00:00Samsung is making big promises when it comes to battery life and charging speeds with the new
00:04Galaxy S26 Ultra. We've been testing Samsung's latest flagship for a couple weeks and already
00:10have our full Galaxy S26 Ultra review that you can check out on our channel. But we know how
00:16much you guys love these deep dives into our battery testing and we're going to see if the
00:20Ultra actually lives up to the hype. If you need a quick recap, the Galaxy S26 Ultra is packing a
00:285,000 milliamp hour battery. Yes, the same capacity that we saw in last year's S25 Ultra. But that
00:35doesn't give us the full picture. This phone is powered by the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 Elite for
00:41Galaxy chip. Qualcomm is promising a massive 35% jump in CPU efficiency and 16% better in power
00:48management overall. The S26 Ultra also uses a much larger vapor chamber this year which can help with
00:53battery life. A phone that runs cooler is going to be more efficient which should mean more
00:58time away from a charger and better long-term battery health.
01:04Of course, we have to test this out for ourselves. For those of you new to the channel, the Tom's
01:08Guide
01:08battery test is our equalizer for ranking the best phones by battery life. We lock the screen to 150
01:14nits of brightness, use a 5G network, and run a looped web browsing test continuously until the phone hits
01:20zero percent. It's the best way to see how these phones actually stack up against each other. And I've linked
01:26below our current list of the top contenders. So how did the S26 Ultra stack up? With its out-of
01:33-the-box
01:33settings which we used for all of our official comparisons, the Galaxy S26 Ultra lasted for 16 hours
01:39and 10 minutes. That's with the adaptive refresh rate setting automatically enabled as that's how most
01:44people are going to actually be using this phone. That said, if you want to squeeze some extra endurance
01:48out of this phone, you can lock the display screen to the standard 60 hertz setting which increases battery
01:54length to 16 hours and 40 minutes. But as far as our leaderboard rankings go, we're going to use its
01:591610
02:00results here. Now to put that into perspective of Samsung's previous phones, last year's S25 Ultra lasted
02:06just 14 hours and 27 minutes. So that is a pretty massive generational leap of nearly an hour and 45
02:13minutes
02:13of extra runtime and is really a testament to the increased efficiency from the new Snapdragon chip inside.
02:19But how does that compare to Apple? The iPhone 17 Pro Max continues to hold its lead,
02:25clocking in at 17 hours and 54 minutes. So while Samsung is closing the gap, Apple still has about
02:32an hour and a half of extra endurance. Now where Samsung does beat Apple is with charging. The Samsung
02:40Galaxy S26 Ultra now supports up to 60 watt wired charging speeds, which when tested out using Samsung's
02:46new 65 watt three port charger gave us a zero to 77 percent in just 30 minutes. When compared to
02:53the
02:53iPhone 17 Pro Max, which supports 40 watts, we only reached 64 percent in that same window. If you're
02:59interested in checking out Samsung's new high speed charger, I've got that linked down below. And then of
03:04course, there's the OnePlus 15. We tested this late last year and it continues to be our reigning champ
03:10into 2026 with its absurd 25 hours and 13 minutes of runtime. Samsung isn't quite in that two day phone
03:18territory yet, but 16 hours still puts it near the top. Side note, we just finished testing out the
03:24Pixel 10a. And while we aren't doing a full video on it this year, it is worth mentioning because it
03:29hit
03:2915 hours and 16 minutes. And compared to the 13 hours and three minutes that we got from Pixel 9a,
03:35Google is
03:35definitely stepping up their game in the mid-range bracket. So we definitely wanted to slot it in
03:39to this year's list. As far as other phones that I haven't mentioned yet, the Galaxy S26 and Galaxy
03:45S26 Plus. As of right now, those two phones are actually getting tested right now in our lab. So I
03:50don't have any results to share as I'm recording this video, but I will have by the time you are
03:55watching this video. I'm actually going to be filming a quick, dedicated, short update on the S26 and
04:01S26 Plus share those results when they land. That way you can see where they stack on our leaderboard.
04:07So keep an eye out for that video or check the pinned comment down below. So does the Galaxy S26
04:12Ultra live up to Samsung's battery life claims? Absolutely. It's a huge improvement over last
04:18year's model and currently sits near the top of our 2026 leaderboard. But let me know in the comments,
04:23is 16 hours enough for you or are you holding out for that one plus level two day longevity? Don't
04:28forget to like and subscribe. And you can follow me to see what other cool tech I'm reviewing. And
04:32until the next one, I'll catch you later.
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