PhoneArena's battery life results for the Nexus 6

landale

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I saw this post early this morning and then got pulled. Not sure why, maybe they jumped the gun. Anyway here are the results. It's a shame it couldn't match the Note 4 but this should easily give it a day and then some.

When it comes to battery life, the story of the modern Nexus line is a fairly sad one – the Nexus 5, for example, managed just 4 hours and 50 minutes, which is pretty underwhelming for a device at the flagship level. For the most part, we had the comparatively small, 2,300 mAh cell to blame for that, though many of us were willing to let this particular issue with the N5 slide simply because they were still getting a killer deal (it retailed for $349, after all!).

Things changed with the Nexus 6, however – Google's first phablet not only has enough space to fit a massive, 3,220 mAh cell, but it's also priced at $649. So it obviously has to deliver, and deliver on battery life, too, and despite its power-hungry Quad HD display. Thankfully, as it turns out, it absolutely does – this is the first Nexus device to achieve an excellent battery life on our custom test, or, all told – 7 hours and 53 minutes. Unfortunately, while this is a pretty great score overall, it does fall behind other recent QHD juggernauts, like the Galaxy Note 4 and the DROID Turbo, both of which fared better (8 hours 43 minutes and 10 hours 42 minutes, respectively).

So how do we test? We run a custom script that replicates the average person's usage in real life. The final time figure you get is indicative of the total time the average person can expect to spend using the device if he does not put it down to rest before it dies. So, obviously, an 8 hour score doesn't mean you can play a graphics-intensive game for 8 hours straight.

Last, but not least, when it comes to charging from zero to full, the Nexus 6 is among the quickest devices on the market, with a measured score of just 98 minutes – identical to what the Note 4 achieved, at 95 minutes, and pretty much on par with this category's champion, the Oppo Find 7/7A (if you account for the difference in capacity).

See for yourself.


Capture.JPG
 

epphllps

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Nice find! Most likely got pulled due to the gag on reviews. Have to say that is rather disappointing on the battery end of things. Not surprised with it running on a 3200mah cell. Would have LOVED droid turbo battery life in the nexus model.
 

qnet

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If the Nexus 6 outperforms an Iphone 6 plus then I'd be very happy with it. I'm not sure how serious to take their test, since from my personal experience the Iphone 6 plus battery outperforms the HTC M8 and LG G3. I've had all three phones on the bottom three, and the 6 plus has been better than the other two, especially the M8.
 

landale

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Yeah, it's pretty much in line with that I expected. I am sure people will complain that it doesn't match the Note 4 but to me as long as a phone can easily get a full day and then some I am happy. Looks like the Nexus 6 should have no trouble with that based on these results.
 

epphllps

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If the Nexus 6 outperforms an Iphone 6 plus then I'd be very happy with it. I'm not sure how serious to take their test, since from my personal experience the Iphone 6 plus battery outperforms the HTC M8 and LG G3. I've had all three phones on the bottom three, and the 6 plus has been better than the other two, especially the M8.

I have used an iPhone 6+ for a few days and definitely find it hard to drain that battery, even with pretty heavy use. The 6+ has a smaller battery than the nexus so I'm sure we can get a full day out of it.
 

qnet

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I have used an iPhone 6+ for a few days and definitely find it hard to drain that battery, even with pretty heavy use. The 6+ has a smaller battery than the nexus so I'm sure we can get a full day out of it.

Yeah, that's why I'm not sure about their test. I had the M8, and I could get through the day, but it wasn't anywhere near what I've been getting out of the 6 Plus, I've gone two days without charging it. I've never used a Note 4 so I can't say anything about it, however I've owned the prior three Galaxy Notes and the battery life has been as good as the average Android phone, not any less, or any better. It's been this way for me with all Samsung phones, the advantage they have is you can carry a spare battery.

I do appreciate the OP for posting this info.
 

Jeremy8000

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Basically that article reports that with average use one can expect 63% longer life on the N6 than the N5. That, coupled with the rapid charging, makes it more than ample coverage for me.
 

Robbie317

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I saw this post early this morning and then got pulled. Not sure why, maybe they jumped the gun.

Several people have said Google has an embargo of sorts on reviews.... You are not suppose to post any review until 11/12/14 or after.... I'd guess they threatened to revoke you getting more review units in the future if you do... You can only post box opening and initial impressions.. but no review...
 

landale

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I have used an iPhone 6+ for a few days and definitely find it hard to drain that battery, even with pretty heavy use. The 6+ has a smaller battery than the nexus so I'm sure we can get a full day out of it.

I have always found that iPhone's perform poorly on PhoneArena's battery tests probably something with how their battery script runs on iOS devices vs Android devices. AnandTech puts the Note 4 and iPhone 6+ around the same for battery life so I'd figure that to be the more accurate result, especially given what my friends with 6+'s are saying.
 

IrishFXDB

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I don't trust their tests either. I've always just used them as a base to judge from by finding a phone I have personal experience with and going from there. On my Note 4 my usage was netting me over 6 hours of screen time and that's less than their results. I figure if I use their results for the Nexus 6 I'd probably see around 5-5.5 hours of screen time.

On the other hand, I fell into an iPhone 6 Plus yesterday which I'm using for now and the battery life is unreal. I started using it at like 4pm and including downloading and installing all my apps, doing a system update, and just using the crap out of it, the battery lasted me until about 1am before it hit 5%. 9 hours and it was at about 57% out of the box, so on a normal day without all the app installs and the update, with more regular usage, it should be downright phenomenal. Right now I'm at 75% and the usage meter is showing 3:24 usage with 7:03 standby - I haven't done any sort of music streaming or anything so that 3:24 is a lot of screen time as well. Hell, I browsed the web for over an hour and the battery dropped from 100% to 95%... On my Note 4, which I felt got excellent life, an hour on the web would have taken me from 100% to the high 80s easily.

Anyway, the point of the rambling is that their test should be taken with a grain of salt.
 

CarbonOak

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Anyway, the point of the rambling is that their test should be taken with a grain of salt.

Yep, any single test should be taken with a grain of salt. The most one can gleam from battery tests is the general result, i.e. if most websites and users are saying the battery life is great, then it probably is. If it's mixed results, then your mileage may vary depending on your usage habits.

I expect the Nexus 6 to do great relative to other large phones.
 

Crispy

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A review that compares battery life can be trusted. Even if the test is flawed, the results are still valid because it compares phones. It's like using a bad scale to measure weight, you can' trust the number but you can trust it to tell if one person is heavier than another.

And the battery life is exactly as I expected and predicted, not as good as Note 4/Turbo.
 

radicchio

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Question: If Lollipop optimizes battery function, then would the other phones mentioned be expected to do even better with battery time once they have Lollipop installed?
 

landale

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Question: If Lollipop optimizes battery function, then would the other phones mentioned be expected to do even better with battery time once they have Lollipop installed?

It's possible but probably not by much. The big Project Volta thing with Android 5.0 was designed to improve standby battery life, not active use life which is what they test in these kinds of heavy use battery drain tests.
 

HighTechToid

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likely may have gotten pulled because it's not final code as well, as they've stated plenty of times. I'm sure over the next week Google will push them out and those things can change things drastically.

HTC One M8
iPad Air
 

Jeremy8000

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It's possible but probably not by much. The big Project Volta thing with Android 5.0 was designed to improve standby battery life, not active use life which is what they test in these kinds of heavy use battery drain tests.

Arstechnica's test of battery life on Nexus 5 running 4.4.4 vs same running developer preview of 5.0 showed 5.0 to yield 36.5% longer battery life. Given the test involved refreshing a browser page every 15 seconds with the screen kept perpetually on, I'd call that a fairly heavy use test.
 

Jeremy8000

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A review that compares battery life can be trusted. Even if the test is flawed, the results are still valid because it compares phones. It's like using a bad scale to measure weight, you can' trust the number but you can trust it to tell if one person is heavier than another.

And the battery life is exactly as I expected and predicted, not as good as Note 4/Turbo.

What if they were to do that same test but do it with the Xperia Z2 Ultra running at 100% screen brightness while the other phones tested were set to 10%? I'd wager it wouldn't fare nearly as well. In fact, to test them accurately, they should not only be asked to do the same tests under the same conditions but their outputs shoudl be balanced. In otherwords, not all just set to max, min, or 50% brightness together, but set independently to where the actual measured brightness is the same (one at 100% might be only 70% of another).

The results are only valid when taken in the context of every variable allowed to remain in the test, and reviewers often let their eagerness to reach a conclusion overshadow the need for presenting in context. The snippet quoted from the article indicates they ran a script to test it, but fails to address if they considered any other comparative settings on the phones that could impact the results.
 

RealDogBoy

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likely may have gotten pulled because it's not final code as well, as they've stated plenty of times. I'm sure over the next week Google will push them out and those things can change things drastically.

HTC One M8
iPad Air

Ha! I was just getting ready to say that and you beat me to it. There's a really good chance that battery life will be positively impacted by the finished version of 5.0 -- which we know we do not have yet.
 

IrishFXDB

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As I mentioned in my previous post, it all needs to be taken with a grain of salt. I'm using a 6+ right now and this thing has some of the best battery life I've ever seen, yet it didn't score so hot in their test. The Nexus 6 beat the 6+ in their tests so that means if I use my own experience with the 6+ as a baseline, I should see great life on the Nexus 6 as well.

All about the baselines and comparisons.
 

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