Nexus 6P and Nexus 5X demonstrate average performance in battery endurance testing

The Nexus 6P and Nexus 5X are Google’s latest devices on the market, and both have a potential to beat out other flagships on the market this year. While the Nexus 6P’s camera is stellar in daytime and low-light performance, the display and resolution are Samsung-quality, the fingerprint scanner is super-fast and the aluminum build quality is excellent, and the device is definitely a budget-friendly flagship, with the minimum 32GB model costing just $499 instead of the usual $649 ($150 less than typical flagships).

Unfortunately, you may want to wait on further battery testing. The latest battery test with the Nexus 6P shows that the Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor is killing the battery life.

The Nexus 6P battery size is 3,450mAh, which places it above the Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+ (3,000mAh battery), iPhone 6s Plus (~2,700mAh battery), LG G4 (3,000mAh), and even the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 (3,000mAh) battery. With the massive battery, you’d think that the Nexus 6P would outlast these other high-end giants. Unfortunately, that is not the case. According to the most recent battery endurance test, the Nexus 6P only fared for 6 hours and 24 minutes – which is less than that of the iPhone 6s Plus or the Samsung Galaxy Note 5.

As for the Nexus 5X, it didn’t fare much better: only 6 hours, 25 minutes of endurance time. There are a few conditions to remember: 1) the brightness was turned to 200 nits, 2) the benchmarking endurance test was conducted with likely a benchmarking app (which keeps the screen on from the time the test starts until it ends), and 3) the endurance test doesn’t consider battery-saving modes or Google’s new Doze Mode in the Nexus 6P and Nexus 5X.

While battery-saving modes are important to users, they don’t test the use habits of those who work in mobile on a daily basis. For someone who uses their phone constantly at work, having only 6 hours, 35 minutes on which to rely on the Nexus 6P is not much: it doesn’t even get a mobile employee through a full day of work. If the person in question works say, 10 hours a day, the situation becomes even more exacerbated.

It’s quite surprising that the Nexus 6P, with its battery size, wouldn’t last at least a day and a half. Nevertheless, it goes to show that Samsung’s batteries, despite their shrinking size, are better optimized to meet growing battery needs. Surface numbers don’t always tell the whole story.

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