Battery Life

Section by Brandon Chester

When a phone comes in two sizes, battery life is always one of the big questions on a potential buyer's mind. In general, if you have two devices with a similar hardware platform but one is able to fit a significantly larger battery due to its larger size, it's going to achieve better battery life. Obviously this is not a strict rule, as we've seen with web browsing on the iPhone and iPhone Plus, where both models have a very similar battery life. Even so, as a general rule it's usually a safe assumption.

The Google Pixel is one of those devices that comes in two sizes. There's a 5" model and a 5.5" model, both with equal thickness, and both sharing the same internal specifications. They differ only by the size and resolution of their AMOLED displays, and accordingly, the larger Pixel XL has a 25 percent larger internal battery.

Unfortunately, we don't have the 5" Google Pixel on hand, so testing will have to rely solely on the Pixel XL. As I just mentioned, it is usually the case that when a smartphone ships in two sizes the larger model provides better battery life, which is something to consider when thinking about where the normal Pixel would sit relative to the larger model. As usual, our battery testing begins with our internal web browsing test, followed by PCMark's general use battery test, and ending with a GFXBench GPU battery rundown.

Web Browsing Battery Life 2016 (WiFi)

In our internal WiFi web browsing test the Google Pixel XL comes in just under 8 hours. Considering the thickness, mass, and battery capacity of the Pixel XL, this is not a very impressive result. In comparison, the thinner, smaller, and lighter Galaxy S7 edge with a display of equal size and resolution manages to last for 9.72 hours in this test. Apple's iPhone 7 and 7 Plus do similarly well at 9.22 hours and 9.32 hours, despite the fact that their batteries are significantly smaller than the Pixel XL's. The S7 edge and the Pixel XL have very similar specifications, right down to the CPU configuration and the display. The S7 edge only has a 4% advantage for battery capacity, which isn't nearly enough to explain the gap. It could very well come down to greater power usage by the display, and this appears even more likely when one considers the additional power burden of using the wider NTSC gamut instead of sRGB.

Normally we would also run this test on LTE, in order to compare battery life between devices when browsing on a cellular connection instead of WiFi. Unfortunately, the Pixel XL presents a problem here. Both Matt and I have noticed that cellular reception on the Pixel XL is not very good. In particular, Matt was unable to achieve our target signal strength of -90dBm or better in the same area where he tests all other LTE devices. The best signal he was able to achieve was -100dBm (outdoors). Because we're dealing with a logarithmic scale, the difference in transmission power is not 10% like you might imagine based on the numbers, it's ten times the power. Unfortunately, we aren't equipped to do laboratory tests on the Pixel XL to directly compare RF performance to other devices, but it does seem that the signal strength is generally not as good as other smartphones.

PCMark - Work Battery Life

In PCMark's battery test, the Pixel XL is much more competitive than when it's browsing on WiFi. The result is actually slightly higher than the Galaxy S7 edge, which is a good position to be in. However, the reasoning behind this has more to do with the Pixel XL's poor performance in PCMark than any sort of advancements in energy efficiency. While running PCMark's workloads, the Pixel XL's CPU cores run at lower frequencies for longer stretches of time than the Galaxy S7 edge's CPU cores, which helps to explain the Pixel XL's lower performance and longer battery life. In the end, PCMark is a test of general usage, and so this shows that the Pixel XL can last for a good length of time on a single charge, but only by sustaining a relatively low level of performance during that time compared to other smartphones.

GFXBench Manhattan ES 3.1 / Metal Final Frame Rate

GFXBench Manhattan ES 3.1 / Metal Battery Life

The Pixel XL does quite well in the GFXBench Manhattan battery test. The total runtime is 3.19 hours, which is lower than other Android devices, although in most cases the gap isn't enormous. The Galaxy S7 edge is an exception once again, coming in at 4.88 hours despite its small battery advantage not being enough to create such a gap.

GFXBench battery always has two sides though, and when you look at sustained performance it's clear that the Pixel XL has an advantage over existing Android devices. It's hard to say how much of this is due to improvements in Snapdragon 821 and how much could be due to differences in thermal design between different smartphones. When you consider the battery lifetime and the sustained performance, the Pixel XL definitely does a good job.

A Note About Charge Time Testing

Due to changes made to filesystem access in Android Nougat, we are unable to perform our standard charge time test on the Pixel XL. The test requires data related to current, voltage, and charge level that are no longer accessible, meaning that there's no way to produce a result that is comparable to existing data. We will be evaluating potential options going forward, and may decide to migrate to a test that measures power at the source rather than on the device.

GPU Performance Final Words
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  • amdwilliam1985 - Friday, November 11, 2016 - link

    Welcome to the new/strange world of tech.
    Apple focus on benchmark while Android/Google focus on user experience.
  • edved - Friday, November 11, 2016 - link

    I'm also coming from the N6P, which this site gave a lukewarm review last year. Lo and behold a lukewarm review for the XL.

    I think it's the best Android phone out there and I'm very happy with it so far. Sold my N6P for a little over 3hun.

    At the end of the day, there are a lot of really good phones out there and this is one of them. The display is fine to my eyes as too is the battery life. It's also very fast.

    I didn't buy it for it's looks, although I think it looks fine. If you want flash buy yourself a nice handbag and matching shoes and call it a day.

    This is hardware with regular updates and no bloat.
  • ankitkumarkhanna - Wednesday, November 9, 2016 - link

    Good Post shared.. Thanx for sharing
  • Nashten - Wednesday, November 9, 2016 - link

    I was enthusiastic with the Pixel XL initially. But it went down significantly when the rumor renders came out, and now with the review we have here. I can't justify spending 800 - 900+ bucks, CAD on this device when its design is bland and uninspired.

    The Nexus 6 when it was released was a shellshock in terms of price, but damn, when I put a ROM on it so I could customize RGB values of the screen, it really came into its own. Smaller bezels than the Pixel XL and dual-front facing speakers.

    The 6p ticked a lot of right boxes, sans some questionable build issues... but I think if that device got the SD820, it'd be more inspiring than the Pixel XL.

    We need more phones like the Xiaomi Mi Mix. That bezel-less beauty! I'm importing one soon... when its in stock. Even as an import, it will be the same price as the Pixel XL... or cheaper. Similar specs to boot. Better design.
  • nukmichael - Wednesday, November 9, 2016 - link

    I hava aqusetion about battery life test 2016, the battery capacity of older phones (before 2016) may have decay, it might effects test results.
  • number58 - Thursday, November 10, 2016 - link

    Great review! Thanks for the knowledge.
  • Hubert Satheesh - Thursday, November 10, 2016 - link

    Anandtech is one of the reputed tech site. It's appaling to read that googles pixel is regressive in CPUbench mark tests when compared to 6p. Similarly if we go to your 6p review , the display was comparatively poor when compared to Nexus 5. In other words Nexus 5 was better than pixel in certain areas!! When other tech sites rave about pixel, anandtech presents issues in new light, though for the reader you have obviously omitted to highlight certain adavantages of pixel even though it might be called as a CRAP. Hope you take this short
  • vikramc - Thursday, November 10, 2016 - link

    nexus 5 better than pixel ..what else ? this is what happens when you blindly trust your reputed tech site . As if other sites ( all of whom have praised pixel and half of them have called pixel better that iphones) are there to just make up numbers.
  • noone2 - Thursday, November 10, 2016 - link

    Presenting issues in a new light doesn't necessarily make them worthwhile or important. I just got my 32GB 5' Pixel, and coming from a 6P, I think this phone is way better.

    Is it worse in benchmarks? Maybe. I guess, according to AT. In usage though, I find the Pixel vastly better, thus the "new light" is more or less irrelevant to me. Might be irrelevant to you too.
  • fanofanand - Tuesday, November 15, 2016 - link

    You seem a little confused. The Pixel regressing in CPUbench in some areas has absolutely nothing to do with the screen. The 6p's screen has absolutely nothing to do with CPUbench. So where are you drawing this squiggly line that results in the Pixel's CPU regression making it's screen inferior to the 5? Now if you were to say that the 6p's CPUbench was worse than the 5X then you might be onto something but as it is you are meandering down the wrong path.

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