In recent years, the progress of mobile phone performance, screen, camera and other aspects is believed to be obvious to everyone, but the "endurance" is still a dou that cannot be supported, and it seems that it cannot get rid of the dilemma of a smart phone charging a day.
This year's flagship new machine is 5000mAh, is the mobile phone life really no growth?
Here I found out the 215 mobile phones tested in the laboratory in the past three years, combined with their battery capacity, battery life and other data performance, and tried to answer this question for everyone.
Here we need to revisit the "5-hour endurance test" standard of our WHYLAB laboratory: in a unified environment, the test includes brushing Weibo, chatting WeChat, music, long video, short video, e-book, game, photo, online shopping, call, each lasting half an hour, a total of 5 hours, to compress and simulate the loss of electricity we use every day, to the final remaining percentage of electricity as a measure, we generally take 50% as the dividing line, and the final balance is above 50% of the battery life is "good".
2019
2019 is regarded as the first year of 5G, this year, especially in the second half of the year, more and more manufacturers launched their first 5G flagship models, but even at the end of the year, the entire market is still the world of 4G models.
This year, we WHYLAB tested a total of 59 mobile phones, starting to the mid-range to the flagship coverage, the battery capacity reached a maximum of 5260mAh, Xiaomi's CC9 Pro, the lowest even only 2915mAh, Google's Pixel 3 XL; but the vast majority of models have a capacity of around 4000mAh, of which the capacity is 4000mAh, a total of 19 units.
4000mAh battery capacity can be said to be the standard in 2019, such as OPPO's Reno 2, realme X2 Pro, Redmi K20 series, the original iQOO, etc., in our standard "5-hour endurance test", the final remaining power gap between these models is relatively large, 40% to 64%, the average remaining power is 55%.
And often 5000mAh capacity is basically the main endurance of the entry-level models, there are vivo Z5x, Redmi 8 and Redmi 8A, their "5-hour endurance test" performance is very close, 65% to 66%, which is also very in line with common sense, after all, the performance of the entry-level machine is not high, the power consumption is relatively low, plus the large battery, can be exchanged for a good endurance.
However, if the 59 models in a full year are combined, the average battery capacity of all test models is 3912.1mAh, and the final average remaining power of the "5-hour endurance test" is 53%.
2020
2020 is definitely a year of real outbreak of 5G mobile phones, and the new machines launched by major manufacturers are basically based on 5G networks, including entry-level models.
This year, our laboratory tested a total of 58 mobile phones, the most "special" is Apple's second-generation iPhone SE, the battery capacity is only pitiful 1821mAh, its endurance is widely complained about, our "5-hour endurance test" results are 27%, as long as a little heavy use, basically can not last a day.
Of course, compared with the previous year, the battery capacity of this 2020 mobile phone is generally up, only 4 models of 4000mAh capacity, the average "5-hour endurance test" remaining power 47%; and 4500mAh capacity is more mainstream, a total of 15 models, the average "5-hour endurance test" remaining power 54%.
Compared with the average 53% of the mainstream 4000mAh in the previous year, the increase in the mainstream 500mAh capacity in 2020 is not obvious in exchange for an average 1% battery life improvement.
Not only the 4500mAh of this batch of models, in fact, throughout the entire 2020, (all) officially entered the 5G era of this year, although the battery capacity has been greatly improved, the average battery capacity of the 58 models tested, the average battery capacity is 4287.93mAh - an increase of 375.83mAh over the previous year, but the endurance has reversed, the average remaining power of the "5-hour endurance test" is 51% - down 2% from the previous year.
The reason is actually very simple, first of all, the 5G network power consumption is more obvious; and then the improvement of the screen will inevitably increase the power consumption, although the size of the mobile phone in the past two years has not changed much, but the demand for higher power consumption of 90Hz, 120Hz high brush in various price segments of the popularity.
In 2021
Just past 2021, we tested a total of 98 mobile phones, in this nearly 100 machines, 4500mAh capacity mobile phones are still the mainstream, a total of 32; the difference is that the number of mobile phones using 5000mAh batteries is also significantly more, 5 in the first half of the year, 10 in the second half of the year, a total of 15 models, and can be controlled in a more appropriate fuselage weight.
Among them, the 32 mobile phones with a capacity of 4500mAh have an average "5-hour endurance test" residual power of 51%, which is still down compared with the average performance of last year; while the average "5-hour endurance test" of the 15 5000mAh mobile phones has a residual power of 60%, which is not bad.
Also found an interesting trend, 5000mAh capacity of the battery is no longer like the previous two years is only the exclusive of the entry long endurance, but all the price points are involved.
In general, the average battery capacity of nearly 100 models this year was 4498.49mAh, which was indeed an increase of 210.56mAh over the previous year; but the average "5-hour endurance test" remaining power was 52%, compared with 53% and 51% in the previous two years, 52% in 2021 actually did not change much.
It can be said that the battery capacity of mobile phones in recent years has generally increased significantly (especially the Android platform), but this improvement in power is almost only enough to fill the progress of mobile phone screens in recent years, the popularity of 5G networks, the high energy consumption of SoCs, and the endurance given to users is almost still in place, and the increased power is consumed by mobile phones, without leaving more points for users.
In a word: the battery capacity has indeed become larger, but the user's perceived battery life is basically standing still - perhaps this phenomenon will continue for a period of time in the next few short years.