The new Google Pixel smartphones will massively outpace both Nexus phones in terms of battery life, according to ever-trusty napkin math.
A Reddit user has compiled and compared Google’s own battery life figures from the Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Google Pixel, and Google Pixel XL, and discovered that the battery life of the new phones should be 36.4% greater than their predecessors. According to the figures, the Pixel battery life is 37% better than the Nexus 5X, while the Pixel XL shows a 35.8% boost over the Nexus 6P.
“The big takeaway from this is that despite battery size only increasing 2.6% or 0% between comparable phones, there is a large difference in battery performance,” writes /u/TyGamer125. “So if you are getting around three hours of screen-time on a Nexus 6P, expect the Pixel XL to get 4.2 hours (or 40% better).”
(Image credit: Reddit)
It’s worth noting that these numbers come straight from Google, and so they don’t necessarily reflect real performance. That said, the numbers are a like-for-like comparison, so it seems assured that we’ll see at least some kind of battery life improvement with the new phones. That’s interesting as the Pixel’s 2,770mAh battery is only marginally bigger than the 2,700mAh cell in the Nexus 5X. And the Nexus 6P and Pixel XL both use the same 3,450mAh battery.
Most of the performance improvements can probably be sourced to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 chip that’s built into the new phones. According to Qualcomm, the SD821’s Kryo CPU is twice as efficient as the processor in the Snapdragon 810 – that’s the chip used in the Nexus 6P. And Qualcomm also says that the SD821’s Adreno 530 GPU is 40% less power hungry than the SD810’s Adreno 430 graphics unit.
Google also introduced battery life improvements in the Android 7.0 Nougat operating system, which features on the new Pixel phones. However, these improvements target the ‘Doze’ feature specifically, which only improves battery life in standby mode. That means that these figures are only marginally skewed by the enhanced ‘Doze’ feature.
In any case, we’ll need to wait for our full reviews of the new phones to get a handle on exactly how much better (or worse) the Google Pixel and Pixel XL perform in terms of battery life.
Related: Galaxy S8 release date
Watch: Google Pixel hands-on
What do you think of the Google Pixel? Let us know in the comments.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
