Samsung Galaxy S6's battery life test score trails that of its predecessor

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At 0.27 inches (6.8 mm), the Galaxy S6 is one of the thinnest mass-produced devices on the planet. But such remarkably slim profiles often require sacrifices on the hardware level, as there simply isn't enough space to fit everything. One component that requires quite a bit of room? The battery.

The Galaxy S6 sports a 2,550 mAh cell – a built-in one at that – and with that capacity it needs to keep a power-hungry, 1440 x 2560 Quad HD Super AMOLED display going for as long as possible. According to our custom battery life test that mimics the typical person's day-to-day usage, the S6's juicer manages 7 hours and 14 minutes before giving up, and then needs 78 minutes to charge from zero back to full – a good result, but not excellent.

Indeed, the Galaxy S6's predecessor, the Galaxy S5 (2,800 mAh), went through our stressing battery life test a year ago and scored slightly higher, at 7 hours and 38 minutes. Of course, it's quite obvious that Samsung has carried out a great deal of optimizations in terms of power efficiency, as the S6 is not far behind, despite its smaller battery and much more pixel-dense screen. Regardless, those among us that were more than content enough with a 1080 x 1920 resolution are probably a bit disappointed right now.

In any case, the Galaxy S6 proved to be a good enough performer, and is still ahead of the likes of the HTC One M9, the LG G3, and both the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.

Battery life(hours)Higher is better
Samsung Galaxy S6 edge8h 11 min(Average)
Motorola DROID Turbo10h 42 min(Excellent)
Motorola Moto X(2014)5h 45 min(Poor)
Samsung Galaxy S67h 14 min(Average)
HTC One M96h 25 min(Poor)
Sony Xperia Z39h 29 min(Good)
Apple iPhone 65h 22 min(Poor)
Apple iPhone 6 Plus6h 32 min(Average)
Samsung Galaxy Note48h 43 min(Good)
Samsung Galaxy S57h 38 min(Average)
LG G36h 14 min(Poor)
Full Charge(hours)Lower is better
Samsung Galaxy S6 edge1h 23 min
Motorola DROID Turbo2h 6 min
Motorola Moto X(2014)2h 56 min
Samsung Galaxy S61h 18 min
HTC One M91h 46 min
Sony Xperia Z33h 55 min
Apple iPhone 62h 27 min
Apple iPhone 6 Plus2h 51 min
Samsung Galaxy Note41h 35 min
Samsung Galaxy S52h 2 min
LG G32h

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