usage throughout the day, the battery itself usually lasts until the next phone change even though they are only meant to last a year. When the time comes you could turn off all your unnecessary applications, make do with just texting and whatever other tips you know of keeping your battery running longer but what we’re looking for is a smartphone that will avoid us that hassle and keep us functioning until we’re safely at a convenient charging point.

It’s hard to determine what metrics to use when trying to determine what phone has the best battery, but most manufacturers use talk time, standby time, or how many hours you can expect a device to perform tasks such as playing video and music to give you a decent enough idea.A 3,000 mAh battery or higher is what we would be looking for if we want a high endurance phone. Armed with the knowledge let’s delve deeper and look at what top-selling smartphone gives us the most bang for the buck. According to most users, Galaxy and iPhone are still the best smartphone brands out there despite other phones doing their best to come to par. However HTC and LG come a close third and fourth, each brand making an appearance on Forbes list of the top smartphones in 2016, not once but twice. Let’s now look at the top selling phones for each brand and how the battery fares in comparison to each other, using battery life, capacity, and discharge time as indicators.

HTC and LG

HTC M9 Plus

HTC isn’t known for having beefy batteries, but the M9 Plus fares much better than its peers, with its 2840mAh battery, will get you through the day if you’re not constantly playing 3D games on the set. It has a full metal casing and a refined look, pretty much one of the best-designed smartphones out there. The HTC M9 Plus does come with Qualcomm QuickCharge 2.0 support and can give you a good talk time reaching up to 23 hours.

LG G Flex

The LG G Flex is a curved flexible phone that gives you some peace of mind because of its scratch-resistant coating. It is LG’s proud addition to the ‘phablet’ category.The LG G Flex boasts a 3,500 mAh battery and is known for its strong battery life. It will get you through two days on moderate usage and an outstanding talk time of 25 hours.

Samsung

Galaxy Note 5

If you are a big fan of the stylus, then this phone will definitely make you a happy customer. Even though this set has the disadvantage of having a non-removable battery, the battery life itself isn’t too bad. The Note 5 can get through the whole day even with heavy usage. The 3000mAh battery has a pretty good talk time of 22 hrs and charges faster than the previous phones of this series.

Galaxy S6 Active

This phone looks and feels like it is made for the athletes among us, but if hiking and camping are also your activity of choice then this sturdy, water-resistant phone can do no wrong. Even though it isn’t the best -looking phone out there, the whopping 3,500 mAh battery gets it major points. With a talk time of 24 hrs, it gets through a full day and a half of heavy usage without a hiccup. Just like the S6 it too has the fast charging features and supports both Qi and PMA wireless charging.

Galaxy S7 Edge

With a bigger screen than its predecessor and flexible battery technology, it isn’t difficult to add 1000mAh capacity to the already 3,600mAh battery in this set. Needless to say, it can easily go three days if you’re careful, and will charge up to 100% from 0% in a just a 100 min. The set has an amazing talk time of 27 hours and with the signature stylish ‘Edge’ look, the battery is a star.

Apple

iPhone SE

This is an impressive phone, particularly because of the longevity of its software, according to the company it should be able to support updates till 2019. The battery is better than the 5s, even with its 1624mAh capacity, it easily gives you a talk time of 14 hours. However, if you put too much pressure on it, we’re talking 3D games or extensive web browsing, it won’t be able to last a full day. You could always use the mophie’s case if its edge on software updates has your heart set.

iPhone 6S Plus

This is a fun phone. The camera has a great palette, and the 3D Touch is amazing. The battery life too is better than the 6S and can go through 2 days if you are careful. The fact that it has a small 2750mAh battery and can still give you 24 hours of talk time makes it a special phone. And not to mention, if you like big phones, and you cannot lie, they don’t get bigger than this.

Once you lay out all the information and set out to compare, the Galaxy S7 Edge comes up on top, with the LG G Flex and Galaxy S6 trailing close behind. However, you might want to keep in mind that battery usage also depends heavily on other factors, such as the software and the kind of apps used. Even though battery life is a huge factor while looking for a phone, affordability and design can also change your preference for a phone. There are also portable power banks that can help the cause and tips like keeping your battery life in check always help. At the end of the day, the best tip of all is to give your phone a break, get some breathing space yourself, and even if all the precautions fail unless your life doesn’t depend on it, just enjoy some off time from the screen. Even though studies are inconclusive when it comes to phones and socializing, person to person contact is a refreshing thing in this day and age.

This guest post was written by Faisal Wahab, a writer and content marketer who is a computer science graduate and a tech geek. He is a part of the team at MobiWoz which is a tech blog providing the latest mobile news and app reviews.