Samsung may have done its loyal customer base a major disservice by incorporating the same 5,000mAh battery in the Galaxy S25 Ultra. However, the Korean giant’s improvements in other areas will ensure that its latest and greatest flagship delivers efficiency improvements that help raise the bar in battery life. In the latest test, the company’s top-end model takes on the iPhone 16 Pro Max, but Apple’s premiere offering manages to take the win by the skin of its teeth, barely outlasting its rival in the battery competition.
Galaxy S25 Ultra powers off just 11 minutes before the iPhone 16 Pro Max, revealing the all-round improvements made to Samsung’s current flagship
Apple’s iPhone 16 Pro Max took an early lead in PhoneBuff’s battery drain test against the Galaxy S25 Ultra, but you have to remember that Samsung went ahead and used the more powerful version of the Snapdragon 8 Elite that has its performance cores running at 4.47GHz instead of the default 4.32GHz, meaning that it will exhibit higher battery drain. Coming back to the test, the browser part of this comparison is highly taxing on both flagships, with the Instagram run not doing any favors.
Next up comes the standby test, with both the iPhone 16 Pro Max and Galaxy S25 Ultra remaining inactive for 16 hours, with Samsung’s flagship wiping its competitor’s lead for the first time and maintaining that difference for various parts of the battery drain test. We also see that the Galaxy S25 Ultra holds up exceptionally well in gaming when compared to the iPhone 16 Pro Max. Of course, it is worth noting that the Galaxy S24 Ultra also had the same lead last year, but the iPhone 16 Pro Max eventually surpassed it.
Unfortunately, we get a ‘déjà vu’ moment here too, because the iPhone 16 Pro Max eventually finds its form, with the Galaxy S25 Ultra powering off 11 minutes before, lasting for a total of 27 hours and 50 minutes while delivering 11 hours and 50 minutes of active screen on time. As for the iPhone 16 Pro Max, it finished with a total runtime of 28 hours and 01 minutes, with its screen on time standing at 28 hours and 01 minutes. Assuming Samsung had bumped its battery size to 5,500mAh, it would have a gargantuan-sized advantage over the iPhone 16 Pro Max.
Hopefully, like other Chinese phone makers, Samsung will transition to silicon-carbon batteries, with a rumor claiming that this technology will debut next year with the Galaxy S26 series. This is likely the only path for it and Apple to start packing their devices with larger cells. After all, there are only so many improvements that you can bring through optimizations. You can check out PhoneBuff’s entire battery drain test and let us know what you think in the comments.
News Source: PhoneBuff
