This is the longest it has ever taken me to run a battery test.
Run time is a difficult feature to test. Benchmarking usually means throwing high usage scenarios at a device to see how long it can last under “worst case” usage. The phone runs hot, which means it runs somewhat less efficiently, and you end up with a number that you can share. If you test all phones the same way you can somewhat compare how all phones perform when they run hot.
The problem with real world testing is it takes longer, and your testing isn’t going to be consistent. Maybe I took more calls on my HTC one than I did during my Galaxy S4 during a similar 24 hour period. Maybe I gamed longer on the iPhone than I did on the Moto X. Basically I’m saying you should take the following with a small grain of salt…
I haven’t spent a lot of time with LG products. The only other LG I’ve used was the Optimus G Pro, and I’m still waiting out a Nexus 5. In the meantime I decided to spend a little time with the Nexus’ sister phone the G2. The OG Pro was a battery champ compared to other Qualcomm 600 phones like the GS4 and HTC One, thanks to its large 3100mAh battery. You expect that capacity in a phablet as you have more space to work with and you have to compensate for the power draw from the larger screen.
LG is getting good at cramming large batteries into phones. Maintaining a sleek profile, the G2 houses a 3000mAh cell. That’s phablet territory, and with the slightly smaller screen, I’m seeing better than phablet run time.
After almost 47 hours after taking it off the charger I finally got a critical low battery warning. Those two days were “average use” days for me. Only a handful of short phone calls, but I use a lot of data. I sync 5 email accounts, Facebook, Instagram, Google Plus, 3 Twitter accounts, Hangouts, and Google voice. I use blogger services like Tumblr and WordPress, and I had to fire up Google Maps three times for navigation. Almost 2 full days with a little room to spare.
I’m most surprised by the fact that I only had the phone on WiFi for about a quarter of that period. Nearly 34 hours of the phone’s usage was over AT&T’s LTE. The G2 does use the Qualcomm 800 series chipset, but it’s not clear if it takes advantage of Qualcomm’s new LTE radio power management.
Regardless, it’s stunning performance.
Look for our standard set of speaker and camera tests with the G2 in the coming days!