Welcome to Android's "Big Battery Era"
Remember the days when you were lucky to get through a full day of use out of your smartphone by refreshing the battery just once in the afternoon? Then came all-day battery life and still, users wanted more. The goal is to feature a phone with a battery large enough to allow the user to miss or even skip a night or two of charging and replenishing and still have the power available to run the phone all day the next day.
2025-2026 is going to usher in an new era for smartphones. Let's call it the "Big Battery Era" as after years of topping out around the 5000 mAh area, battery capacities will rise to the 7000-8000 mAh region. Just the other day we told you about Honor's new Power line of handsets and one model under this brand name is rumored to be the first smartphone to feature an 8000 mAh battery. According to leaker Digital Chat Station who posted this message on Weibo, by the end of this year, most flagship Android phones will be equipped with a 7000 mAh battery.
Digital Chat Station adds that these high-end Android handsets will peak at 7500 mAh. There already is a phone with a 7050 mAh battery and that is the Red Magic 10 Pro gaming phone. The buzz on the street is that the One Plus 14 will feature a 7000 mAh battery which would be a massive increase from the 6000 mAh capacity battery used on the OnePlus 13.
The Red Magic 10 Pro gaming phone sports a 7050 mAh battery. | Image credit-Red Magic
The Weibo post, after going through Google Translate, says that the new battery systems will be able to support 100W wired charging and 50W-80W wireless charging. Faster charging is important when you look at larger battery capacities or else you'll be spending much of your day waiting for that large battery on your phone to charge fully. Digital Chat Station notes that the 8000 mAh batteries will first be found in mid-range Android models before moving on to the flagship handsets. He sees top shelf Android phones reaching 7500 mAh by the end of this year.
You might recall that earlier this month, we told you that Samsung was considering moving storage of the Galaxy S26 Ultra's S Pen to a magnetic setup where it would attach to the phone's body. Removing the digital stylus' silo could give Samsung the internal space to take the phone's battery capacity to 7000 mAh quieting the critics who complain every year about the 5000 mAh battery capacity on the Galaxy S Ultra models.
Part of the new surge in smartphone battery capacities comes from the switch to silicon-carbon batteries from lithium-ion cells. This is due to the silicon used in the new batteries which can store more energy in the same physical size than the current cells which use graphite. As a result, manufacturers can pack their handsets with huge-capacity batteries without having to make their devices thicker or heavier.
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