Top phones of 2025: Battery life

One of the major battlegrounds in the smartphone world this year was battery. The wider adoption of Si/C (silicon-carbon) batteries this year was particularly noticeable, with some manufacturers cramming capacities of 7,000+ mAh into regular smartphones.

In fact our all-time battery life ranking is now dominated by models released this year. Except for the iPhone 16 Plus, the rest were reviewed in 2025.

A number of handsets broke the 20h Active Use Score barrier, with the OnePlus 15 topping the charts with a 23:07h score. Its close sibling, the Oppo Find X9 Pro, took the second spot, and the iQOO 15 rounded out with third place.

One interesting trend is that almost all of the phones on this list are flagship phones, which wasn't always the case. That's easily explained by the fact that Si/C batteries still command a price premium so they haven't yet trickled down the ranks.

Even though the Honor Magic8 Lite and the iPhone 17 Pro Max didn't make it into our all-time top 10, they share the 10th spot in 2025.

In case you came here for some specific recommendations, here are a few.

Those that care most about call time should consider the Realme GT 8 Pro or the iQOO 15. The Xiaomi 17 Pro Max did great in our call test as well.

For browsing, the Find X9 Pro, the iQOO 15 and the Realme GT 7 posted the highest runtimes.

For video playback, the iQOO 15 is the undisputed champion, but the GT8 Pro, the Xiaomi 17 Pro Max and the Find X9 Pro put up impressive numbers as well.

The nubia Z80 Ultra and the nubia RedMagic 11 Pro, along with the Poco F8 Ultra, deserve honorable mention as they take the 7th, 8th and 9th places with overall excellent Active Use Scores, performing equally well in all categories.

The expectations are to see even larger battery capacities in 2026, and also find them in more budget-oriented and mid-range phones. Good times indeed!