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While smartphones keep getting better, one aspect than can sometimes seem forgotten about is battery life, with many handsets prioritising slimmer builds over big batteries.
But there are some phones that have great battery life, and we’ve come up with a list of ten of the very best ones that are widely available in the UK.
The good news is, you don’t even have to buy a flagship to get a long-lasting handset – some budget phones have some of the biggest batteries, so you’ll find handsets at a range of prices here.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 was one of the very best phones of 2018, as it didn’t skimp in any area, including the battery, which is a big 4,000mAh.
It also supports both fast charging and fast wireless charging, and while you’re unlikely to get two full days from it unless you’re a very light user, a day and a half of life is not unrealistic.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 also has a curved 6.4-inch 1440 x 2960 Super AMOLED screen, a high-end Exynos 9810 chipset, a dual-lens 12MP rear camera, 6GB or 8GB of RAM, water resistance, and it even comes with a stylus, so you can make the most of its massive screen.
It has been beaten by the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 range, but it’s still a top handset, especially for battery life.
The Moto G6 Play is a much more affordable phone, yet like the Galaxy Note 9 it has a 4,000mAh battery. You even get fast charging, and thanks to the smaller, lower resolution 5.7-inch 720 x 1440 screen it’s if anything slightly longer lasting than the Note 9, so you can play for longer.
You’ll still be hard pushed to get two full days of life, but you should only have to plug it in twice every three days.
The rest of the specs aren’t so remarkable, but the Moto G6 Play is still a strong phone for the money, with a Snapdragon 430 chipset, 2GB or 3GB of RAM, a 13MP rear camera and a near stock version of Android.
The Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus marginally beats the Note 9 for battery capacity with a 4,100mAh one.
It also has a slightly newer, slightly more efficient chipset, so it should be able to make the battery go further.
In practice you shouldn’t expect vastly better life from the Galaxy S10 Plus, but it’s likely to last you a little longer, making it one of the more impressive smartphone battery life options.
And this is a hugely impressive phone in other ways too, with three cameras on the back, two on the front, an all-screen design for its big 6.4-inch 1440 x 3040 display, an in-screen fingerprint scanner, and 8GB or 12GB of RAM.
The Huawei P30 Pro has a 4,200mAh battery, and as its 6.47-inch screen is slightly lower resolution than the S10 Plus at 1080 x 2340 it should go further.
The difference won’t be massive, but with conservative use this is a phone that you might get two days of life from between charges.
The Huawei P30 Pro, like many phones in this list, is also a top-tier handset in other ways, including having four cameras on the back, a high-end chipset, and an in-screen fingerprint scanner. It’s a top choice both for those who want a lot of battery life and anyone who takes lots of photos with their phone.
Read our Huawei P30 Pro review
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro was arguably the best Android phone of 2018 and it was very close to having the best battery life too, thanks to a huge 4,200mAh battery.
It’s got some clever tricks up its sleeve as well, because as well as fast charging and wireless charging, the Mate 20 Pro also supports reverse wireless charging, which means you can use the phone as a charging pad to juice up other devices. You probably won’t want to do this much, but if any handset has battery to spare for other devices, it’s this.
Indeed, when you’re not using it as a charging pad this is that rare handset where it’s realistically possible to get two days of life, and even with very heavy use you should get a good day and a half.
Battery aside, the Huawei Mate 20 Pro has plenty of other selling points, including an in-screen fingerprint scanner, a high-end Kirin 980 chipset, 6GB or 8GB of RAM, a 6.39-inch 1440 x 3120 AMOLED screen, a triple-lens rear camera, and a premium, water-resistant build.
Read our Huawei Mate 20 Pro review
The Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus is Samsung’s latest phablet flagship at the time of writing, and it beats the Note 9 and S10 Plus for battery life thanks to a 4,300mAh juice pack.
It’s only a slight upgrade in practice, as it has to power an enormous 6.8-inch 1440 x 3040 screen, but it’s helped along by a cutting-edge (and power-efficient) Exynos 9825 chipset.
Other highlights of the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus include a quad-lens camera, an S Pen stylus, a beautiful all-screen design and an in-screen fingerprint scanner.
It’s one of the biggest and very best phones Samsung has ever made, even ignoring the battery life, it just happens to be very good there too.
As part of Samsung’s slightly confusing A range, the Galaxy A70 is a phone that’s easy to overlook, but that would be a mistake, especially if you want great battery life from a mid-range handset.
It has a 4,500mAh battery, allowing it to just about stretch to two days of life if you’re a fairly light user. And impressively it also supports fast charging, which is something you don’t always get outside the top-end.
Other highlights of the Samsung Galaxy A70 include a big 6.7-inch 1080 x 2400 screen, a triple-lens rear camera, an in-screen fingerprint scanner and a fairly high-end design.
The power is mid-range, but in most other ways this phone isn’t far off a flagship, and it has most flagships beat for battery life.
Read our Samsung Galaxy A70 review
With its mammoth 7.2-inch screen the Huawei Mate 20 X is an oddity, feeling almost as much like a tablet as a phone. But that size ensures there’s plenty of space for a 5,000mAh battery, which in turn makes this one of the longest lasting phones around.
There are other phones that can match its battery size and you’ll find them below (they edge it out for life as they have smaller screens to power), but this can potentially still last multiple days between charges, which is seriously impressive.
It’s also a great phone in other ways, with a 1080 x 2244 resolution ensuring there are plenty of pixels spread across its mammoth screen, making it great for movies.
The Mate 20 X also uses a high-end Kirin 980 chipset, has a powerful triple-lens rear camera, and sports stereo speakers.
Read our Huawei Mate 20 X review
The Moto E5 Plus matches the Mate 20 X with an enormous 5,000mAh battery. That dwarfs most of the rest of the competition. Yet this is no flagship, in fact, it’s the cheapest phone in this list.
The battery ensures that the Moto E5 Plus can last for a full two days between charges, and when you do need to charge you won’t need to wait around long, as it also supports fast charging.
Aside from being a battery champ, the Moto E5 Plus is perhaps the worst phone in this list, but that battery alone makes it a great budget choice.
Other specs include a 12MP rear camera, 2GB of RAM, a 6-inch 720 x 1440 screen, a Snapdragon 425 chipset and a fingerprint scanner.
Motorola has a history of making phones with top battery life as the Moto E5 Plus above attests, and the Moto G7 Power is its latest and greatest battery champ.
Like the E5 Plus it has a 5,000mAh battery and like that phone you should get two full days of life from it between charges – potentially even more if you don’t use it heavily.
The actual life of the G7 Power isn’t necessarily any better than the E5 Plus, but it’s comparable and this is a better phone in other ways, with a 6.2-inch 720 x 1570 screen, a 12MP camera, a Snapdragon 632 chipset and 4GB of RAM.
So it has a larger, higher resolution screen and more power. It’s still far lower end than most phones in this list, but it’s also far cheaper and will outlast most of them.
So there you have it, ten of the longest lasting phones around. If you simply want the best battery life possible then the Moto G7 Power or Moto E5 Plus is the one to go for. Those and the Samsung Galaxy A70 and Moto G6 Play are also great budget options.
The Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus, Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus, Huawei P30 Pro and Huawei Mate 20 Pro meanwhile are the best all-round phones if money is no object, with the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 ranking just behind them and the Huawei Mate 20 X filling a niche for anyone who wants a truly massive screen. They all come very close to the battery life of the Moto G7 Power, but don’t quite match it.
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