Key takeaways:
Apple and OnePlus are the best phone brands for the longest battery life in our tests.
Models from Apple, OnePlus and Motorola made our top five phones for long battery life.
2025 phones have longer battery life on average than 2024 models, but only barely.
Nearly half of our top battery-life picks use silicon-carbon batteries.
Does your smartphone make it through the day on a single charge? That's the rough benchmark for phones sold in 2026, but in reality some people burn through their battery far quicker scrolling through social media and capturing photos and video. As features like cameras get yearly advancements, batteries have largely stayed static. But that is starting to change.
I've been reviewing and testing phones for CNET for nearly a decade and heard from many readers that long battery life is a priority. In a CNET/YouGov survey from September 2025, readers ranked "longer battery life" as the main reason to buy a new phone (second only to price).
For better or worse, we are tied to our devices more than ever before and you can't do much with your phone if the battery is dead. So it's important to know which phones have the longest battery life before you buy your next handset.
2026 is a turning point for batteries
The OnePlus 15 has a 7,300-mAh battery. That capacity is gigantic. Cole Kan/CNET
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